The Persian at the Table I cross Istiklal, tram bell shrilling and simit vendor’s shouts echoing off marble façades and old Beaux-Arts apartments. The phone buzzes hot in my hand—you trust the wrong one—but my eyes stay locked on the lace-curtained window. Asdar falls into shadow-flank, no words; all fine-tuned presence, golden eyes watching for…
Tag: The COMC Files
The COMC Files Book V chapter 13
Tarmo Most women, for me, are beautiful cities: worth savouring, never worth staying. Elena was never a pin on my map. She’s the one place I keep circling, whatever the longitude: Pärnu, Zurich, the nights where, against every adult instinct, I bargained with powers older than strategy. Called on Odin like some northern fool in…
The COMC Files Book V chapter 12
The bathroom is a sanctuary—steam blurring the shards of strategy, suspicion, and Burçu’s steel-edged words. Hot water scours off every diplomatic layer until nothing’s left but pulse and skin, the day’s political foreplay rinsed down to soap and heat. Stepping out, I’m my own ghost in the mirror: hair dripping, towel knotted at my hips,…
The COMC Files Book V chapter 11
Elena Discovers Sandi’s Real Value Burçu’s warnings cling like residue, and in the sharp chill after her words, all the pieces realign: Sandi wasn’t just leverage. She was a courier—carrying business intelligence designed to shift regional bonds, physically holding information volatile enough to tip alliances against Erdoğan if it landed in a rival’s hands. Someone…
The COMC Files Book V chapter 10
The Coffee Tightens Burçu’s spoon traces deliberate, silent circles in thick coffee. Her gaze is fixed on the swirling grounds, as if they might condense themselves into the neat bullet points of a diplomatic cable. “Since the EU accession dream ended,” she says, “Türkiye’s rewritten its own rules—always in motion between West and East, between…
The COMC Files Book V chapter 9
The Meeting Morning pries itself through Istanbul’s glass and minarets—a blue-gold light, soft and sleepless.Sleep claimed me late, but the city’s hum—street vendors, ferry horns, muttered prayers—is relentless. The scent of Tarmo’s cologne, mint and pistachio from sweets untouched, clings in corners and to my skin. Istanbul’s lesson: nobody gives up their pieces—only moves them…
The COMC Files: Book V chapter 6
Back to the Hotel By the time I drift back toward the Pera Palace, Istanbul’s sky has sunk into velvet indigo and the Bosphorus exhales with the sharp tang of salt and iron. My camera is heavier now—the weight of images is memory pressing into my palm. Dust follows me to the hotel’s illuminated façade….
The COMC Files Book V chapter 5
Bazaar’s Buried Bargains Ekrem absorbs the city’s tempo: he doesn’t lead, never lags, our paces matched in wary choreography. Each intersection is a puzzle—faces to read, gestures to decode, laughter hiding calculation. We slip into the low-lit lanes behind the Spice Bazaar, scents thickening—cumin, rosewater, amber, sweat. Saffron drifts on the air, echoed by the…
The COMC Files Book V chapter 4
Historic grounds, coffee grounds, all grounds for a wager “Walk with me, Elena. See what the city will show a newcomer—if it chooses. But for now, finish your coffee. Old Istanbul weighs a guest’s worth in patience.” He rises, coat brushing velvet, profile softened by latticework shadow. He lets me watch him leave: uncertain, provisional….
The COMC Files Book V chapter 3
Pera Palace My DIEK driver sweeps the car along the Bosphorus, minarets blinking in and out of the morning haze. Istanbul grows brighter—histories threaded through fog and horn blasts.Up ahead, the Pera Palace rises with sly confidence, its neo-classical lines softened by decades of dawns. Velvet chairs catch the new light; gilded mirrors throw fractured…
The C.O.M.C. Files 