To give him something to do during the day, Jared had gotten Serkan admitted into the Mimar Sinan University of Istanbul. Founded from humble roots in the 18th century, the directors of the institute had struggled to find appropriate space for group classes. A couple of hundred years later, it comprised of a conservatory, 3 separate faculties, 2 institutes and several departments that taught students from all around the world everything from ceramic and glass design to music and the performing arts. Just looking at the architecture of the buildings on the campus alone was a history lesson in itself, but for today’s special art history class, Professor Yalcin was taking them to the Topkapı Palace.
An hour-long bike ride across the Ataturk Bridge landed the group of students in the middle of downtown Istanbul. Spanning 700,000 square meters with domes that dominated the city’s skyline, the Palace-cum-Museum was one of the world’s most attractive tourist destinations. Given that Serkan’s entire mission revolved around antiques, he had made more trips to Topkapı than he cared to remember. He had walked and re-walked, analyzed, inspected, taken mental pictures of the mid-15th century structure. However, the grandeur of the palace and the sheer amount of wealth that must have gone into hand-carving and creating custom mosaics on the ceilings never ceased to amaze him.
“Eez your firrst time ‘ere?”, inquired a French girl as Serkan locked his bicycle outside the palace gates.
He shook his head. “I’ve been coming here since I was about ye high”, he motioned in exaggeration, holding his hand a little above the ground.
She giggled and fell in step beside him as they made their way to the Enderun (inner) palace. “What eez it that you wish to draw today?”, she inquired.
“We’re drawing today?”
“You arre very funny!”, she remarked.
Corrine, as she introduced herself amidst flirtatious giggles and random pieces of conversation, was a French exchange student from Paris. She had traveled the world, but it was her first time in Turkey. She liked painting, croissants and the color green.
“The Sassanid Shield”, Serkan said.
“That eez not something I ‘ave ‘eard of before”, Corrine smiled back.
“It dates back to the 7th century. Persian”
“So you know your antiques, monsieur”
Professor Yalcin interrupted their brief encounter with a small lecture on the heritage of the Palace, the different areas and what they hosted, what parts of the architecture they should keep an eye out for, and the important figures of history that occupied the walls they were standing in right now. History professors were all about the drama.
Serkan unzipped his canvas bag and set up his easel in a somewhat stranded corner of the Persian exhibit. The “10,000 years of Iran’s civilization” visiting exhibition was in town for another two weeks and comprised of over 150 artifacts ranging from ancient sculptures and ceramics to jewels and weaponry dating back to the Sassanid era. The item Serkan was busy sketching was one that didn’t hold the interest of too many tourists. It was a gold shield about the size of a big dinner plate that displayed a scene of war. It was a man in full armor holding a gem-studded sword against a group of opponents who outnumbered him. Although it was just an artistic depiction, Serkan could see how calm the warrior was about it. What the people who didn’t afford the shield more than a moment’s glance didn’t know was that the man depicted in this shield was the 20th emperor of the Sassanian empire also known as “The Immortal Soul”. He was a celebrated, romanticized figure in the history of Persia and the empire had flourished under his rule. Another thing they didn’t know was that the shield was made of pure gold. There were rarely any pieces of art that were made of pure gold for fear that they may disfigure over time given the soft nature of the metal. But the most important thing that the museum visitors were unaware of was that the item that had come all the way from Persia to Istanbul, was in fact, a replica no more than a couple of years old. The real shield was somewhere in Ekrem’s antique shop and Serkan knew just how to relieve the old man of such a treasure.
***
The next day, Serkan paid his daily visit to Ekrem’s shop. The two had grown incredibly close over the last few months and Serkan was sure he had broken through the tough act Ekrem was so fond of putting up. He knew how he had no children and his wife had died a couple of years ago, that he liked sailing and had taken on the legacy of the antique store from his grandfather, Ekrem I.
Contrary to his first visit, he was greeted with a warm, “Merhaba” and a firm handshake as soon as he entered. Ekrem excitedly showed him some of the new wares that had come in from Spain today, whereas most of them were roughed up and wouldn’t earn him any real profit, there were some little gems he pointed out.
Merely a half hour had passed by when Serkan’s ancient civilizations professor entered the store. Professor Alpan was of a similar age to Ekrem and had been fascinated when Serkan had told him about the hidden gem of a store in the corner of the Grand Bazaar.
“Professor! Good to see you”, Serkan turned around to greet him, pretending as if he hadn’t been the one to invite him here in the first place.
“I guess you weren’t exaggerating when you said you lived here”, responded Alpan, beaming at him.
“This is my good friend Ekrem, the owner of this fine establishment’, Serkan introduced him.
Ekrem shook the professor’s hand with both of his hands, a sign of respect amongst the Turks. The two hit it off immediately. Before long, the moment Serkan had been waiting for announced itself.
“I would love to show you some of the pieces in the University Museum we have at the moment. When do you close tonight?”, asked Professor Alpan.
“I’m open till 9 every ni-”
“The University Museum exhibit is stunning. You must go, Ekrem. Surely you can find someone to look after the shop in your absence?”, Serkan interjected innocently, knowing full well that he was the only person closest to a friend Ekrem had.
Ekrem seemed a little flustered at the barrage of information coming at him.
“I don’t thi- “, he started only to be cut off by Serkan again.
“I could do it”
***
With the shop all to himself, Serkan set up a security feed on his cellphone and went into the storage area in the back. He had planning this out for too long to let it all go wrong now.
About 10 years ago, a group of thieves had set about stealing one of the most expensive artifact of the Persian civilization - the Sassanid shield. They had created a replica, swapped it out in the museum unbeknownst to the security and had then gone on to (stupidly) lose the shield to a rogue member of the troop. Instead of the hundreds of millions they would have made, they had been caught and imprisoned on account of a much smaller, follow-up heist. It had been a disaster of epic proportions that the mainstream media knew little about. Jared kept a low profile, but there was no one in the business who knew more about which assets changed hands where in the world.
After years of research, he had succesfully tracked down the real location of the Sassanid shield. It had mistakenly landed in a certain antique shop under the hidden identity of a replica. Jared had combed the entire city’s antique stores and had finally narrowed it down to Ekrem’s. If the shield wasn’t here, his entire year's worth of work had been for naught.
An hour later, having gone through boxes upon boxes of dusty antiques, he finally found it. Covered in a layer of grime, the Sassanid shield valued at anywhere upwards of $250 million dollars was found buried under a box of trinkets. Equipped with gloves, Jared carefully extracted it from the box and stared at it in amazement. Made of pure gold, the shield was a lot heavier than it looked. Luckily, it was just about as heavy as the replica he had to replace it with. Reaching into his tote, Jared extracted the fake shield he had gone through so much trouble to get made. He had been keeping an eye on his security feed to ensure there weren’t any people coming or going from the shop. Although the scren didn't show much, Jared thought he heard someone close to the entrance and decided to speed it up.
Expertly covering up the replica with grime in the same way as the original, he replaced it in the box of trinkets, tucked the real deal in his bag and came out to the front. Nobody. He breathed a sigh of relief. It was done. Two hours from now he was going to catch a plane to Switzerland to make an exchange with the seller. He was promised payment almost double the current value of the shield. If this went over smoothly, Jared could spend the rest of his life without working a single day.
A half hour later, Professor Alpan returned to the shop with Ekrem by his side. They seemed to have had a good time and had grabbed a Kumpir on their way in and offered it to him. Jared, (and in turn, Serkan), who sported a strong dislike for potatoes in general let alone mashed potatoes off a street vendor politely refused and anxious to get home, made to leave the store.
“Serkan, wait”, Ekrem called. “I have something I want you to have. Give me one minute, I’ll be right back”
With that, the old man disappeared into the back of the store leaving his two guests to talk amongst themselves.
“Ekrem is a goldmine of information! He knows more about antiques than anyone I have ever known. He will be visiting faculty for my class by the end of the year if I can help it. The way his mind connects artifacts to civilizations is absolutely fascinating”, Alpan gushed.
Jared could barely hear him over the sound of his beating heart. Why was Ekrem in the back? What did he want to give him? There is no way he could know about the switch, Jared had sweeped the entire store for hidden bugs and cameras. There was no way.
Just then, Ekrem re-emerged from the back. Was he really frowning or was it all in his head? Jared was formulated his exit at this very moment. He had the item, he had a means to get out of here, all he had to do was not arouse suspicion in the two people here. It had been his plan to invite Professor Alpan, but now it seemed like a stupid idea. The only thing worse than one witness to a crime were two witnesses. He could hear his heartbeat in his ears, the tips of his fingers, his throat...
“Doing OK? Your color looks a little drained”, inquired Ekrem, stepping closer to Jared.
“I’m fine”, replied Serkan expertly. Years of training his facial features, and the one thing he couldn’t control was color change. The bronzing hadn’t seemed to help either.