“These are not antiquities. The man makes them himself. I intended to have him give me an affidavit testifying that the coins were forgeries. It’s a violation of U.S. law to bring gold into the country in any form, and it’s a case of fraud to sell a counterfeit coin as genuine, but I was prepared to take that chance.” I smiled. “I had no intention, though, of violating Turkish law. You may believe me.”

The man looked at me for a long time. Finally he said, “That is an extraordinary explanation.”

“It happens to be true.”

“You sat for nine days in jail with an explanation in your pocket that would have gotten you released at once. That argues for its truth, does it not? Otherwise you might have told your cover story right away, accompanied it with a bribe, and attempted to get out of our hands the very first day; before we began to learn so many interesting things about you. A counterfeiter in Antakya. Armenian gold coins, for the love of God. When did Armenians make gold coins?”

“In the Middle Ages.”

“One moment, please.” He used a phone on his desk and called someone. I looked up at Ataturk’s portrait and listened to his conversation. He was asking some bureaucrat somewhere if there was in fact a counterfeiter in Antakya and what sort of things the man produced. He was not overly surprised to find out that my story checked out.

To me he said, “If you are lying, you have built your lie on true foundations. I find it frankly inconceivable that you would travel to Istanbul for such a purpose. There is a profit in it?”

“I could buy a thousand dollars worth of rare forgeries and sell them for thirty thousand dollars by passing them as genuine.”

“Is that true?”

“Yes.”

He was silent for a moment. “I still do not believe you,” he said at length. “You are a spy or a saboteur of one sort or another. I am convinced of it. But it makes no matter. Whatever you are, whatever your intentions, you must leave Turkey. You are unwelcome in our country, and there are men in your own country who are very much interested in speaking with you.