"I suppose the dogs keep the rats under control," Smedley said to Cooper in a near whisper. Butler knew that the two marines stood out, but hoped to draw less attention on foot than in his car. The anger of the city was directed at the American military. Civilians had been relatively safe.

The three- and four-story buildings, their upper floors overhanging the street, dimmed the afternoon sun. The brightly painted houses often had irregular shapes, built to match the turns of the street as it wound up the hill. The Turkish women who came to the Para Palas or the other European buildings north of the Golden Horn often dressed as Europeans. Here in Stamboul, long skirts, headscarves, and thin veils covered most of the women. Some of the men still wore turbans and baggy pants and jackets instead of the fez and European suits.

The street opened into the tree-filled plaza around the mosque of Ahmed I. Six minarets stabbed gracefully into the sky around the massive structure. Ranks of small domes rose as if to support a great central dome. The two marines moved quickly past the low arches surrounding a courtyard attached to the main building, passing the Egyptian and Roman obelisks that had once decorated the Byzantine Hippodrome.

Butler and Cooper skirted a marine antiriot squad that watched the vendors in an open market. The two marines entered a side street that led them away from the gray domes of the Sultanahmed and wound their way through a new pack of curs. The dogs refused to move for mere pedestrians. The street widened at an intersection. A dozen dogs stared at each other in the middle of the plaza, teeth bared and hackles raised, protecting the territories of rival packs. Other dogs slept in the shade.