Destination Istanbul is set in Europe in 2011. Sir Damien Hardwycke, a Shakespearean actor, is also an undercover agent for Europol. His current mission is to discover who is distributing forged Euros to European locations. Lt. Luigi Fortini joins Damien and the St. Tropez Theater Company on a voyage from Venice to Istanbul. Tragedy strikes when an unknown male is thrown overboard in the Dardanelles. Later, Istanbul Police finds a second body in an old water cistern. The trail of the forged Euros seems to have petered out, the criminals having disappeared into the East European underworld.