Fifteen minutes later, he was sweating so profusely and the heat was so oppressive he was sure his sweat was leaving a muddy trail behind him. An image of the barren tree-less landscape of Sanliurfa flashed into his mind. It had been hot there too, but he had been much younger. About ten yards away from the tree, he suddenly felt a burning pain on his right wrist. It felt like an insect bite. He tried to ignore it. Impossible. Suddenly, his whole arm was engulfed in flame. He looked down to find he was on top of an ant hill the likes of which he had never seen. There were hundreds, if not thousands, of tiny red ants crawling all over his sleeve. He began beating his right arm in an attempt to kill the ants, but he quickly realized that this was futile. There were too many, and the pain was excruciating. He knew he had to get that shirt off as fast as possible. He gritted his teeth and finished the last few yards on his belly at lightning speed.
As soon as he was behind the trunk and hidden by the leaves, he stood up and stripped to his waist. The pain induced by this miniscule creature was extraordinary. His arm was swollen. His chest and neck were with covered in red bumps. He rummaged through the bag until he found a syringe and needle containing antihistamine. He hoped it would provide some relief. Fifteen minutes later, he was still trying to convince himself that it had.
Meanwhile, he removed his hardware from the bag and laid it out on the ground in front of him. He assembled the AR-15 in less than three minutes. This would be his first time to use the weapon, but he knew it by heart. It had a Trijicon scope, which would afford plenty of light. The forecast was for clear skies and the moon was full. He also had three thirty-round magazines with seventy-five grain hollow-point bullets. It was far more ammo than he would need, but if there was one thing you could never have too much of, it was ammunition.
Of course, there were Geneva Convention rules against soldiers using anything but the more ‘humane’ full metal jacket bullets. These rules meant nothing to him. All that mattered was maximum kill power. A knife and a .45 caliber Colt were strapped to his belt. There had been a wide range of handguns to choose from at the pawnshop, but the idea of “hunting” in the Lone Star state with a cowboy sidearm gave him peculiar satisfaction.
His preparations were painstaking. Several hours later, he pulled out a tube of paint and began blackening his face. The sun was getting lower in the sky, and he could tell the temperature had dropped ever so slightly. He slapped a mosquito on his neck and then another on his arm. Within minutes, he found himself enveloped in a cloud of the pesky blood-suckers. He grabbed another camo shirt from the bag and pulled it over his head, all the while wishing that he had brought insect repellant.
Why did Allah create such bothersome creatures?
He knew the answer. Like everything else, they were a test. The whole world was a test, a giant classroom, to see whether or not man would grumble and complain about his fate or patiently endure his trials as proof of his faith.
It was still more than an hour until sundown, and he knew from experience that when the sun went down, the number of mosquitoes would swell exponentially. He was going to have to cover every inch of skin or end up looking like a human pin cushion. It would be a trying wait, but there was no way an insect weighing less than two and half grams would distract him from this crucial mission.
CHAPTER
30
S
ATURDAY,
L
ONDON
Gary woke up and just lay there staring at the ceiling. More dreams, the same dreams, strange disturbing dreams.
Where were they coming from?
He rolled over to see if his brother was up yet. The bed beside his was a mess of tangled sheets. His brother was not there, but the sound of running water could be heard in the bathroom. He glanced at the clock. It was 6:49. Gilbert was back to his old disciplined self. He walked over to the window beside the desk. His brother’s laptop was open to an online version of a British newspaper. There was a picture of his father and a caption that read, ‘Byzantine scholar found dead in apartment.’
Gilbert’s Blackberry rang. Gary walked over and grabbed it off the nightstand between their beds. He looked at the number but didn’t recognize it. He decided to play secretary.
“Hello.”
“Hello. Is this Gilbert O’Brien?”
“This is his brother Gary.”
“This is McIntosh. I hate to call so early, but I promised Gilbert that I would let you guys know immediately if there were any developments.”
“Of course. Have you found a lead?”
“No. I’m afraid I have more bad news. We don’t know yet how it relates to this case. I’m hoping that maybe you or your brother can help us. Apparently, another professor has been killed.”
“From the same university?” asked Gary incredulously.
“Not exactly, but it was a professor attending the conference at King’s College. Yesterday afternoon, when the coroner confirmed that your father’s death was suspicious. I put out an internal memo, requesting any information that might be connected. It was flagged by someone who noticed that another professor was found dead less than six hours after your father’s homicide. His death was ruled a heart attack as well, but I asked Dr. White to take part in a second autopsy to collaborate that. It was determined that he had also been given sodium thiopental, a non-lethal dose. He was apparently suffocated with a pillow. Obviously, we are exploring the possibility that the two deaths are related. The man was apparently found on Wednesday morning by the hotel maid who came to clean his room. He is a Turkish citizen.”
“What is his name?” asked Gary.
He could hear the inspector rustling through papers on his desk. Gilbert walked out of the bathroom with the towel around his waist. Gary covered the phone with his hand and whispered, “It’s McIntosh. He just told me that another professor attending the conference at King’s College has been found dead.”
McIntosh came back on the line.
“The name is Haluk Bayram. Do you know him?”
“Nope, but let me ask my brother. He just stepped out of the shower. Hey Gil, do you know a Turkish professor by the name of Haluk Bayram?”
“No, the only Turkish professor I know is that fellow Dad used to work with. What was his name? Zeki something. I can’t remember.”
“Öztürk,” Gary responded.
“Yeah, that’s right. Dr. Zeki Öztürk.”
Gary quickly put the phone on speaker and sat it down on the nightstand, so his brother could hear the conversation.
“No, Mr. McIntosh. Gilbert doesn’t know Dr. Bayram. The only Turkish professor we are acquainted with is Dr. Zeki Öztürk.”
“Did you say ‘Öztürk’?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Mr. O’Brien, Dr. Zeki Öztürk was also at the conference, and he is currently missing. He hasn’t been back to his hotel room, and he hasn’t left the country. We ran a check on all foreign nationals leaving the country since Monday. His passport hasn’t been scanned.”
Gilbert was pacing the room, processing this new information.
“Do you think he may have been killed too?”
“Well, anything is possible, but in the absence of a corpse, we’re not assuming that he’s been murdered. We’re keeping all of our options open.”
“I don’t understand. What options?”
“I simply mean that we do not know if Dr. Öztürk is involved in this incident in any way at all.”
Gilbert stopped his pacing and strode quickly over to the bed where he sat down and spoke towards the phone.
“Inspector McIntosh, I am very sorry, but I just realized that my father had a portion of the document translated. I don’t know who did this for him, but it could have been Zeki. He and my father have known each other for years; in fact, they were close friends.”
“Mr. O’Brien, I don’t know how to say this tactfully, so I am just going to be direct. We do have reason to suspect, especially in light of what you have just told me, that Prof. Öztürk might have been involved in your father’s murder.”
“I find that impossible to believe.”
“We’ve obtained messages and telephone calls placed to your father in the week prior to his death. He received a voice mail from someone the night he died, and we believe it could have been Zeki.”
“What do you mean, ‘Could have been Zeki’? Can’t you trace the number?”
“We’ve had a team working on this all night, Mr. O’Brien. It seems Prof. Öztürk has quite a colorful history.”
“Meaning?”
“Did you know he was a former member of the Turkish intelligence agency, MIT?”
“No, I did not, but then, he was friends with my father, not with me.”
“Of course, I understand.”
“What does that have to do with the voice mail?”
“The number of the cellphone that sent the voice mail was a brand new SIM card, bought only last week, paid for with cash and registered to Bobby Jones. However, all of the information given for Bobby Jones is fictitious. The voice mail contained the word
dostum
. I had a friend with the Foreign Service take it to their translation department. Apparently, it is Turkish for ‘my friend.’”
“I find it very difficult to believe that Professor Öztürk would kill my father for an old document.”
“Your father’s death was an accident. Maybe Zeki didn’t mean to kill him. He only wanted this manuscript.”
“He wouldn’t betray my father. They were quite close. He has stayed in our home many times.”
“Isn’t closeness a requirement for betrayal? Anyway, the message was peculiar too. It said, ‘Dear
Dostum
, I really must see you as soon as possible about the document. It’s urgent. Please get back with me as soon as you can.’”
“Did my father ever return his call?”
“Well, that is another strange thing. Apparently, your father never retrieved this voice mail, and so he never received the message. Does your father have any other Turkish acquaintances who might have sent him a message like this?”
“Not that I am aware of.”
“Until we find out where Prof. Öztürk is, I am afraid that he is the only person of interest in this case. We have notified the university, but so far no one remembers seeing him after Wednesday. If he should happen to contact you, please let us know immediately.”
“Can’t you use the cell phone number to track his whereabouts?”
“We have already tried that. The SIM card has not been plugged into a cell phone in the UK or any EU country since Wednesday. All of this is circumstantial, of course, but it is not doing much to ease our suspicions. I’m sure that I do not need to say this, but if Prof. Öztürk is involved, then I would say that there is a certain amount of risk to you and your families. He is obviously a highly-trained individual. He may still be active for all we know, and if he was the one who made the call, then his purchase of the pre-paid SIM card suggests a level of caution you don’t see in ordinary citizens. I’m glad we assigned protection to you and your brother, but you might alert your sister to the situation and your own wife and children as well.”
“I don’t know what to say, sir. Thank you for keeping us in the loop.”
“We will get to the bottom of this, Mr. O’Brien.”
“Thank you. I’m sure you will.”
“One more thing, you were going to get a copy of that document for me. Our investigators are anxious to see it. It might yield some clues.”
“I will have that for you today.”
“Excellent. We’ll be in touch.”
“Of course.”
The two brothers sat there in silence for a moment. Then Gary picked up the phone and thrust it towards his brother.