“You need to call Gwyn right now, Gilbert.”
“It’s the middle of the night there.”
“I don’t care. I have a bad feeling about this. I’ll explain later, but right now I want you to make this call. You need to call your wife, too.”
Gilbert was surprised at the intensity he saw in Gary’s eyes. He really did not want to frighten Gwyn by waking her in the middle of the night with news like this.
“Ginger and the kids are in Italy with Shelly, one of her girlfriends. Shelly’s mom and dad own a villa in Otranto, a small town down in the heel. They’ve been gone for three weeks and won’t be back for another two. No one could possibly know where they are, so I don’t want to upset her by dragging them into this right now. Gwyn, of course, is a different story. Let’s wait until she wakes up. It’s only a couple of hours from now, alright?”
“No. It’s not alright.”
He grabbed the phone from Gilbert and began flicking through recent calls to find Gwyn’s number.
“I’m telling you. I have a bad feeling about this.”
“It can wait a couple of hours.”
“No, it can’t, damn it!”
Gilbert knew the look he now saw in his brother’s eyes. The same one he had gotten as a child when he or Gwyn teased him too much, a look that said emphatically, ‘I’ll take the fun out of your world if you mess with me.’ There was no talking to him when he got like this.
“Hi Gwyn. This is Gary. Sorry to wake you.”
He put the phone on speaker and laid it on the bed. Her voice was groggy.
“Gary, is everything alright. What time is it?”
“I know it is the middle of the night, but I’m afraid we have some bad news, sis.”
“I’m really not in the mood for more bad news.”
“The autopsy has concluded that there was foul play involved in Dad’s death.”
Gwyn gasped on the other end of the phone.
“You mean Dad was murdered?”
She sat up in bed, reached over and switched on the bedside lamp.
“Actually it isn’t quite that simple, but yes, in a way. Someone broke into his apartment. They erased the copy of the document on his PC and his Internet search history. If it hadn’t been for Gilbert, we might not have even realized anything was wrong. The autopsy determined that he had been given an injection of sodium thiopental which resulted in an adverse reaction with the medicine he was taking for the pain in his legs.”
“Oh my God . . .”
Gary could hear his sister’s voice cracking.
“I know this is hard to hear, Gwyn. The police are doing everything they can to find who is behind this, but, unfortunately, it gets worse. A Turkish professor has also been found dead with the same drug in his body. The police are certain that the two deaths are related. We don’t know much, but I am calling in the middle of the night because I believe you could be in danger too.”
“What are you talking about? I am half-way around the world.”
There was a racket in the background that Gary found strangely familiar but could not place.
“What is that noise I hear, Gwyn?”
“Oh, it’s just that flock of geese they keep here on the farm. Something must have spooked them. Let me shut the window.”
They could both hear her walking across the creaky wooden floors of the old farm house. Gwyn struggled with the window. Humidity had swollen the wooden frame and it was stuck. She sat the phone down so she could use both hands to close it. The geese were making a terrible clamor.
Probably a raccoon,
she thought. She bent down to put what little weight her wispy frame could offer into closing the window, and it suddenly gave way, closing with a loud bang, shutting out the noise of the geese and plunging the room back into silence. She picked the phone back up and put it to her ear.
“Gary, you haven’t answered my question. How can I be in danger here?”
“I don’t know for sure, but I have a really bad feeling about this. You need to go the police right away.”
“In the middle of the night? Are you crazy?”
“I just want to know that you’re safe.”
“Safe from who?”
“We don’t know.”
“Who could have had anything against Dad?”
“Gwyn, what I am about to say is going to be hard to hear, and the police are not certain, so we shouldn’t rush to judgment, but they think that Dad’s friend from Turkey, Dr. Zeki Öztürk, may be involved.”
Both of the brothers jumped at the stifled scream that came from the Blackberry lying on the bed. Gary grabbed it, and said in a voice that was both intense and dead calm at the same time.
“Gwyn, I need you to get a hold of yourself.” He could hear her starting to hyperventilate. “This is no time for hysteria. What’s wrong?”
A feeling of dread began to swirl and swell like a black cloud in Gary’s mind.
What had the old man at the mosque said, ‘A black noose of evil is tightening around you . . .’
That was exactly what it felt like. It was like being suffocated by blackness. Finally, the words began to claw their way out of Gwyn’s mouth.
“He called me ...He called earlier ... He’s coming here ...”
“Who called?” Gilbert shouted, but Gary knew.
“Dr. Öztürk?”
“Yes, he said he had heard about Father’s death. He offered his condolences. He said we had lost a father and he had lost a dear friend. He said he was in Dallas and had a few old manuscripts he wanted to donate to Dad’s collection . . . Oh my God, Gary, what am I going to do? I gave him my address and he said he was coming out tomorrow morning.”
“Gwyn, Dr. Öztürk was in London this week at the conference. No one has seen him since Wednesday. The police think he’s still somewhere here in Britain because his passport has not been scanned. I don’t know how in the hell he left the country without his passport, and I sure as hell don’t know how he got your phone number. Do you?”
“I don’t know, Gary. I don’t know, but I’m scared.”
“Gwyn, you need to leave right now, make sure Uncle Henry and Aunt Bonny leave with you.”
“They left this morning for Austin to visit friends,” she replied.
“Good. Take the document and go to the police. I’ll have the Metropolitan Police call the Sulphur Springs chief of police and explain everything. Stay with the police until we . . .”
He never got a chance to finish the sentence. The Blackberry he was holding in his hand virtually exploded with sound. There was the noise of breaking glass, gunshots and Gwyn screaming.
“Gwyn, what is going on? Gwyn, can you hear me? Tell me what is happening!” Gary was shouting into the phone. The screaming continued for several more seconds before it stopped abruptly and the phone went dead.
CHAPTER
31
Gilbert swung into action.
“Get on my computer and find me the number for the Hopkins County Sheriff and then the FBI’s field office in Dallas. I’m calling Ginger.”
Gilbert’s voice had the cool, steady quality of a professional who had compartmentalized his emotions to maintain objectivity. He hit speed dial, and a cell phone rang on a beach in Italy.
“Hi, Ginger.”
“Hi, darling. How are you doing?”
“Not so well. We found out that Dad didn’t die of natural causes. There was foul play.”
“Oh my gosh. You can’t be serious.”
“Deadly so.”
“Do they have any leads?”
“They’re following up a few possibilities. Listen, Ginger, I want you and the kids to join me in London. We think you may be in danger.”
“What do you mean by danger?” she asked hesitantly.
“I don’t have time to explain. This is serious, Ginger. I want you on the next plane to London, and I want you to be careful.”
“Gilbert, the kids are having a wonderful time. They’re going to be devastated if I cut this vacation short. Are you sure it’s necessary? We both know that your job as a security analyst can make you bit paranoid.”
Gilbert took a deep breath. He had hoped to avoid this.
“Darling, I was on the phone with Gwyn a moment ago. She’s in Dallas. There were gunshots and then we were cut-off. Someone just attacked her at Uncle Henry’s farm. I don’t know what happened, if she’s dead or captured, and I have no clue who is doing this or why. Right now, I need to call the authorities, and you need to get on a plane. Understood?”
“Understood.”
“I love you.”
As he hung up the phone, he could picture the panic that was erupting, her yelling at the kids to get their beach paraphernalia together so they could get back to the hotel, pack their bags and leave for the airport to get on standby. She was a strong person in her own way, but she didn’t handle stress well.
Gary read a number off the computer without looking up from the screen.
“The Sheriff’s Office is 903 438-4040.”
Gilbert punched it in, set the phone on the desk and turned on the speaker.
“Hopkins County Sheriff’s Office.”
“Hello, I’m calling to report gunshots at 1900 FM 1536 in Tira. Can you send a deputy immediately?”
“Are you at that location?”
“No. I’m in London, but I was just on the phone with my sister, who is staying at that address. We heard gunshots, her screaming and then the phone went dead. I’ll be calling back in fifteen minutes to find out what you’ve learned.”
“Can I have your name, the time of the call and who might be on site?”
“Damn it. This is no time for an interrogation. You get a deputy out there, and I’ll call back to answer your questions in fifteen minutes.”
He hung up and nodded at Gary, who responded with another number.
“972 559-5000”
“You have reached the Dallas office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. If this is an emergency, please press nine.”
He did.
“Agent Johnson. What is the nature of your emergency?”
“My name is Gilbert O’Brien. I’m calling you from London to report a possible armed assault on my sister in Tira, Texas, north of Sulphur Springs less than ten minutes ago.”
“What is the basis of your report?”
“I was on the phone with her when I heard gunfire and she started screaming. Then the phone went dead. My father was killed in London this week and the Metropolitan Police here in London believe that a Turkish national named Zeki Öztürk may have been involved. This same man called my sister yesterday from Dallas.”
“Have local authorities been notified?”
“Yes, I just got off the phone with the sheriff’s dispatch. A deputy is on his way to the scene now.”
After a barrage of questions from the FBI agent, Gilbert finally hung up and dialed McIntosh’s office.
“McIntosh speaking”
“Sir, this is Gilbert O’Brien. I think we may have found Zeki.”