The small parking lot was surrounded by woods. There were two trucks with empty boat trailers, obviously late night fishermen, but no lights anywhere. He stopped the car, turned it off and without looking at his passenger said, “I need to change out of these bloody clothes. I have an extra set in the trunk. It doesn’t look like there is a bathroom, so I’ll walk into the woods over there. We are going to have to work together as a team to get through this.”
He stopped talking and continued staring straight ahead, waiting for a response that didn’t come.
“Are you listening to me?”
His voice was gentle, but there was urgency in it too. He understood the psychological trauma, and knew it would evoke a reaction of some kind. He just didn’t know what it would be like. He was about to find out.
“Am I listening? Yeah, I’m listening, but you’ll have to forgive me if I have some trouble comprehending it all. I was just attacked by two masked gunmen in the middle of the night. Then, an old friend of my recently murdered father, who just happens to be waiting outside my house ten hours before he said he would be there, comes out of nowhere, dressed like Rambo, guns blazing, and drops one of these two would-be assassins with the efficiency of a special ops team and proceeds to torture the other one for information. When the man
won’t talk, Rambo blows his brains out. Then, this fifty-something man I knew as a professor very calmly gives me instructions while he carries, not drags, mind you, but carries their bodies and throws them into a well. Yeah, I am listening, but I can’t believe what I have seen with my own eyes. How do you expect me to believe anything you have to say?”
“Gwyn, I told you we have to keep their deaths a secret as long as possible.”
“For God’s sake, Mr. Öztürk, who are we keeping it a secret from?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Then, I suppose you will have to forgive me for being a bit reluctant to swallow this whole thing hook line and sinker.”
“That must be a local expression. I’m afraid it’s not one I am familiar with. All I know is that the people who sent them must believe they are alive as long as possible. By wrapping them in a coat and carrying them to the well, we were able to avoid leaving a blood trail. That buys us time.”
“Dr. Öztürk, I graduated from university with honors. Simple things like that are not difficult to comprehend. What I am having trouble understanding is how, after killing two men, you have the presence of mind to rattle off those instructions, much less the strength to carry two men weighing almost two-hundred pounds apiece fifty yards by yourself.”
“Gwyn, there is much you do not know about me. Much of it you wouldn’t want to know. Let me just say this. I worked in Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization for years and may have a skill set unlike any you’ve ever seen before. What you need to understand though is that you are as precious to me as my own daughter would be. Your father was a dear friend. For most of us Turks, friendship is sacred. There is nothing I wouldn’t do for your father and the fact that he was recently killed by men from my country is not only a source of great shame for me, but it also makes me doubly responsible for your safety. Your people cannot protect you like I can because they do not understand their enemy.”
“So, you are not really a professor at all?”
“Teaching is my second career,” he replied softly.
“Second career? I suppose your first career was 007. You have a lot of explaining to do.”
Zeki had no time for this, but he knew that Gwyn would need some time to process everything and that he needed her cooperation.
Gwyn continued, “When you shot the man on the porch, I was talking to my brother. He said that you were at the conference in London. He said the UK police considered you a person of interest and were looking for you. The police told my brother they knew you were still in Britain because your passport hadn’t been scanned. But somehow, you show up in a small town outside of Dallas two days later carrying an assault rifle. Why don’t you explain that for starters?”
Zeki sighed and reached his arm to put it on her shoulder. She shoved it away and shouted, “Damn it, I have a right to know what the hell is going on.”
“Of course, you do, but don’t expect to understand it all in the next five minutes. I don’t even know exactly what is going on myself.”
He looked down at his watch. It was 02:30 local time. He wanted to be in Dallas before the sun came up, which meant they had one and a half hours before they needed to be on the road. His intelligence training told him that every minute they sat there increased their risk. If the authorities were smart, road blocks would already be springing up to take advantage of the fact that there should be virtually no traffic at this time of night. But he melted when he looked into the eyes of the young lady sitting across from him, a beautiful creature who had just lost her father and had almost been killed herself. She deserved something.
He rewound the tape in his mind to Wednesday morning at the hotel in London and that terrifying moment of
déjà vu
. After his prayers, he had gone to an early breakfast and then gone out for a brisk walk to get some exercise. He had taken the elevator up to his floor, and as he walked towards the door, images of the trap set for him by a terrorist in Sanliurfa years ago froze him in his tracks. The tiny piece of paper he had placed under the hinge of the door was lying on the ground. The sound of Gwyn clearing her throat brought him back to the present.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “It hasn’t been easy for me either. I’ll spare you the details, but on Wednesday morning, which was just hours after your father was killed, I returned to my room after an early breakfast only to realize that someone had been there while I was out. It was obviously too early to be housekeeping, so I went down to the lobby and called my friend’s room.”
“Your friend?”
“Another Turkish professor who was attending the conference with me.”
Gwyn gasped and put her hand to her mouth.
“I already know,” Zeki said. “I learned of his death the next day.”
“I’m so sorry, Zeki,” Gwyn said softly.
“Me too. Anyway, when he didn’t answer, I was suspicious. He’s not an early riser. I called your dad and when he didn’t answer, I went to reception, told them that the TV in my room wasn’t working and asked to move to the room across the hall if it was empty. They apologized profusely and said housekeeping would move my belongings for me when they cleaned the room. They gave me a new key card. I slipped into the room and put out the ‘Do not disturb’ sign.
“For the next two hours, I watched my own room through the peephole to see what was going on. Finally, housekeeping came and sixty seconds after the maid went into my room, I saw a man in his mid-thirties come walking out the door.”
“You mean someone was waiting there to kill you?” asked Gwyn in shock.
“I didn’t know that then, of course, but I knew it spelled trouble.
“Do you have any idea who they are?”
“The document gave me several clues, so yes, I have some sort of idea. They obviously have a powerful network in London.”
Gwyn sat there for a minute, wondering how to ask the next question. She had heard her father talk about Zeki being a devout Muslim. It made her uncomfortable, but she finally blurted it out.
“Is this some Islamic fundamentalist group?”
“Why do you ask?” probed Zeki.
“Well, I’ve been researching the document myself for several days. Some of the symbolism on the document and what I gleaned from the translation seem to suggest a connection with Islam.”
“Let’s talk about that later when we have more time.”
“Fair enough. How did you get out of the country?”
“Well, I had to assume that these people did not have my best interests at heart, so I decided to warn your father. I went back to the conference where I learned that he hadn’t shown up for his presentation. I knew that if they were on to me, they might have already gotten to your father. I called a friend in London and told him to get someone over to your father’s place immediately. Fifteen minutes later, he told me that your father was dead. At that time, the local police didn’t even know.”
“This friend of yours is a Turkish spy in the UK?”
“I’ll have to leave that question unanswered.”
“But you still haven’t told me how you got out of the country.”
“As anyone in intelligence will tell you, a second passport is more valuable than a gun.”
“But with the computer tracking they use today, they would know instantly if you are a real person who has actually entered the country. You can’t leave on a fake passport or one that has not already entered the country. The tracking is too sophisticated.”
“True, and I suppose someone is going to be in for a surprise at the border when they try to leave Britain because the records will show that they have already left. But, as you Americans are fond of saying, ‘Desperate times call for desperate measures.’”
“Wow!” she said in a breathy and awe-struck tone. “That’s impressive.”
“Not hard, really. As security gets more sophisticated so do efforts to circumvent it. I flew to Istanbul and then drove to a friend’s house so I could lay low. The first thing I did was ask my friends in London to help me get in touch with my friend, Dr. Haluk Bayram. Several hours later, I was told that he too had been found dead.”
Gwyn just sat there staring out the window at the moonlight reflecting off the lake. It was a beautiful clear night, peaceful and quiet. The only sound was the buzzing of cicadas and the croaking of frogs. It was serene, but her heart was numb to it all. In less than a week, her father and a Turkish professor had been killed. Someone had tried to kill Zeki and then tried to kill her half-way around the world in a small Texas town.
“How did you know they were coming for me?”
“I didn’t know for sure. But your father was killed sometime Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning. If these people had found what they wanted, they wouldn’t have come after me and certainly not after Haluk. He doesn’t even know your father. His death made no sense. Why Haluk? Then, I remembered that I had left your father a voicemail about the document and used the Turkish word for friend. If they were intercepting his telephone calls, one of the first things they would have done is search for Turkish professors at the university and the conference. Haluk and I were the only Turks as far as I know.”
“That doesn’t explain what brought you here.”
“Well, your dad told me at lunch on Monday that he was going to meet you at the airport the next day, so I took a chance. You have to believe me when I say that your father was very dear to me. He was an honorable man. Like you, I am still grieving his passing. I didn’t know you had it, but I figured this group might think you did, and I could never live with myself if something were to happen to you too.”
“Did you know your behavior was one of the reasons my father was suspicious and passed the document on to me?”
“Your father was a brilliant man. I am not surprised that he picked up on that. The fact that he gave it to you makes me think that he may have figured out more about the document than even I know. I wish I had warned him directly, but I didn’t know it was this dangerous either. I didn’t want to seem paranoid. Please, believe me.”
“Mr. Öztürk . . .”
“Please, just call me Zeki if you prefer.”
“Fine. I do believe you, actually. After all, you just saved my life. In fact, I don’t think I have properly thanked you for that. You went to a lot of trouble and put yourself in harm’s way. Thank you!”
“I’m glad I got here in time.”
“You said earlier that it was people from your country who did this. How do you know?”
“Well, I don’t know who all of the actors are, but the men who were killed tonight spoke Turkish to one another as they made their approach to the house. Listen, I’m going to wash up in the lake and change clothes. We can continue this conversation later. The last thing I want right now is a run-in with Texas Rangers hoping to bag a Muslim terrorist. We need to get moving, and we have to warn Gilbert.”