Gwyn immediately became agitated. “Oh goodness, yes. If you have a cell phone, I’ll give him a call.”
“I’m afraid we can’t do that,” he said.
The tone of her response betrayed the suspicion she still harbored.
“What are you talking about? Obviously, I have to warn my brothers. They could be in as much danger as I am.”
Zeki sighed, but, with the air of an intelligence instructor, patiently explained, “Think about it for a minute, Gwyn. How did they know where you were? How did they know that you, and not your brother, had the document?”
Her eyes widened even as she asked the question.
“You think they were listening to our telephone conversations?”
“Unless you think they have psychic powers? I’d be delighted to hear a different explanation.”
Gwyn leaned her head back on the headrest, revealing a beautiful white neck. Then, without lifting her head, she turned to him and said, “So, until you called me, they did not know for certain that you were involved at all, did they? You blew your own anonymity for me.”
“In all things, there comes a time to throw caution to the wind. That time had come. From now on, you cannot call friends or family.”
Gwyn turned back to stare at the ceiling of the car. Zeki stared at her intently. She was just as beautiful as her mother. He hadn’t seen Patricia after she was diagnosed with cancer, of that he was glad. Suddenly, Gwyn sat upright in her seat and turned earnestly to Zeki.
“Who are these people? How can they tap telephone conversations? I mean even the FBI has to get court orders to force service providers to divulge this kind of information.”
Zeki’s face became grim.
“The FBI is supposed to stay within the boundaries of the legal system it seeks to uphold, and in the end, it is collecting information for a criminal trial before a judge and jury. However, if you are not hampered by such constraints, then it is not technically difficult to monitor telephone calls, especially cell phone calls. All you need is money. That will get you the two necessary things: equipment, and access, which can be easily obtained by placing qualified and loyal individuals in key positions. Once you have compromised the system with a silent tracker—essentially a virus program installed as an add-on to any legitimate system software, you’re set. The tracker can be activated remotely. Or, better yet, put a man on the inside. Then it is fairly simple to move within the arteries of the system without being detected.”
“So, how are we going to get in touch with Gilbert?” asked Gwyn.
“I have a plan, but we need to get to Dallas first.”
“You know that the authorities are going to be looking for you. We should just go straight to the police. I’ll explain everything, and then there won’t be a problem.”
“Gwyn, I know that the American and British authorities would be able to corroborate our story, so there is nothing to fear from them, but I’m not sure your government or any government, for that matter, can protect us from the people who have targeted us.”
Gwyn was incredulous.
“You can’t be serious. You believe that this group is more powerful than the United States government?”
Zeki managed a weak smile. “Gwyn, I hate to burst your bubble. I have seen the innocence of the average citizen around the world, so I know how naïve people are about their own country. Believe me, I’ve discovered many shocking things about my own country over the years. You speak of the US government as if it were a monolithic entity with a single guiding purpose. That is the myth of government, one that has been particularly well ingrained here in America. To quote a famous poem, there are ‘gods behind the gods’. Democracy and liberty are the ideals used to forge national unity because they are widely accepted aspirations here in the West, but the ‘halls of power’, so to speak, care for liberty or democracy only as it serves to expand their power base.
“Do you think that large banks which think nothing of intervening in the affairs of foreign governments, banks that are willing to gamble and squander the pensions of millions of working class families on risky investments, banks that collude with the government to fix monetary policy, orchestrating economic crises for their own personal gain, care about democracy and liberty? Do you know that in every economic bust, every recession, and every downturn, the number of millionaires and billionaires increases? If capitalism is a system where the rich put their money at risk, how can it be that economic pain is mostly felt by the lower and middle class? I could go on, but suffice it to say that “government” is not always a force for good, even for its own citizens, and that corruption is not the exclusive domain of banana republics. In the grand scheme of things, all governments are pawns of the real power brokers. In other words, we are not necessarily safe in their custody.”
Gwyn shrugged. “You obviously have more experience in this than I do. It’s your call.”
Zeki opened his door and reached down to pull the lever that popped the trunk. With the dome light on, she realized for the first time that his neck was swollen.
“What happened to your neck?”
He chuckled. “These ants you have in Texas are apparently incapable of distinguishing friend from foe.”
Gwyn laughed.
“Fire ants have no friends. Don’t take it personal.”
“Strange name,” he said, “I can’t imagine where they came up with it.”
Gwyn smiled at his sense of humor. Their family had always had fun with him.
“Give me a couple of minutes to change clothes,” he said. “I won’t be long.”
She watched him walk towards the lake until he disappeared in the woods and marveled at how the events of the last two hours had turned her world upside down for the second time in less than a week. She said a silent prayer of thanks for the honorable life of her father. It had clearly brought them a family friend worth having around.
CHAPTER
33
A
NKARA
Yusuf had barely turned on his computer when his secretary walked in with tea, a
simit
and a folder full of papers for him to sign.
“Hello, Captain.”
“Hi, Selda. What are you doing here on a beautiful Saturday afternoon?”
“So much paperwork piled up this week in connection with the processing of those foreign women rescued on the Black Sea that I didn’t want to put it off until Monday.”
“That doesn’t explain the
simit
. How did you know that I would be in today?”
“Just a hunch, sir”
He shook his head and smiled. Selda was the future of Turkey. A recent honors graduate from the police academy, she was bright, respectful, hard-working and conscientious in her duties. Her job was to lighten his load, and she took it seriously in every detail.
“Anything pressing?”
“No sir, I mean not really. Interpol issued a green notice for a Turkish national this morning.”
“Anybody on our list?”
“No, sir.”
“Then, it doesn’t concern us.”
“Of course not. Still, I pulled this person’s file just to have a look.”
“Pulled his file? Why would we have a file here if he is not on our list?”
“Sir, we have files on all active and decommissioned MIT members.”
“He’s ex-MIT?”
“Apparently. Retired several years back though. He’s a professor named Zeki Öztürk.”
It was barely perceptible, but she saw his eyes narrow and his jaw harden.
“What’s he supposed to have done?”
“He is a person of interest in a double-murder in London. The authorities think he’s in the United States, but his passport was never scanned in Britain, so they know he left the country on another passport. That’s all the notice said. Obviously, they are asking all international law enforcement agencies to cooperate and share information about the man.”
“Should we tell them to stop wasting their time?” he asked quietly.
“Excuse me?”
“They’ll never catch him,” he said matter-of-factly.
“Do you know him?” she asked.
Yusuf knew that if she had pulled the file there was a good chance she already knew that they had finished their military service in the same unit, so there was no sense pretending.
“He’s a good friend of mine, and I can assure you he’s not a criminal.”
“I understand your personal loyalty, sir,” she said sympathetically.
“My assessment,” he said with conviction, “has nothing to do with personal loyalty. It is a totally professional judgment. I know the man. He would not murder an innocent person.”
Selda hesitated before saying, “You know we are bound by treaty to cooperate with Interpol.”
“I haven’t seen Zeki in several years, so there’s nothing I can do to help them,” replied Yusuf. “Keep me posted if there are any developments.”
“Yes, sir.”
Yusuf turned back to his computer. Selda stood at the door making no move to leave. He could feel her staring at him. The office was empty and it made him uncomfortable. Without looking up, he asked,
“Is there anything else?”
“Just one thing, sir.”
“What is it?”
“Murat told me about what happened in Akçakoca, how you stood up for those women, that you filed a criminal complaint against the local chief of police . . .”
She stopped, unsure of how to continue. He pulled his eyes away from the computer screen.
“And?”
“Well, I just wanted to say thanks. That’s all.”
“For what?”
“For giving us hope.”
“Hope? You’re not making sense, Selda. What kind of hope are you talking about?”
“The hope that we can do our duty, stand for human dignity and preserve the Republic without being crushed. We all know that our position is rapidly falling out of favor, but you give us hope that right can make might.”
“I haven’t done anything that you or anyone on our team wouldn’t do given the same chance.”
“Maybe, but you are the one who shows us what it means to take the chance. Thanks!”
She turned and left the office, closing the door behind her. Yusuf just stared at the door. Selda’s praise made him cringe inside. If only everything were as clean-cut as the situation with the prostitutes had been. Providing Interpol with information about anyone sought with a notice was his job.
Zeki had called him just three days ago in the middle of the night to tell him that he was in Istanbul and would need some help. He had refused to go into detail on the phone. He just said, ‘The shadow of Allah’s shadow is moving.’ It was a cryptic statement, but Yusuf knew exactly what it meant. The Shadow of Allah was a title given to the Ottoman sultans when they were the Caliph of the Islamic world. The shadow of Allah’s shadow was the power behind the throne.
He had expected Zeki to get in touch with him, but three days had passed and now an Interpol green notice had been issued. He logged on to the Interpol site to read the bulletin. It contained little that Selda hadn’t already told him. Zeki would be in touch if he needed help, but what worried Yusuf was whether or not he would be able to provide it. To do that, he needed to know what had happened in London.