Zeki was silent.
“I think that the attacks on Turks in Germany, which served as the pretext for today’s bombings, were actually committed by the same people. That would mean Bekir is behind them both. It’s logical. My gut tells me it’s true, but we have no proof. Right now, I’m more worried about guessing his next move than anything else. I think something is being planned for Vienna. I think that the disappearance of the cells we had under surveillance proves something is going down. The same thing happened in Cologne and Berlin before the alleged skinhead attacks. I think a pattern may be emerging. But
that’s not all, I learned today that two cells have disappeared in France, one in Germany and another in Italy.”
The mask-maker placed a wet strip of gauze across Zeki’s forehead. The pungent smell of the chemicals was almost unbearable. As the man positioned a second strip parallel to the first, he said, “You need to wrap this conversation up or finish it later. In a couple of minutes, Zeki will have to stop moving the muscles in his face until this solution sets. It will only take ten minutes, but he will have to stop talking.”
Zeki answered quickly,
“Well, after such a huge success here in Turkey today, maybe they are just playing it safe and laying low to avoid being rounded up as part of a general crackdown to disrupt their activities.”
“Maybe you are right, and then maybe the protests organized today in Europe were meant to coincide with the bombings here to provoke the German police and create a new pretext for more attacks in Europe.”
“Any corroborating evidence?” asked Zeki.
“The imam who organized the protests is known to have connections with Bekir. At six o’clock this morning, our Ministry of Foreign Affairs asked him to call off or postpone the protests due to the bombing in Antalya. He refused. That, in and of itself, is strange. Very few clerics would oppose a Ministry request. The protests could have waited another few days. The deaths of the Turks in Germany happened almost two months ago. I think his insensitivity indicates that the plan is to provoke the Europeans.”
“You could be on to something,” replied Zeki. “Call me in Vienna if something turns up and you need another set of legs on the ground. Are you going to be able to stop and see Kopyaji for me?”
“Yes, I’ll make sure one of his men meets you at the airport tomorrow morning with your passport.”
“One last thing,” said Zeki. “I need the schematics for the electrical grid in that quarter by tomorrow at ten o’clock in the morning. Would you give Josef a call? Tell him it’s for me and I need this one done on the house.”
“I’ll see what I can do. Expect a text from him if he agrees, but are you sure this is a good idea?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, it sounds to me like you are calling in a lot of favors on the front-end. Your real problems will begin when this is all over.”
CHAPTER
56
T
UESDAY,
C
AIRO
The phone had rung five times. Washington D.C. was seven hours behind Cairo, which made it one o’clock in the morning there. Ahmet was watching a live feed on his computer screen as he waited for someone to pick up. Finally, a sleepy female voice on the other end answered.
“Hello, Gilbert?”
“Hello, Kiyomi.”
“Who is this?” she asked.
“Gilbert does not seem to be taking the message you passed on to him very seriously.”
Kiyomi recognized the voice and immediately went from groggy to fully alert. She checked the number. It was Gilbert’s.
Damn! They’re calling on Gilbert’s phone or replicating the number to get me to answer.
“I’m afraid I haven’t been able to deliver your message,” she said hesitantly. “He hasn’t contacted me.”
“I thought I made it very clear how grave the situation is. Surely someone as communications-savvy as Gilbert would make sure his assistant could get in touch with him.”
“You’re right. It’s strange, but I assume there are extenuating circumstances.”
This guy was creepy. She stood up and turned on the light. This was not a conversation she wanted to have in the dark.
“That is strange. How did he give you his credit card then?”
Kiyomi was unprepared for the question and stammered
“Uh, I’m not sure exactly what you are referring to.”
“You’re a smart girl. I appreciate that, but that’s not a reason to treat me like an idiot. You used Gilbert’s card yesterday at Starbucks.”
“Excuse me?”
She was smart, and in nanoseconds alarm bells started going off in her head as her mind raced to understand the implications of what she had just heard.
“I wish I could help you more, but I’m not sure what else I can do,” she continued, trying to buy herself more time.
“On your lunch break, at 12:28 on 11th St. NW, you used Gilbert’s card to buy a latte. Does that jog your memory?”
The security camera . . .
She said to herself.
That’s the only way they could know who used the card
. She was trapped.
“So, Gilbert has given his personal assistant a credit card. Is that such a surprise?” she asked, trying to sound sarcastic.
She couldn’t believe what was coming out of her mouth, but the script she had prepared for the cashier the day before started outlining a scenario in her subconscious. She just followed its lead. Ahmet looked down at his screen.
“I warned you to quit playing games with me,” he said coolly. “That’s a nice pink nightie you’re wearing. I suggest you stay away from the windows though.”
He needed psychological leverage. Nothing worked better than fear. Kiyomi looked at the window beside her bed, saw the open blinds and gasped. She slid into the adjoining study away from the window.
“You don’t really think that moving into another room is going to help, do you? The sheetrock wall between you and the window is like a piece of paper for a fifty-caliber sniper rifle, but if I had wanted to kill you, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, would we?”
She could feel her heart pounding from fear. She decided to go for broke. The words tumbled out.
“Listen here, asshole,” she said in the most cynical tone she could muster. “I don’t know who you bastards are, but you would be doing me a big favor if you got rid of his prissy wife and the kids too. I can’t reach Gilbert and don’t know where he is, but if you tell me what you want, maybe both of us can get what we want.”
Ahmet’s voice was icy.
“The only way you can help me or save Gilbert is to convey my message. You may be his mistress, you may hate his wife. I don’t know. What I do know is that you talked to Gilbert on Saturday and followed specific instructions to leave a certain message on his cell phone so you’ve obviously been in touch.”
She couldn’t tell from his voice whether he was convinced and whether her ruse was working or not.
“Yes, I did talk to Gilbert on Saturday, but that is the last time. I don’t know why he asked me to leave the message. He was in London at the time. Believe me, I’d love to help and I’ll do whatever I can, but I’m telling you the truth. I don’t know where he is. If he calls, I’ll relay your message. I promise.”
“Make sure you do,” said Ahmet. “Oh, and I do like your taste in lingerie. A little tight for comfortable sleeping, but maybe that’s not what you got it for.”
She started to call him a vulgar jerk, but the line went dead.
Ahmet turned to Jabbar.
“Call her every three hours tomorrow. Tell our man to maintain a constant tail. She’s still the only reasonable chance we have of getting in contact with Gilbert.
><><><
V
IENNA
Zeki turned off the main boulevard lined with shops and restaurants and took the first left. He was only one block off Mariahilfer Straße, but it felt almost like he had entered a ghetto. The buildings were old and several of the doors were boarded up. On the wall of the building across the street there were vulgar works of graffiti spray-painted on the walls. The subject matter may have been sleazy, but the proportion and life that the Austrian vandals had imparted to their creation showed real potential. There was no doubt that Vienna was a capital of art and culture.
The street was deserted except for an old man shuffling towards him on the opposite sidewalk. He spotted the sign for Pension Quisisana, and crossed to the other side of the street. As he walked past the wizened old man, he couldn’t help wondering what the end of his own life would be like. Would he be able to walk anywhere without fear after what he was about to do today? He remembered what Ian had said about being careful in the choice of one’s enemies.
Make sure they are the common enemy of mankind, and you can’t go wrong.
He stopped underneath the sign and grimaced. It wasn’t the Hilton. It was just a place to sleep for the night. He pushed on the heavy iron door. It was locked. He looked around for a bell. After about five minutes of pushing on it intermittently, a rough woman opened it.
“
Guten Morgen, Wie kann ich Ihnen helfen
?” She was a bottle blonde who looked to be around thirty.
“
Guten Morgen
,” replied Zeki, and immediately switched to English. “My German is quite poor. Do you know English?”
The expression on her face told him that there would be a fair amount of gesturing and pointing with this woman.
“A bit I can speak English,” said the lady with a smile. Her accent told him she was not Austrian either, probably Eastern European.
“I have a reservation for one night.”
“Name?”
Zeki drew a blank for a minute. The jetlag caused by hopping time zones for the last week was taking its toll. He sat his bag down and reached for the Turkish ID card he had at least thought to put in his shirt pocket on the metro from the airport. Kopyaji had charged him eight hundred dollars for it and another twenty-five hundred for Fatih Gülben’s passport.
“Hasan Kaya,” he said, as he handed her his ID.
She took the identification, verified his reservation on the screen and handed back his ID.
“I see you no use credit card. How you pay?”
Zeki pulled out a fifty Euro note and handed it to her with a smile.
“Do you take cash?”
She smiled back and took the money.
“We have no change. I make note, and you take when you check out.”
Then, she turned to a board on the wall and found his room number.
“Follow me.”
She led him through a door at the back of the office, and he found himself looking at a black steel cage and an open elevator shaft that ascended in the circular space created by majestic spiral stairs. The elevator had obviously been added long after the building was built. She pushed M for mezzanine. When the elevator stopped, she looked at the luggage, put her hand out palm down and motioned for him to leave them there. She stepped out onto the mezzanine floor and pointed down the hall.
“Bath,” she said, hooking her hand to the right to indicate which side of the hall it was on. Then, she motioned for him to get back in the elevator. The elevator cables creaked as the pulleys turned, raising the metal cage one more floor. When it stopped, she motioned for him to bring his luggage. The structure was simply an old apartment building that had been converted into a cheap hotel.