Gary had slipped out at seven o’clock that morning and bought some Turkish pastries filled with meat called
tas böregi
and sesame-covered pretzel-like things called
simit
. He had set the table and was busy washing the tea glasses from the night before. He yelled into the living room.
“Gil, wake up Gwyn. She said she didn’t want to sleep past eight o’clock.”
Gilbert was busy looking up words in an online Turkish dictionary and gave no indication that he had even heard his brother. He had been up before any of them, going over the massive amount of key-logger data that had piled up, looking for anything that might help them. Most of it was in Turkish though.
“I’ll knock on her door,” offered Matt.
“Thanks.”
A couple of minutes later Gwyn came into the room in a pair of sweats.
“Alright, everybody to the table. I’m up,” she said.
“You guys go ahead,” said Gilbert. “I’ll just have some tea.”
“You need to eat,” protested Gwyn.
“I’m not hungry,” he said flatly.
The other three sat down. Gary filled four tea glasses. He set one of them on the end table beside Gilbert. Matt, Gwyn and Gary sat around the table eating in silence and wondering about what no one wanted to talk about—would Zeki’s meeting provide them with any leverage? Without looking up from his computer, Gilbert addressed Matt.
“Was your friend able to learn anything about who was behind the complaint filed with the FBI that resulted in an Interpol bulletin being issued for me?”
Matt cocked his head to the side and set his tea glass down.
“Actually, I phoned him last night after he got off work to see what he had learned. Because of the time difference, we didn’t talk until about midnight local time, and you were already asleep. The complaint was filed by a French law firm named Girard, Babin and Broussard, which is a connected with the A.L.S. Mediterranean Legal Group, the firm representing the Libyan government.”
“I figured as much. I guess we’ll just have to face the music when this is all over.”
“Unfortunately, there is more.”
“More?”
“Yes, my friend spoke with the agent handling the case and he said that he had received three calls from the office of Minnesota Senator Giovanni asking for updates on the status of the search.”
“That’s strange. Why would a Senator be concerned?”
“Either he is getting a kickback of some sort from the Libyan government if they win this case against private equity, or he has a stake in a certain French law firm. The intrigue may be layered to look complicated, but all you have to do is follow the money.”
“Alright, I’ll do some research when I’m done with these logs. You finish your breakfast.”
“Speaking of research,” Matt said, turning to Gwyn and Gary. “Last night, I also did a bit of snooping on George Sale and read about fifty pages of his translation of the Qur’an. Did either of you know that this is the same translation of the Qur’an that was used to swear in the first Muslim member of the US congress?”
“Once a diplomat always a diplomat,” replied Gwyn with a sigh. “I didn’t even know a Muslim had been elected to Congress.”
Her voice sounded dull and indifferent.
“It was the very same book that President Thomas Jefferson bought when he was preparing a military response to the Barbary pirates in the Mediterranean. These Muslim pirates were capturing American ships and ransoming off the crews for handsome sums. Apparently, he wanted to understand his enemy. In the end, he decided appeasement was the wrong strategy and sent the Marines to the ‘shores of Tripoli’, which is, of course, commemorated in the Marine Hymn to this day.”
Gilbert interrupted.
“Gary, have a look at this.”
Gary walked over and looked at the section of the screen Gilbert was pointing at. He had highlighted several words.
Baraka AH748TEM, Uzy7!9d3 Erguvan c66GyT7
“Looks like passwords to me,” Gary said. “When did this happen?”
“It’s from Monday. I’ve reviewed everything with English in it, so I thought I’d just look through some of the Turkish. I sent these files to Zeki, but I’m sure he’s probably too busy to spend much time on it. Besides, there are two hundred pages of data. He could never get through it all.”
“Is there anything in the surrounding text that would indicate what it is related to?”
“That’s all there is in this time segment.”
“Can you search the log to see if this occurs anywhere else?”
“I already did. This is the only occurrence. Do you know what the words mean?”
“The first one is Arabic for ‘blessing’ or ‘fruitfulness’. That’s all I know. I think we should call Zeki.”
Gilbert reached for the phone, hit the speed dial number, put it on speaker and laid it beside his computer. It started ringing.
“Hello.”
“Hello, Zeki. This is Gilbert. How was the flight yesterday?”
“A bit of trouble getting through customs though I don’t suppose that is unusual for someone carrying a Turkish passport after what happened on Monday. I think the fact that the ticket was purchased the same day made them nervous too. You received my text?”
“Yes.”
“I’m almost to the reading room. I expect the man to be there as soon as the doors are open.”
“That’s great. Do you think it will work?”
Zeki didn’t respond immediately. When he did, he sounded tired.
“I think they will see things our way in the short term. Start preparing for the exchange. I will insist it happen as soon as possible.”
Gwyn could see her brother blinking back the tears.
“Look,” said Gilbert, “I found something on the key-logger that looks like a username and two separate passwords. Unfortunately, I don’t know where they were being used. There are only two words in the same time segment.”
“The first is B-A-R-A-K-A, which occurs before the username. Can you tell me what that means?”
Zeki sighed. “It’s Arabic and means something like ‘blessing’, but if you found it together with a password, it might be referring to the Islamic bank.
Baraka
may have been typed in to activate the auto-complete on a browser and open the web page. Are you at your computer?”
“Yep.”
“Type in this URL.”
He began coding it out. w-w-w.b-a-r-a-k-a-b-a-n-k-a-s-i.c-o-m. That is the website of an international Islamic bank. You could try the password there.”
“What about the second word? It is E-R-G-U-V-A-N, and occurs after the username and password, if that is what they are.”
“That is the name of a famous tree in Istanbul that has beautiful blossoms in the spring. I forget what the English equivalent is, and I have no idea how that could be connected.”
“Okay, I’ll try this and call you back in five minutes.”
Gilbert hung up the phone and returned to the computer screen. He looked at the screen for a minute and tried to orient himself. Security was his field, his specialty, and his mind was churning through the possibilities. The first thing he had to do was choose between ‘Personal Accounts’ and ‘Corporate Accounts’. He took a chance and clicked on ‘corporate’. His screen switched to the login page. He typed in the username and the first password, held his breath and clicked ‘OK’.
There was a ten-second lull as the information was sent and processed. The screen flickered, and he found himself on another page with a single question.
Will you use this computer frequently to login?
He clicked the ‘Yes’ button and then ‘Next’ while shaking his head. He knew what was coming. There would be a security question that he didn’t know the answer to. It was even worse than that. The question was in Turkish.
Istanbul’da en çok özledigim sey
“Can you read this, Gary?”
“I could pick out the words, but I might not be able to sort out the grammar. You should ask Zeki.”
He hit redial again and prayed Zeki would pick up. There was probably a 120-second security time-out on this webpage.
“Hello.”
“Zeki. The password worked, but it’s asking me a personalized security question that is in Turkish. I can’t even pronounce the words, but Gary will give it a try.”
Gary repeated the words on the screen. They were both surprised to hear Zeki laugh out loud.
“That explains the second word. The security question is, ‘What do I miss most about Istanbul?’ And, the answer is the second word—
erguvan
—that beautiful flowering tree prized so highly by the Byzantines and Ottomans.”
“Wow. Did we ever get lucky!” exclaimed Matt.
Gilbert typed in the answer to the security question and clicked ‘Continue’.
He couldn’t believe it when the account detail screen opened up in front of him. Gary slapped him on the back.
“Way to go, man. Whose account are we looking it?”
Gilbert scanned the screen and then addressed Zeki.
“Have you ever heard of a company called Waqf International Trading, Ltd?”
“No.”
Gilbert scanned the page for other information and then drew in a quick breath and pointed at the account balance. Sixty-two million USD.
“Zeki, this account has a balance of sixty-two million US dollars.” He clicked on the account transaction history. “And, fifty million dollars arrived yesterday.”
“If the account login you have managed to acquire has the necessary authorization,” said Zeki, “you might be able to transfer money out of that account.”
“But why would we risk tipping them off to our spying?” asked Gilbert.
“When I confront their so-called priest this morning, it won’t take them long to figure out they’ve been compromised. Besides, all of you are going to need some cash for your life in exile.”
Gilbert had been trying not to even think about what would happen after the exchange. Zeki was forcing him to. Gwyn spoke first.
“What do you mean by ‘exile’, Zeki? Once the exchange is over and they have the document, everything will be okay, right?”
“I’m sorry, Gwyn,” responded Zeki, with the tone of a father breaking bad news to a child. “This problem isn’t going to just go away. They are using Gilbert’s family to get the document back, but we already know too much. In fact, through the key-logger, we have gathered an amazing amount of information about their operations, information that, to be quite honest, scares me. This morning I read the data Gilbert sent me. This is way bigger than I ever dreamed. International organizations, local and federal governments, security forces, intelligence agencies, investment funds, the UN…”
His voice trailed off. A look of horror dawned on Gwyn’s face as she began to think of the implications. Everyone else waited for him to continue.
“Once they know that their communications have been intercepted by us, and they
will
find out, the price tag on our heads rockets into the stratosphere. Sixty million? That is small change for these guys. They control the natural resources of many nations. It’s time to face the fact that your lives, however long or short, will never be the same. You will never be able to go back to the way things were. They aren’t going to stop until we’ve all been silenced.”