“Listen, this is going to be gross, but you have to trust Mommy.”
She quickly removed the board that covered the five-gallon bucket. Stoically, she stuck her hand to the bottom, withdrew it and wiped it in her hair. She repeated the action three times, starting with Gabriella. It was a desperate attempt to keep her captors from perpetrating even greater horrors. Then, she grabbed the bucket, waved the kids to the back of the container and waited for them to bring Shelly back. The same question kept running through her mind.
All this will do is buy time and ill will. Time for what?
She still hadn’t answered the question when Shelly was shoved through the door. Ginger didn’t hesitate. She dumped the rest of the bucket on her head. Shelly looked at her friend in shock and immediately began to gag. The man stormed in behind her and found Shelly bent over double vomiting.
“This how you repay my being nice?” he said in a rage.
The stench hit him even before he had finished the sentence. He saw the bucket of water had been knocked over on the floor. He looked up at Ginger and the kids and saw the excrement in their hair.
“
Allah kahretsin!
You are disgusting, filthy animals, but no matter. There is more water. This time you clean her too,” he yelled, pointing at Gabriella, and with that, he left and the heavy iron door clanged shut.
><><><
For ten minutes, Gwyn had been looking at the phone lying on the table, dying to know what Zeki was doing in Vienna. Gilbert had been sitting at the laptop, monitoring the key-logger data ever since the transfer. There were still three columns, one for each of the computers that had opened the file. Most of it was in Turkish, occasionally it was English or just gibberish, which he figured was probably due to a non-Roman language like Arabic or Urdu. The data had been a fairly steady stream all morning in two columns and one had just picked up about fifteen minutes ago.
Obviously someone arriving late for work.
The phone vibrated on the table, indicating the arrival of another message. Gwyn picked it up and read it out loud.
Funds received. Transferred to Geneva. Next time I ring, contact your secretary.
Gilbert ran his hand through his hair. He wanted to smile. It was the biggest break they could have asked for, but his mind was on Ginger and the kids, and so the smile wouldn’t come. He looked at everyone and said,
“Are we ready?”
CHAPTER
62
V
IENNA
Zeki scanned the reception room as he walked in. The only one behind the desk was the girl with short, black hair. Being careful to alter his voice, he greeted her with a smile.
“Good morning. I have reserved two books—THEOL. 62 and N.B. 215.”
“What is the name?” she asked.
“Zeki Öztürk,” he said with a smile, using his real name for the first time in his travels over the last week. “I suppose you want to see some identification.”
“Yes, of course.”
He handed her his passport. She opened it to the picture page and then looked back up at him quizzically.
“I know,” he said. “I had more hair then.”
She smiled.
“I think the bald look is very becoming on you.”
“You’re very polite, Ms . . .”
“Elizabeth,” she responded, with another beaming and authentic smile.
She took him through the same procedure he had performed yesterday and gave him the same spiel. When she handed him the plastic cube that indicated his table number, he screwed up his face and pointed to the two tables in front of the check-in desk.
“Would it be alright if I sat at one of these tables instead of in the reading room? When I was here last summer, it was so cold in there I could hardly focus.”
“Of course, but it’s not a quiet zone. I hope the talking won’t bother you.”
“No, not at all.”
As he handed the plastic cube back to her, his cell phone rang. He smiled apologetically.
“It’s okay,” she reassured him. “This is not a quiet zone, remember.”
He acknowledged her with a nod and looked down at the screen. It was Yusuf.
“Hello.”
“Zeki, I hope this is a good time.”
“Not exactly, but go ahead.”
Yusuf spoke rapidly.
“I told you I had a suspicion that Bekir was doing something in Vienna. Now, I’m sure of it. All of the cells we were monitoring in Vienna have gone dark. No cell phone calls, no internet drops, no blog posts, empty apartments, failure to report for work or class . . . In retrospect, this is the same pattern we saw before. Did you hear what happened this morning at the Vienna mosque?”
“No, I haven’t seen a paper today,” replied Zeki.
“We just found out ourselves,” continued Yusuf. “There was an all-night vigil at the mosque to commemorate the Night of Power and as they were leaving, the worshippers were attacked by a group of masked men. No one was hurt badly, but it is all over the news here, and we have also just learned that the imam with connections to Bekir has called for a demonstration at noon. The protesters say they are going to march through the Museum Quarter and through the
Volksgarten.
We think they are hoping for more exposure via tourists.”
“I am less than two hundred meters from there,” said Zeki.
“I wanted to let you know, so that you could avoid the area. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
“Listen, Yusuf. You need to watch your back.”
“What do you mean?”
“I saw data today that proves that the Cairo cell of the organization we’re dealing with has close ties with our Ministry of Internal Affairs Intelligence Bureau Headquarters.”
“So what? We both know the fundamentalists have been infiltrating agencies for years.”
“Just watch your back.”
“Thanks for the warning.”
Zeki hung up, walked over to the table closest to the check-in desk and sat down with his back to the wall. He didn’t know whether the man posing as Father Franchini would be wearing his collar or not, so he wanted to be able to hear him ask for the reference number. He opened one of the books and began to wait. He didn’t have to wait long.
Ten minutes later, he saw a man dressed as a Catholic priest step through the door. Zeki guessed he was in his mid-fifties. A pair of wire-rimmed glasses perched precariously on a Roman nose. At least, that is what it would have been called in the West, but his nose was also quintessential Ottoman Sultan. The marriage history of the Ottoman Sultans flashed through his mind. With only one exception, the mother of every sultan had been a foreigner, sometimes Greek, sometimes Slav, yet a man would have to be ignorant of Mendel’s law to think that after five generations there was much Turkish blood left in the line at all. Maybe it was a Roman or Greek nose after all. He had obviously been chosen as the person who looked the most like the real Father Franchini and a low-resolution security camera might never be able to tell the difference. He was well-built and obviously very fit. He wore a loose fitting black jacket. Zeki knew it had to hold some book meant to replace the gospel of Barnabas.
Though he felt certain this was his man, Zeki only made his move when he heard him ask the attendant for Codex 2662. This was his man. Zeki punched the speed dial for Gilbert’s number and terminated the call after the first ring. Then, he stood up and called out to the man before the attendant could return with the manuscript he had requested.
“Good morning, Father Franchini.”
The man turned around with a dumbstruck look on his face, but he quickly erased the surprise from his face.
“Good morning.”
Zeki beckoned with his hand and pointed to the empty chair across from him. The man approached the table slowly and suspiciously.
“Do I know you?”
“You probably don’t remember me, but I was in a class you taught at the seminary,” continued Zeki. “I almost didn’t recognize you. It’s been fifteen years. Please sit down.”
He extended his hand across the table. The man took it and stammered…
“Uh, forgive me, I’m not that good with names, or faces for that matter. What class were you in?”
“It was a course on the History of Islam.”
“I remember the class, but I’m afraid there were too many students for me to remember them all,” he lied.
“I understand. It’s impossible to remember everyone. Your classes were so popular. Our class must have had over one hundred students. Anyway, I just wanted to thank you. Your description of Molla Kabiz as the Luther that Islam never had, and the light you shed on Sheikh Bedreddin literally changed my life. Were it not for that class, I’m sure I would have ever been another mindless Muslim zombie. You released me from the chains of civil religion. You awakened my mind to how it preys on man’s search for the eternal, turning it into a mechanism of social control and political gain. You saved my soul, sir. I will be forever indebted to you.”
He could tell the man was struggling to maintain his composure. Zeki wondered if the man had ever heard of Molla Kabiz and how long he would try to keep up the pretense of being Father Franchini.
“Well, I’m glad to know that my teaching did not fall entirely on deaf ears.”
“What brings you to Augustinerlesesaal
?
” asked Zeki.
The man pointed back to the check-out counter behind him.
“I’m here to check out a rare manuscript for some research I’m doing with the Vatican.”
“Which one?”
“The Gospel of Barnabas.”
“Surely there is a copy at the Vatican you could have worked with,” replied Zeki.
“Actually, the earliest extant copy is the one here in the National Library of Austria,” the man replied.
“You mean the
only
extant manuscript,” Zeki said casually. “I mean, we can hardly count the Spanish version found in Australia since it only contains half of the text.”
Zeki could see panic slowly starting to rise in the man’s eyes.
“Original research?” continued Zeki.
“Yes, you could say that.”
“Something has always puzzled me about the Gospel of Barnabas,” said Zeki.
“What is that?”
“The authorship,” replied Zeki. “Who do you think wrote it?”
The man cleared his throat.
“Well, I don’t think we can say with certainty,” he replied.
“Really?” asked Zeki leaning back in his chair and feigning utter astonishment. “I find that mind-boggling, coming from a man of your training and background.”
“And why is that?”
“Because you know it isn’t true.”
The man looked offended.
“Excuse me, Mr . . . What did you say your name was?
“Zeki,” he replied. “In fact, I’m surprised you don’t remember me. I must have been one of the few Turkish students studying at the Vatican.”
The man’s eyes became furtive.