It looked like the sun would sink peacefully in a sea of turquoise in the next fifteen minutes. In truth, it was cornered and retreating before the threat of darkness. At least, this was how the man felt. Something was wrong. There was no reason anyone would have chosen this place for an exchange and yet they had. This night was not going to be peaceful. The disappearance of the sun would even the playing field. He hated an even playing field. He would not be in the fray, but his friends would be.
With the monocular in his right hand, he zoomed in on the dirt road on the other end of the beach. It led to a rock quarry and was the only other way a land vehicle could access the beach. The road had been quiet. Nobody moved in the heat, especially during the fast. Only an occasional truck loaded with rock crawled along the road, raising a cloud of dust behind it.
He scanned the woods on the hill overlooking the beach. He had spent more time looking at that hill than he had the beach. Nothing was going to happen on the beach until sunset. If they already had company, it would be on the hill. He had looked in vain for any hint of movement. If there were a sniper or a lookout, they would need a break in the trees to see the beach. There was a small opening near the top, but nothing stirred. So, he turned his attention back to the sandy strip. The family had packed up and was heading back to their car. The teenagers were out of the water too. From their gesturing and pointing to the east, it was obvious they could see the storm rolling in from the east.
Good, maybe this will encourage them to leave instead of using the cover of darkness and an empty beach as an excuse to consummate their flirting.
The radio in his left hand moved to his mouth.
“Eagle’s Nest, This is Hummingbird. Everything’s quiet. No sign of either party.”
“Things should pick up any minute now. Let us know as soon as you see anything.”
><><><
The small red dot had been creeping across the screen of her smart phone for almost two hours. For now, the red dot was synonymous with Gilbert, but once the canister was handed off, she knew she would be watching the terrorists. She kept Gary updated on the progress as he struggled to find the proper dose of aggression and keep the minivan moving through the congested Istanbul traffic. Just when it had seemed that the red dot would plunge headlong into the Black Sea, it came to a stop.
“Well, at least he made it on time,” said Gwyn, looking at her watch. “I wish one of us had gone with Gilbert,” she said for the fifth time. “When that red dot starts moving again, all we will know is that these lunatics have the document. We won’t know if Gilbert and Ginger are safe, if their bodies were left lying on the beach or if they’ve all been whisked away.”
“He had to go alone, Gwyn. You know that. Let’s just find the shopping mall. This will go down quickly. We’re meeting them in a little over an hour.”
Gary had gone over the plan with her a dozen times. It was amazing, ingenious, and precise, which was exactly what bothered her. Normal people couldn’t throw this sort of thing together on the fly. He had whipped up the plan in less than half an hour, run into a couple of shops for the supplies and stuffed them into his backpack. That was it. Mission planned if not yet accomplished.
She looked out the window. Pine trees with a peculiar orange bark blocked her view. The monotony of the trees whizzing past had a hypnotic effect, creating a mental wind that whisked flimsy, extraneous thoughts from her mind like a March windstorm rips towels off a prairie clothesline. She wanted to think about something trivial, about planning a shopping trip with a girlfriend, treating herself to a home-cooked Thai meal or lounging in a hot bath with a good book until her skin got wrinkly. But she couldn’t.
All she could think about was saying goodbye to Matt at the hotel. It wasn’t anything like their parting several years ago. That had been different. It had been hard, but it had been right, too. This time it all seemed so wrong. He had changed. She wasn’t sure exactly what the change meant, but after their last conversation, she had convinced herself to take a chance and find out. Now, he was gone again, carried off by a riptide of misfortune, an evil conjuncture. Her whole future was suddenly a black abyss opening up in front of her, and she was being inexorably carried forward by a current she couldn’t resist.
No blueberry farm in east Texas, no settling down, no getting to know her mother’s family, no quiet, peaceful life . . .
She had put Matt out of her mind for years. She had thought she was over him. It was time to face the truth. She wasn’t. She still loved his razor-sharp wit, the way he tackled problems head-on and his strong convictions, even when they were wrong. She loved his strong arms wrapped around her waist, his roaring laughter and sense of purpose. She thought back to their last few minutes together in front of the hotel.
Matt had told Gary he wanted to meet Angela and help her find her sister, so Gary had given him the girl’s phone number and a picture of the two sisters. Gwyn couldn’t help but feel a twinge of jealousy when she realized that Matt was literally walking off into the sunset to help another girl. She saw the picture when Gary took it out of his wallet. Both of the girls were gorgeous. Then, Matt had turned to her, given her a peck on the cheek and squeezed her hand. He hadn’t said a word.
What was there to say?
She knew this had been her cue to respond in a way that would give him hope, but she had just sat there, unable to move, frozen by the black winds swirling around her. Ginger’s kidnapping, her father’s death, the prospect of a life in hiding . . . Now, this unexpected reconnection with the man she had thought was gone forever had slipped away. She had not given him any sign that her feelings might have changed.
“So, Zeki didn’t say when he’d meet us?” she asked.
“Nope. All he said was that his plan had worked and he’d see us soon.”
“And he didn’t say where?”
“Nope.”
“How are we going to get in touch with him?”
Gary was silent for a moment. He hated the thought of hiding anything from her, but it was too soon. There were still too many unknowns.
“He said to text him.”
“Is he going to be here to help us get out of the country?”
Her nerves were getting raw.
“Gwyn, we’ve already gone over this.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not very satisfied. Matt’s rented a boat. We’re going to cross the Sea of Marmara and navigate the straits of Gallipoli to the Aegean, where we’ll just putt about until somebody comes up with a plan?”
“You can’t risk any border checkpoints. Ginger and the kids don’t have ID.”
“So, why isn’t that the first thing we do?”
“Because it’s too risky to be in Turkey one minute longer than we have to. Zeki said the group has many sympathizers with the local police. He’s convinced they will have government agencies searching for us.”
“And so just how are we going to manage the ID on a boat in the Aegean? Let’s just go to the US Embassy. Surely, we’d be safe there.”
“I’m not so sure. Matt thinks the Interpol bulletin issued for Gilbert is almost iron-clad proof that this group is manipulating people within our own government.”
“That’s hard to believe. You said yourself that Gilbert probably crossed a line in that deal.”
“Yeah, but somebody has known about that for weeks or months. Don’t you find it strange that the Interpol bulletin was only issued after Gilbert disappeared?”
Gwyn’s face said it all. She didn’t find anything strange anymore. This realization was what prompted him to share with her what he had shared with no one else.
“Gwyn, have you ever felt like you had a premonition?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean have you ever had the feeling that something really bad was going to happen?”
“Only every day of the past week,” she retorted wryly. “Don’t tell me you have a bad feeling about how all of this is going to turn out. I don’t think I could take that right now.”
“No, that’s not what I’m talking about. I mean, it may be related but not directly.” He stopped for a moment. How could he make her understand what he meant? “I’m talking about an experience, a hearing, a seeing, a knowing that you’ve been given a glimpse of the future, that the limitations of time and space were lifted, and that you saw truth, naked and dangerous, beautiful and pristine, horrible and full of despair.”
Gwyn turned to look at her brother. His face was harder and at the same time more sensitive than it had been when he left home. He was different, but how? She couldn’t put her finger on it.
“No, I can’t say that I have. Do you want to tell me about it?”
“I want to understand it, to know if it’s real, to figure out if I’m going crazy.”
“What do you mean?”
“I had a disturbing dream the night Dad died. Of course, at the time, I didn’t even know he had passed away. But, after Gilbert called me and before I flew to London, I felt like I had to talk to a friend of mine in Istanbul, an imam, who befriended me and taught me some important things. It was too late to see him, of course, but I walked by the mosque on my way home anyway. Imagine my surprise when I found him sitting at the door waiting for me. It was weird and it just got weirder. Before I could say a word about my dream, he stared into my eyes and said, ‘A black noose of evil is tightening around you and your family, but do not be afraid, for you know that darkness can never overcome the light.’ At the time, none of us could have known that any of this was going to happen. It was like he had divine insight.”
Gwyn stared at her brother in shock. The thought that her own brother, her own flesh and blood, her childhood friend, could have anything in common with the people who had killed her father and kidnapped Ginger and the kids paralyzed her. Gary continued.
“Then, I told him my dream, how I had heard the sounds of cathedral bells, Buddhist gongs, the call to prayer sounded from minarets, a Jewish shofar, the chanting of African witch doctors, Hindu hymns . . . Before I was finished, he was down on his knees weeping. He said he had had the same dream for months but had no idea what it meant. People don’t have the same dreams, Gwyn. That’s not possible.”
“No, I suppose it isn’t,” she replied tersely.
“Then, when I was in London, right after we thought that Zeki had killed you, I had an even more intense replay of the same dream, except this time I was wide awake. The whole world was in chaos—protests, war, famine, civil unrest, rioting . . . It was crazy. But, the worst part was the presence of evil, personal, malicious, intentional evil. I’ve never experienced anything like it.”
He took his eyes off the traffic long enough to look at Gwyn. She was staring straight ahead, tight-lipped and silent.
“Gwyn?”
“I don’t know what it means either, Gary, and to be honest, right now, I don’t care.”
“I understand,” he said. “I just thought it would help to share it, and you’re about the only one I can do that with, the only one who ever really cared about what I thought. I appreciate everything you did for me after Mom died. I know I probably didn’t express that.”
“No, you didn’t.”
Tears started streaming down her face. She turned away in an attempt to hide them.
“What’s wrong, Gwyn?”
Without turning to face him, she said, “You’ve just reminded me of the only premonition I ever had.”
“What was that?”
“The feeling I had when you left for India, an unspeakable dread that you were leaving and would never come back the same.”
“No one ever stays the same, Gwyn.”
“You know that’s not what I mean.”
“Let’s assume I don’t.”
Gary saw their exit coming up, put on his turn signal and began to move the minivan slowly towards the solid line of cars in the right lane. He knew the only way was to muscle his way in.