Lale and Elle had giggled, but the man simply bent at the knees and looked right at Emre’s daughter, took her hand, and said, “Why yes, Ayla, I am. That okay?”
She’d frowned and stared at him. “My auntie says you are a nice man. That she will marry you.” At that, Emre had to walk out. It was too much. Elle followed him, settled him at the table and put a beer in front of him.
“Drink. Then get a shower. Then eat. We can’t do anything more now but pack anyway, right?”
He grunted, sucked back half the beer in one pull, and refused to listen to the gargantuan Greek-defiler of his only sister charm his daughter into delighted giggles. Elle glared at him until he shut his eyes, ignoring her.
Andreas watched Lale’s brother watching him. He smiled, kept his face neutral, didn’t rise to the bait being offered. Nope. He had zero beef with this man. He obviously had a good life, was good-looking, for a Turk, and had a beautiful, charming and successful wife and two lovely children. But his life was falling apart in front of him over this strangeness with his missing brother, his dying father. He channeled his own brotherly inclinations, recalled how he’d felt meeting his own sister’s fiancé for the first time. It was hate at first sight and not because the asshole had been wearing a Dallas Cowboys sweatshirt either. He still barely tolerated the jerk, who was a superb provider for his family and great guy by anyone’s standards—except his, as a brother.
So yeah, he got it. Let the guy stare at him all he wanted. Elle plunked a plate of sandwich ingredients on the island behind her husband, breaking up their little moment. Andreas took a deep breath and sip of beer, grateful it had passed. He sensed Lale come up behind him and his chest loosened a little. She put her hand on his shoulder. He took it, kissed and put it back, never taking his eyes from her brother’s stormy face.
“You haven’t congratulated me yet, Emre.” Lale grabbed Andreas’s beer and took a drink.
He cleared his throat, and she looked at him. He shook his head nearly imperceptibly but she got the message. She smiled, kissed his cheek, and moved around to help Elle finish getting food ready, dropping the potential confrontation with her brother. Emre watched her and then stared at Andreas. Andreas raised one eyebrow, ready to have any discussion his fiancé’s brother wanted to have with him. But Emre just rolled his eyes and stalked out. It was fine. Plenty of time for family bonding later no doubt.
A small tug at his arm made him look around and down. “Hey, I didn’t know there was a fairy princess in here. Lale, shame on you for not telling me. Look! Here she is now.” He grinned down at the admittedly beautiful little girl who’d gotten dressed up in her best pink ballet tutu, plastic crown, high tops, and sunglasses.
She used the wand trailing ribbons to tap his knee. “Pick me up.”
“Ayla.” Lale had warning in her voice. “Don’t be bossy to our guest.”
“He’s not a guest. He’s a giant, and he’s going to be Mr. Auntie Tulip, and I want a ride on his shoulders.” Andreas’s genuine laugh at the little girl’s arm-crossed attitude made the women smile, and for that he was grateful. He was pretty sure there would not be much smiling going on in the weeks to come.
***
Lale was sound asleep on one side of his lap, her niece curled up in his other arm, snoring away by the time he saw Emre again. He’d obviously showered, but not shaved, the dark growth on his face not hiding the gaunt, haunted look he wore. Andreas’s heart went out to him. What a cock up, truly. Emre dropped into a large chair opposite the blank television and stared at it as though it was broadcasting an Academy Award winning documentary on economics or whatever the fuck it was he was some kind of brainiac at, according to Lale.
Andreas let the silence spin out between them. What could he say that would matter at this point anyway? He wasn’t quite certain what the sleeping arrangements would be tonight and was about to reach for his phone and book a hotel when his future brother-in-law spoke.
“So, how does a first-generation Greek end up an NFL star anyway?”
“I was adopted from an Athens orphanage when I was seven by a second gen family living in Arizona. Both were college professors, classic languages and music. Neither played a lick of sports. But they were bound and determined for me to have the classic all-American boyhood. So I played it all. If there was a ball, I threw, caught, tossed, hit, dunked it until I grew to this height as a senior in high school and discovered my apparent talent for tackling.”
“Huh.”
“Yeah. I loved it. And it paid the bills, up to a point. But I sort of liked my brain in the condition I started with and decided the NFL was just too dangerous after a few seasons.”
Ayla shifted and muttered in her sleep. He gently laid her down onto the pillow at the other end of the couch, putting his other arm on Lale’s hip. “Before you ask, I’ve been married. Divorced for nearly three years now. I’m AD at UNLV and, actually, need to get back there. I won’t be coming with you to Turkey.”
Emre shot him a look, as in “who invited you?” Andreas took it in stride. “I’ll give you and Elle my numbers though. If things go really badly, please let me know, and I’ll be on the first flight out.”
Lale pushed herself up off his thigh, her eyes sleepy but angry. “What? I thought you would….”
Emre interrupted her. “Lale, the man has a job. He said it himself.”
“Shut up, Emre.” Lale rubbed her eyes as she spoke. Andreas raised an eyebrow at her as she got to her bare feet. He crossed his legs ankle over knee and stretched his long arms out on top of the couch. She narrowed her eyes at him. He kept his gaze neutral. She turned and pulled her brother up from his chair. “I’m sorry.” Andreas smiled as she buried her face in his chest. Emre seemed shocked at first, kept his arms down before hugging her back, and kissing the top of her head.
“It’s okay.” Emre gave Andreas a searching look over the top of Lale’s head. She sniffled and extracted herself.
“Andreas.” Her voice was sweet but he heard what was underneath and braced himself.
“Yes, dear heart.”
“May I speak with you? In private?” She turned on her heel and walked down the hall. The slam of a door made both men jump and stare at each other. Andreas stood, put his hands in pockets.
“May I?” It was Emre’s house. If he didn’t want his sister alone in her bedroom with a man not yet her husband, well, that was his prerogative.
Emre laughed. “She’s all yours, my Greek brother. All yours.” He indicated with his hand the way down the hall to the source of the noise. “Something tells me you can handle it.”
Andreas stopped and gripped Emre’s shoulder. “Emre. I am here for you. For all of you. But I have a serious crisis brewing back at UNLV. I can’t say much more, but…. Well, let’s just say it’s a potential big time news mess and I need to nip it in the bud.”
Emre crossed his arms and gave him a genuine smile. “It’s fine. I’ll be sure and call you the minute we hear anything.”
“This thing…it’s horrible. But hopefully you can all get through it, as a family.”
Emre nodded and ran a hand down his face. He was carrying the weight of this entire family on his shoulders and Andreas knew it was only going to get worse. He wished like hell he could accompany them. Take some of it, for Lale’s sake. But he couldn’t. Not this week.
“Andreas!” The undertone was obvious. Get your ass in here or else. Andreas shrugged. She had every right to be upset. And he was proud of how she had handled herself so far. It hurt his heart to leave her now, but, as soon as he could, he’d fly to Istanbul and be by her side to face whatever there was left to face. Emre grinned at him again before he ambled down the wide hallway, knocked gently on the door and called out. “Precious Tulip? You called?”
Her hand reached out, grabbed his shirt, and yanked him inside before he could say another word.
Chapter Nine
The nightmare. Vivian couldn’t struggle out of it. No matter how many times she yelled herself awake, or splashed water on her face, or screamed in agony, it kept going. The sight of the tall handsome blond man at her door, his broad shoulders slumped, his eyes red with huge dark circles, strong jaw covered with the beginnings of a red tinged beard made her collapse into a chair by the door. Caleb was immediately by her side, dropping his briefcase and luggage in the hall. She gripped his hands.
“You’re freezing, Vivian.” His voice was hoarse. “C’mon, let’s get some tea.” She let him pull her to her feet, fold her into his side.
They sat together in the huge living room. Photos from Emre’s wedding, including the one of Caleb, Tarkan, and Lale, stared down at them. Neither of them spoke. There were no words. But she had to admit, simply having him there helped. The doorbell rang. It was about to get very real. She shut her eyes, then opened them, and watched Caleb stride to the door, let in the three uniformed men. Their low voices mingled in her brain. She was going to have to translate. She wasn’t quite sure she could do that, given that details of the translation concerned her son, his likely death, much later and more painful than they had first thought it to be over two years ago.
She stood as they entered, their dress uniform hats under their arms, dark eyes deadly serious. Vivian had a brief, wild inclination to curse, yell, rip the stupid ribbons from the fronts of their perfectly starched uniforms. God
damn
them. They’d left her son in the hands of those animals. Paid no attention to any hints that the terrorists had more than “mere” death and destruction in their game plan. She clenched her teeth, let Caleb put an arm around her and introduce her. Then they sat, ready for the worst.
The oldest one of them pulled a thick folder from his briefcase and opened it on the table in front of her. Caleb cleared his throat at the sight of an empty, filthy room, with a bit of straw in one corner covered by some kind of thin blanket. A half broken chair was the only other thing she could see. She looked closely and found that the brown dirt on the concrete was actually blood, lots and lots of blood. The younger officer snapped the folder shut and glared at his superior who sat back in his chair with his eyes hooded, his hands tented in front of his face.
From there she translated the family’s wishes. All possible means of search and rescue was to be undertaken for Lieutenant Tarkan Deniz. Immediately. She let Caleb say the words but her voice was firm and classroom perfect in translation.
Excuses, explanations, and other bullshit were slung around. The pictures hauled out again, the piles of bodies Tarkan had apparently left behind, including a young woman whose throat had been cut. When told she had been nearly six months pregnant, Vivian had to stand and excuse herself. Caleb followed her out.
“My Tarkan, he would not kill a woman like that. He could not.” She paced the hallway, jerking out of Caleb’s attempts to hold her. “You know this. Not our Tarkan.” Her skin was on fire, then freezing, then itchy all at once. She couldn’t suffer those military assholes in her house another minute, clutched Caleb’s arm. “Get them out of here. Please. I can’t stand it.”
“Shh, I know. I just need a few more pieces of information. You go, sit in the kitchen with
Buyuk Anne
.” Vivian nodded. Her poor mother-in-law was stone deaf and about eighty percent senile. She had no idea what was happening nor would anyone tell her. It would kill her. Let her think the family was converging as though by happy coincidence.
Caleb gnawed the inside of his ragged cheek again, watching Vivian’s wobbly route down the steps to the large kitchen. Once he heard her loudly greeting
Buyuk Anne
, he took a deep breath and went back to face an even harder reality than what Tarkan’s mother suspected.
“Tell me exactly what happened here.” He pointed to the dead woman. The gruesome sight of her slit throat did nothing to mar the beauty of her face, even in death. Caleb swallowed hard.
The youngest man leaned forward and stuck out his hand. “I’m Major Bulent Evin. I know your friend Adem Broussard. We grew up together. He called me this morning to make sure I accompanied the group here.”
Caleb nodded, not trusting his voice. Bulent’s odd combination of French-Turkish accented English was broken but between them he understood the committee investigating the incident since the ransom notice was received nearly fourteen days ago, had been all over the site of Tarkan’s hostage prison home. It was in the unofficial Kurdish nation; the remote, god-forsaken portion of border between Turkey and Iraq that neither country gave a shit about, it was so desolate. Bulent cleared his throat. Caleb gave him a small nod, indicating he wanted the whole story and would translate the necessary details to those family members who needed them.
“Lt. Deniz had been targeted for turning, as a spy. He was subjected to water boarding, dental manipulation, sensory overload and deprivation, starvation, and electroshocks, designed to break his will and make him reach out to bond with a member of their group. A female.” Caleb put a hand over his eyes. Bulent continued, his monotone voice providing vivid and horrific details of torture sessions alternating with days of complete isolation and hunger. “About a year ago, the woman was brought in. Helped him, fed him, gave him, ah, comfort.” Bulent put a hand on Caleb’s shoulder. “They didn’t know him very well, but they do understand human psyche. Knew that he’d be broken enough to form a bond with her.”
Caleb jumped up and walked to the wall of windows overlooking the water separating Europe from Asia. “Go on.” His voice stayed low. While inside he screamed with frustration.
“We believe that the woman was turned. That she actually bonded with him as well. About ten days ago, there was a shoot out here, in the compound. We arrived five days ago, and were able to surmise that Lt. Deniz had escaped but is injured, likely from a gunshot wound. We tracked him for about fifty miles when the trail went cold.”
“And the woman? He didn’t kill her did he?”