A Deceit to Die For (33 page)

“What are the numbers at the bottom?”

“That is a date using the Muslim calendar. It is September 19, 1736 on the Gregorian calendar.”

Brittany looked down at the document and murmured to herself.

“So, you have a document that refers to Istanbul and a city in North Africa prominently featuring a virtually universal self-consuming snake called Ouroboros combined with a Muslim symbol, and it was written during the 18th century when the Ottoman Empire was in full-blown decline. Interesting . . .”

“Interesting. Yes, but Dad must have found something here, something important. Why does someone want to steal this document?”
How can I ever hope to make the connections or have the insights he did?

She checked the despair she felt rising up in her. There was no time for it. She had to find out what it was her dad had suspected.

“What about ‘son of prophet’? Any idea what that is referring to?” asked Brittany.

“I researched that all day yesterday. Obviously, it is the key point of the text, what the author wanted to get rid of. A search on the Internet returns plenty of Old Testament verses and Islamic sites. I waded through them for hours, looking for clues and hoping the answer would jump off of the screen. It didn’t.”

“Well, I took the day off. What do you say we tackle it together? Let me get my laptop out of the car. You keep looking at that angle and I’ll research some others.”

One pot of coffee and several hours later, Gwyn pushed back from the desk in frustration.

“We’re no closer than when we started. I’ve searched ‘son of prophet’ with every combination of Tunis, Istanbul,
Südde-i Saadet
, sunrise, English, council and everything else only to find nothing. I’m beginning to think that maybe Google isn’t the omniscient Prime Mover of cyber space after all.”

Her phone rang. She looked at the screen. It was a 214 number, but there was no name. She looked at the clock. It was already almost three o’clock in the afternoon. They had been so absorbed in their research they had lost track of time and forgotten lunch.

“Hello.”

“Hello, may I speak with Gwyndolyn O’Brien please?”

The voice sounded familiar.

“Speaking, and who, may I ask, are you?”

“It has been a long time, so I am not surprised that you don’t recognize me. This is Dr. Zeki Öztürk.”

“Dr. Öztürk? Oh my gosh. I am sorry I didn’t recognize your voice. Are you in Dallas?”

“Yes, I am. I have business here this week. Gwyndolyn, a friend of mine at the conference in London this week phoned to tell me about your father’s death. I wanted to call and convey my condolences. I am truly sorry. Your father was a great scholar, and a great man.”

“That is very kind of you. I appreciate it very much.”

“I am free tomorrow morning and wondered if I could stop by? I have a few old manuscripts I had planned on giving to your father, and I would still like to pass them on to you.”

“That’s very thoughtful. I don’t know what to say.”

“I would like to know that they are included in the works he spent his life putting together. It would mean a great deal to me if they were in his collection, whatever library it ends up in. If it is not convenient, I can mail them, but it would be nice to see you again.”

“No, that’s fine. Come on out. Do you have a car?”

“I’m renting one for the week. If you give me the address, I’m sure the GPS can get me there.”

“Okay, it is 1900 FM 1536, Tira. That is past Greenville and just north of Sulphur Springs, so you’ll take I-30 most of the way.”

“That should be easy. What time is convenient for you?”

“Anytime is fine. I’ll be here all day.”

“Then I will try to be there between 10:00 and 11:00 in the morning.”

“Great, I look forward to seeing you.”

“Me too. Take care.”

“Bye, now.”

“Bye.”

Gwyn hung up the phone.

“Who was that?”

“Just a colleague of my father’s. Let’s grab something to eat,” she said heading for the kitchen. “I’m starving.”

“I’d love to stay, but I promised Mom I’d stop by this afternoon and I still have to go shopping. But I can come back tomorrow.”

They hugged again at the door. Gwyn watched as her childhood friend climbed into a white Ford dually. It was a different world out here. When she was gone, she turned back inside and went to the kitchen. As she opened the refrigerator, she stopped and stood there for a minute, puzzling over how Zeki had gotten her telephone number.

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D
ALLAS,
T
EXAS
 
Zeki hung up the payphone and looked out over the airport. He had studied the layout as an exercise in breaking airport security towards the end of his career with MIT. It was the world’s third largest airport and boasted the largest number of non-intersecting runways. North Texas was the quintessential land of big sky. The second floor of the concourse made him feel like he was on top of a small mountain. It redefined flat. From the VIP lounge, he had a 360 degree view and visibility was unlimited by anything except the curvature of the earth.

When he walked out of customs into the waiting area of terminal D, he found himself surrounded by members of the USO greeting several hundred soldiers returning from duty in the Middle East. He had often been in such close proximity with the forces of empire. He had never gotten used to it. These men were being hailed as returning heroes after killing who knew how many innocent Muslim women and children. It was wrong that they should live in peace and security while freedom fighters around the Muslim world were afraid to even use a cell phone for fear that their house would be hit by a cruise missile or a smart bomb from an unmanned drone.

Part of him knew that these men were merely unwitting slaves projecting the power of the global elite and that his anger should not be directed at them. Yet, without them the global elite had no teeth.
How can they be so blind!
The ruling powers legitimized their actions by paying off or acquiring the “free press”. As a result, the sacrifices of life and limb were borne bravely and with honor. It was a charade, and the superman costume donned by western democracies had grown threadbare, no longer able to conceal its corpulence, its festering sores, its moral depravity. No matter, these so-called empires were nothing more than a morning vapor. This one would be no different.
They inevitably collapse under the weight of their own corruption and hubris
.

He picked up his bag and walked along the row of windows towards the Avis kiosk. A stubby white woman greeted him with a smile. She was young, apparently too young to realize that no amount of foundation could hide her blotchy red skin or the chicken-pox pattern of pimples that covered her face. Five minutes later, the paperwork was finished, and he was asked to take a seat. His car would arrive shortly. It was another ten minutes before the Avis desk manager, overweight and sweating, walked through the door to his left. The smile on his face had melted from the heat.

“Mister, huh, I’m not sure I can pronounce your last name.”

“Çölasan.”

“Mr. Chorlashen, your car is just outside. Here are the keys and a copy of the rental agreement. Can I help you with your bag?”

“No, thank you. It is quite light. What’s the temperature outside?”

“It’s supposed to hit 107° today, but it seems hotter than that already. Are you here on business or pleasure?”

“Hopefully both,” replied Zeki with a smile as he took the keys.

“Very well, then. I hope you enjoy your stay in Dallas.”

“I intend to.”

Zeki walked outside into a veritable blast furnace. A lidless nuclear blaze streamed unhindered through a cloudless blue sky, turning the concrete into a gray charcoal that furnished heat for the Texas sauna. The heat waves rising off the concrete made anything over fifty yards away look blurry. The lady had assured him that the air conditioner was ice-cold. He quickly threw his bag into the passenger seat and cranked the car. Then he turned on the Magellan GPS and typed in 1900 FM 1536, Tira, Texas. Technology made everything so much easier.

Now, all he had to do was obtain a weapon, which, in Texas, would be as easy as finding a Qur’an in Saudi Arabia. America’s obsession with weapons was no secret. It was part of the national psychology—something that had been passed down from the pioneers and was now an intrinsic part of the national conscience. He remembered how an intelligence officer had told his class during training years ago that private citizens in America owned more than two hundred and fifty million firearms. They had all been appalled. The officer’s words still rang in his head. ‘It’s called a standing army, boys. Now, you know why they can afford to have an all-volunteer army. The enlisted men run the big toys—fly the planes, launch the missiles, sail the fleet. The infantry is the citizenry.’ In Turkey, a rifled barrel was prohibited, and gun-control laws were strict. The Americans might be a hornet’s nest if stirred, but they certainly made his job much easier.

Three hours later another Turk, named Hasan, travelling on a passport issued to Tugrul, would arrive on a flight from Munich to join his teammate already in the country. The mission was simple, so simple, in fact, that he felt it quite beneath his training. A single woman on a farm in the country, untrained, unsuspecting and unarmed. There was no risk. His partner was one of the best. The orders had been simple too. ‘Don’t screw it up. Use any means or force necessary to retrieve the document and all copies. Subject the woman to forceful interrogation and then dispose of her discreetly.’

CHAPTER
29

No one noticed the light blue Ford driving up and down FM 1536. Nor did anyone notice that it was left parked in front of the community center in the Texas village of Tira, or that the driver emerged in Army camos carrying a black bag. It was too hot to notice things like that. People didn’t go outside in this heat. They didn’t even sit by the window. It was too depressing.

It had taken Zeki a little over two hours to reach the address Gwyn had provided. He scouted the area for another thirty minutes in the car and used Google Earth to memorize several different aerial profiles—a one-square-mile layout complete with terrain, fence-rows, nearby houses and bodies of water, a five-square-mile aerial with every single county road and highway, and then a fifty-square-mile satellite picture to plan alternate escape routes.

The heat was beyond stifling. A gentle breeze from the south blew in enough Gulf moisture to raise the heat index several degrees. He was drenched in sweat by the time he reached the outskirts of the farm. When he was three hundred and fifty yards from the house, he compared the Google aerial image he had memorized with the landscape that lay before him, looking for the large tree he had identified. He needed a place that would provide cover and a clear line of sight to the main house and the cottage.

The only place that offered both was this tree, which, to his eye, was bizarre. It was covered with lime-green fruit the size of a grapefruit and the branches bowed practically to the ground. It was not ideal, but it was the only cover available. Who would dare to move in this heat anyway? The tree was located on a small knoll about fifty yards from the pond. Once he reached the tree, it would be a straight, unobstructed shot across the pond to the house and cottage. The only problem was that the tree was out in the open, which meant a belly crawl to get there. He had no time to waste. It was over a hundred yards away, and he knew that meant at least an hour’s worth of tedious snaking through the knee-high grass on his belly.