Texas Tango: A Flint Rock Novel (11 page)
"Why would he be in my room?
I am completely stumped."
"Maybe he is looking for Dr. Ava and thinks she is likely to be where you are."
"Could he have planted some sort of location transmitting device?
Maybe I am just not seeing it.”
“Maybe.
Look at your luggage again.
See if the hinges or handle or rollers or zipper pull look like they might be new,” she suggested.
“I’m looking now,” he replied.
“Everything looks absolutely normal.”
Then he picked up the small, Mexican leather carryon, looked at every seam, every scratch.
“I don’t see a thing different.
And he might not need anything more than my phone’s GPS to track me anyhow.”
“That’s true.
I track you that way if I need to help you."
They hung up.
Flint opened his door to Ava's soft knock.
She was in a different skirt and sweater, looking stunning.
He motioned her in, told her about his visit from Mohammed Abida Bahaar.
"You ever heard of him?" he asked.
"I have," Ava replied.
Flint waited for more.
"The year I spent in India, I heard whispers of several kinds.
That he is a messiah and that he is Satan and that he is a strategically smart opportunist.
"Would that be the same thing as Satanic?"
"I suppose it might be.
Depends on what force he is an opportunist on behalf of."
"Ever meet him?"
"Once at my teacher's house.
At a reception.
He watched me for an hour, but I spoke only superficially with him and always in the presence of others.
Then about a month ago, one of his emissaries called to invite me to Houston for a party in his honor.
I had a full slate of patients scheduled so I declined."
"Nothing since?"
"I had an email from the assistant who called me about the Houston party.
I assumed that it was a pro forma follow up.
I replied courteously."
Flint thought about it.
"We have unfinished business to take care of before we get involved with Mohammed Bahaar," he said.
"There is the third assassin still at large.
Do you think it is safe for you to call Gina and ask if she has any suggestions about where to find him?"
"I can try," Ava replied.
She took Flint's phone from him and dialed using skype.
She spoke briefly in Italian, then listened, then said "ciao."
Ava looked at Flint.
"She said that Freddy has already taken care of the problem."
As she handed Flint's phone back, it signaled a call.
"Hello," Flint said.
"I want to speak with Dr. Ava Milan."
The accent was different, very cultured but not the intonation of a western native English speaker.
"May I tell her who is calling?"
Flint said it as a reflex.
He already knew who was calling.
"My friends call me Mo Bahaar," the carefully articulated voice replied.
"You may speak with her after you tell me why you were in my room," Flint replied still holding the smart phone to his ear.
"I beg your pardon old boy.
You have me confused with someone else.
Why don't you be a good chap and hand her the phone.
She is just to your left."
Flint considered more repartee but he simply passed the handset to Ava.
She answered, looked surprised, listened, then pressed the off button.
"Mr. Bahaar informs me that my best interest will be served by my immediate presence in Athens.
He will call when I am there and give me further directions."
Ava stood motionless.
"Shall I go?'
Flint was looking around carefully as he wondered from what place they were being observed.
It was dusk and fog was already forming.
He could feel Ava looking scared.
"Do you think Mary might lend us her Sabreliner?" he asked.
Because his question assumed he would go as well, Ava regained her confidence and said, "I can ask."
She called, explained briefly to Mary, then looked at Flint and smiled.
"You must have really impressed her.
She says she has not let anyone else fly it, but
it's
okay with her for you to take it.
She said to tell you Semper Fi.”
Forty-five minutes later, Ava and Flint had paid for their rooms at the Bristol, quickly packed and grabbed a taxi, made the drive to the Naples airport.
While he scanned the panel as both engines fired up, Flint asked Ava to phone Zeta and tell her that he was filing an instrument flight plan to Athens.
An hour and twenty minutes later, Sabreliner Four Six Texas Tango was on short final for runway Three Left, Eleftherios Venizrlos International Airport, Athens, Greece.
Chapter 10
Flint landed Mary's Sabreliner in Athens eight and a quarter hours after a slender, attractive man wearing a turban stood up in the first class cabin of an Emirates Airlines Airbus 330 on the ramp at the same airport.
He had left Hyderabad, India at 4:10
A.M.
local time, changed planes four hours later at Dubai.
An elegantly lettered name tag on his high quality carryon read "Abdu Koriem."
Koriem slipped his tablet computer into its snug protective jacket as he stepped out of the plane into the jet way.
An hour later he was installed in a room at the Grand Bretagne Hotel, on Constitution Square, next to the parliament building, in downtown Athens.
After fourteen hours of traveling, Koriem took a long nap.
He awakened at 5:00
P.M.
Athens time, showered, then spent over two hours sitting tailor style on the floor meditating silently.
He repeated five holy names for over an hour,
then
silently chanted a specific mantra over and over.
He stood up at a minute before 8:00, glanced out of the window of his room, saw the acropolis and the Parthénon.
They looked a short distance away on a hill soaring above and commanding the whole city.
Koriem dressed, wound a fresh turban onto his head,
made
his way to the rooftop dining room for a pre ordered vegetarian meal.
He shared the elevator with a bronzed woman wearing a piece of casually draped white cloth almost large enough for Koriem to use as a turban.
As it barely hung on her body, the hem was radically uneven
,
A
rope like slice of the material made a strap over her right shoulder.
She met a handsome young man at the door to the rooftop restaurant.
They made their way to a small group in the far corner at a round table.
Champagne was their beverage.
A surreal view of the acropolis not far distant created an unforgettable impression.
As Abdu Koriem waited for the first course to be presented, his compact tablet computer signaled a phone call.
He spoke into the microphone on the ear bud cord that plugged into the side of his device.
He listened for nearly a minute,
then
hung up.
He caught the eye of his waiter, told him there would be two more for dinner.
The waiter nodded, went directly to the kitchen, returned shortly with sparkling water for Koriem.
He stood at a correct distance and stared discreetly away from anyone in the room.
He and Koriem waited.
Fifteen minutes later, the taxi driver stopped in front of the Bretagne, removed the ignition key and accompanied Flint and Ava to the front desk.
He wanted his $60 fare in drachmas, but Flint had not yet changed currency.
He handed the attractive woman at the front desk five U. S. $20 bills.
As the clerk counted out 247,612 drachmas, Ava looked at four athletic young men who walked confidently into the hotel.
None was over thirty years old or under 6'4" tall.
Their muscular legs were covered in white tights and Scottish looking knee socks.
They wore white fustanellas, short skirts with four hundred pleats each.
She assumed they were military.
Their Kalashnikovs and red wool berets said they were not to be messed with.
The taxi driver wanted to argue with Flint's 10 percent tip, but one of the four men in white skirts overheard and spoke forcefully in Greek to the driver.
The driver decided what Flint offered was just fine.
Flint thanked the officer as Ava led the way toward the elevator.
On the roof Ava made straight for Abdu Koriem.
He stood, bowed.
She hugged him strongly, introduced him to Flint.
"This is my eternal Sat Guru," she said to Flint after giving each man the other's name.
"He taught me the most important things I know, including hypnosis."
As Flint felt Abdu's powerful grip, he noticed a miniature being, about six inches tall, that appeared to be on Koriem's left shoulder near his ear.
Flint’s double take became more pronounced as he recognized the wispy likeness of his own mother, now deceased.
"Your mother and you," Abdu said with a faint smile, "were close.
But she died suddenly and you were not able to be physically present where she was.
However, you knew the exact instant when she left her mortal coil."
Abdu paused,
then
continued. "I am directed to tell you that everything was as it needed to be.
She is not only liberated for this lifetime but forever.
She will not be back in the temporary realm."
Flint seemed always to have a ready reply, but this time he was silent.
Abdu continued.
"You are wondering if what you saw on my shoulder near my left ear was real.
Put it this way.
Your mother did not assume a translucent body and talk to you.
She no longer exists as the personality you called mom.
However the message you have received is real and true.
The ultimate nature of reality caused you to see the likeness of your mother in her mid forties when you were seven years old."
Flint, Ava, and Abdu sat at the table.
The soup course arrived.
For the next hour, conversation never lagged.
Dessert was a delightful chocolate mousse, dark and not too sweet.
Then fruit, kiwi sliced and grapes.
Three kinds of cheese followed, but leftovers of the fruit stayed present as well.
Zagori sparkling water was replenished as needed.
Neither Ava nor Flint mentioned the phone call Ava had received on Flint's phone in the taxi coming from the airport.
Abdu took one final miniscule slice of a camembert type cheese, chewed and swallowed.
"You are here,” he said looking at Ava, “because you and I have a mutual acquaintance
whom
you as yet barely know."
Then he looked at Flint.
"Mohammed Bahaar has asked me to apologize to you for his incursion into your room and luggage.
He says that his great esteem for Ava caused him concern for her safety."