The burlap was darkly stained. Maybe with grease and oil, maybe with blood, it was hard to tell. There was a musty odor. Clearly, the package had been on the floor for a very long time. So long, that when my fingers finally parted the dark, sticky fabric, I was unprepared for what I saw.
Chapter 22
I expected to see shards of bone and desiccated flesh inside the burlap. But instead of skin and bone, I got rock. Because the arm in the burlap had been chiseled from marble. It belonged to a statue. A larger-than-life statue that resembled the sketch almost perfectly. The wiry guy picked up the end of the arm with the hand on it and I picked up the other. He made sure I had a grip on it and stepped away. Then he nodded politely, and thirty seconds later I was trying to look casual as I strapped a marble arm to the rack on the rear of the bike.
“How did you know?” I asked Meryem.
“A tip,” she said. “As I said, MIT has been looking for the Device for a very long time.”
I fired up the bike, Meryem hopping on behind me.
“Where to?”
“Now I think we see whether the arm fits.”
“Like I said, where?”
“I will show you. Go!”
We didn’t bother returning to the safe house. Meryem had a go-bag and I had my pack so we just followed the twisting Aegean coastline before heading south and finally east. We rode all day like that, with only a couple breaks for food and fuel, and soon the sun was setting on our backs. Meryem felt good on the back of the bike. She didn’t cling to me as I’m sure I had clung to her on the way down from Istanbul, but I knew she was there because I could feel her light touch on the seat behind me. She didn’t try to hold a conversation with me either, which I liked, because it made it less likely that she would discover that I was an impostor and try to shoot me in the head. Instead of talking, we got to know each other the old-fashioned way. I got the feel of her and she got the feel of me.
It was long past dark by the time we finally made it to the village of Geyre that evening. I was stiff and sore, and it was Meryem's tap on my shoulder that alerted me that we should pull over. She had told me that the tiny village was just outside Aphrodisias, an ancient Greek city, now an archeological site, known for its sculpture.
I slowed the bike to a crawl on the cracked pavement, dimly lit buildings lined either side of the street. The facades were completely open to the road and there were chairs and tables everywhere, men sitting in groups of three and four, talking and drinking chai. There was a mosque farther up the street, its minarets rising high into the night, and beside it was what looked like a spartan hotel sitting atop one of the teahouses. Meryem pointed the building out and I pulled the motorcycle to a stop in front of it, shutting down the engine and kicking it onto its stand.
“Ask for two rooms,” Meryem said.
“Have you heard my Turkish?”
“We are in a village. You are a man. In my country, it is better you speak.”
Meryem waited by the bike as I walked into the teahouse on the bottom floor of the hotel. A few men looked up at me, but not many. Then the proprietor came out from behind a counter, a tray of tea in hand. My Turkish language skills weren’t up to the task, so I held up two fingers and pointed upstairs, miming going to sleep. As far as I could tell, it worked. The proprietor held up a finger of his own indicating that I should wait a second. Then he put the tray down at a nearby table and led me up a creaky staircase to a narrow landing.
I counted five doors. He opened the nearest one. Inside was a basic but clean room with a wooden floor, a bed, and an armoire. He pointed to a shared bathroom down the hall. The proprietor then showed me a second room, similar in every way, and I paid right there in the hall. He gave me two keys, and I went down to the bike to grab our stuff.
“Nice place?” Meryem asked.
“Better than the side of the road,” I replied.
I picked up the marble arm and my backpack and we trudged through the lower teahouse and up the stairs. I couldn’t manage the door, so I handed Meryem my key and she stepped inside the room, crossing to sit on the single bed, testing its springs. I dropped my pack and laid the marble arm beside it.
“Bouncing,” she said.
“Bouncy,” I replied.
“That’s what I said. Bouncing.”
“No, the word is bouncy.”
“Come,” she said. “Sit.”
What the hell. I was tired, so I sat.
“Why argue with me?” Meryem said. “I say bouncing, you say bouncy. What is the difference?”
I sat beside her on the woolen blanket. I had to admit, at that moment, in my mind at least, there was no difference at all. A bare bulb hung from the cracked ceiling, while arabesque music drifted up through the wooden floor. I watched a lizard scurry along the plaster wall.
“When I was a very young girl, when all my family was together, I dreamed one day I would live on a farm,” Meryem said. “There would be sheep and cows. There would be chickens and ducks and olives and horses. There would be land for the animals. There would be space in my house for my mother and father, for my three brothers, a space for us to be together,” she said. “I would be very happy.”
Meryem turned to me. She sat only a few inches away, the light from the bulb reflected in her dark eyes. She looked soulful at that moment. Soulful and true. She took my hands in hers.
“What happened?” I said.
“I became a spy,” Meryem said. “I joined MIT and no more did I think of the farm. But you know what?”
“What?”
“I am thinking of it now.”
Meryem squeezed my hands and smiled a sad smile.
“Do not make my mistakes, Mr. Raptor. I am perhaps two or three years older than you. But my fate is decided. I will never live on that farm.”
“I don’t believe that. If you want it, you can do it,” I said. “You just need to want it badly enough.”
“This is very American,” she said. “Always looking on the bright side.”
“Is that so bad?” I replied.
“Maybe not. But the bright side, sometimes, is not so bright at all.”
Meryem smiled and slowly rose from the bed. As she did, I realized I wanted her to stay.
“I will see you in the morning. Goodnight, Mr. Raptor.”
“Goodnight.”
And she walked away, shutting the door softly behind her.
When I awoke, it was just getting light. I had the early morning call to prayer followed by a pair of overzealous roosters to blame for the fact that I was awake, but I wasn’t complaining. An early start was exactly what I needed. I got dressed and went outside to the shared bathroom, happy that I’d be getting some time on my own to check things out and plan the day. But when I tried the bathroom door it was locked. Before I could release the handle, Meryem walked out. She looked good. Freshly showered and ready to take on the day.
“Today we meet Augustus,” she said.
“Friend of yours?” I asked.
“A politician. Octavian Augustus, the first Roman Emperor. I think the arm belongs to him.”
We packed up and walked downstairs. I could have done with a coffee, but nothing was open yet, so I tied down the arm and strapped my backpack to the rack, hopping on the bike.
“The ancient city is very near,” Meryem said. “Perhaps they have coffee there.”
I rode slowly, because the rising sun was in my eyes and I wanted to keep a low profile as we left town. We continued along a gently winding road for about five more minutes, before turning off at a gas station, the entrance to the ancient archeological site of Aphrodisias visible just down the road. Unfortunately, when we pulled up to the front gate we discovered that Aphrodisias was closed. The gate was locked, a sign on the guard shack indicating that the site wouldn’t be open until 10:00 AM.