Chapter LIII. Face To Face

-You tricked me, he talked about the hammer, who is the hammer?

Alex: Calm down, Robert, I could not tell you about them before.

-Deceitful! I do not trust you anymore, what are you hiding from me as well? Was what you said earlier true or just some lies?

Alex: The operation failed, you have to go back to America on the first flight, the situation has become dangerous.

He threw his phone away, opened his palm, and on it was a small piece of paper, on which were printed symbols that he had not understood before

010000010110010001100001011011000110000101110010

He grabbed his cell phone, searched the search engine

Convert text to binary code and began writing on the keyboard and counting, zero one zero zero zero ……..

He pressed the convert to text button, the result appeared in front of him” Adalar”, what does it mean? He quickly discovered all it took was typing the word in the search engine. A Turkish word, means Princesses Island, a famous tourist island in the Sea of Marmara.

After all, no one needs to tell him what his goal is to write the word in binary instead of writing it directly. Focusing on the details, let it make the effort to reach the result.

Inside the shop, before he was about to leave through the back door, he grabbed his palm, wrote on it with his finger, Alex, and put down the paper.

The message was clear, give it to Alex.

He wrote to her: We must meet now.

-We would better not. I will meet you as soon as you get back to America.

-We shall meet, now, far from that idiot.

Early in the morning, the speedboat set out from the port of Eminonu, heading towards Princesses Island, a voyage of about an hour.

One question preoccupies her, how can he do all this, and move with such freedom!

All of these, the website, Mousa, Katrina, all within his capabilities, a coach and a professional, but moving with this freedom in Turkey! Observing the hammer and knowing my presence here! Katrina escaped twice, Ruslan and Haqqan, a mystical angle, appearance, and disappearance as if he was a ghost that could not be caught! He cannot do all this alone, he must be coordinating with some party, an influential party in Turkey that has a lot of powers.

-Chasing me everywhere! I even see some of them standing on my hotel room window, wherever I go I find some around me!

-They are everywhere in Istanbul, my dear, especially where you live, near the Bosphorus.

For moments, they saw from afar three large islands, palaces, houses, markets, and a very small one, barely enough for a small house, with only plants and a few trees.

The boat stopped on the first island, then the second, all the way to the third, Princesses Island, their final destination.

-Now what? Robert said

Alex: As all tourists do, be yourself, let’s see if he can tell we are there.

They left the boat, followed by two secretly sneaking among the people, while a chartered boat arrived behind them, with the hammer, and two of his staff.

Following them, he had seen Robert’s palm grabbing something when he ran away, he must have left him clues.

Outside the port, a main square, bustling with restaurants and cafés, they crossed up to the main market, they walked slowly, and on the street corner, the stagecoach stopped. Some horse-drawn carts, and a queue waited for their turn.

On the island, all kinds of cars and carriages, except electric ones, are prohibited. The Turks kept them exactly as the princesses wanted, clean air without exhaust and pollution. If you want to take a ride, you only have an electric vehicle or a horse carriage in front of you.

She said, surprisingly: This scene is strange! stagecoaches?

Robert: What is wrong with them?

Alex: While I was searching for the island, I read news about it being canceled or replaced with electric karts! Well, I am not sure.

She added: It is too crowded here. It is going to be hard for him to spot a setup. He wants us in an open space. Let’s take a tour. Let us go for a ride by the carriage, so far away from the traffic, he should be able to spot us.

They stood in line, advancing slowly, the horses coming and going until it was their turn. They climbed into the carriage appointed for them and began their tour, through the luxurious palaces with their impregnable walls, here lived the princesses of the Ottoman Empire. What a life they lived, with unparalleled luxury!

Three small electric vehicles followed far from each other, slipping between dozens of vehicles and carriages.

Across the main stone-paved road, some people preferred to walk the distance across the island, contemplating all the details around them.

After a third of an hour, the stagecoach reached the last permitted point, a thick forest of trees, at the top of a hill, and below that was the main swimming beach.

The electric vehicles were scattered below them on the road a little further away from them.

The groom stopped and said in broken English: You can come down here for a while and take pictures, and then come back.

Alex: No, you can go, we will stay an extra time and come back later.

She gave him his tip, and he left.

The place is perfect, not overcrowded, people come and go quickly, some are sitting under the trees, and many are at the bottom of the hill on the beach, if he knows we are there, then he wants us right here.

Turning around, “from here, follow me”, she said to Robert

They crossed the trees, not too far from the road, and stood like any tourists looking at the sea and the beach below them.

The hammer with a muscular man went up the hill from another place. He had to go into it so as not to see him. They watched them from among the trees, and the three remained on the road among the tourists watching the place.

Half an hour passed, and they were starting to get bored, and weary!

Robert: Maybe we should go back to the market

She turned around, as if looking for something, and thought to herself: What do you want, there is no better place than this.

She kept searching, and then her eye fell across the sea not far from them, that little island, with nothing but plants.

She whispered: Damn it, do you want us there!

Robert: Where?

Alex: That Island

Robert: It has no port! Nor any building, how are we going there! Is it even allowed? It looks completely deserted

Alex: I do not know, maybe we should go back to the market.

They started walking down the main road, some tourists just arrived, some are still on the road, and others are walking back like them. Many of the stagecoaches came and went, some came back empty without passengers, the one who come in them decided to stay longer, as they did.

The carriage does not return easily empty, it stops for the returnees on foot, and asks them, looking for those who got tired on the way back, for more money for the ride.

He got thirsty, he bought a small bottle of water from a peddler, and while he was drinking it, a groom passed by them, the horses walked slowly, and they did not stop, the groom spoke in good English: Do you want a ride?

Alex, without stopping: No, thank you.

The groom: The road is long, it is getting hot, madam.

Alex: Thank you, we are fine.

The groom: As you wish, the midday sun is bad for skin collagen.

In an instant, without hesitation, she grabbed Robert’s hand, hopped him into the stagecoach, and he drove off, without a word being said.

Obsessed with time and its effects on our faces. They finished the first part of their meeting while waiting for lunch, in a luxury hotel in one of the Arab countries with a dry and hot climate.

He looked at her at recess: May I have a personal question?

Alex: Of course

Baibars: you are definitely not young; I think you are about my age

-Do I look like this?

-No, I knew from your experience, your position, you are certainly not twenty years old, and despite this, you seem to be twenty! Your skin is tight, without wrinkles, how?

-She laughed: I know, the password is collagen

She added: A substance in the skin that the body often stops producing at the age of thirty, so it must be taken in the form of nutritional supplements, available in the market, if you make sure to eat it on a daily basis, you will fight wrinkles.

After lunch, he wanted to smoke a cigarette, so he went out to the balcony, she followed him and said jokingly: Come to this part, do not stand in the sun, the midday sun is bad for skin collagen.

He went to the other end, and repeat what she said: the midday sun is bad for skin collagen.

Alex: Absolutely.

On the hill the hammer spoke softly to a speaker in his ear: follow them, do not let them out of your sight, we will catch up with you in two minutes. he turned around, far into the forest, he must return among the tourists, they are far from them, their place is suspicious, he turned his back and they were walking towards his vehicle.

Then he was fixed in place, motionless

Standing right in front of him, face to face, less than ten meters between them.

Baibars, with his fat and flesh.