Chapter LVI. Do Not Try with Me

She laughed, looking at the details of the place around her, shook her head, and said: Do not try, you have no chance with me.

Subconsciously, Robert took his phone out of his pocket, still an iPhone 13 Pro Max, the latest version, and waved it in the air.

-He said: This was not yet made before 2020.

Alex looked at him with admiration, he began to learn.

He got up and walked over to him, stood right in front of him, looked at the phone in his hands, and confidently said, “Yes, this version they will make in 2022.”

Alex looks at him coldly, her eyes say stop please, do not play these games with me.

He looked at her in displeasure, and raised his hands in the air: Well, I gave up, you are in the right year. Today is an exception, they have got festivities, so they have allowed the stagecoaches during them, are you happy now, Alex?

She smiled cunningly and confidently.

He motioned for them to sit down, please.

The servant: Do you want something to drink?

Remembering the bread and the milk, Robert spontaneously exclaimed: No, thank you.

Baibars: Your style and the way you speak are very similar to your grandfather.

His face turned red, he remembered why he was here, he remembered his grandfather, he said to himself, maybe I should take revenge now by surprise and kill him, he wished he could do it.

Alex interrupted this moment, thought of asking him for the hammer, and backed away, perhaps he did not know anything about him.

-She asked: What happened to you recently? And what do you want from me?

-I do not want anything from you

-Then why did you bring me here?

– You came on your own, in fact, your presence and the Central Intelligence were not part of my plan, you got in my way.

He turned to him: I want him, you surely know.

He turned to her again: Does he know who his grandfather is?

Alex: Yes

Robert interrupted them, and with slightly artificial anger, an investigative question, wanting to hear the confession from his mouth, asked him: Why did you kill my grandfather?

Baibars: Did they tell you that I killed him? Who told you this?

Alex said, “We have our doubts.”

He got up from his seat, walked toward a small desk, took out a tablet and a memory stick from the drawer, and put it on the tablet.

He said: What is on this memory, it will only work on this device, your grandfather’s tablet, and it is protected by a password, you are the only one who knows it.

-He smiled, feeling his grandfather’s spirit all around him: Did my grandfather leave me a will?

Baibars: I do not know, but a few days before he was killed by the hammer, he sensed his death was near, he left it to you, he did not trust anyone else.

Suddenly the intensity and momentum of events rose, Robert’s eyes bulged, and Alex remained calm and stoic.

-The hammer? Is it the one who killed my grandfather? ask Robert

Baibars: Yes, I had a lot of work all along. You and your grandfather’s will were not on my list of priorities. I would have given it to you at some point, but something happened made it a priority.

He was silent for a moment, then added: It seems that what is inside it turned to be more important now than I expected.

Robert grabbed the device as he knew the password, there is definitely no other, his grandfather has always been keen to satisfy his curiosity with riddles and riddles, and they agreed on a secret word, which no one else knows, he never imagined that it would come and become valuable.

He was about to type it, Alex scolds him: Stop

His fingers froze on the keyboard.

-She got up from her seat, towards Baibars, and said: What do you think of this novel, you killed his grandfather, you stole the tablet and the memory, and you want what is in it, and all these lies are your excuse to make him write the password?

Baibars laughed loudly, “Sorry, Alex.”

He was silent and then added: Well, if I were you, I would have thought the same way, in any case, the device is for him and the memory as well right, so he can do with them whatever he wants, I finished my work here.

Robert: Just this? All you did was for this? Why not simply mail them?

Baibars: Of course not, I do not want you for this. The device is your grandfather’s will and I handed it over. As for you, and I, we still have a lot of work to do.

Alex: So, what is new? You just said that there are new things that have made the content of this memory a priority?

Baibars: Confidence

He nodded to Robert: I need his trust in me, and I see that what is in this memory might make him trust me as his grandfather did, and so far, we are done.

Alex: Trust? Can I still trust you?

Baibars: If you had not trusted me, you would not have come here, and you would not have concealed the matter from the hammer until he stalked you, and if it were not for my trust in you, what happened to his team would have happened to you now.

He added: We are not like them, Alex, you and I and many of the officers we worked with, are believers in our work, our desire to protect peaceful civilians, defend the innocent, and preserve their right to a safe life. It is the right of that child in his school to return to his mother in peace, to hug her, eat what she has prepared for him all day, and sleep in her arms. He should not die in a bombing accident, because there is a madman in this world, he decided that with his death a message he wants to deliver to the politicians in his country, but they are criminals, soldiers of Satan, they are the ones who you cannot trust them, and you know this very well, as I do, they are another face of terrorism, its seed is in their blood, they do what terrorists do, but in the name of order and law.

Robert closed his eyes, had a dizzy head, wanted to vomit, was tired, and his body sagged.

-Baibars’ voice: What do you think of a cup of Turkish tea?

-“No, thank you, not after that milk experience,” said Robert, energized.

Then he added: Where are Mousa, Ruslan, and the others?

Baibars: In a safe place, what you have to think about now is that if what you have known and seen all this time is just hoaxes we have been playing with you or a fact we want you to know, and why.

Robert: I feel like we have met before! But I do not remember where!

Baibars: Trust. After you decide, I will answer you whatever you want.

The meeting between them was over, Alex and Robert left with the tablet and the memory, simply and without any complications.” The decision is yours; I need you, see what your grandfather left for you, and if you decide to trust me, you know where to find me.”

Outside, all of a sudden, the festivities seem to have ended, no Stagecoaches anywhere on the island, not even horses’ dung, not a trace of them.

Strange! How did they manage to move them and clean up the place so quickly! The two wondered as they headed to the pier.

Waiting for the ferry to take them to Istanbul. he was quarreling with a desire to know what is in his memory, but Alex’s decision was strict,” we will not do anything with it, it must be examined the device first by experts, and make sure that decoding it will not cause us any harm. He is cunning, perhaps all he wants is to decode it, to do something we do not know, even if you and the device are far from him, let us leave it to the experts, they decide.”

A little booth close by, a cup of coffee until the ferry arrives is what they needed after the hustle and bustle.

She stood in front of the seller, magazines, and newspapers hanging on the wall of the booth, written in Turkish, but one thing on every daily newspaper, which could be read regardless of its written language… Numbers

Its top header is clear, she looked at it with something inside her chest beating hard, the date was: 19-4-2019.

On her phone, the date still points to the correct year 2022

To another booth, another newspaper, the year 2019

She walked over to Robert, his cell phone indicating the year 2022

Incomprehensible things! She looked around again to see if she could find any trace of horses! There is no, she stopped a tourist: Sir, I know my question is strange, but I have been drinking heavily, can you tell me in what year we are?

The tourist sarcastically: The island is beautiful, who does not forget himself on it, it is 2022, madam, it is the present.

Something strange was going on, she looked around, the number plate in the port for 2019, a billboard in the corner, for 2019.

She directed her words to the tourist: Sir, excuse me, but what year is written on the port plaque?

The tourist: 2022, are you okay, madam?

-Yes, I apologize to you.

-Back to Robert: look there, what is the number on the port plate!

Robert: Strange! It is referring to 2019.

She took him by his hand towards the booth: And here, the number on the newspaper?

Robert: 2019

-The billboard?

-2019

-She took out her phone: Here?

-2022

-your phone?

-2022