Chapter LXVIII. Before The Beginning

At some point in the fabric of time, and years ago on the imaginary calendar line.

It was a tumultuous night when the members of the temple cell of Alpha Headquarters got drunk; They succeeded in saving their greatest secrets from being exposed to the world.

Sunday morning was unusually traditional. Baibars knew that he was being chased and that members of the temple cell had discovered his location. The two sides fought a traditional chase battle, in which reason was disrupted, intrigues, plans, and intrigues were disrupted, and the human instinct for survival was the only player in it.

When the car turned on a steep cliff on Mount Olympus in the Turkish city of Antalya, the end was really traditional as well.

A horrific car accident; Because of the speed, it is like a movie from the seventies.

“Perhaps Baibars deserves a better ending than a traditional one,” said the new big master, before sipping a toast to the great victory, and closing the case file in the temple cell.

The next day, the news broke out on social media and newspapers, “a horrific traffic accident and the fall of a BMW car from the same rocky cliff from which another car fell in a terrible way one week ago, as a result of which a woman died and a man was seriously injured, who were both in the car. The victim was taken to the hospital, in a critical condition.

This road, though dangerous, is a major destination for wealthy tourists who want to spend the weekend, connecting the seashore to the mountaintop, where they own homes and resorts.

One of these houses is Khadija’s, which she goes to on the weekends with her mother and their maid.

Khadija is a committed, beautiful, educated Turkish girl in her late 20s, not yet married. She inherited a huge tourism company from her father. She was busy and involved in managing it. She was fascinated and her passion for life increased by her love of journalism and interesting adventures since her childhood.

What made her more certain is that the journalistic work is a message in building a conscious generation that believes in progress and progress. It is also not just a transfer of news to peoples and nations in its various written and visual aspects. Rather, it is a responsibility and a noble cause that she believes in.

she is like a watchdog who monitors events and discovers the facts. To bring them to the public opinion without distortion, so that she faces all the problems, horrors, and dangers that come her way in order to complete her role to the fullest, all of which made her study journalism and work within as well.

Khadija watched the morning news in amazement. This is the second horrific accident in one week on the bend that everyone knows is dangerous. A driver cannot get into it fast enough; To lose control of the car in it unless he is distracted or afraid of something.

Raised by the news, she called a friend of hers in the city police, to tell her that the accident was a result of an increase in speed, and the driver’s body had not yet been found.

But he told her that the rented car was a black BMW.

Her heart pounded hard; her hand was trembling as she held the phone asking him the name of the tenant.

The friend answered: He is a tourist, he must have been drunk, and he lost his way and was surprised by the bend.

Khadija repeated the question: Please, I want to know the name!

Friend: Well, wait, the renter’s name is “Omar Mustafa”, a Syrian national.

Khadija: Thank you.

She made another call, but the phone she wanted to call was switched off… her anxiety increased.

She went to her office, opened the locker of papers; To take out a piece of flash memory (USB).

She hesitated before opening it on the computer. She remembered the man who gave it to her and said to her: Do not open it unless you know for sure that I am dead.

The thoughts overcame her, who is this “Omar Mustafa”! Is it Baibars? When he came yesterday, he was also driving a black BMW.

If it was him, what made him drive on the road like this, how did he not notice the curve!

Baibars, as far as I know, does not drink alcohol, as he is religious, even if he appears as a non-religious young man!

She decided to open the external “flash” memory, perhaps, she would find something that would help her contact with him, as there was nothing that could point her to him, or communicate with him through it.

There is nothing strange except a password-protected file. She tried to open it with her GES password, but it did not work. She tried to remember anything he said to her that might indicate the password, but it did not work.

She took the memory card out of the computer, put it back in the locker, and headed to the yard.

She tried calling Baibars again, but the phone was switched off.

She wrote to him via the “WhatsApp” application, but the messages do not reach!

In the cell of the temple, members of the headquarters followed the local news through the Turkish newspapers, when the private phone rang, the big master was upset that the body had not been found!

They answered him: We made a call with our office in Turkey. The Hammer, the man who was in charge of chasing him, told us not to worry. He fell with the car before their eyes, perhaps his body was hidden among the rocks.

The big Master: Well, I want the satellite images in twenty-four hours, I want to see everything that happened, I cannot give a final report without the body or photos to prove that he was actually killed.

Khadija stood in the yard of the house, thinking about the strange man who suddenly appeared in her life one year ago.

I saw him for the first time in the touristic Taksim Square in Istanbul, where the headquarters of the tourism company that she inherited from her father, a man in his late thirties, tall, plump, handsome, and familiar to her. He shows Arab signs and features closer to the Levant, shows signs of fatigue, dirty clothes, holding a black bag on his back and a small shoulder bag, looking at his phone once and looking at the alley in front of him again, tracking an address he wants to access through the mobile map system.

He was remarkable, his posture suggested something new is going to happen.

Something in him attracted her that she had not realized at the time, but it seemed that he did not see the world around him, and he was not caught by the roaring lights, the beautiful girls, and not even the restaurants, with their delicious food.

When he steps toward her and says, “Hello, could you please help me?”

Khadija: Yes, of course.

-I have a problem with the map system, I cannot find the hotel I am looking for. It is somewhere near here, its name is “Golden Hotel”.

– It is in the next alley.

Smiling, he appeared to be trying to woo: Thank you, I knew you spoke Arabic, my intuition did not betray me! where do you come from?

She looked at a cursory look, how could he do this to her, he must be bold, yes, he is confident, he has a different charisma, the signs of poise are clear, she replied with pride, blind confidence: This is out of your business, I think that you should go to your hotel,

She added with a sarcastic smile: At least take a shower and change your clothes, to appear in a situation that qualifies you to court a girl.

The man smiling, in a low tone and with a long sigh, explained his condition to her, revealing the troubles of his journey: Yes, I must do that, Khadija.

For a moment of bewilderment and confusion, the man continued his walk, while Khadija was frozen in place.

-He called me by my name, and she turned and called: Hey, how do you know my name!

The man smiles: I think I should first find the hotel, take a shower, and change my clothes before speaking to a pretty inquisitive journalist like you.

He continued walking, leaving her in a state of confusion and astonishment. She shouted with two steady feet, and from where would you know me?

But he did not answer, and he continued walking at a solemn pace, towards the hotel.

She sat in a nearby cafe drinking a cup of coffee, and thought of that stranger who caught her eye before he tried to talk to her, who is he? How does he know me? Why this mystery and this style of arousing curiosity?

She is a very inquisitive girl, which is probably what made her such a skilled professional journalist.

She thought, talking to herself for a moment, should I leave or wait for him to come back? She decided to wait, maybe he would come back, she waited for him for two hours, no trace of him, the time was late, she went back in pale silence, she failed in the first attempt, yes, she was not used to giving up, she went to her car and then the house.

The night was sluggish, her bed was restless, and she turned left and right, making her a dreamy girl with delicate dreams.

The next day, as soon as she finished her work in the newspaper, she hurried to Taksim Square. The curiosity and passion for investigation had reached a great deal. She was not accustomed to that. She went to the Golden Hotel, entered, sat in the hotel courtyard, and said to herself: What do I do now? Sit and wait for him like an idiot, or go to the receptionist, and ask him about the strange man with dirty clothes who stayed with you that night?

She was hoping to see him in the hotel courtyard, and after an hour she went out and went to the cafe next door, and as soon as she sat down at the table, a voice came from behind her: I had showered and put on elegant clothes.

She trembled! She felt a strange shiver, and her eyes bulged, as soon as she heard the muttering of his letters, he made it clear that he was not an ordinary, naive man throwing arbitrary, spontaneous sentences, assuring her, blind confidence, even silent narcissism.

She did not speak for a moment, her pride exploded, silence closed her lips, and for a fleeting moment,

-This is none of my business. She asked him with curiosity: Now you have to tell me what you want. And where do you know me from? And who are you? And where did you come from?

The man interrupted her: Speaking in a warm oriental, madam, slow down you will know everything. After he pulled a chair and bent his body a little, can I sit?

Khadija: Please

The man, smiling, sat across from her, in a fleeting tone, in a voice with a kind of roughness and poise and solemnity: You should not have come to the hotel.

She went crazy, and she threw him an angry, reprimanded look, saying: You are a man of no taste, you know that I have been looking for you for an hour, and you did not come, you left me waiting! Who are you to do this? Do not think you will ever see me again, I just want you to answer my questions–not a single sigh- Go ahead, I do not have time.

-The man sarcastically: Have not you known me yet, you stubborn one?

Her heart pounded hard as if she knew him when he called her stubborn: Who are you?

The man: I am Baibars

-She was stunned, “Who do you mean?”

The man: Did I not tell you from the beginning that we will meet one day, I did not make a promise one day and broke it, here I fulfilled my promise, from this moment I am Mansour, a tourist in dirty clothes, I met you by chance yesterday and then I met you today by chance, here is our relationship begins now, you do not know something about me. I am just a man I met by chance.

She understood what he meant: she muttered, with a tense accent, what idiots I should have not come to the hotel.

Baibars: It is okay, let us get over this. He cut her off, for a moment – I think I have to go now after you give me your phone number to call you. It is only natural that a man who likes a girl, meets her for the second time and she likes him back to call her.

Her face bled, a clear redness, she held on to her hardness, she smiled: I did not like the idea of reciprocating admiration, with resignation She added: But you always know what I don’t know, right?

Baibars: I wish I could be like this, he added with a confident smile, by the way, I do not stay at the Golden Hotel.

Khadija smiling: When will we meet?

Baibars: I will contact you, the important thing now is that we started in the right way, if one day security agencies or any other party asked you about me, everything is organized in your mind, and the meeting was by chance, and you liked me without knowing anything about my truth.

Khadija: Is this an application to define your truth?

Baibars: Perhaps, if the security authorities and the police, felt something strange, they will follow them, and if they find something incomprehensible or a question without an answer, they will search more to find an answer to it, during their search and investigation will ask other questions, and search for answers. Make the answers visible to them and do not arouse their curiosity at all!

He left, leaving Khadija to understand for the first time his purpose when he answered her question about the reality of functional groups.

He told her that day, “The truth is nothing but a convincing lie.”

Khadija stood in the courtyard of the house, reminiscent of her first meeting a year ago with the person hidden behind a fake identifier by the name of Baibars on the Internet, the man who provided her with exclusive news from within the areas of armed conflict in different countries.

For two years, he appeared with her on the Internet as an impulsive and indifferent man, answering all questions without reservation, and giving her important information that helped her in making distinguished press reports for free.

He was absent for days and sometimes weeks, and as soon as he was there, you talk to him, sometimes for hours outside the framework of journalistic work, during which she forgot who he is and who she is, exchanging jokes and funny stories with him.

Her manager is very impressed with her work, as she has been able to build a strong relationship with someone who knows many things that made the newspaper raise the level of its reporting. He always warned her not to ask him anything private about him so that he would not be afraid of her, but when she dared to ask him about his private life, he told her many things about his childhood, very important matters on a personal level, although they were without names and addresses, their occurrence in the hands of intelligence agencies, could make them take a step towards finding out who he was. But he never seemed afraid, when she once asked him to stop, and not to keep saying private things about his past life, he told her not to worry, he knew exactly where he had to stop.

He told her so many things about his personal wishes that he even told her that he would like to put the name of the girl he likes into a password to his phone when he finds her.

This is how their relationship continued on the Internet, she did not hear his voice, did not see him, while he knew everything about her.

Her tears rolled down her cheek, while she was still standing in the yard of the house looking at that rocky cliff, asking herself, was it Baibars who died in that accident?!

Is that indifferent, careless, important man who knows everything already dead?

Did the story he promised me end before it began, or did it start a long time ago? This is only one of its chapters.