Free A Deceit to Die For by Luke Montgomery

just be the afternoon.”
    “Okay. I’ll be there.”
    “The usual place?”
    “Yep.”
    “I’ll send Gilbert a text right now to confirm.”
    “All right, darling. I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon.”
    “Bye, Daddy. I love you.”
    “I love you too.”
    He hung up the phone, turned around and looked down at Never Never land. The sheets were a tangled mess. It hardly looked like the place of his dreams, but he only dreamed of her here in this room. He would have gladly lain back down and tried his luck again. It never worked. He knew that he would have better odds with a lottery ticket. He glanced at the clock. It was almost six. It was a bit early, but he needed to shave and shower. Besides, it wouldn’t hurt to be there early to see if everything was ready for the conference. Maybe he could catch Dr. Brown and ask him to take a look at his mysterious letter. He stood in the shower with his eyes closed just enjoying the jets of hot water pulsing against his face. He was replaying the dream over in his mind. Then, his face broke into a smile. He knew now where he had seen that dress she had been wearing. It had been her wedding dress.
     
     

CHAPTER 7
     
    Zeki had finished his prayers, taken his shower and reviewed his notes. The plenary address would be given at ten o’clock followed by a lecture on Byzantine graffiti, a sequel to the conference theme three years ago. Then, there would be a break for lunch, and he would be leading one of the break-out sessions in the afternoon. He had not even bothered to open the curtains, but the lack of light seeping in around the edges confirmed what the ache in his left shoulder had foretold the evening before. It was going to be another rainy day in London.
    He placed his notes back in his briefcase, grabbed his navy blue overcoat and was about to head for the elevator when suddenly he stopped, took a piece of hotel stationary out of the complimentary folder on desk and tore off a piece no bigger than his thumbnail. This is silly . There is no risk here. He threw the tiny piece of paper in the bathroom trash and started to walk out the door, but when the paper hit the trash can, it exploded in his mind, sending him hurtling back to an episode that had happened on an August day over twenty years ago.
    It was 1986 in Sanliurfa, his first field assignment in the Southeast. The escalating violence was straining the resources of the Turkish intelligence infrastructure and analysts like himself were hastily pressed into field ops out of necessity. He had been given a short six-week crash course in field operations and put on a bus with a new identity card. The proverb ‘haste is an invitation to the devil’ proved once again its sagacity.
    Their mission was to pinpoint the routes used by the PKK to transport narcotics, the primary source of funding for the Kurdish separatist group. The safe house he was using was on the second floor of a four-storey building. The knowledge that any of the people he saw on the street or even the doorman might in fact be with the enemy was unnerving, and it had taken some time for him to get used to it.
    He had completed his casual reconnaissance in an area on the Syrian border where his cover was acting as a wholesale buyer of livestock for an Istanbul slaughterhouse. He climbed the stairs and was pulling the key out of his pocket when he saw that the tiny piece of paper he had slid into the door jamb just below the hinge was lying on the floor. The memory was startling in its vividness. His stomach knotted, his mouth went dry and his heart began pounding from the tiny injection of adrenaline this observation had triggered. He had a visitor, somebody who probably wanted him dead.
    His first thought had been to get out of the building as quickly as possible. Then he realized there might be someone outside watching the entrance. If he left, that would tip them off, so he walked down to the apartment of the building attendant on the ground floor,