Part II
Augusta awoke with a stabbing pain in her leg. The last three days of training had taken their toll on her.
She was on the island of Crete, a paradise of olive groves, whitewashed houses, and gorgeously rocky beaches stretched out midway in the Mediterranean Sea between Greece and Africa. She hadn’t believed her eyes when they stepped off the sleek yacht that had brought them from Istanbul to this astonishing island. Crete was the stuff of dreams—luxurious greenery, charming fishing villages, delicious food, friendly people. Sky-blue water rimmed with dramatic cliff ledges and flat, pebbly coves.
Except Erol, of course. It didn’t have Erol. Augusta tried not to think of him as they stepped from the yacht onto the dock extending out into the crystalline sea. She was here to do important work, surrounded by breathtaking beauty, alongside the father she was just getting to know. Only a crazy person wouldn’t be happy here.
They had driven through the port city of Heraklion into the mountainous heartland of the island. Speeding down the motorway in a sleek black Mercedes, her father pointed out famous landmarks and told Augusta stories of the mythological heroes who populated the Cretan landscape. Not since she was a little girl reading fairy tales had she heard so many extravagant tales of heroes and monsters, enchanted animals and frightening magical powers. Listening to her father’s pleasant baritone voice, she felt a stab of regret for missing so many moments with him as a child. How wonderful it would have been to hear him tell bedtime stories!
“There’s the cave where Zeus was supposed to be born, raised by the goat Amalthea,” he told her, pointing toward the steep hillside to their right.
“And back when we were coming into port in Heraklion, did you see the rocky island behind us? That’s Dia. It’s said to resemble a giant lizard that tried to attack Crete. Zeus turned it to stone with one of his magic thunderbolts, and it’s been frozen in place ever since.”
He paused and grinned wryly. “It’s pretty useful to carry around a quiver of giant, magical thunderbolts. I should keep that mind next time we run into the Rumelovs.”
“It’s even more useful to be king of the gods,” Augusta retorted. “Couldn’t manage that one, could you? Life would be a lot easier for all of us.”
Nicolas chuckled. “Touché. All I’ve got are helicopters and yachts, I’m afraid. And a few friends in the right places. Better than nothing, but not quite king-of-the-gods level.”
They drove on for a few minutes, down a narrow ribbon of highway slicing between olive trees to one side and craggy mountains to the other.
“I hear you’re pretty good with a sword, though. What was it you and your friends did at the Bath of Bedestan? You chased out the Rumelovs with antique Ottoman weapons?”
“Yeah.” Augusta tried to sound modest, but the corners of her mouth curled proudly upward. “That was my idea. I had no idea how to use an Ottoman sword, but it seemed sharp enough to slice someone’s arm off. It was enough to scare away Hasan, anyway.”
She snorted.
“How could he betray Erol and the museum? How could he have gotten involved with the Rumelovs? I just don’t understand.” She shook her head and stared out the window, thinking.
“When you’ve been in this line of work as long as I have,” her father said, in a thoughtful voice, “you learn that people always believe they’re doing what’s right. Even when they are clearly the aggressor in the situation. But they think of themselves as the victim, defending themselves against some kind of threat, especially a threat to their honor. They believe someone wronged them in some way and they are perpetrating their own brand of justice.”
“But how could Hasan think that?” Augusta exploded. “He was the one who lied, who tried to steal, who beat up Erol! How could Hasan not know he was doing wrong? He was very clearly the bad guy.”
Nicolas sighed. “Nobody thinks they’re the bad guy. They might recognize that they’re harming others in some way, but they almost always think the other person deserves it. In their minds, they warp the idea of justice to mean taking revenge for a perceived wrong to themselves. No matter how slight. And they think any amount of force is justified in their revenge. They rationalize their behavior so they can see themselves as the hero of their own story.”
Augusta’s mind flashed onto the story her father had just told her—Zeus and the thunderbolt, the bestial lizard frozen forever in stone as a warning to anyone who dared challenge the king of the gods. What if Zeus wasn’t the true hero of the story? He was certainly a bit of a bully, running around having his way with all the beautiful maidens of ancient Greece. Who would ever know if Zeus did wrong, with all the priests and poets taking his side? Who would bring the king of the gods to justice?
They had turned off the highway now and the road became rougher, earthier. The Mercedes shuddered slightly as her father drove over bumps and ruts lining the village roads. Even Nicolas’s expert driving couldn’t save them from a few potholes as they wove their way around the base of the mountain.
“But Hasan…” Augusta couldn’t let it drop. “Erol never did anything bad to him. How could he think it was right to tie him up and punch him in the face?”
“The human mind is a powerful piece of equipment,” her father replied after a moment. “The most complex structure in the known universe. It has many defenses, many ways of blinding itself to the truth. Some people prefer not to know the truth about themselves and others. They prefer to live comfortable falsehoods, in which they appear as noble avengers.
“If they thought about the situation rationally for just one minute, the façade would crack and they would realize they were behaving badly. The key is to not think about it rationally. Many such people construct elaborate justifications for their behavior. They explain everything from their own biased perspective. They don’t give a second thought to the way other people think or feel—much less something as inconvenient as the truth.”
“That’s pretty messed up,” was all Augusta could say.
Nicolas navigated carefully around a broken patch of road, where a stone wall had crumbled ages ago and never been repaired. They were passing through a small hamlet, where a salmon-pink church sat jauntily on the main square. The streets were getting narrower, the fields wider, and the population sparser as they continued upward into the hills.
“I don’t know why Hasan lashed out at Erol,” Nicolas continued, “but it probably had nothing to do with Erol himself. Maybe Hasan felt he was disrespected or treated unfairly by others at the museum, and he saw Erol as a representative of the entire institution. Or maybe he was just brainwashed by the Rumelovs into doing their bidding. That happens sometimes too. Like in cults.”
Augusta shuddered. In these beautiful surroundings—of idyllic villages and cinematic mountainscapes—it seemed as if evil couldn’t really exist, as if every nightmare would be chased away by the return of brilliant, sunny day. But she knew it wasn’t true. Bad things could happen anywhere, to anyone, and for no apparent reason. That’s what all those Greek myths and tragedies were about, from the bloody battles of the Trojan War to Oedipus unwittingly killing his father and sleeping with his mother. People trying to make sense of the chaos and suffering of the world. Even in the midst of a Mediterranean paradise like Crete, terror and tragedy were waiting to strike.
“Are the Rumelovs a cult?” she asked, her nose wrinkled in distaste.
“Yes and no. It’s hard to tell. We’re not sure if there’s a leader named Rumelov—maybe there was, maybe there still is, maybe there never was. It could just mean ‘the sons of Rumelia,’ which was the Ottoman Turkish way of referring to the Balkans. That’s present-day Greece, Albania, Bosnia, Serbia, Bulgaria, and other countries in the area. Basically, to the Turks it was all the land of the Romans. Rum.”
“But what about Efendi?” Augusta was confused. “I thought he was the leader. Is he Rumelov?”
“No,” her father answered. “He was just the leader of the group’s Turkish cell. Efendi means ‘master’ in Turkish, so it’s not even his real name. He was sent by the main group to establish a branch in Istanbul. He may have been one of the higher-ups, but he certainly wasn’t in charge. And he’s not talking. We can’t get any information out of him.”
“You mean the Rumelovs are still going strong? We didn’t stop them?”
They crested a hill and saw acres of olive trees stretched out in the valley below. The road snaked its way above the fields and groves, offering a spectacular view over the island and out to the sea beyond. An artist’s dream come true, Augusta thought to herself. The next time she was back in her studio—if she ever got back—she would sculpt this valley, its colors, its contours, its swirls of gnarled olive branches reaching from the stony soil up to the sky. It was enough for a lifetime of inspiration.
“We stopped some of them, and that’s not nothing,” Nicolas offered. “We cleared out the Istanbul cell. We’ve weakened them. We continue to monitor them. And next time they try to strike, we’ll bring out our new secret weapon.”
“Ooh,” Augusta said, her eyes brightening. “You have a secret weapon? What is it?”
Nicolas cleared his throat and turned to his daughter, a deadly-serious look in his eyes.
“You.”
So that was it. Augusta was to be the new secret weapon of the Cosmopolis. As Nicolas had patiently explained, their greatest asset was always their people—good intelligence was worth more than all the technology in the world. Yes, the tech was vital too: the tracking technology, the efficient transport, the weaponry, which was only used in worst-case scenarios. The high-level security clearances and government connections were important. But it all started with people on the ground. And as Nicolas had emphasized to his daughter, several times, she was to be the best. It ran in her blood.
“But what if I don’t want to do it?” she protested. “I could always change my mind. Maybe I won’t like the work. Maybe I’ll be bad at it.”
“You won’t be bad at it,” he said. “You have a good head for this. You’re the one who worked out how to rescue Erol from the Rumelovs, remember? You came up with the plan. And you had the courage to confront an unknown enemy on their home territory, using the only equipment that was available to you. That takes not just courage, but resourcefulness and thinking on your feet. You have the makings of a great agent.”
“Yes, but I had help! Eda and Mark figured out where the baths were, and we’re just lucky Hasan was a coward and ran away. I don’t think I’m ready for this.”
“No, you’re not ready now,” Nicolas agreed. “That’s why you’ll have training. And you’ll also have help. You won’t have to do it alone. Just like you had help from Eda and Mark and Erol before. You’ll be ready. And when the time is right, you’ll be good.”
Augusta’s training began as soon as they pulled up to their base camp at the top of the mountain. At least, “base camp” was what her father called it. In reality it was an abandoned monastery, built centuries ago from Cretan stacked stone, with only a few inhabitable buildings remaining on the outskirts of the settlement. It was miles away from the nearest small village. Apparently no one ever came this far up the mountain anymore, and they had the place completely to themselves.
“But Dad,” Augusta said, and as soon as the words left her mouth she realized she had never called anyone dad before. Her father smiled warmly.
“Why do we have to come all the way out here for my training?” she asked as they climbed out of the Mercedes. She still had only the duffel bag she had brought on the plane to Istanbul, with one change of clothes and a toothbrush. Her father had assured her that she wouldn’t need any other clothes—where they were going, she didn’t need to impress anyone. All she needed was a good pair of running shoes and a warm jacket. The lost discourses were tucked safely at the bottom of the bag, underneath her pajamas and her new phone.
“No one will bother us here,” Nicolas told her. “And we won’t raise anyone’s suspicions. It’s easy to keep an eye on your neighbors when there aren’t any.” He grabbed a worn-out traveling bag from the backseat and pointed toward what looked like a small chapel with a weather-beaten door. “This way.”
A meandering path, once well-trodden but now completely overgrown, led them up a steep slope to the limestone building. Further up the hill Augusta could see a few outbuildings, some with roofs caved in, some completely without roofs. Several scrubby trees had made themselves at home, poking their branches through the windows as if waving hello.
The structure her father was now entering looked sound enough. The walls and roof seemed sturdy, and as Nicolas walked around to each window, opening shutters and dusting off spiderwebs, Augusta looked around at her temporary home. The room was completely empty. Faded frescoes of Biblical scenes still coated the walls from floor to ceiling. Near the apse a hollow-cheeked saint looked straight out at her, his unblinking eyes unimpressed by the scene in front of him. Behind her, near the entryway, Noah led his animals into the ark two by two as dark clouds hovered menacingly overhead. All told it was not a very cheerful room.
“This is where you’ll sleep,” Augusta’s father announced, his voice echoing off the chilly walls.
“What?” She was definitely not prepared for this. “Here? Where will you sleep?”
“Next building over, in the old wine cellar. I won’t be far away.” He cast a practiced eye around each corner of the empty room, making sure no bugs of any sort lurked in the shadows. “Just shout if you need anything. But I’m sure you’ll want your own space to relax in. The training will be…intense.”
The late summer air outside was still warm, but inside the chapel the air was cool and dense. It reminded Augusta vaguely of the Aya Yorgi monastery she had visited with Erol on Big Island. An image of the bloodied priest, lying spread-eagle across the carpet, slowly trawled across her mind. She wasn’t sure she could do this. How could she sleep in an abandoned chapel, alone, with this saint’s eyes piercing her soul every night? She wasn’t a religious person, but there was something so all-knowing about his stare that made her uneasy. Why was her father doing this to her?
Nicolas pushed through the door holding a large sleeping bag he had retrieved from the Mercedes. “We’ll set you up over here,” he said, nodding toward the corner farthest away from the front door. “It will be warmest here. You should be comfortable enough.”
He began laying blankets across the cold flagstone floor. “Nights can get pretty cold up here, but this is a thermal sleeping bag. It would keep you warm even if were climbing Mount Everest. At least, it kept me warm on Everest.”
Great, Augusta moaned inwardly, though she kept her disappointment to herself. She was already beginning to regret her rash decision to come with her father. She barely knew him, and yet she was willing to put her life in his hands. Maybe this was a bad idea.
Too late now, she thought to herself, walking over to the sleeping nook her father had created and throwing down her duffel bag. Can’t run away from here. I’ll just have to make the best of it. She wondered vaguely, as she stretched out on the sleeping bag and stared up at the saints around her, if that had been Nicolas’s plan all along.