Blown Circuit

by Lars Guignard

  Chapter 21

  WE TOOK THE motorcycle to the village. I drove, wind in my hair, finally pulling over to the side of the narrow street behind a beat-up fire-engine red Fiat 500. Meryem hopped off and I kicked the bike onto its stand.

  “Where to?” I asked.

  “The arm,” she said.

  “Arm?”

  “Did you read your own journal, Mr. Raptor?”

  “I skimmed through.”

  “Then come. We have information regarding the arm.”

  I thought back to the journal, remembering a graphic sketch of a human arm opposite some sort of schematic. The disembodied arm was bent at the elbow, an index finger pointed outward. It was reasonably well muscled and sawn off at an oblique angle at the shoulder, arteries and veins drawn in graphic detail. In effect, it looked like something that would be more at home in a Renaissance medical text than a technical journal.

  What was strange, though, given the realism of the sketch, were the ovoid shapes in a ring around the arm. They looked like drops of blood or fruit. I hadn’t had time to consider what the shapes might mean. But Meryem had. That was obvious. So I followed her lead, down the narrow street to a storefront marked by a three-foot-high amphora on the sidewalk.

  “We go here,” she said.

  I followed her inside the shop, a tinkling bell announcing our arrival. Rough, hand-scraped timbers formed the floor, row after row of amphorae lining the plaster walls. These amphorae were filled with olives as well, some of them brined, some of them not. Oil-filled glass bottles stood on the shelves behind the amphorae. A persistent squeaking hum caused me to look through a wooden door into the back room. There I caught a glimpse of a large iron machine, its big steel counterweight spinning round and round.

  “That is the press,” Meryem said. “The olive oil is very famous from this region.”

  I heard the olive press shut down, and a wiry man with narrow-set eyes and wispy, flyaway hair entered from the back room. He had a huge gap between his front teeth and wore industrial blue pants and a ribbed undershirt. The knotty muscles in his arms glistened with sweat, an iron bar hanging low from his left hand. Given that he had shut the operation down to come out front, I surmised that he was alone or had, at most, a couple of helpers back there. The squeaky turn of the big counterweight slowly spun down until we were left with only the street noise. The guy said something in Turkish. Meryem answered him.

  “You want to tell me what’s going on?” I said.

  “Nothing. I ask him about his oil.”

  “What about it?”

  “Family business,” Meryem said. “He has been making oil for twenty-five years. His father made oil before him. His father before that. He says it is the best oil in all of the village.”

  I picked up one of the glass bottles. It was about the same size as a wine bottle, but squarer where it tapered into a shorter neck, with a real cork in the top. The oil inside glowed a golden-yellow, the sunlight filtering through. There was no label, but as I looked into the bottle, I saw the emblem of a sun molded into its glass base. I recognized the emblem immediately. It was the same sun I had seen on the Kurdish flag.

  “Show him the book,” Meryem said.

  “I’d prefer not to parade it around,” I replied.

  “OK. I will show him.”

  The journal was in the pocket of my cargo shorts, so I wasn’t sure what Meryem was going to be showing him, but she pulled out her smartphone and displayed a photograph of the sketch of the severed arm. As she did, I immediately recognized what the ovoid shapes surrounding the arm were. Not blood. Olives. Olives like everywhere else in the shop. Meryem pointed directly at the missing arm and spoke in Turkish. The wiry guy listened. Then he dead-bolted the front door of his shop closed and beckoned us into the back room. I watched the iron bar sway in his hand as he walked.

  “What are we doing here again?” I asked.

  “We will find out,” Meryem said.

  I kept my eyes on the guy as we entered the darkened space at the back of the shop. There weren’t any windows back there, but there was a loading dock with large open doors that faced an alley. Two women in kerchiefs sat on the edge of the loading dock, their feet dangling down. There were some old saw blades on the walls, some knives, some rusted tools and, of course, the old iron olive press. I had to say, if you wanted to dismember somebody in private, this was the place. Sitting in the corner was a rough-hewn stone wheel that looked like it had come off an even older press.

  The guy headed directly for the stone wheel. It was probably three feet in diameter and a foot and a half thick with a hole in the center. It was a very old wheel. Might have been the very first wheel ever. That’s how ancient it looked.

  “It is here,” the wiry guy said.

  Apparently, he spoke English. I silently cursed myself for speaking to Meryem as if he couldn’t understand. I had to be more careful. The guy bent low and put both hands behind the stone wheel where it laid against the wall. Then he pulled, and I heard a gentle grinding sound as he removed something from behind it. Whatever he had removed from behind the wheel was covered in burlap, the kind they used to make potato sacks from back when natural fibers weren’t something you paid a premium for.

  The burlap was darkly stained. Maybe with grease and oil, maybe with blood, it was hard to tell. There was a musty odor. Clearly, the package had been on the floor for a very long time. So long, that when my fingers finally parted the dark, sticky fabric, I was unprepared for what I saw.

  Chapter 22

  I EXPECTED TO see shards of bone and desiccated flesh inside the burlap. But instead of skin and bone, I got rock. Because the arm in the burlap had been chiseled from marble. It belonged to a statue. A larger-than-life statue that resembled the sketch almost perfectly. The wiry guy picked up the end of the arm with the hand on it and I picked up the other. He made sure I had a grip on it and stepped away. Then he nodded politely, and thirty seconds later I was trying to look casual as I strapped a marble arm to the rack on the rear of the bike.

  “How did you know?” I asked Meryem.

  “A tip,” she said. “As I said, MIT has been looking for the Device for a very long time.”

  I fired up the bike, Meryem hopping on behind me.

  “Where to?”

  “Now I think we see whether the arm fits.”

  “Like I said, where?”

  “I will show you. Go!”

  WE DIDN’T BOTHER returning to the safe house. Meryem had a go-bag and I had my pack so we just followed the twisting Aegean coastline before heading south and finally east. We rode all day like that, with only a couple breaks for food and fuel, and soon the sun was setting on our backs. Meryem felt good on the back of the bike. She didn’t cling to me as I’m sure I had clung to her on the way down from Istanbul, but I knew she was there because I could feel her light touch on the seat behind me. She didn’t try to hold a conversation with me either, which I liked, because it made it less likely that she would discover that I was an impostor and try to shoot me in the head. Instead of talking, we got to know each other the old-fashioned way. I got the feel of her and she got the feel of me.

  It was long past dark by the time we finally made it to the village of Geyre that evening. I was stiff and sore, and it was Meryem's tap on my shoulder that alerted me that we should pull over. She had told me that the tiny village was just outside Aphrodisias, an ancient Greek city, now an archeological site, known for its sculpture.

  I slowed the bike to a crawl on the cracked pavement, dimly lit buildings lined either side of the street. The facades were completely open to the road and there were chairs and tables everywhere, men sitting in groups of three and four, talking and drinking chai. There was a mosque farther up the street, its minarets rising high into the night, and beside it was what looked like a spartan hotel sitting atop one of the teahouses. Meryem pointed the building out and I pulled the motorcycle to a stop in front of it, shutting down the engine and kickin
g it onto its stand.

  “Ask for two rooms,” Meryem said.

  “Have you heard my Turkish?”

  “We are in a village. You are a man. In my country, it is better you speak.”

  Meryem waited by the bike as I walked into the teahouse on the bottom floor of the hotel. A few men looked up at me, but not many. Then the proprietor came out from behind a counter, a tray of tea in hand. My Turkish language skills weren’t up to the task, so I held up two fingers and pointed upstairs, miming going to sleep. As far as I could tell, it worked. The proprietor held up a finger of his own indicating that I should wait a second. Then he put the tray down at a nearby table and led me up a creaky staircase to a narrow landing.

  I counted five doors. He opened the nearest one. Inside was a basic but clean room with a wooden floor, a bed, and an armoire. He pointed to a shared bathroom down the hall. The proprietor then showed me a second room, similar in every way, and I paid right there in the hall. He gave me two keys, and I went down to the bike to grab our stuff.

  “Nice place?” Meryem asked.

  “Better than the side of the road,” I replied.

  I picked up the marble arm and my backpack and we trudged through the lower teahouse and up the stairs. I couldn’t manage the door, so I handed Meryem my key and she stepped inside the room, crossing to sit on the single bed, testing its springs. I dropped my pack and laid the marble arm beside it.

  “Bouncing,” she said.

  “Bouncy,” I replied.

  “That’s what I said. Bouncing.”

  “No, the word is bouncy.”

  “Come,” she said. “Sit.”

  What the hell. I was tired, so I sat.

  “Why argue with me?” Meryem said. “I say bouncing, you say bouncy. What is the difference?”

  I sat beside her on the woolen blanket. I had to admit, at that moment, in my mind at least, there was no difference at all. A bare bulb hung from the cracked ceiling, while arabesque music drifted up through the wooden floor. I watched a lizard scurry along the plaster wall.

  “When I was a very young girl, when all my family was together, I dreamed one day I would live on a farm,” Meryem said. “There would be sheep and cows. There would be chickens and ducks and olives and horses. There would be land for the animals. There would be space in my house for my mother and father, for my three brothers, a space for us to be together,” she said. “I would be very happy.”

  Meryem turned to me. She sat only a few inches away, the light from the bulb reflected in her dark eyes. She looked soulful at that moment. Soulful and true. She took my hands in hers.

  “What happened?” I said.

  “I became a spy,” Meryem said. “I joined MIT and no more did I think of the farm. But you know what?”

  “What?”

  “I am thinking of it now.”

  Meryem squeezed my hands and smiled a sad smile.

  “Do not make my mistakes, Mr. Raptor. I am perhaps two or three years older than you. But my fate is decided. I will never live on that farm.”

  “I don’t believe that. If you want it, you can do it,” I said. “You just need to want it badly enough.”

  “This is very American,” she said. “Always looking on the bright side.”

  “Is that so bad?” I replied.

  “Maybe not. But the bright side, sometimes, is not so bright at all.”

  Meryem smiled and slowly rose from the bed. As she did, I realized I wanted her to stay.

  “I will see you in the morning. Goodnight, Mr. Raptor.”

  “Goodnight.”

  And she walked away, shutting the door softly behind her.

  WHEN I AWOKE, it was just getting light. I had the early morning call to prayer followed by a pair of overzealous roosters to blame for the fact that I was awake, but I wasn’t complaining. An early start was exactly what I needed. I got dressed and went outside to the shared bathroom, happy that I’d be getting some time on my own to check things out and plan the day. But when I tried the bathroom door it was locked. Before I could release the handle, Meryem walked out. She looked good. Freshly showered and ready to take on the day.

  “Today we meet Augustus,” she said.

  “Friend of yours?” I asked.

  “A politician. Octavian Augustus, the first Roman Emperor. I think the arm belongs to him.”

  We packed up and walked downstairs. I could have done with a coffee, but nothing was open yet, so I tied down the arm and strapped my backpack to the rack, hopping on the bike.

  “The ancient city is very near,” Meryem said. “Perhaps they have coffee there.”

  I rode slowly, because the rising sun was in my eyes and I wanted to keep a low profile as we left town. We continued along a gently winding road for about five more minutes, before turning off at a gas station, the entrance to the ancient archeological site of Aphrodisias visible just down the road. Unfortunately, when we pulled up to the front gate we discovered that Aphrodisias was closed. The gate was locked, a sign on the guard shack indicating that the site wouldn’t be open until 10:00 AM.

  Meryem brought up a map of the ancient city on her phone.

  “The monument of Augustus is here, in the center of the city.”

  I glanced at the guard shack.

  “You think a caretaker sleeps there?”

  “Perhaps. No way to tell.”

  “Sure there is,” I said.

  “How?” Meryem asked.

  “Like this.”

  I popped the clutch and headed straight for the fence.

  Chapter 23

  I HEADED FOR the fence because I saw what Meryem didn’t. Namely, that the fence blocked off access to the site from our direction, but the site wasn’t fenced in on all sides. Maybe it was a lack of money, maybe a crooked contractor, but looking into the distance, I could just make out where the fence ended. From that point, access was easy, the ancient city of Aphrodisias laid out like so much used marble on the bone-dry hillside.

  I kept the bike in second gear as we bounced over the uneven ground before hitting a footpath. The map indicated that the first landmark was an amphitheater. Peering down on my left, I saw the ancient circular bowl built into the cliffside, marble, stadium-style seats perched on top of each other facing a stone stage. The red dirt path headed up before flattening out briefly and dipping back down the slope. I glanced back at the entrance to the site, but there was no activity. So far, we were flying under the radar.

  I piloted the bike over what looked like chunks of broken marble columns as we trundled down the hill. I’d heard somewhere that it would take hundreds of years to excavate all the ancient ruins in Turkey and I believed it. There were remnants of the ancient city everywhere, marble columns lying beside grounded pediments. We traveled through the ancient marketplace and passed what looked like a swimming pool and some smaller amphitheaters that could have served as the seat of government. Some parts of the site were still being actively excavated, artifacts being dug from long, deep pits. Ahead I saw what I thought was a temple, white marble columns rising to hold the crumbling marble pediment above.

  “Does that look right?” I said, pointing to the temple.

  “Yes,” Meryem said.

  I drove over the rough stones toward it, pulling over beside the rising columns. But I didn’t bother kicking the bike onto its stand because there was no sculpture there. Just a marble base where a sculpture might have once stood.

  “Perhaps it was taken,” Meryem said. “Perhaps in the museum here. Perhaps somewhere else. Many sculptures from Turkey have been taken to other countries.”

  She was probably right. I saw another structure ahead, but it was the same story. There was a marble base, but no sculpture. As we rode farther on, the scenario was repeated yet again. It was disheartening. The city’s sculptures were no longer there.

  Then I looked behind me. To the west. Something was a little different in that direction. The trail changed into a genuine cobbled road. Not
like the other roads, but a better preserved one, as though it had been restored. In fact, everything looked a little more put back together in that direction. It took me a moment, but I saw it.

  “There.”

  The monument. It wasn’t a ruined building like the others. It was a grand building that had been totally reconstructed, a perfect pediment sitting above it. And we were in luck. As we drove closer, I saw the sculpture in front of it. The statue had been broken at one time, but it had been painstakingly reassembled, probably with iron rods and epoxy and whatever else it took to attach the bits and pieces of marble back together. The sculpture was a larger-than-life Roman emperor in a flowing marble tunic. All that was missing was a head. And an arm.

  I briefly wondered why this statue was still standing while the others were not. Maybe it was special in some way. Different. Meryem got off. She was wearing white again. A T-shirt and capri pants. With her thick black hair blowing in the breeze, it wasn’t hard to imagine her as Cleopatra standing amid the ruins of her failed empire.

  I pulled the arm off the rack and carried it up to the statue. Octavian Augustus, the first emperor of Rome and patron to the city of Aphrodisias, stood on a marble base, so it was difficult for me to reach him, but I saw the general angle of the broken marble at his shoulder. If the arm was properly affixed, he would be pointing northeast. I couldn’t reach high enough, so I did the next best thing.

  “Hop on my shoulders,” I said to Meryem.

  She didn’t look thrilled, but she understood me. I hunched low and Meryem climbed onto my shoulders. Then I handed her the arm and stood up. I didn’t think Meryem weighed more than a hundred and twenty pounds. But the arm must have been over fifty, so the two of them together weren’t light. I straightened up, feeling the pleasant muscle-burn in my legs, and watched directly above me as Meryem tried to affix the arm to the statue. I silently prayed that she didn’t drop it. That would hurt. What we needed to do was get an idea of where the arm was pointing. After all, why else had the sculpture been restored while everything around it lay in ruins?