Cristal - Novella (14 page)

Kerim decelerated and turned into a driveway
in front of metal grey gates. He stopped the bike for a moment,
letting the engine idle.

Cristal heard the sounds of people
scrambling and voices calling out, “Kerim is back.”

The gates creaked open. Kerim rode inside
the cemented lot. Gabriel greeted him and when he saw Cristal, he
grinned from ear to ear.

“Hey, Cristal! Glad you finally decided to
visit the bachelor pad.”

He helped her off the bike, and immediately
rambled on about what he and Rinaldo had done earlier in the
day.

She watched Kerim disappear into the house.
He didn’t even bother to wait for her.

“Rinaldo and Raffe are inside. Come in. We
just picked up pizza. I’m sure you’re starving.”

“Yeah, I’m definitely hungry, come to think
of it,” she managed to say.

She followed Gabriel inside a narrow hallway
and up the stairs. Her eyes adjusted to the dim lighting, as she
entered what she guessed was the living room.

The place was cluttered with shoes piled up
on the side of the doorway. Tons of family photos adorned the
walls, and she laughed when she saw all the books and papers piled
up on the coffee table. The only modern treasure in the room was a
52-inch flat screen TV that hung on the wall next to the
fireplace.

“Come into the kitchen. That’s where
everyone is,” Gabriel teased while gesturing with his hand for her
to follow him.

They walked into the kitchen through another
dark hallway that easily was double the size of her hotel room.
Rinaldo sat in one corner of the room and he was chatting with a
girl while he smoked a water pipe, which was popularly known in the
Middle East as
sheesha.
Kerim was deep in conversation with
someone and his back was turned to her. She thought it was strange
that no one even noticed her when she entered the room.

“Come, the pizza is on the counter. Help
yourself. Don’t be shy,” Gabriel said, waving to the open pizza
boxes.

She walked over, her mouth ready to bite
into a juicy slice. Her eyes widened when she saw that the pizza
was covered with yellow corn niblets.

“Corn?” she asked.

“It’s an Israeli specialty,” Kerim
announced.

She turned and saw Kerim standing behind
her. He was half-smiling, not as pissed-off-looking as he was
earlier, much to her relief.

“I guess it would be impolite to refuse to
eat it?” she asked, smiling.

Kerim looked over his shoulder, and said,
“This is Raffe.”

Raffe was short, coming only up to Kerim’s
shoulder. His skin was honey-brown colored and his hair was a pile
of black curls crowning the top of his head. He was muscular,
dressed in a black T-shirt and ripped blue jeans. He stared at her
with eyes so black, they looked like they were filled with liquid
ink.

“
Ma nishma
,”
he said in a deep guttural voice, putting his fist up.

Cristal remembered that this meant
what’s
up
but she forgot how to respond
.

She looked over at Kerim who motioned with
his hand for her to raise her fist up
.
Oh, yes,
she thought. Kerim had taught her how to greet
people with a fist pump.

Raffe smirked as he touched his fist with
hers. She felt an electrical shock run through her body. Suddenly,
a feeling surged through her that she didn’t understand, and
everything inside her began to put her on alert
.

Raffe shot Kerim a look, grabbed a bottle of
beer from the counter and bumped against Cristal slightly as he
walked past her out of the room. She thought she heard him say
something, but she wasn’t sure
.

“Don’t worry. He’s harmless,” Kerim said as
he put his arm around her
.

“He creeps me out,” she said. “Who is
he?
”

Kerim gave her a kiss on her
forehead
.

Is that his way of shutting me up?

Rinaldo approached both of them and asked,
“So, Kerim, were you serious when you said that we’re all going to
the wall tonigh
t
?”

He had an anxious look on his face.

Kerim smirked, lifting his chin, which was
his way of saying
yes
.

“Without Harry’s approval?” Rinaldo
asked.

“We don’t need his permission,” Kerim said.

Cristal sensed that he was trying to control
his temper.

Gabriel joined the circle and voiced his
concern, by saying, “It doesn’t feel right, Kerim. I mean, Harry is
our leader, and he told us that we couldn’t go there without him
giving us the green light.”

Cristal’s head began to spin.
What wall? Why did
Kerim want to go there? And what was so special about that
place?

“You don’t have to come. None of you have to
come. But if you want to know the truth, you don’t need to wait for
Harry to tell us when.”

Kerim put his arm around Cristal’s shoulder,
and he told her, “Come on. Let’s go!”

She swallowed hard, acknowledging in her brain what
she had to do. Her heart started beating faster. Taking deep
breaths, she tried to control her heart rate. She told herself,
“
Calm down.”

“I’m coming with you,” Gabriel said. “I always wanted
to find out what the big deal was about that place.”

Rinaldo’s body language was not in agreement
with Gabriel. Rinaldo said, “No way, guys. I ‘a’ stay here and wait
for Harry’s call. He has his reasons for saying not to ‘a’ go
without him. I have a big trust for him.” He turned around and went
back to the corner where he had left the girl pouting
.

“Let’s go,” Kerim said.

Cristal wanted to say something, but she decided it
wasn’t the right time. Sometimes keeping quiet is better than
asking too many questions.

***

They rode for over an hour on the motorcycle with
Cristal’s arms tightly wrapped around Kerim’s waist. Gabriel had
caught a ride with Kerim’s friends in their mini-bus. Cristal had
hoped that they would have ridden with them, but she realized that
Kerim liked to do things his way.

She closed her eyes for most of the trip, feeling
drained of all her energy. Only once did she glance up to see a
highway route sign that said 60.
How far is this wall?

“Don’t fall asleep. Don’t want you to fall
off,” Kerim called back to her.

She mumbled, “I feel awful.”

He squeezed her arm and encouraged her by
saying, “We should be there soon.”

She pressed her head tightly into his back,
hoping he was right.

“
Trust no one,”
her dad’s voice said in her
head.
“Today will be the beginning of The End. Stay strong and
have faith.”

“No! Stop!” she hollered, shaking her head,
and not wanting to hear the voices anymore.

Kerim turned his head towards her and
yelled, over the noise of the road, “Are you all right? Do you want
me to stop?”

“I wasn’t talking to you,” she said.

That’s when she realized that what she had
said sounded crazy. “I mean, I thought I was going to be sick. But
I think I’m okay. We’re not that far. Are we?” She felt his hand on
her arm.

“We’re almost there. You must be really
tired. I can’t hear any of your thoughts,” he said with a soft
chuckle.

Well, that’s good to know
,
she thought to herself.

Zero
: video chat in 15 min

Onyx
: see you then

Joanna looked over at Jenna who was sitting
on the couch, busy typing on her laptop. Although, she had agreed
for her to move in temporarily, living with Jenna was driving her
crazy.

The sound of the chat tool notification
alert interrupted her thoughts. She quickly read the message.

“Was it Harry? What did he say?” Jenna asked
raising one eyebrow.

“Yeah, he wants to video chat soon,” Joanna
said.

“Awesome. Okay, I’m going to set up beside
you, so he can’t see me.”

Jenna stood up, grabbed her laptop, walked
over and sat down on the chair beside her.

“Great,” Joanna mumbled to herself.
What
did I get myself into? Not only do I have the boss interrogating me
at work, I’ve got Jenna bossing me around at home.

Every day at GN, senior management was
breathing down her neck. Joanna knew that if she revealed Harry’s
breach in security, she would only be revealing her own role. She
wasn’t ready to be hauled into prison over this.

Jenna turned to her, and asked, “Joanna, why
don’t you introduce me to Harry?”

“What?” Joanna couldn’t believe her ears.
“Are you crazy? If he even suspects that I am talking to a
non-Truth Seeker, he’s going to cut me loose. And where would that
get you?”

Jenna bit her lip, a sign that she was
thinking up one of her crazy plans.

“No way, Jenna. You just sit quietly right
where you are. Or else, I’m going to call this whole thing off,”
she snapped.

Jenna sighed, and then said, “Okay, okay.
Take a pill. I’ll sit over here and behave.”

Joanna threw her a dirty look but knew that
it was pointless. Jenna was so thick-skinned that nothing ever
fazed her. She only worried about getting what she was after—no
matter what it took.

“You know, I don’t know if Kerim Ilgaz
changed his name, because I can’t find much on him,” Jenna said,
reaching for her glass and taking a sip.

“Oh?” Joanna frowned.

“He has absolutely no digital tattoo on the
internet. No website, no social network. Not even an email account.
I asked my contacts in Istanbul to find out more about him. All I
could get was that he was in the military for four years. He has no
family, no friends, nothing. As far as the database records show,
before 2009, he was a ghost.”

Joanna said, “Well, maybe he did change his
name. If he was in the military, maybe he was a secret agent or
something. That would explain why he doesn’t have a footprint
online. For all we know, he’s still under cover.”

“You know what, Joanna, I think you are onto
something,” Jenna said, grinning like a kid who had just been
handed an ice cream cone. “I’m going to see if my CIA contacts can
find something on him.”

“Seriously? You’ve got CIA contacts?”

She gave her a wry smile.

Jenna shrugged. “CIA agents are a dime a
dozen these days with all the national security measures that
President Roshenbaum brought in.”

“Funny, I voted for Roshenbaum, thinking
he’d protect our rights, but it looks like he’s worse than
Sanders.”

“Yeah, who would guess that General Sanders
would be more liberal than Roshenbaum,” Jenna replied. “But hey, as
long as you instill enough fear in people, they’ll all line up and
give away their rights like candy.”

The sound of the video chat alert
interrupted their conversation. Joanna raised her finger to her
lips, motioning to Jenna to keep quiet.

Joanna clicked on Zero’s avatar and the
video chat window opened, filling her screen. He was dressed in an
ocean blue short-sleeved button shirt, which was opened at the
neckline showing off his golden skin.

Harry looks real good with a tan
, she
thought to herself. She also noticed that his eyes seemed to
reflect the blue from his shirt.

“Onyx, I don’t have much time. Do you have
the data I asked you for yesterday?”

“Hello to you too, Zero,” she replied.

“Onyx, I need that data now.”

She bit her tongue, trying hard not to
glance over at Jenna who was drinking in Harry’s every word.

“Sending it now,” she said in the most
professional tone she could muster.

Harry’s eyes looked down until the file was
received on his end.

“File received. Good job, Onyx,” he
said.

She smiled despite herself, her cheeks
probably turning all shades of pink. Jenna was going to harass her
later, she was sure of it.

“Lionheart knows about the data that we
retrieved from the restricted server. She tasked me to find proof
that you and Dr. S. breached security.”

He scowled, absorbing the news.“Stick with
protocol. Divert
the Lion
away from us by using this data
I’m sending now.”

She waited until the file downloaded on her
computer. “Confirming receipt.”

“Also, if Shadow contacts you, flag it with
me. Don’t reveal any intel to him. Until I have cleared him,
consider him a hostile.”

She could hear Jenna gasp. Joanna kicked her
foot under the table.

“Roger that,” Joanna replied.

She knew not to ask questions, but she could
feel Jenna growing anxious.

“Zero, anything I need to know about
Shadow?” she asked.

Harry shook his head, but his face look
pained.

“Your next mission. Find out the correlation
between these numbers…” he said, while typing in the text
window.

Zero:
11132013, 56609, 14350109,
57740910, 17300304

“Where did you get these numbers from?” she
asked, but then bit her tongue, realizing afterwards that she
shouldn’t have asked.

Harry’s eyebrows raised slightly. Preparing
herself for the lecture, she was surprised when he smiled
instead.

“Yes, it would help put things in context if
you knew what the source was. We have been gathering reports of
people having dreams or visions since the earthquake. These are the
numbers that many have reported seeing in their visions,” he said
quietly.

She smiled to herself. This was the first
time Harry had shared crucial intel with her.

“We will get onto this a.s.a.p.”

Jenna kicked her under the table. Joanna
glanced over to her and realized her mistake before whipping her
eyes back to the screen.

Luckily, Harry’s eyes were focused on his
keyboard as he was typing.