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1073 Words
The woman was standing behind the barricades on H Street. She had four police officers and two Secret Service agents in her face.
Herbert hurried over to her while Anthony followed.
One of the agents said, “The lady said you asked to meet with her here. Or else she wouldn’t have gotten this far.”
“Mrs. Penelope?” he said again as he stared at her.
The agent said, “So you do know her, sir?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Still can’t let unauthorized persons inside the tape. The scene hasn’t been released yet.”
“Right,” said Herbert. “I’ll step out and escort her from here.”
He passed through an opening in the barricades, took Mrs. Penelope’s arm and led her in the direction of St. John’s Church. There was a bench near the entrance. Herbert knew this bench had been used years ago to teach rookie CIA agents how to conduct signaling assignments for dead drops of clandestine information. Now it was just a place to rest.
They sat while Anthony hovered nearby but out of earshot, in deference to Mrs. Penelope’s hurried request to talk to Herbert alone.
Oliver Herbert and Mrs. Penelope shared a common history. She had been a protestor at Lafayette Park even before him. They had become friends. She had helped Herbert during some critical times in his life. And then one day she had not come back to her small tent near the edge of the park. After a few days he went to her tiny apartment above a dry cleaning business in Chinatown to check on her. The place was empty. No one could tell him where she had gone. He had not seen her again until right now.
She looked older, her hair full of gray. Her face, wrinkled when he had last seen her, was even more drawn and withered; the pouches of skin under her eyes had inflated. He remembered her as pugnacious and difficult. And secretive. But he had learned enough of her background to suspect that she had led an extraordinary life before settling in Lafayette Park.
“Mrs. Penelope, where have you been all this time? You just disappeared.”
“I had to, Oliver. It was time.”
Her voice was not nearly as accented as it was before. Her command of the English language, always a bit ragged, had improved markedly.
“What do you mean it was time?”
“I need to tell you something.”
“What?”
“A question first. Are you once more working for the government?”
“Once more? How do you know I ever did?”
“There are many things I don’t know about you, Oliver. But there are some things I do know about you.” She paused and added, “Such as your real name is John Carr.”
He sat back and studied her in a new light. “How long have you known?”
“You remember when that man attacked you when I was trying to give some money to that poor homeless person?”
“I remember.”
“You defended yourself using a technique that I had only seen once before. When some elite Soviet commandos came to Poland to round up dissenters.”
“Did you suspect me of being a spy?”
“The thought did cross my mind, but events proved otherwise.”
“You were made aware of certain events?”
“I know that your country betrayed you. But you once more work with them?”
“Yes.”
“Then I can help you.”
“How?”
“The man in the suit that was here two nights ago?”
He leaned closer. “You know where he is?”
“Yes.”
“And do you know why he was at the park that night?”
“Yes.”
“Was he there to meet with someone?”
“Yes.” She paused. “He was there to meet with me.”
“HIS NAME IS DR. FUAT TURKEKUL,” said Mrs. Penelope, before Herbert could even ask the question.
“A doctor of what?”
“Not medical. He’s a Ph.D. Of both political science and economics. He is a very well-known man in elite academic circles. He is multilingual. He spent years at Cambridge. The London School of Economics. The Sorbonne. Now he’s a visiting scholar at Georgetown.”
“Turkekul? Where is he from originally?”
Mrs. Penelope snagged a bit of hair out of her eyes. “Why does it matter?”
“Mrs. Penelope, you know what happened here.”
“And Fuat being a foreigner he goes to the top of the suspicion list?”
“Why was he meeting you in the park that night?”
When she didn’t answer he said, “There are many things I never knew
about you. Would one of them be the real reason why you were in the park all those years?”
“I knew who you were while I was still at the park,” she said. “What does that tell you?”
“That you were not working with or for the Americans. Otherwise I would have been taken away.”
“My allegiances were to another country. But one that was an ally of America.”
“Which one?”
“Does it matter?”
“Perhaps not to me, but it will to others.”
“Her?” she said, indicating Anthony.
“Not so much, no.”
“Your best ally in the Middle East,” she said finally. “That was my master.”
Herbert slowly nodded. “All right, that I can understand. But getting back to Turkekul?”
“He is not simply a scholar. He has other interests. But again, these interests are in line with the Americans’ goals.”
“So you say. But what happened two nights ago doesn’t make me believe that.”
“He had nothing to do with that attack,” she said sternly. “As I told you, he was there to meet me. If he hadn’t left when he did, he would’ve been killed.”
“Yes, his timing was very fortuitous,” said Herbert in a skeptical tone.
“I tell you he had nothing to do with it.”
- Writer
