Edser OS and Short Stories

The Spy Who Loved Me (AU) Chapter 7

Eda held her breath, waiting for Serkan's revelation. He looked at her, and anger in his eyes changed into bitterness.

"Serkan." Eda whispered, urging him to finally answer her, and grabbed his hand, squeezing it as he took a deep breath.

"I can read it because it was my grandfather who came up with this code, and he was a KGB agent."

Eda's eyes widened in shock, but she quickly composed herself. "But you..."

"I'm not." Serkan answered, and Eda exhaled.

She moved closer to him, taking a piece of paper off his hands and putting it on the stand next to the bed. She cupped Serkan's cheeks, seeing his grim face.

"Tell me everything." She said softly.

"Did Efe unsealed my file? Do you know my mother is Russian, and I have been working using a Russian passport for many years?" He asked, and Eda nodded.

"I wasn't such a good friend with Mert as everybody seems to think." Serkan said and pressed his lips in an angry grimace again. "Do you know that I never wanted to be a spy? I wanted to be a pilot. I was accepted to the Air Force Academy, but before I had a chance to start, Mert found me and blackmailed me to join his program."

"Did you know?" Eda asked, examining Serkan's face intently, and she could tell he was sincere with her.

"I had no idea until he showed me the files. I don't think if my mother knows, but if she does, she masks herself pretty well, and I'm sure my father has no idea. The less anybody knows, the safer they are, so it was the reason I was kept in the dark, even if looking back at this, I can see my grandfather wanting to warn me." Serkan chuckled with a snort and looked at the wall. "Until he lived, he was always trying to persuade me to any other career than the military. He was even pushing for me to be a commercial pilot if I wanted to fly that much and now I see why. He knew that the moment I entered any governor program, my family would get a background check, and so it happened."

"What did Mert do with that information?" Eda encouraged Serkan when he fell silent and looked as if he was done talking.

"He sealed my information, removing my grandfather's files." He answered after a long moment. "But I'm sure he hid it somewhere to pull them out if he would need them to pressure me more. My grandfather was working at the University of Petersburg. He was a mathematician in the field of statistics, dabbing into linguistic studies and the use of statistical methods in corpus-based studies. What that really meant was he was a cryptographer, coding and breaking codes. He was one of the best or maybe even the best of his times. Mert threatened me that if I didn't do as he pleased, namely go to Russia and pretend to be my grandfather's successor, he would evict my family from Turkey, and they wouldn't get into any NATO country and be announced as the enemies of the state."

"What a bastard." Eda whispered under her breath, earning a nod from Serkan.

"One of the coldest assholes I ever met, but I didn't have any choice." He shrugged. "I could forget about the pilot career. I could forget about any career except the one he had planned for me. So I went to Russia. Except for my mission, Mert was hoping that my appearance would attract SVR's attention, and he was right. They found me pretty quickly. I was using my grandfather's name, and the news spread fast. They wanted to recruit me, and Mert was pushing me to be a double agent. It would be his dream come true to have someone inside, but I knew if I did that I would be done. There wouldn't be coming back to whatever life I would want to have. I would have to stay in SVR's structures forever, or if I would leave they would find me. Russians are much more efficient than any other intelligence. They always find you. There is no retiriment. So, I played dumb, and eventually, they left me alone. Mert was so pissed, but I played dumb in front of him too, although he was suspecting I pulled something, so he punished me, sending me around the world to most crappy jobs he could come up with, forcing me to use my Russian passport. Only when he was made a head of MIT, he felt merciful and allowed me to come back to the country, of course, to work under him, but we developed a civil agreement. I got a position that was satisfying to me. He stopped taking out on me for ruining his big chance in exchange for my loyalty."