Price of Passion

Chapter 8: Liar

It has been raining since the night fell over Istanbul. What seemed like a flawlessly planned evening had turned out to be a horrendous, chaotic mess as a group of paramedics wheeled the Mayor's dead body out of the hotel. A wall of paparazzi had set camp at the lobby entrance, camera lights flashing mercilessly at anyone that goes in or out of the hotel. Oğuz savcı is still addressing these folks from the media. Rumours about the shooting had spread like wildfire, but that is the last of the prosecutor's concerns. Fixing his eyes on the multitude of CCTV monitors, Yigit frowned as he couldn't find a single image or even a fleeting shadow of the man he was hunting for. Every single camera in the hotel was working just fine, and yet Cuneythad ingeniously disappeared from plain sights, like a ghost that walks through walls. Yigit felt his hope diminishing by the second as the monitors kept rewinding and playing.

"Iyi mısın, Yiğit?" said Aslı while giving Yiğit a gentle pat on the back.

"Iyiyim ben," Yiğit said. "Sağol. We checked the Mayor's dressing room. The two bodyguards are also dead."

"Nerede o şerefsiz?" Ferhat growled as he restrained himself from breaking the monitors in front of him.

"Bilmiyorum," Yiğit said. "Uff - May Allah give us the patience to deal with this shit. We have at least a hundred officers in this division and there's not a single hair from this şerefsiz."

"Do you think he escaped?" Aslı said.

"There's no way he could escape when we have at least two officers guarding every single possible exit," said Yiğit. "It's very likely that he's still in here."

"If that's the case," Aslı said. "There are only two ways..."

"Go up," Ferhat said. "Or go down."

"Evet," Yigit said. "But there's a pool on the roof. That will only attract unwanted attention. And it's a dead end."

"What's below then?" Asli asked, looking at her husband as the three of them came to the same realization.

"The loading bay," Yigit said. "Check those cameras now! Cabuk!"

The operations manager nodded as he switched to the cameras in the Loading Bay. There are two vehicles parked in the area. There are a few men unloading ice packets from the big steel truck and the other smaller van seems to be vacant at the moment. A man - the driver, is leaning against the van, smoking a cigarette as if he is waiting for someone. And sure enough, a man wearing a cap approached the driver five minutes later. Yigit felt his heartbeat quicken as he zoomed in onto the two men's faces.

Their ghost had appeared.

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*Flashback*

"Ferhat," Mehmet said with a smile. "Iyi akşamlar. Hoşgeldın, good to see you here. And you too, Doktor Aslı."

"Hoş bulduk, Mehmet Bey," Aslı nodded. "Our pleasure to be here. Tahsin nasıl?"

"O iyi, çok sağol. He's still a little weak in the legs, ama he's recovering quickly, elini sağlık."

"Aynen," Ferhat said wryly. "She can make people walk so nicely."

"Estağfurullah," said Aslı while giving Ferhat an annoyed look, before turning back to Mehmet. "Has he been taking physiotherapy sessions? Yani, he needs to do some exercises to regain his strength."

"Ha, evet. Actually, we just hired a personal trainer to help him. He's here tonight as well."

Aslı nodded in approval. "Çok iyi."