Chapter XI: Way Too Easy

Therese cut off the enthusiastic man standing beside the last carousel. He gestured at Triple H's picture again with a smile and she worked hard to remember the phrases she had learned on the plane. "Did you see this man in the airport?" The employee's thick eyebrows knitted together and he nodded his head. It took her a moment to remember that a side to side shake meant 'yes' and a nod up and down meant 'no.' It was opposite of to what she was accustomed. "Did you see this man?" she repeated in English but then caught herself and said it in Turkish.

He said a few more things she didn't understand but then he pointed at the picture again and said, "Trip-le H. W-W-F. Tel-e-vis-ion." He smiled again and made a square with his hands to indicate the TV set.

"Yeah, I'm a big fan too," she muttered to herself. All that excitement over nothing. Apparently wrestling had made it everywhere on the face of the planet.

Stephanie gave the man at the counter a weary smile and scribbled her autograph on a blank piece of paper. She had two people recognize her before she got any information out of them. However, that information was only that they knew the two men from wrestling as well. Outside of those two conversations, which were luckily in English, no one could help her.

She was tired, her back hurt, her feet hurt, and her head was beginning to hurt. She rested for a moment in one of the plastic chairs around baggage claim. She was so disappointed but what could she really expect? They'd walk in and the first person they talked to know would know their husbands or their abductors? And know where to find them as well? She felt stupid for expecting to find anything at this point. If these two men who had taken Kevin and Shawn were agile enough to take both of them without setting off the alarms and were intelligent enough to get them out of the country, then they were definitely capable of covering their tracks. What if she and Therese couldn't pick up their trail? No, if these men were desperate enough to take the two wrestlers and demand a large ransom, they wouldn't let either her or Therese get too far without steering them in the right direction…or so she hoped.

Well, she was burning daylight. The VP rose from her seat and began heading for the last of the car rental counters. After talking with two more people, she noticed Therese out of the corner of her eye at one of the foreign currency exchanges. Glancing at her watch, she noticed that it was almost time to call her anyhow and decided to hook up with the woman now.

"Therese!" she called as the blonde turned away from the booth and tucked Turkish lire into her pocket. Therese jerked her head and strode over to Stephanie.

"Went ahead and changed some of my money. We've got to find food soon. I'm starving."

"Me too."

"Maybe we should finish the rest of these," Therese waved at the remaining counters, "find some supper and then hit the taxi drivers."

"Rese, are we gonna have to do this when the shift changes?" Stephanie asked with sagging shoulders.

"I don't think so. Most international flights from the US arrive in the afternoon to evening and this place shuts down fairly early compared to Hartsfield. I assume if they came in, this is about what time they came in."

"You really have this planned out."

"Yeah, well, we're sorta in my element," Therese dismissed the compliment with a sheepish grin.

Stephanie started to reply but stopped with a blank on her face as her eyes focused behind Therese. "Um, don't look now, but there's a huge stormcloud coming this way."

The blonde glanced over her shoulder to see a tall, thick man coming in their direction. He wore a charcoal gray suit with a silver handkerchief in the breast pocket. He had dark eyes and thick moustache on a face that registered anger. Then she noticed two other men, larger than the suavely dressed first one out in front of them.

"Wha' do we do?" the VP asked, her voice a little shaky. "Run?"

"No, we've done nothing wrong," Therese staunchly stated but then added apprehensively, "I think."

"You think!"

A hand was put on Therese's arm and the man called her to his attention with a term equivalent to 'ma'am."

"Yes?" she answered in Turkish.

"What are you two women doing?" he asked in the same language.

"I am looking for a man."

He then began a string of Turkish she didn't understand while he gestured wildly to the automatic sliding glass doors that were the main exit to the airport. If he would just slow down, she might have been able to understand and calm that panic that was beginning to rise in her legs. The two burly men that came with him grabbed Therese and Stephanie respectively by the arm, which set the blonde off. No one touched her that she did not know or give permission to do so. Touch was too intimate to her. She jerked away, took a step toward the man who had spoken to her, and asked, "What are you doing? Repeat slow, please."

Stephanie stared at back of her for a moment and then interrupted, "What is going on? What did he say?"

"I don't know," Therese muttered back over her shoulder. "Give me—"

"You spent all that time on the plane reading that book and you don't know," Stephanie exclaimed.

"The flight was only like eight hours. What did you expect?"

"I—"

"Good, ladies, you speak English." Both of the women turned around to stare at him in surprise, jaws dropped. "I am the director of this airport. I have command of ten different languages, including English."

"And you just assumed we spoke Turkish?" Therese haughtily replied.

"Well, we are in Turkey and you were harassing my employees in Turkish. I'm very surprised you Americans would even try to speak anything other than English."

"Harassing? We were doing no such thing. Do you really have such a command of the English language?" the blonde sarcastically asked.

"Therese!" Stephanie quietly scolded.

"I could speak to you in Turkish only and put you back on a plane to the United States since you couldn't respond and fight the action. Maybe you would like to cooperate and speak to me civilly," the man arrogantly responded.

"If we talk to you, you'll just kick us out. Why not go ahead and do it?"

"Therese!" This time Stephanie was much louder.

"You may have a visa but do not think that I do not have the authority to hold you and have that visa revoked," he replied, his voice growing darker.

"Fine," Therese snarled, "we'll talk."

"This way, ladies," he said coolly, now that they were cooperating. He gestured toward a hall off the side and started in that direction.

"Can we run now?" Stephanie whispered.

"Not without his thugs throwing us down and dragging us back," she replied, gesturing to the two large men following them as they trailed behind the director.

The women were led into a large office with several filing cabinets, a flat-panel computer screen on the cherry wood desk, and a wall of monitors. Therese glanced over them over and scoffed, "We've been out there for two hours and you just now haul us in?"

"Therese, what are you doing?" Stephanie asked through clenched teeth.

"I had been taking care of other business until thirty minutes ago," he replied politely and gestured to the two seats in front of the desk. "Ahmet Bengisu at your service. And your name is…"

Therese tossed her hair back. "Therese Blair Nash and this is my friend, Stephanie McMahon-Michaels." She noticed the corner of his mouth twitch and wondered what exactly he was hiding.

"And why were you harass—excuse me," Bengisu said and then corrected himself, "why were speaking with all of my employees?"

"Have you seen any of these men in the past four or five days?" Therese asked, pushing the pictures across the desk.

"It's not that easy," he replied without looking at them.

"You tell me if you've seen them and I'll tell you why I'm looking for them."

Bengisu picked up the pictures and perused them, the corner of his mouth twitching again. "I've not seen them in my airport. Now, why are looking for them?"'

"My ex-husband owes me a lot of money in alimony and that's not counting the child support. The rest of those men are his consorts and, the last I heard, he was on a plane here with at least one of them," Therese smoothly lied, proud of the story she had just concocted.

"Ex-husband?" he asked and she noticed that damnable twitch.

"I've been doing all the talking. What is it that you're not telling me?" the blonde demanded.

"It seems you have not been telling me something…or the truth."

"I don't follow," Therese bluntly replied.

"How is your husband, Mrs. McMahon Michaels? Is his back holding up well?" Bengisu asked with a smile.

"He's doing well, thank you ver—wait, how do you know that?" Stephanie asked with wide eyes.

"When did you and Kevin get a divorce? Did I not see you on RAW about six months ago going into labor?" the director asked with a straight face, turning to Therese.

"We have television contracts in Turkey?" Stephanie blurted out.

"No, but we would like it if you would consider. However, I have a friend in England who records the shows and mails me the tapes."

"Well, now that that's all straightened out," Therese said calmly and stood, "we'll be getting out of your way."

"Sit…please." The blonde stared at him for a moment and then casually sat back down in the plush chair. "I take it you did not find any information on your ex-husband."

"No, sir," Stephanie piped up, hoping to smooth over the way Therese had been to a fan.

"I will dismiss these concerns against you two if you leave immediately and do not return until you leave the country. Is this agreeable?"

"But—" the agent began.

Stephanie quickly put out a hand and grabbed Therese's knee. "That is agreeable."

"Thank you, ladies. Have a pleasant stay in Istanbul."

"Thank you, Mr. Bengisu," Stephanie said with a brilliant smile as she stood. Therese rose as well and opened her mouth to say something but the brunette grabbed her arm and dug her fingers in, steering her friend out the door and calling over her shoulder. "I'll look into some television contracts for our Turkish fans." When they were out of earshot, Stephanie spoke, "Let's get a cab and go to our hotel. They've got room service so we don't have to go out."

"I can do that in Turkish."

"Good," Stephanie replied with a snarl, "That'll be the best thing you've done in the past twenty minutes."

"And what is that supposed to mean?" Therese asked, bowing up and stopping.

"Could you have offended that man anymore? You made us out to be arrogant, hateful Americans, proving the world's beliefs about us," Stephanie explained tensely as she gestured at herself.

"He offended me first!"

"Therese, you are not this childish. What got into you?"

"I don't know," she sighed as they continued to walk to the exit. "I think all the anger and all the frustration finally hit when his lackeys put their hands on us. I just went into this zone of being pissed off and doing the pissing off."

"Has this ever happened before?"

"Not really. I crawled that guy pretty good who gave us the description of Colin Jenkins," Therese explained, remembering the man who had delivered a message from Stephanie's stalker those years back. "It's never really been part of my job."

"It's okay. You were right—he probably would have kicked us out anyway. I think we're just tired, frustrated and hungry."

"Thanks."

"For what?" Stephanie asked with a crinkled brow.

"I just knew that McMahon temper was going to be unleashed on me but you didn't."

"I think I would have done the same thing but I just don't have the balls. So, I can't fault you."

"Honey, you got balls the day you became a McMahon," Therese replied with a laugh as she rifled through her handbag.

"Yeah, but I don't usually start trouble in foreign countries."

"Very true," Therese responded, pulling out the Turkish reader and her cell phone. "I've got a message. Mind if I get it?" she asked, a lump forming in her throat over the possibilities of what it was about.

When she clapped the phone shut, Stephanie looked at her expectantly. "Well?"

"Bergeron came into work today," Therese sighed. "Jamie said he sounded like he had been sick—still hacking and sniffling. I knew it was too easy to be him."

TBC...