Chapter XIII: More Damn Riddles

To another tourist's eye, Therese and Stephanie were lounged out and sharing a lazy breakfast atop the hotel's roof as they planned their day of shopping and sightseeing. Actually, the two women kept one eye on their cellphones, despite the fact that one couldn't miss their distinctive rings, while the other eye was on plans for their next move.

When Therese couldn't discover a name in the computer system, she made plans to get her hands on security tapes. At the staff change in the evening of American hotels, a general inspection of the hotel occurred. She was banking on the same thing happening here. When the concierge was walking the hallways, she would be in the maintenance room slipping out tapes. She wasn't quite sure when the change would happen and made plans to read the paper in the lobby and then act as if she was waiting to be picked up for a date, which, of course, would be very late. However, there was nothing else to do until then.

Therese leaned back in her seat and began flipping her phone over on its end and back up again. She breathed in the morning air and pointed at two very large buildings, which she assumed to be mosques, that could be seen from the dining area of the hotel's roof. "Those look really old. You wanna go visit them today?"

"That one," Stephanie began and pointed at the one with the minarets, "is the Blue Mosque. It's almost four hundred years old. The other one is the Hagia Sophia. It was—"

Therese sat up quickly. "Oh, I know that name. We learned about it in this history class I took a hundred years ago. This church was to the Eastern Orthodox Church like Rome was to the Catholics after the schism."

Stephanie stared at Therese, her mouth starting to hang open a bit. "When did you get all religious?"

"Once upon a time I was a good Catholic."

"You and Kevin gonna bring your girls up that way?"

"I don't know. I know we had them christened in the Church but they're girls. I'm a feminist and all but most days I feel like the Vatican acts like we're second rate. It don't matter. I wanna raise them to make their own decisions and I wanna raise them in Church until they can make that decision of what they want to believe but then I'm afraid they won't do that with them being told what to think and what to believe."

"Whoa, slow down. That is way too much to be worrying about right now," Stephanie said, holding up her hands.

"Oh, it's just part of another long list I worry too much about."

"Therese, what's going on—" Stephanie began but Therese cut her off.

"You're the one that's been on edge lately. What's up with you?"

"I asked first," the brunette petulantly replied.

"Obviously, we're not gonna get anywhere," the woman's friend blatantly stated. "What were we talking about…oh, yeah, Hagia Sophia, patriarch, Eastern Orthodox Church, extremely important to all of Christianity before the iconoclast controversy. Let's go shopping."

"What?"

"We are in Istanbul," the agent answered. "How can we not do some shopping?"

"Our husbands have been kidnapped and we don't know exactly—"

"And what good is it gonna do us to sit around worrying about them when we can't do anything about it?" The brunette didn't respond but crossed her arms and looked away. "Stephanie, I'll go crazy if we sit here all day staring at our cellphones and waiting to be contacted. We'll have our phones on us. What else do we need?"

The VP shifted a little in her seat, weighing the proposition. Therese had a point—she too would go crazy simply staring at their phones and waiting. "I guess it would be nice to have something to show Shawn for having to hunt his sorry ass down," Stephanie muttered.

"Sorry ass?"

"I had to cuss at somebody and I wasn't going to cuss at you. I learned that lesson a long time ago."

"Alright. Where are we going?" Therese asked, gratefully she had someone who help take her mind off of things.

"Why would I know?"

"I saw you reading that tourist's guide and you left it open on the shopping page."

"Okay, so it crossed my mind," Stephanie admitted, rolling her eyes.

"The only time you're not thinking about shopping is when you're having sex," Therese seriously replied.

Stephanie glared at her but then broke out in a smile, which was returned by the blonde. "I'll give you that one. There's this bazaar that's a real attraction. It's touristy but not so bad that you can't get some really good Turkish things."

"Let's go then," Therese replied, double-checking her cellphone and slipping it into her pocket.

Stephanie lounged in the courtyard of the once ancient church and mosque but now a museum. After reading a few brochures and glancing at the humongous mosque across the lawn, she was in awe of the history that was before her. If she concentrated on the architecture, she could pretend this was a much needed vacation in the Mediterranean. When this was all over, she would definitely take time off and she and Shawn would come back here on a cruise. He would love to see where they filmed the James Bond movie From Russia With Love inside the church when it was once a mosque.

There was, of course, the great shopping. Vendors had gone out of their way to sell the two women any article. For a few brief hours, they had been able to put this ordeal just far enough away to have a good time and laugh. Stephanie laughed out loud remembering how they had pondered an authentic Turkish bath. When she protested about being washed by another person while she was naked in front of other women, Therese just laughed her off, telling her to think of the luxury and the steambath afterward. Stephanie was about to sign on the dotted line when they both realized within seconds of each other they'd be away from their phones. With that decided, a trip to the mosque and church across from their hotel and whatever else they would encounter along the way was the next item on the agenda.

Therese was coming out of the cool building, shielding her eyes from the contrast between the dark hallways and the sun, when her phone began to ring. She had been concentrating on where she knew the name "Aslan," something she had seen on a storefront earlier. With her mind elsewhere, it took her a second to get her phone out, long enough for Stephanie to notice and hurry over from the stone bench.

"Therese! Enjoy the Hagia Sophia?" the voice on the other end of the phone asked. The blonde didn't reply immediately as she surreptitiously looked around. "Don't be so obvious. I'm no where in sight." Therese straightened up in a defiant manner. She may not be able to see him but he could see her and she wasn't about to appear discomfited in any way.

"It's him?" Stephanie mouthed and Therese nodded.

"Where and when?" the agent asked.

"Have you found Michaels and Nash?" the abductor asked with a laugh.

"No and you've not been extremely helpful."

"Here's some help. Where can you find six thousand year old ruins—but they're not iron—that are connected to a name in common with C. S. Lewis' works? Happy hunting! Call me when you get there!" he lightly ended.

Therese tried to protest but he had already hung up. "What is the point in sending us on this chase?" she huffed. "They want our money but they're not making much of an effort to take it."

"What now?" Stephanie sighed, knowing things had not gone as well as either had hoped.

"He gave me some damn riddle or something. We've got to find six thousand year old ruins that aren't made of iron that have some name in common with C. S. Lewis' books."

"What?"

"That's where I know it!" Therese literally shouted, putting her hand to her mouth in a gesture of intense thought.

"Start talking," Stephanie demanded.

"We've gotta pack. We're taking a trip way back in time."

Stephanie hated it when Therese did this. She was always left to piece things together by herself while Therese thought she could solve everyone else's problems on her own. "I take it you're not staking out the lobby this evening."

Therese stopped walking down the street between the church-cum-museum and the mosque. "Ugh…" she breathed. They could be on the road in less than an hour and be one more step closer to Shawn and Kevin. However, if she waited a few more hours, she might be able to identify their abductors. However, the key word was "might." But what if Shawn and Kevin were waiting on them now? "What's your opinion?"

"As soon as we figure out where this place is, I say we get out of here," Stephanie offered.

After a fight as to who was doing what as they retuned to the hotel, both women decided to work together instead of splitting up the tasks. The business center of the hotel was completely empty and they made quick work of hitting the search engines. "We're looking for something that's six thousand years old and probably has the name 'Aslan' connected to it."

"Isn't that the lion's name in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe?"

"Exactly," Therese replied, pointing a finger at the brunette. "It was when he said C.S. Lewis that I realized where I knew this name that I saw on a storefront—Aslan. Maybe it's Turkish for 'Lion'." Every night that Kevin was home, only he was allowed to read to Dinah before her going to bed. They were reading through the Lewis book currently and Therese had heard several snippets as she went through the hall, taking care of housework without the encumbering leech attached to her leg.

"You don't know?" Stephanie asked with wide eyes. "I thought you were studying that language book."

"I'm not fighting with you about that again. 'Lion' isn't exactly a word that pops up in everyday language. I was more concerned with 'where's the bathroom' than 'what a pretty lion'."

"You're bitching again," the VP blatantly replied.

"Who said I was bitching in the first place?"

"It's not exactly something that has to be stated."

"I already didn't take crap off of anybody and, after getting married and having kids, it got worse. Don't you start—" Therese threatened but Stephanie interrupted.

"I think I found it," the brunette practically shouted.

"What? Where?"

"It's a place called Karatepe. It was a Hittite city that's estimated to be about six to eight thousand years old," Stephanie explained as she scrolled down the page on the monitor. "The Hittites were mistakenly thought to have been the first to use iron."

"They're not made of iron," Therese mumbled recalling the call earlier.

"There's a view of the Aslantas dam."

"Is that close enough to 'Aslan'?"

"I don't know," Stephanie replied. "The world's older than six thousand years old. These ruins could be anywhere and who knows how many of those aren't made of iron—probably the majority of them. That's not to mention how many names occur in Lewis' works."

"Yeah, he was quite the prolific children's and Christian writer," Therese replied, quite proud of that tidbit of information.

"Christian? Really?"

"You didn't pick that up when you read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe?"

"You may have paid attention in your Confirmation classes but I was too busy thinking about boys," Stephanie replied with a lewd grin as she rose from her seat at the computer.

"This is our best guess as any. I'll start packing if you'll book us the first flight out of here and get us directions."

"Only if you promise to not start anything with that airport director again," Stephanie warned with a smile.

"Done deal," Therese replied with her own grin.

TBC…