61

 

London, England

The American embassy officials thought the cable was a joke. Drive over to some old flat to make sure an elderly, retired librarian named Mehmet Osman was still there? And what were they supposed to do about it if he wasn’t?

The ambassador bucked the request to the public affairs attaché, who, in turn, sent an intern. The public affairs attaché had better things to do with his time than burn it up chasing after some old coot in London that someone, somewhere, wanted to track down.

It took the intern the better part of an hour to get to the flat. It was in a fairly seedy part of London. He had to take the Tube and then a bus to get there.

When he finally arrived, the door to the flat was locked. He knocked on the door, but there was no answer. He peered in the window, but it was dark inside, and he couldn’t see anything.

He was about to head back to the embassy but thought better of it. He started knocking on neighbors’ doors.

The first couple didn’t know much about the man. But the third neighbor knew Mehmet Osman. He said the man hadn’t been seen for the better part of a week. A fourth neighbor knew Osman quite well and often walked to the market with him to pass the time. He, too, had not seen Osman in nearly a week.

But the fifth neighbor proved to be, by far, the most helpful. He’d been at home one morning and had just happened to see two men knock on Osman’s door. When he’d opened the door, the two men had entered quickly, closing the door behind them. This neighbor had never seen these two young men before.

It all looked a bit suspicious, so this particular neighbor had kept an eye on the door to Osman’s flat. After nearly a half hour, the two men reemerged. Osman was with them.

The neighbor had called out to Osman, asking him if everything was fine. Yes, Osman had called back. He was good, and everything was fine.

But he had not looked fine, the neighbor said. He was leaving under his own power, but he’d appeared confused. This neighbor had not seen Osman since that day. He’d never returned to the flat. And no one knew where he might have gone.

The intern thanked the neighbor, who asked him why the American embassy would be asking after Osman. The intern didn’t know why, he told the neighbor. He’d just been sent here to see whether the elderly, retired librarian was still in his flat.

Neither the intern nor the neighbor knew, of course, that Mehmet Osman was the last descendant of the line of caliphs who had ruled the Ottoman Empire. Osman had never mentioned this to his neighbors. The intern didn’t know who Osman was or why anyone would care. But he would file his report when he got back to the embassy. Not that anyone would care, he figured.