Rashid had prepared his plan with meticulous attention to every detail, yet one question gnawed at him: could Yasmin truly be trusted? The man had appeared out of nowhere only a few weeks earlier. Rashid knew nothing about his past until he made a brief inquiry and heard what he needed to hear. Yasmin prayed regularly, read the Qur’an, reflected on it, and, like his family, consistently preached the fundamental principles of the faith: love, humility, justice, and honesty.

That was precisely what Rashid feared. A believer who read the divine word, contemplated it, and shaped his life according to it was the kind of believer he despised most. Whenever he issued a “fatwa” to such people—something like, “you are Allah’s warrior, therefore your duties are different from those of ordinary believers”—the answer he received was always the same:

“Don’t be absurd. What verse or hadith speaks of different legal obligations among believers? You should remember what a grave responsibility it is to fabricate rulings in the name of God.”

Society called them “moderate believers,” but Rashid called them heretics.

“Damn heretics. They think they can hide by moving to another city. I will squash you and your family like insects. You will pay for your heresy. And when this operation is traced back to the so-called moderates who reject armed struggle, you won’t even be able to stand next to your Christian friends.”

Rashid rehearsed every stage of the operation in his mind. In his eyes, everything was ready. With his flawless design, he would unleash a flawless storm upon the earth. Sailors would witness the true perfect storm tomorrow, he thought. He told Yasmin that tomorrow morning they would go to a very important place, and that they would teach a lesson to those who had tried to kill him:

“If Imam Eyup were here, he would start muttering his nonsense: no, preaching Islam is never prevented, no, only a tyrant ruler oppressing his people justifies revolt. These are fairy tales invented to tame lions like us into house cats. They don’t work on us.”

Yasmin’s nod of agreement satisfied Rashid. In his mind, he scoffed, “You fraud. I’ll show you how a real spy plays the game.”

“For security, we’ll leave our phones at home,” he said. “You’ll have a phone there anyway—use it only if you have to.” His tone turned commanding.
“Come on, let’s leave together. We go now.”

Yasmin could not object. He had no idea where they were going or what they would do, and that uncertainty frightened him, yet he couldn’t simply say, “I’m not coming,” and ruin everything. Perhaps it was exactly as he feared: he had not found the hunter—rather, the hunter had found him.

“I’m curious. At least tell me which city we’re going to,” he asked.

“To Stuttgart. Somewhere very high,” Rashid replied.

They drove through the imposing mountain roads, climbing toward the peak with difficulty. The car stopped in front of a massive structure covered with a large sheet. Rashid pulled petrol cans from the trunk. Yasmin tried to understand the enormous structure before him with one eye and Rashid’s intentions with the cans in the other. Beyond them, the mountain ended and a vast plain merged into the city.

The demon hunters and Dr. William had reached the edge of that plain—the site of the Chancellor’s rally. During this season, fog seldom abandoned the mountaintops encircling Stuttgart. In the afternoon, as the haze cleared, the snowy peaks emerged. Crowds had begun to gather at the rally grounds, passing through X-Ray scanners before entering.

Süleyman studied the banners decorating the area.

“‘Let us build a civilization of brotherhood together. We are children of the same father Adam and mother Eve, though called by different names. Seeds of love will sprout, and under the shade of the tree of brotherhood, our grandchildren will rest.’”

He turned to Mark.

“Most naturalized citizens believe the Chancellor is sincere. Commentators say his claim—that Christianity and Islam are not rival faiths but two lovers separated for centuries by circumstance—has allowed him to capture the votes of both communities spectacularly. Do you think he can actually pull it off?”

“We already have. But it was not him—it was the loving words of Prophet Muhammad and Prophet Jesus that accomplished it. The Mevlanas, the Schopenhauers… The Chancellor hasn’t created anything new. The rise of humanism in our society has certainly played its part in this success.”

Süleyman thought, Keep it short—skip the philosophy, and asked again:

“So what do you think the big surprise is, the one the media keeps talking about?”

Mark shrugged. “I have no idea. Normally, rallies aren’t held on this side of the city. I don’t understand why he chose this place. As far as I can see, there’s no groundbreaking ceremony for a new building either. I’d guess they’re planting saplings on that bare mountain slope, but there’s no sign of that, either.”

The rally was about to begin; everything looked normal. A good sign, perhaps—but for the demon hunters, normalcy meant danger. If nothing had happened yet, something was still coming.

A sign caught Mark’s eye: Street 113.

At first, it seemed completely ordinary, but the number dragged him back to Berlin a few months earlier. Aros’s unsolved riddle about apples—113 apples—echoed in his mind. Mere weeks after that nonsense puzzle, the police station on 113th Street had exploded, becoming a grave for hundreds of officers.

He remembered Madman’s testimony—how the organization communicated with its agents through an encrypted network of letters and numbers, and how they abandoned cell-based structures in favor of a partner system.

The riddle Aros spoke of began with “16 men.” Mark realized that 16 corresponds to the 16. letter of the alphabet. He believed he had cracked the code. His mind rapidly tested whether the other numbers aligned with their corresponding letters.

That was when he noticed Dr. William running toward them, breathless—sweat on his brow, chest rising and falling fast.

“Listen to me,” he said, gasping. “We have to hurry.”

Mark wanted to signal with his hand, Not now, but William’s insistence shattered his concentration and he turned all his attention to him.

“I told you,” William began.
“Nothing Leheb said was for nothing. More importantly, Professor Berisha—whom we suspect to be involved—deliberately wrote in his medical report that Leheb showed signs of confabulation. He wanted you and me to try to decode Leheb’s answers. Because you’re known as the demon hunters, the press was bound to show interest. And through that attention, Leheb would be able to deliver his message to his partner. But there were decoy answers among them as well, meant to stall us and send us in circles.”

“Which answers are decoys, which ones are for his partner? You tell me—have you solved it?” Mark cut in.

Still breathing a little too fast, Dr. William replied,
“Yes. I have. First of all, the partners aren’t just the professor and Leheb. The priest you arrested earlier, and a radical Muslim—at least that’s what I think he is—are also partners. You can think of it as a chain. The first link, Leheb with his confabulatory behavior, affected the next link, and that one affected the next… The last link, in my opinion, is a radical religious figure. Maybe a Christian, but I suspect a Muslim.

I just heard one of the TV commentators say that the Chancellor’s surprise, the one everyone’s been curious about, is the unveiling of a crucified Jesus statue placed on the mountaintop. The priest you detained shouted, ‘My message to my nation is this: no one should tolerate our Supreme Lord being burned on this land.’ His aim in using that slogan was to pass on the message that came from Leheb, via the professor, to the final link in the chain.

By using the words ‘Jesus’ and ‘burned’, he signaled his partner. In other words, the references to Easter and the rally were used to distract us. And it’s not hard to guess that ‘Supreme Lord’ referred to Jesus.

So the priest’s slogan wasn’t primarily about what we first thought—that Islam was spreading and Christianity was waning in the country. Beyond that, his real purpose, as I said, was to transmit instructions to his partner.

There was only one word from Leheb’s answers that never got used: ‘partner’. The professor, who’s been aware of this communication system for years, understood that the one word that would not be spoken was ‘partner’—and that was his cue to act.”

“Let’s not overthink this,” Mark said.

“Are you telling me that, with the mist beginning to clear from this mountaintop, there’s a crucified statue of Jesus up there—and that some Muslim lunatic, upon seeing it, is going to set it on fire?”

Süleyman wasn’t listening; he was busy staring at the red alert flashing on the device he used to communicate with his informant.

“Yes,” William answered, and added:
“And once the flames rise, the public—who carry a deep love of Christ in their hearts—will riot and attack Muslims. Meanwhile, according to the official narrative, I will be arrested for surgically removing the amygdalas of Aros and Leheb to make them fearless operatives; you and Süleyman will be arrested for ensuring that the encoded message was transmitted to the partner through the media.

In other words, given that Süleyman is a Muslim, and you openly emphasize monotheism, they will claim you willingly helped the organization—perhaps even accuse you of being covert members. That way, this nameless dark entity gets its revenge on both you and me.”

Mark nodded, his mind racing through William’s words, when Süleyman suddenly grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back. Mark turned.

“Our guy just sent an urgent distress call,” Süleyman said. “And he transmitted the audio of the situation.”

“How do we deal with that now? Tell some team to go help him,” Mark replied, irritated.

Süleyman showed him the location signal on the device, then pointed toward the peak in front of them.

“William might be right. I don’t know how, but our informant seems to be right next to the crucified statue—and he’s probably been exposed. We’re running out of time.”

Mark knew they had to act fast. He pointed at the helicopter a short distance away and said,
“We’re out of options. We’re going to have to trust this bird.”

Further up the mountain, Raşit stepped out of the car with gas cans in his hands and whistled. A masked man emerged from hiding and said,
“Everything is ready. We neutralized the workers who were supposed to uncover the statue, along with the police who came to assist them.”

Raşit, burning with the longing for this moment, laughed with the fury of years of hatred and shouted,
“Then what the hell are we waiting for? Pull the curtain and let the show begin!”

As Yasmin registered the crucified Jesus statue and the gasoline cans side by side, he understood the vile plan. He pressed the emergency button hidden in his ring. He had no gun, no phone—this was the only move he could make.

His mind flashed to the knife in his pocket. He was just about to make a move when a gunshot rang out; Raşit had turned and fired. The bullet grazed Yasmin’s leg, and he hit the ground.
Thankfully, it had only been meant as a warning shot.

“Do you know who I hate the most?” Raşit asked, pressing his boot against Yasmin’s chest.
When he saw the man struggling to breathe, he eased the pressure slightly and answered his own question:

“I hate traitors and heretics like you—those who try to portray Islam as a religion of love just to pacify our warriors. You idiot, did you really think I wouldn’t investigate you and would simply take you at face value? You thought you’d stage a fake assassination, make yourself appear as a victim of the church, cast your bait, and reel in an operative like me to infiltrate the organization, isn’t that right?

The police you worked with are obvious too. They’re the same kind of treacherous heretics. I will ship Süleyman’s corpse back to his birth country as a warning. And the other one—well, they’ll handle him here. As for that meddling fool Dr. William, know this: his body will be found in prison with a staged suicide. You can be sure of that.”

“Go to hell, filth. Come on—shoot me!” Yasmin snapped.

Raşit pulled out his phone, dialed a number, and then held up the screen so Yasmin could see the elderly man and woman on the video feed.

“No, I’m not going to shoot you. Because you’re going to pose in front of the burning statue of Jesus. That way, the fringe Christians who see it will believe you did it as revenge, and they’ll erupt in rage.

And when it comes out that you’re one of those so-called moderates, the concept of ‘respect between Abrahamic religions’ will die forever. They’ll say it was nothing more than a mask to conceal terrorism. Mutual distrust and disrespect means more soldiers for us.”

Yasmin didn’t respond.

Raşit leaned in, his voice dripping with threat.
“Fine. Watch your parents die in front of you if you want.”

That broke the silence. Yasmin raised his hand, signaling him to stop.
“I don’t know how you found my family’s house on Dortmund 181, but fine. I’ll do whatever you want.”

Yasmin moved as slowly as possible, trying to buy time, pouring gasoline from the canister over the statue as if in slow motion.

The statue was almost fully exposed.

Raşit’s shout echoed across the mountaintop:

“Take this lighter and ignite the gasoline. In other words—spark the beginning of World War Three.”

He fired into the air and added,
“This is your last warning. Light it. As soon as the fog clears, they must see Jesus in flames. Just like on 11 September terror attack, the media will do our advertising for us.”

Yasmin muttered, “This is it,” and was about to strike the lighter when a violent noise erupted. They understood, moments later, that it came from a helicopter cutting through the fog. Two gunshots followed.

Raşit reached for his weapon, but the bullet from the helicopter pierced straight through his heart.
The man beside him fired desperately at the flying machine, but suffered the same fate.
Their blood spilled in heavy streams; it was obvious they had been struck through the heart, dying with no time to comprehend their end.

Yasmin had not expected the ring-shaped emergency device to work so quickly. He was certain that once the gasoline ignited and the cross went up in flames, Raşit would film him standing before the burning crucifix and upload it online with some caption like, “Vengeance taken from the infidels.”

The brave infiltrator knew he might die, but at least he intended to save his family. The ring was designed specifically for agents; it did not merely send an emergency alert, it could transmit ambient audio when needed. That was why he had shouted, “How did you find my family’s house on Dortmund 181 and take them hostage?” so that Süleyman, listening on the other end, would understand the message clearly enough to act.

The helicopter landed.
Süleyman stepped onto the ground, and before Yasmin could speak, he said,
“Don’t worry. Your family is safe. We ran a simultaneous operation to make sure no harm came to them.”

“A few days ago, as I told you, that Raşit never seemed like a trustworthy person. It wasn’t difficult to understand that he wanted to do something. But I never imagined he would burn a statue of Jesus—one that holds a special place not only in the hearts of Christians but also many Muslims here in the center of Europe. I only just learned that the Prime Minister was the one who had this monumental structure built.”

“Yes, we didn’t know either,” said Süleyman.
“There are crosses in some places, but nothing like this—nothing so enormous, crucified, like the one in Rio.”

Yasmin, who could only see the very top by tilting his head all the way back, murmured, “It must be even bigger than the one in Brazil.”

“Crosses, crucifixes, bells, churches, synagogues, mosques, minarets—none of this matters by itself. If the teachings of those great spiritual figures don’t enter the heart, what meaning does the form have? Along with constructing religious monuments, I hope they strive to bring values like justice, humility, and honesty into people’s hearts too.”

“I’m sure troublemakers and ignorant people will twist what you just said and claim, ‘Süleyman insulted not only Islam but all religions,’ and many will fall for it,” Süleyman said, flicking his hand dismissively.

“If people are happy just seeing crosses, minarets, synagogues, fine—let them build them everywhere. As long as it doesn’t turn into competition, and then into conflict.”

A while later, Mark arrived at the scene and congratulated Süleyman and Yasmin.

“I just heard from intelligence. Even though today isn’t Sunday and there was no scheduled mass, groups of extremists gathered in several churches for no apparent reason. It’s as if they were waiting for a signal. If that giant crucifix had gone up in flames, they were ready to attack the Muslims gathered at the rally. Judging by the arsenal found, they had prepared cleavers, knives, and even handguns. Seeing such a massive provocation—the burning of a statue of Jesus—even level-headed Christians would have rallied behind them. The violence erupting in Stuttgart would have spread across Europe and the world in ripples. People wouldn’t even have had the time to understand why they were killing—or being killed.”

“Alright, today we managed to stop a massive provocation, but according to what I heard from my Swedish colleagues, their justice system has ruled that detaining people who attempt to burn holy books is unconstitutional under the banner of freedom. My fear is that what the dark forces couldn’t accomplish, naïve judges will unfortunately do for them.”

“For the sake of Jesus Christ and the Messenger of God, Muhammad (peace be upon him), may the Lord protect our cities from the corruption of agitators,” Mark concluded.

The dark force, upon learning what had happened, went into a frenzy. The prison where the demon hunters and Dr. William were supposed to be sent, the poison that would have been slipped into their food, the rope to stage a suicide, the radicalized guards, the inmates who knew the truth but lacked the courage to shout it, the so-called jurists who felt no responsibility before God or the people—everything had been prepared. But divine destiny had already written, long before there was a single ray of light in the universe, how this scheme would fail and to whom the task of making it fail would be assigned, millions of years later.

How could Mark, Süleyman, and Dr. William have known that behind what appeared to be a simple case involving a migrant with confabulation, God was actually entrusting them with the mission of protecting peace and concord on Earth?

The demon hunters and William set off, returning to continue the interrogation of Leheb. While on the road, Mark felt he had forgotten something important but couldn’t put his finger on it—until it suddenly came back to him.

“Aros’s riddle in the file—you remember it. I think I solved it.”

“Didn’t we just settle this?” said Süleyman. “We figured out what all of Leheb’s answers meant. Or did you find yet another message from the Cryptos?” His eyes suggested a silent worry: How long would this madness continue?

Mark frowned.
“Don’t talk nonsense and distract me. Shut up and let me explain.”

He wrote down the numbers from Aros’s riddle, in order:
16, 15, 12, 9, 3, 5 and 113.
Then he wrote the English alphabet:
A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z.

Mark asked, as Süleyman and William stared at him in confusion:
“Take 16 as P, 15 as O. In other words, if each letter corresponds to a number from 1 to 26, what word do we get?”

William got it instantly.
“We get the phrase ‘POLİCE-113,’” he said.

Süleyman jumped in, eager to show he wasn’t clueless.
“Right, the police station bombing where hundreds of officers died happened on 113th Street. So the organization communicates through numbers.”

“Exactly,” said Mark, continuing.

“There was only one answer from Leheb we couldn’t explain. And the number was read like this, in singles or pairs:

13 21 18 16 8 25

If we apply the same method here—”

Mark wrote the numbers again and beneath them the corresponding letters: MURPHY.

The moment Süleyman saw the word, he remembered ten years ago, and his eyes turned bloodshot. Mark saw his reaction and added:

“You remembered the job you never finished, didn’t you?”

The demon hunters faced their real shock when they reached the Forensic Institute where Leheb was being held. The officer on duty said with a grim face:

“Leheb has escaped. And stranger still, according to the security footage, he did it with someone who has been missing.”

“Professor Berişa.”