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little Mert really did have some impressive contacts. If, that is, the Fenerbahçe game was not an episode from Mert's dream.

Life had been good for Mert. He and Sadun were starting to make serious money from the Akbank scam. As an active informant for National Intelligence, he enjoyed wide-ranging protection and he was highly regarded by Cha0, the key player on DarkMarket. But above all else, he was spending every day and night with a fabulous, beautiful young woman who seemed to be similarly smitten.

Summer had arrived and Mert decided to capitalise on his good fortune by taking a holiday in Antalya at the coveted Adam & Eve Hotel, where designers had successfully mated a high budget with singularly poor taste. Huge infinity pools lapped at an atrium with ever-changing light shows, while the rooms were known for the countless mirrors, conducive to much high-energy sex. None of this came cheaply. Rooms started at $400 a night, while visitors noted that one could quickly rack up huge bills with the extras. But for Turkey's young, beautiful or rich, it was the holiday destination of the season.

As soon as Mert and Sanem had checked in, they ran into Çağatay, who had also flown south for the summer. Çağatay explained to a tubby bespectacled gentleman accompanying him that Mert had been assisting the Cha0 team with 'administrative matters'. The tubby gentleman squinted at Mert before exclaiming, 'Wait a minute? I've known this guy since he was a kid in shorts! What the hell are you doing in this business?' And Mert responded as he always did by giggling and smiling mischievously.

As he and Sanem headed to their bedroom, Mert leaned over and said, 'The second guy? That was Lord Cyric.' Sanem wanted to know whether Cyric was more powerful than Cha0. Mert assured her that he wasn't, but he remembered that she was interested in power first and money second.

Mert was in heaven and in love. He was a moneyed man, respected by criminals and the intelligence service alike, and to the outside world he had an impressive job running the IT department at Fox Turkey. Furthermore, he was spending his summer lounging around the Adam & Eve Hotel with his hot new girlfriend. It couldn't get any better.

And it didn't - in retrospect, August 2007 represented the brief golden age of Mert Ortaç's dream world, in which his fantasy projec- tions coincided for once with reality. Almost as soon as he returned to

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