Tomy and the Planet of Lies (14 page)

“Where then, exactly?” Marc wanted to know. “Most probably back home in Switzerland.”

“That's unbelievable! And how are we to be ushered into the next life, then?”

Chantal took a deep breath and calmed herself. She told us that she had never had anything to do with that sort of thing. After intensive questioning on the subject, however, she revealed that contact poisons were often used for delicate cases. An object such as a steering wheel, a ballpoint pen, or even something as innocuous as a handshake could be used to transfer the poison and the recipient died of a heart attack, suffocation, or something similarly unpleasant.

Who thought up such devilry? How could we protect ourselves? Ercan advised us to avoid shaking hands with strangers and not to touch any everyday objects unless we were wearing rubber gloves, or they had been checked out by some other animal. If a fly suddenly dropped down dead, that might be an indication of poisoning. We could also disinfect suspect objects using normal household disinfectants.

“Bloody great!” swore Marc. “And I need a taster for every piece of fruit that I eat? What sort of God-awful situation have we gotten into?”

Ercan attempted to reassure him. Poisonings were not that easy to organize. The agents that carried out that sort of thing had to protect themselves, too. And we didn't have to worry about eating anywhere where other people were consuming the food.

I had heard enough. I was already thinking how I was going to get Tomy and Marc back to Switzerland. Each one would have to take a different route, but there was no airport in Adiyaman. The nearest one was in Malatya, but that was only for domestic flights. What's more, it would be easier to track movements from a provincial airport. I needed a large international hub like Istanbul or Ankara. We had little choice other than to wait for the car to be fixed and to use the time somehow productively.

Ercan volunteered to drive us all to Nevşehir where we could visit the underground cities—it was an offer I could hardly refuse, it was a mystery that I had been fascinated in for some time. He had friends here, he stressed, and to guarantee our safety, he would arrange it so that there was always one car behind us and one in front of us. It was a drive of around 300 kilometers. Plus—he knew me too well—the hotels in Nevşehir were excellent.

“How come?” queried Marc. “Is Nevşehir on the beach? I've never heard of it.”

Ercan told us that it was right next to the Göreme Valley with its famous “fairy chimneys.” It was a very popular destination for tourists.

Left with little other choice, we decided to go shopping and stock up on some necessary supplies. We bought films, rubber gloves, and new clothes for Tomy. Ercan reserved us two rooms at a local hotel that—like the repair yard—also carried the name Central. Tomy, Marc and I wanted to share a room, we were so spooked. Ercan and Chantal took a double room. After an early dinner we took ourselves to our immaculately clean beds. Before I sank into sleep I asked Tomy if he could take Ercan over.

“Not until they are both asleep,” he said.

That night not even the nightly Ramadan racket was able to rouse us from our slumbers. The stresses and strains of what we'd been through, the sabotage, the long march, and all the other unpleasant things had really taken their toll.

When I woke, I glanced over to Tomy. He lay curled up on the double bed next to Marc. Both were breathing deeply and regularly. After a refreshing shower—finally one that worked—I woke them up. Tomy was immediately wide awake, sat up in bed, and shook his head and cursed:

“Damn it! I messed up!”

“Eh? What've you messed up?” Marc turned towards Tomy, bleary-eyed.

“I fell asleep! Plain and simple!”

“I don't believe it,” I interjected. “I thought you were an energy form; that you don't need to sleep.”

“Yes, but this body does! As I sent out my sensors last night Ercan and Chantal were ‘busy' with each other. If I had taken Ercan over at that point, Chantal would have noticed and raised the alarm. Goodness knows who. But that's not really the point. I wanted to take Ercan over without her finding out about it. So I waited and this lump of cells…” Tomy pointed at his naked chest, “…deactivated its waking function.”

“Does that mean you're vulnerable when your earthly body is asleep?” I asked.

“My energy form isn't, but this body is.”

I asked Tomy to explain more. Tomy told us that a human consciousness needed to be taken over softly; like a blossoming love it needed to be handled with velvet gloves. Ercan had already indicated that he would never willingly allow Tomy to take him over. So Tomy had wanted to wait until Ercan fell asleep and then sneak into his consciousness as if in a dream. Of course, he could also take over a consciousness by force, but this could lead to damage to the persons thinking processes. The victim could become schizophrenic or suffer other mental damage. And he wasn't prepared to risk something like that unless there was really no other choice.

What now? Should we deliver ourselves into Ercan's hands? Simply trust him again, although we still didn't know if he was behind yesterday's assassination attempt? In the end, we decided to risk it, because we knew that we could fall victim to an attack anywhere, whether it was here or on the road. We felt unsafe, wherever we were.

Tomy, Marc and I constantly observed the people around us. A state of affairs that did nothing for our nerves. After breakfast, Ercan presented six new men with confusing Turkish names. We hesitated with the handshakes until Chantal had done it first. Finally, we drove out in a three-car convoy, the Lada carrying Ercan, Chantal, and us in the middle.

The drive to Kayseri and from there via Göreme to Nevşehir was without incident. The roads were good and because we only made a single stop on the way, we reached our hotel in Nevşehir by two o'clock that afternoon. The hotel complex consisted of four buildings which were arranged around a swimming pool and several restaurants.

I noticed a small gray truck parked around ten meters away from the front entrance. It was partially covered in a green tarpaulin and looked somewhat out of place parked there in the shade of several large trees. A lanky man in his fifties with a wrinkled face and the obligatory Turkish mustache stood leaning on the hood of the truck. He was wearing a plastic helmet of the kind that construction workers wear and his eyes were hidden behind sunglasses. The helmet and sunglasses were strangely incongruous there in the shade of the tree. Something about the man worried me. He seemed to be checking us out as we drove into to the hotel parking lot.

At the reception we requested a suite with three beds—we wanted to stay together. I had hardly spoken my request when the hotel director, a tanned man in a white shirt and dark jacket rushed out of his office and greeted me effusively. Ercan explained that he had called ahead to announce our arrival and Erich von Däniken was extremely welcome here. They knew my books and hoped that I would write about their subterranean cities in my next work. It would promote tourism, and that was always welcome. Naturally—the hotel director enthused—the best suite in the hotel had been reserved for us. It had three single rooms for us which all opened onto a central living room. Nobody could come into the room if we pressed in the locking knob on the door handle. How had the hotel director known that Tomy, Marc, and I wanted to stay together and wouldn't want to be disturbed?

We had no desire to doze away the rest of the afternoon next to the pool. Ercan suggested that we drive in the Göreme Valley so we could see at least one of the underground cities. So our convoy took to the road again and drove off into a breathtaking landscape, which astonishes every newcomer.

The Göreme Valley was formed by the numerous eruptions of the nearby Erciyes Volcano. Over the millennia, layer upon layer of volcanic debris consisting of fine ash had settled onto the landscape creating tuff. Wind and rain had washed away the softer layers, leaving the harder layers intact. The result was a kind of lunar landscape covered in unearthly rock towers. The early settlers in the valley had scraped out caves in the towers and lived in them. When the Arabs started attacking the still- Christian land in the seventh century the faithful withdrew to the eerie Göreme region. They were followed later by monks who excavated the tuff rock towers to build churches and chapels.

The interiors of these towers were not recognizable from outside. In the Tokali Kilise Church, where we made a quick stop, we found—behind the modest doors—a magnificently colorful chapel filled with Byzantine frescos. Oil lamps flickered in small niches, throwing their inconsistent light onto the wall paintings. Benches carved out of the tuff stone provided an invitation to sit and contemplate and pray. Even more splendid was the Çavuşin Church from the 10th century. Its frescos looked so fresh and bright that you would have thought they had been repainted every week. Ercan didn't waste a single opportunity to praise the achievements of his forefathers.

Our convoy set off again towards Niğde, which was around thirty kilometers from Göreme. Not far away were the villages of Derinkuyu and Kaymakli, and beneath them the subterranean cities that had been carved out of the rock. Every year—so Ercan told us—new sections of the cities were being discovered. Now they had over 120, many of which were connected by underground tunnels. We parked next to the village church, 200 meters away from a wooden barracks. Outside there was a sign with the inscription “Subterranean Cities.” Next to it was a garden restaurant and a few souvenir stands.

Ercan explained that the passages through the rock were often so narrow that it was only possible to walk single file along them. Down to the 14th subterranean level there were electric lights installed. We would see arrows on the walls.

“Those directing you downwards are colored red and those directing you upwards are green,” he explained. So all we had to do was follow the red arrows to start with and the green ones to get out again. He suggested that it would be more sensible if he took the tail, to make sure we didn't get separated. We shouldered our cameras and tramped off like sheep following the herd leader, one of the men from our escort convoy. Chantal took a position in amongst the Turks. I had an uneasy feeling. Wouldn't this labyrinth be an ideal place to finish us off? After marching a hundred meters into the depths, we entered a small room with three columns and seats, all carved out of the rock. We took our first pictures there. Marc squeezed onto a seat next to me.

“Have you got the gun?” he asked.

Of course, I had. I had taken it from our wrecked car and hidden it in a camera bag. After all, we couldn't leave it in either the car or our hotel room.

Clearly, our Turkish friends had never been to the underground cities before either, for their curiosity and enthusiasm drove them on at full pace. They didn't hang around while we were taking photos, but stamped off into the depths, with Chantal in tow. Ercan, who was still behind us, caught me pulling the pistol out of a camera bag and slipping it into my jacket.

“What are you afraid of, Erich? Nothing can happen to you down here.” His efforts to reassure me weren't entirely successful. So he began telling us about the underground complex here: the Derinkuyu complex was connected to Kaymakli by a seven-kilometer tunnel. Despite the fact that we were 14 levels down, the temperature remained uniform. He said he would show us the water and airshafts. While he was speaking, a group of Japanese tourists puffed past us, each one of them armed with a small flashlight. Ercan pressed us to continue—the complex was due to close at 6 p.m.

Added to that was the fact that we were due to visit further subterranean cities in the area the next day. So we trudged on, sometimes bent over because of the low ceilings, sometimes even on all fours. We passed through excavated halls that Ercan explained were dormitories, and then supposed living rooms, animal pens, wine cellars, and passages that bent steeply off into the depths and ended suddenly at stone doors that were two meters in diameter. There were wells, air shafts and the odd cross passage marked with two colored arrows: the red ones showing a descending route and the green ones indicating the way up.

Surprisingly, none of us worked up a sweat, as has usually been my experience in such underground labyrinths. The temperature remained constant on every floor. Another thing that struck me was that there were no carvings in the walls, no drawings, painting or other illustrations, and no dates or names scratched into the walls. The builders—or rather excavators— of this subterranean city were big on anonymity, it seemed. Ercan told us that there had been up to 30,000 people living down here at any one time. Per city. That meant that, even if the other complexes weren't quite as big as this one, there had been more than a million souls living in these hidey-holes. Afraid of what or whom?

Right in the middle of our discussion on the subject the lights went out. We were standing right at a crossing and I had just been checking out the green and red arrows. Ercan must have been a few meters behind us, as we heard his voice cheerfully echoing down the passage.

“Don't panic! That happens quite a lot down here,” he said. “The electrical system is overloaded and the fuses just burn out every now and again. The lights'll be on again in a couple of minutes.”

I rooted around in my pocket between my handkerchief, cigarettes, and some batteries until my fingertips could sense the form of my cigarette lighter. I pulled it out and lit it up: its light flashed against the ceiling.

Marc and Tomy pulled in closer to me. I passed the lighter to Marc and dug the pistol out of my jacket. The lighter's feeble flame was barely enough for us to make out each other's pale faces. I could see that Marc felt the same way that I did—we were afraid.

“Let's get out of here!” I said.

From somewhere in the darkness we heard a high-pitched squeal. It sounded as though it must come from the Japanese tourists. Then a sound of laughter echoed down the passage. It was impossible to tell which direction the sounds were coming from. Above us? Below us? Using the cigarette lighter, Marc found a green arrow on the ceiling.