Project Sabertooth

occupied half of the ground floor of the apartment house. The other half was some discount grocery store with just the bare necessities. Still, they were both Gold Mines as far as sales to the inhabitants of the apartment house. It’s pretty nifty to leave the house door and already be at the bar! I waited until the rain slowed to a drizzle and then started making my way to the train station where Gunéy had his Kebab Stop Shop directly across from the stations entrance. By the time I made it there I still was almost totally soaked from the rain. In the door I walked and all the normal resident guest automatically looked at who came in. There is something about the whole atmosphere of the place that would make Al Capone feel welcome! Gunéy seen me and broke into laughter so hard he got tears in his eyes. “You look like a wet cat!” He said purposely in German so everybody could share in on the joke. “I bet even Sabertooth is smart enough to stay inside where it's dry!” “Cut the cheesy jokes Gunéy and give me a beer and a schnapps to warm me up!” I said as I took my regular spot at the counter, which was directly in front of the Kebab rotisserie, and at the moment the radiating heat felt good. After the schnapps had burned its way down to my stomach, I had a bad premonition that I shouldn't have splurged and drank it, out of fear for the cramps. Which thankfully didn't come and after my beer was finished Gunéy came over to me. “And now you eat a Kebab or Lahmacun?” He asked flashing his crooked yellowed teeth. “Not this early in the morning man, (not that it produced a cramp so all could stare at me), I've got to go down to the hospital and see a man about my problem.” Gunéy already had a bill receipt in his hand and sliding it over the counter told me, loud enough so all could hear of course, that if I only drank and not eat, I must pay the Seven Euros. Strange that the bill was folded in two and when I looked at him, he smiled and winked. I laid a Ten Euro bill on the counter.

  I told him that I was heading out, but maybe I might stop by in the afternoon to eat a Pizza. “May Allah watch over you my friend.” He called out just as the glass front door closed. I was so curious as to what he gave me but I thought it better to wait till I was in the train station. It would seem that he would help me in my remaining time here on the face of the earth. Not only was there a name but also an address to go with it. Also the name of a Turkish bar in Zuffenhausen. This is a suburb town between Stuttgart where the hospital is located and here in Kornwestheim. It was signed: Micah. It seems I'm going to be eating quite a few Lahmacuns! The first address was on the outskirts of Kornwestheim, and to reach it one needs lots of patience with the government Bus system.

  Plan A, first give this some thought and not rush into a bad situation. The hospital first to get the medication and then maybe pay a visit to the Turkish Bar and just hang around and listen. Being an American ex-soldier, the Turks aren't so prone to be suspicious of me, or racially aggressive. A German couldn't go into some strange bar and just start talking to the people, they would assume he's undercover Police and proceed to beat him to a pulp. And the Turks find it funny when I attempt to pronounce Turkish words in my American dialect!

  12 o’clock

  The young mans job was to either place a charge on the tracks to derail the train, or plant a bomb in the locomotive of the passenger train. They didn't care how it was to take place, for that was his personal decision. They only said what they wanted and in case something went wrong, they had no information for the Police to squeeze out of them. Fine by him, for he anyways liked to make his own plans and work alone. It was to be a diversion to keep the police occupied while the others took over the bank job. The little bank in the suburb of Muhlhausen wouldn't yield much, but enough to keep things going. He had a sparkling idea the other day and now he was out by the train tracks, to place a really small charge in the track switching junction box. Why blow just one train, when one can blow the switching signals, and let two trains collide head on. Yesterday he had watched while standing next to the Neckar river, and the first had to wait for the signal to go dark, then accelerate with full speed to the next town. No functioning junction box, no stop signal! So today he was utilizing his genius and getting two for the price of one! With the charge set into the cable connectors, he turned the cell phone on. After plugging the cable into the phone, he closed the door for the switching box and walked away to the hillside, where he had a full signal on his other disposable phone. While he waited for the scheduled passenger trains to come, a freight train fully loaded with new Audi's started to slowly pass by, so he started to pray with his beads.

  After paying my friendly Oncologist a visit for the medication, I was still humming the tune to `Stairway to Heaven'. There was some construction going on at the main entrance to the Clinic and all visitors were apparently left on their own to find an alternative route to get to the lobby. The smokers in the restricted smoking area out in front of the Hospital Clinic had told him to walk around and come in the back way. These were the boys that already had lost a leg or part of a lung due to cigarettes, and still, they were outside just puffing away like there's no tomorrow! And there just inside the back entrance was some stairs which seemed to be built to go into the floor! Hand railings came out of the floor as if the architects had made some seriously stupid blunder, and then left it there to be renamed `Artwork'. I made my way back to the train station and took the fast train to Zuffenhausen, only to find out that no bus even went in the general direction of the bar. “I've got to get a car to hold me for the next year, would be a lot cheaper than always taking a Taxi!” I had muttered to myself as I went to the Taxi-Stop. After jumping into the back seat I told the name of the bar to the driver as I was buckling my seat belt. Looking up, I realized this would be a really quiet ride, for the driver looked like he was one of those `True Aryans' and my destination was very well known to him as being a Turkish Bar! Well, as long as he didn't take the long way to get there and thereby using up what little cash I had on hand at the moment. The Taxi driver drove like a madman and he made it to the bar in less than twenty minutes, but it still cost me thirty Euro! Being a little nervous, I then walked into the bar and called out `Good Morning' in my best American dialect Turkish, which naturally made all the heads turn in my direction. Well, so much for trying to act cool and make a good impression!

  I'd already had three beers which I had drank as slowly as I could without looking like some drunk hanging over his drink for hours and had bought the last two mini bags of stale potato chips hanging up at the back of the counter. On the back wall behind the counter was a humongous mirror. In a bar in America it would be absolutely normal, but over here in Germany, it was really out of the ordinary! But it gave me almost a complete view of all the patrons sitting behind my back. Just inside the door was one of those standing coat racks like they have in England. In the far corner set up high was the television and it was set to some program from Turkey, and I was thankful that the volume was turned down to a mumble. Hearing that for a few hours would be enough to drive anybody to drinking! Other than that, it was really nothing but some tables and chairs, for the other walls were bare. Not even a picture of Erdogan, the Turkish President! It was strange that although I had tried to converse with the bartender and made various comments to some of the others who were sitting around, the patrons here were really suspicious of a foreigner coming into their bar. Which of course gave me that sort of feeling that I was in just the right place! Nothing as far as information was coming out of this dump today, so I asked the bartender to please call me a Taxi, for which he charged me one Euro for a simple call. One of them said something to the bartender and after a few apparently bad words between them, the bartender reached over to turn the volume up on the television. I was deep in thoughts and hadn't realized that the hourly news was on. Watching and trying to understand just what they were saying, they showed how two trains had crashed head on, and then underneath the report was that it was near Muhlhausen! Right around the corner as far as the crow flies! I started to ask the bartender what they were talking about and he held up his hand for me to wait a moment,
and the next report was of a bank robbery, also here in Muhlhausen! “What are they talking about?” I asked again, and said “either change the television to the German channel or let me know what they're saying!”

  “They say that terrorist bombed the train signal to make the trains crash and at the same time terrorist robbed the bank here in Muhlhausen.” He exclaimed. “And because the bank robbers had an Arabic dialect, the Germans are saying the two happenings are from the same group of `Turks'!” He started to go on a rampage, saying; “as soon as something happens and they look like us, they automatically say that it was Turks! Not Syrians or anything else, simply us Turks! We grew up, worked and also have born and raised families here. They should look at what is coming over the border! Calling themselves Refugees! Half are probably prisoners sent here as refugees, and the other half are young men who misunderstand the Quran and its peaceful meaning!” “Not all are insurgents!” I commented. The hard look from everybody in