Read: The irony of Turkey’s crusade for a missing journalist

Those who are surprised by the way the Khashoggi story has dominated international and local media for nearly two weeks, almost entirely through a series of sensational leaks from Turkey, just haven’t been paying attention, Aaron Stein, a Turkey expert at the Atlantic Council, told me.

“In Turkey, big meta-narratives like this are controlled,” he told me. “Whether it’s about the framing of a military operation, or displeasure with the U.S., or the way big trials are reported on, it all comes out of one office,” he said. “And that office is in the presidency.”

The day after Khashoggi’s disappearance, Ibrahim Kalin, the top adviser to president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, guaranteed the story line would stay in the news by confirming rumors that Turks believed Khashoggi remained inside the consulate, rumors that turned out to be untrue.

The consulate—where, for days, many believed Khashoggi was being held—became the main set for the drama. While Turkish officials already suspected the 60-year-old Washington Post columnist was dead, outside the consulate, protesters held up posters with Khashoggi’s name. Local journalists flocked to the scene. Hatice Cengiz, Khashoggi’s fiancée, and his friend, Turan Kislakci, himself a journalist, made for sympathetic characters as they kept vigil outside the consulate. They gave interviews to local and international reporters, while police sorted through reams of surveillance footage from the thousands of cameras all over Istanbul and even inside taxis.

Read: How to respond to a diplomatic crisis like Khashoggi’s disappearance

The first revelation came on October 6. Reuters cited unnamed Turkish security officials as saying that Khashoggi was probably dead, killed inside the consulate shortly after his arrival. The international media began booking flights for Istanbul. Once they arrived, many set up tarps on a grassy patch between the consulate entrance and a supermarket across the street.

Subsequent episodes featured an array of sordid details, relayed by local TV and even international media like The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Security-camera footage showed Khashoggi entering the consulate and a doorman welcoming him inside. In another lurid twist, Sabah, a newspaper close to the Turkish government, plastered the faces of the 15 Saudis who allegedly arrived on two private jets hours before Khashoggi’s disappearance across its website. A two-and-a-half-minute video montage of the comings and goings of the alleged death squad’s private jets and vehicles, handed by unnamed sources to Turkish television channels, showed strange movements. It strongly suggested the men had come for the sole purpose of confronting Khashoggi, and then quickly left. It was like something out of Homeland or The Americans.