Accidental Encounters

by George Friesen

  Ozmen closed his eyes and gingerly fingered the bruise on his head. It had all happened so quickly—the shattering glass, more shots ringing out, screeching brakes as a van pulled up beside the car, the grunts of scuffling men followed by the sound of someone running away from the car, more shots, and then complete silence.

  “All this happened a short distance from the Municipal Palace guarded by Mexican soldiers?” Dave was aghast.

  “Oh yes. As I was dragged into the back of the van by two armed men, I looked back. Our driver was slumped over the wheel, and about a hundred feet from the car, the body of Comooglou was lying very still on the pavement.”

  “Why were the military so slow to react?” Dave exclaimed in amazement.

  Ozmen shrugged his shoulders. “Who knows? The van sped away at high speed. I was gagged, handcuffed, and blindfolded by two men who sat on either side of me on the middle seat. A third in the back seat held a gun to my head. Two men sat in the front of the van—the driver and a big shot, who was giving instructions. They spoke among themselves in Spanish but otherwise ignored me.”

  Ozmen leaned back on his cot, reclining against the wall. Talking about his ordeal seemed to have fatigued him, or perhaps he did not want to talk anymore. Gazing at him in the brightening room, Dave was convinced that Ozmen was the man he had seen at his London hotel. Was now the right time to ask? He did not want the conversation to end. He had other more important questions about Hayat, which were begging for an answer.

  “Demir, let me compliment you on your English. You speak it very well!”

  Ozmen opened his eyes and acknowledged the compliment. “I was head of the London office of the Ottoman Trading Company for several years before I assumed my current position.”

  “Tell me, were you a guest at the Four Seasons Hotel at Canary Wharf in London a few weeks ago? I think I was standing in line at the reception desk, waiting to check in, and you were immediately ahead of me.”

  Ozmen looked more closely at him. “I do not recall seeing you, but yes, I was a guest there. It must be a quirk of fate that our paths should cross again.”

  He closed his eyes again and then muttered, “Do you remember the man who was with me on that trip? That was Comooglou. He is dead now.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Dave did not allow Ozmen to drift off to sleep. He wanted to keep the dialogue going. “Where did your captors take you?”

  The Turk pretended not to hear. He kept his eyes closed. That was the part that he wanted to forget. It came back to him now. After a while, the van had pulled off the highway and jounced at low speed down a rutted dirt road, finally coming to a stop. He heard shouts, then the voices of men talking, before they pulled him out of the van and pushed him into a small hut. A door slammed, and a key turned a lock. He was now alone.

  He opened his eyes reluctantly. “I was taken to an abandoned farm, where they locked me up in a room. My arms were handcuffed in front of me rather than in back, so I was able to remove my gag and blindfold. When my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I could make out a room very much like this one—a cot in one corner, a washbasin, a chamber pot, light filtering through a small barred window near the ceiling.”

  His voice faltered then trailed off into silence. He was not a man prone to show weakness. Death was not a stranger to him. He had killed several men and perhaps a woman himself, but only with great effort was he able to resume.

  “The smell—I will never forget that smell. Sweat, piss, and something else that I did not immediately recognize. It was the smell of dried blood and rotting flesh!”

  The Bigelow brothers stirred uneasily. “How did you know … that … it was the smell of death?” The words stumbled out of Dave’s mouth.

  Ozmen brushed away the question. “I will tell you in a minute. I was in a room where others had been shot. I am certain of that. I could feel it. But I was certain that they would not kill me immediately. After all, they had gone to the trouble of dragging me to this hut in the middle of nowhere. One good sign was that they fed me.”

  Ozmen’s nostrils flared in disdain. The food had nauseated him, but he had been thirsty enough to drink the beer.

  “Then the interrogation began. Three masked men with symbols of the cross tattooed on their bare arms entered my cell. Two pointed guns at me while the third barked questions in Spanish.”

  Fear flickered across Ozmen’s face. “Although I am not an observant Muslim, I felt like a prisoner of the crusaders, to be burned at the stake like an infidel if I did not convert. I could only shake my head. I could not understand a word. My interrogator spat at me and then stalked out.”

  Darkness fell before the next round of questioning resumed. “My inquisitor, a different man who spoke English, finally identified his gang. He said they are … Los Matas Zetas, whatever that means.” Ozmen hesitated over the unfamiliar Spanish words.

  Bob translated, “That means killers of Los Zetas.”

  “Did he give a motive for your kidnapping? Was there a misunderstanding? Were you a random victim?”

  Dave did not see Bob shaking his head slightly, warning Ozmen to be careful how he answered his brother’s questions.

  Ozmen did not need to be prompted. He would not repeat the inquisitor’s threat. We know all about you—you are trying to forge an alliance between Los Zetas and the drug cartels in Turkey. We will foil your scheme before it can take shape. We would like to rid Mexico of scum like you and them. That is why you have been kidnapped.

  His face froze into a grim mask. “He said only that I had a choice. I must convince the Ottoman Trading Company to pay a ransom of five million dollars or they would cut off my head.”

  “Cut off your head!” exclaimed Dave. “They must have been bluffing!” Murderous blackmail and threats were rare in the social and legal circles to which he was accustomed.

  “Oh no!” rebutted Ozmen. “They were serious! They took me from my cell down a dimly lit path toward a shed on the other side of the abandoned farmhouse. The strange odor in my cell now became an overwhelming stench. One of the guards pulled open a door and shone his flashlight into the darkness of the shed, revealing its contents. It was like a war zone—dismembered bodies, torsos without heads lying in pools of blood, swarming with flies.”

  Ozmen remembered gagging, holding his handcuffed hands to his retching mouth. His inquisitor had pointed to the interior of the shed. These are former members of Los Zetas. This is how they fight us, without mercy, and we respond in kind. We fight fire with fire. Now you know what your fate will be if you fail to deliver your ransom.

  “Then they marched me back to my cell, gave me my phone, and ordered me to call Omer Tilki in Istanbul. I was to tell him that he had one week to pay the ransom.”

  The Turk’s face looked pale and resigned. Nearly a week had passed since his ordeal had begun. “After that first day, we never stayed two nights in the same place. They drove mostly at night. During the day, I was kept confined in a room, sometimes with a guard present but mostly alone. Every day, I was moved to a different location—a farmhouse or cheap motel in a rural area.

  “Two days ago, there was a change in my routine. I ended up here. I knew from the steady roar of traffic outside that we were by a major highway near a large city. At sunset, I was not forced after supper into a van to begin a night of wandering over the back roads of Mexico. Instead, my jailer allowed me a full hour to eat my supper.

  “But the most important sign of change was that my captors from Veracruz disappeared without explanation. The jailer who returned to pick up my plate and utensils was accompanied by a guard I had never seen before. For the first time since Veracruz, I spent the night on a cot. A second night followed in this place. I began to hope that I would soon be released. Then the two of you joined me in captivity last night!”

  His voice trailed off in disgust. He glared malevolently at Bob, then
at Dave.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Dave felt the tension building—three men confined in a small room, resentful of each other, withholding secrets, but bound together by their common predicament. He had gotten Ozmen to talk but still did not have the information he wanted. Pushing him further with more questions at this point could provoke him into another outburst of profanity or, even worse, sullen silence. He directed his next question at Bob.

  “The hostage-takers in the cathedral in Morelia want Demir released by a gang with a different name. Not Los Matas Zetas. You must have watched the news reports on television, Bob. Help me out.”

  “You mean the Knights Templar. They are based in Michoacán, of which Morelia is the capital.”

  “So Los Zetas is targeting the wrong enemy?”

  “Apparently so,” agreed Bob. “That is bad news for the hostages in the cathedral.” For me too, he thought. He felt responsible.

  “Then who are our captors if they are not the same people who kidnapped Demir in Veracruz?”

  “They could just be allies of the original gang, but I am only guessing.”

  “Like who? What did you hear in in New York?”

  “Diego Alvarez, when he called Omer Tilki, thought that the kidnappers were the Knights Templar. But Tilki had learned from a different source, probably Demir, that they were Los Matas Zetas.”

  “Did he pass that information back to Alvarez?”

  “I don’t know for sure, but I suspect not.”

  “Tilki does not trust Alvarez?”

  Bob knew perfectly well but shrugged his shoulders. “Beats me.”

  “Our situation is getting murkier by the minute. Then who did you think you were dealing with when you came to Mexico City to deliver the ransom?”

  “The guy who called me in my hotel room introduced himself as Pedro Guerra and said that he had Ozmen in his custody. I asked him point-blank to which group he belonged.”

  “His response?”

  “It was not necessary for me to know that.”

  Guerra had given him a hint. His group was led by someone named El Chapo, whom Miguel Rodriguez had identified as the leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, but Bob could not reveal that he had talked to a DEA agent. Instead he recounted the details of the instructions that he had been given by Guerra for the delivery of the ransom.

  “What guarantee did you have that he would keep his word?” queried Ozmen, whose frown had deepened as he heard Bob’s story.

  “None, but what choice did I have? He told me to do as instructed or you would be dead.”

  “And then I showed up, and you forgot your phone at the restaurant,” Dave added. “And I chased after you, and here we are.”

  “Now you understand why I acted strangely last night.”

  “I am glad to know that it was not all about me, your unwanted big brother, showing up unexpectedly. What a coincidence that I was eating at the same restaurant as you last night. The concierge at my hotel recommended it as an authentic Mexican experience!”

  The irony of that comment was not lost on the two brothers, who grinned at each other until Ozmen snapped at them, “Your comedy of errors could have tragic consequences!”

  “You are right about that,” Dave conceded lamely. “Sorry, Demir.”

  He looked at Bob, who avoided his gaze. That made him more uneasy than Ozmen’s angry words did. His brother was a mystery to him in some ways, but he sensed that Bob was not telling the whole truth. Either that or he was feeling guilty about the possible massacre of the hostages in the cathedral. Maybe both.

  “So what exactly happened after you left the restaurant last night?” he asked Bob.

  “I was picked up by a driver and passenger in a black BMW, just as Guerra had said. As the car pulled out of the alley, the passenger looked back and saw someone running after the car. He asked me if I had left someone behind, and I said that I hadn’t.”

  “My apologies,” muttered Dave. He would have to share responsibility for this fiasco.

  “Then the driver of the BMW received a call from Guerra, alerting him that two unmarked police vehicles were following us. To make a long story short, the driver and Ernesto, the guy in the back seat, concluded that I had double-crossed them. Before I knew what was happening, Ernesto was holding a gun to my head. They had the money, but the deal was off. Ernesto asked Guerra if he should shoot me on the spot. It was not a good feeling, knowing that my life depended on someone’s whim.”

  Bob’s nervous high-pitched laugh startled Ozmen and Dave. “You know why I am laughing? When Murat, my boss, and Tilki asked me to deliver the ransom money, they said there would be no risk to me. Everything would go like clockwork!”

  Ozmen failed to see the humor of the situation. “This is not a laughing matter. Are you sure no one overheard you talking to Guerra?”

  “No, he called me when I was in my room.”

  “In the restaurant, I mean.”

  “He didn’t call me again in the restaurant. The only explanation I can think of for the police trap is that his call was intercepted by the police, or that the police were already trailing some of his men and accidentally stumbled onto the plan to pick up the ransom money.”

  The lie flowed glibly from Bob’s lips, but Ozmen was unconvinced. If the bungling Bigelow brothers had deliberately plotted to destroy any chance of his release, they could not have done better. He held his tongue, but the scowl on his face betrayed his feeling.

  Dave’s professional curiosity prompted him to ask a different kind of question. “Do you mean to tell me, Bob, that when I sat at your table at the restaurant last night, your briefcase contained five million dollars in cash?”

  “Yep.” Bob grinned. “That briefcase and I did not part company for two days. It was always with me, day and night.”

  “Did you bring the money with you from New York and smuggle it past customs?”

  “No, I withdrew it from an Ottoman Trading Company account at a bank in Mexico City.”

  “Was it, by any chance, the Europa Bank branch on the Paseo de la Reforma?”

  “Why, yes.” He again averted his gaze. He knew what was coming next.

  “On Wednesday, when I arrived at the bank to meet with its executives after my flight from New York, I could swear that I saw you leaving the building. You had just finished picking up the money?”

  “Possibly, although if we were there at the same time, I did not see you,” Bob said with as much conviction as he could muster. But of course, he had seen his brother and had plunged into the crowd on the Paseo de la Reforma to avoid being seen.

  Dave smiled but he knew Bob was lying. “Did you have any difficulty withdrawing such a large sum in cash from the bank?”

  “Not really. The first time I arrived, the bank had not yet received the transfer from an offshore account in the Cayman Islands. But later that day, the money was waiting for me, in neatly bundled Grover Cleveland denominations.”

  “No questions asked?”

  “None.”

  “Who did you deal with?”

  “I am a little vague with names. Gomez in private banking, I think.”

  “If I ever get to resume my former life, I will follow up on that lead,” said Dave grimly. “I mentioned last night at the restaurant that my firm, Marshall Steiner & Watkins, has been retained by the US Department of Justice to implement compliance with an anti–money laundering system at Europa Bank. They were indicted and convicted for transferring more than nine billion dollars on behalf of Mexican drug gangs into the United States.”

  Ozmen, who had been listening quietly, now spoke what was on his mind. “Bigelow, why did Omer Tilki choose you to deliver the ransom when someone more experienced, like Recep Murat, would have been available?”

  Bob resented the inference that he was inexperienced but did not challen
ge it. Ozmen had enough reason to be ticked off with him as it was. “Tilki suggested Murat but left the choice up to him. Murat said that he was too busy to go to Mexico City and recommended me. I can’t recall much was going on in New York. You will have to ask him the reason if we ever get out of here. Maybe he thought the risk was too high.”

  Ozmen snorted sardonically. “That would be like Murat not to put his skin on the line, especially for me. We have known each other a long time at the company. He was passed over when I was promoted to my current job. It must still rankle.”

  So they were business rivals, thought Bob. That did not surprise him, although as someone who had been with Ottoman Trading Company for only nine months, he was not yet familiar with the executive intrigue and maneuvering for personal advancement at corporate headquarters.

  Ozmen was not finished. “The interesting question is who tipped off the police. It is possible that Murat did because he wanted me to disappear. But what kind of contacts does he have with the Mexican police? None would be my guess, so we can forget that idea. You may have tipped off the police—accidentally, as you suggest. It could also be that you are a police informer.”

  Dave glanced sideways at Ozmen. He must be an abrasive son of a bitch for making the accusation so boldly. He looked at Bob, whose face was flushing with anger. His brother’s reply was predictable.

  “Like hell I am! That is a load of bullshit!” retorted Bob hotly. This was one insult that he could not ignore because its implications for his safety were dangerous, here in Mexico City or back in New York. He glared at Ozmen, who returned his gaze coolly. They would have some grudges to settle when this was over.

  Amid rising tension, the three prisoners fell silent. Dave was disappointed because he had more questions to direct at Ozmen, but he sensed that any small spark could ignite an angry explosion. He decided to bide his time.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Ozmen dozed fitfully on his cot. A scornful and accusing woman hovered on the edge of his consciousness. As her image receded, the thin-lipped, contemptuous face of Omer Tilki appeared. Then two dark figures appeared from behind, seizing him by the arms and dragging him away. Was it to his execution? He could not tell. He was grateful when the sound of a key turning in the door woke him from his nightmare.