Accidental Encounters

by George Friesen

  “Bob, good morning! Fancy meeting you here!” It was the unmistakable voice of John Shafer.

  Bob turned warily, his heart pounding. Standing ten feet away were Shafer and Connors, looking very serious. He wanted to run but decided that would be futile and unnecessary. Flying to Vancouver was not illegal after all.

  “What a coincidence!” he said, trying to sound as casual as possible. Then he struck himself on the side of the head. “I completely forgot! We have a meeting tomorrow, right?”

  “We do,” responded Shafer. “But when we discovered you were leaving town, we decided to change the venue and time of our debriefing session.”

  “But how did you …?”

  “Your brother called me last night. He was very testy, calling me a shit for abusing his friendship. I tried to calm him down, explaining in very general terms the basis for the cooperation between you and me. No details, you understand? Nothing that will embarrass you. I then asked him whether he had seen you since your adventure together in Mexico City. He was evasive at first, even suspicious, trying to protect you.”

  “Then he squealed on me?”

  “Go easy on your brother. I played rough. I told him that I had heard Sinaloa had put a price on your head and that I wanted to warn you. He became more talkative after that. He said that he had gotten the impression that you were leaving on a long trip.”

  “So my life is in danger?”

  “Not as far as we know. However, we wanted to see you because we felt hurt by your deliberate avoidance of us over the last two weeks. After the tip from Dave, we took the precaution of checking the passenger lists of outgoing flights from New York. There you were, Robert Bigelow, heading for Vancouver! You weren’t planning to do some business for Ottoman Trading Company, were you?”

  “Hell, no! I never want to see them again.”

  “You won’t have to. Have you heard? Your brother said you haven’t been back to the office since your return from Mexico City. We issued an arrest warrant for Recep Murat for running a drug-smuggling operation, using Ottoman Trading Company as a front, and ordering the murder of Tony Santelli. He, unfortunately, sensed what was about to happen and caught the first flight to Istanbul before we could get to him. It’s too bad you didn’t go back to work. You might have been able to tip us off about his plans to flee.”

  Bob would have liked to see Murat behind bars, but he expressed no regrets. Let Shafer and Connors deal with him. Someday they would get Murat. He would have a target on his back for the rest of his life. “What happens to the New York office?” he asked.

  “It has been shut down. You are now officially unemployed, although that should not inconvenience you too much. Your brother told me about the Sotheby art auction.”

  “The timing could not have been better,” agreed Bob. He looked warily at Shafer and Connors. “So that’s it? You came to the airport just to tell me this?”

  “Keep in touch,” said Connors. “We will try to get Murat extradited to stand trial in the United States. We would like you to be a witness for the prosecution if we ever get that far. Cooperation from the Turkish government is not certain even though they will receive a complaint about Ottoman Trading Company.”

  “There is one more thing,” added Shafer. “I owe your brother a favor. When you and I first met in the bar at the Edison Hotel, I told you that the bartender at the Bar Boulud had identified you as the man who had a drink with Fred Sanford shortly before his death. It was a little white lie designed to make you cooperate with us in shutting down the Ottoman Trading Company operation here. None of the bartenders in the Lincoln Center area could recall who had met with Sanford before his death. Whatever happened is between you and your conscience, but there is insufficient evidence to bring charges against you. You are free to go!”

  “You did what?” sputtered Bigelow indignantly over Shafer’s admission. “You cynically used me for your own ends, putting my life at risk?”

  “I was just doing my job,” responded Shafer without any sign of remorse. “Besides, what happened to you was deserved punishment. You engaged in illegal drug peddling. I don’t feel guilty.”

  “By the way,” added Connors, “Vancouver has an active drug scene. If you want a job with my Mountie friends, just let me know. I will make the introductions.”

  With that final jibe, Connors and Shafer walked away.

  Unfinished Business

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  For a few days, Ozmen was feted as a celebrity. He was received as a guest at the home of the Turkish ambassador to Mexico and lionized by a Turkish media that had flocked to Mexico City. It was a drama made for television—his escape from the hands of a thuggish drug cartel and the lifting of the hostage crisis at the cathedral in Morelia. Knowledge of his treachery had died with Pedro Guerra. He had even been given a police escort by an apologetic Mexican government to Benito Juárez International Airport for his flight back to Istanbul.

  It was on the long flight home that sober reality began to return. Several weeks had elapsed since he had left Istanbul for New York, eager to avoid being incriminated in the attack on Hayat Yilmaz. He had hoped to fade into obscurity but instead had become a darling of the media, which was eager to interview him, even offering contracts for the publication of a book on his experiences as a captive of a Mexican drug cartel.

  What worried him were the stone throwers—journalists who asked awkward questions about why he would have been kidnapped by a drug cartel in the first place and why a second cartel would have seized a cathedral filled with wedding guests to bargain for his release. One of those stone throwers had even interviewed Omer Tilki, who was quoted in an article saying that Ottoman Trading Company would dismiss any employee suspected of having connections with the illicit drug trade. Of course, there would be a thorough investigation. Ozmen would be considered innocent until proven guilty.

  Tilki’s blatant hypocrisy almost made him smile. On the other hand, he knew how publicity-shy Tilki was. Would he have given an interview to a journalist unless he was embarking on a scheme to throw Ozmen overboard to the sharks in order to save the Ottoman Trading Company from a ruinous scandal? It was not a comforting thought.

  Ironically, he would have been in a stronger position with Omer Tilki if he had never been rescued and if Pedro Guerra and he had been able to escape the clutches of the Mexican military, permitting them to work together to build ties between the Ottoman Trading Company and the Sinaloa cartel. His employer would then have embraced him as a hero.

  He had talked briefly by telephone to Tilki a day after his rescue. He had expected at least a few words of sympathy for the ordeal that he had undergone, even if they did not reflect genuine feeling; but Tilki’s remarks had been perfunctory, almost cool. No promise had been made that anyone from Ottoman Trading Company would be welcoming him at the airport. A number of matters would be waiting for his attention when he returned to the office. It was as if nothing extraordinary had happened to him. His first day back would just be another day at the office. Ozmen had been tempted to ask if there was any new information about Hayat Yilmaz since they had learned that she was still alive, but he decided against raising this awkward subject with Tilki.

  Ozmen was able to push these questions to the back of his mind during his first week back in the office. He had his hands full dealing with the shock of British authorities seizing the Atlantica when it arrived in Liverpool. How could this have happened? He told a furious Tilki that he had personally inspected the cleverly disguised secret compartments where the heroin and cocaine would be stored, but the police had had no difficulty in finding them. There must be an informer, he had asserted to Tilki. Perhaps the assistant to Alvarez who had shown them around the docks.

  “Possibly, but it is more likely that Los Zetas is incompetent. Our alliance with them is worthless, even dangerous!” Tilki barked. “Who knows, this shipment on the At
lantica may have been a sting operation, designed to entrap us. Because of this botched operation, Mehmet, my personal friend and second-in-command in our British organization, has been jailed. Other arrests have been made as well because the police followed up with some of the suppliers who were supposed to receive this shipment.”

  “I am very sorry to hear about Mehmet,” said Ozmen with genuine regret. “I last talked to him during my trip to London in August, when the police seized one of our vans.”

  “We have some smart lawyers working on his release, but it will take time and cost money. He is not easily replaceable.” Tilki looked at Ozmen with narrowed eyes. “Isn’t it a remarkable coincidence that trouble strikes wherever you are? What a pity that I have lost Mehmet.”

  Ozmen sensed the uncharitable drift of Tilki’s thoughts—that Mehmet would have been a good replacement for him. His resentment was building, but he controlled the tone of his voice when he said, “I called Diego Alvarez, the manager at Veracruz Sugar who is part of the Los Zetas cartel, to ask him how the British police had found out about the Atlantica.”

  “So what did he say?”

  “I could not reach him. His secretary said that he had suddenly announced that he was getting married this week and would be leaving on his honeymoon. The announcement caught her by surprise because she had not known that he even had a fiancée. She had not seen him in two days and did not know how to reach him or when he would be returning.”

  Tilki was disgusted. “Bah! That is no way to run a business. We should be dealing with the other Mexican cartel, Sinaloa. If only we had succeeded in ransoming you, we would have opened up lines of communication that could eventually have resulted in a business deal. But that was botched too by the American, Bigelow. Whom can I trust in this organization?”

  It suddenly occurred to Ozmen that he had forgotten to voice his suspicions about Bigelow to Tilki after his return to Istanbul. He still had scores to settle with that impudent American.

  “I think Bigelow deliberately betrayed our ransom attempt. He is a police informer, in my opinion.”

  “Why do you say that?” snapped Tilki.

  “The plans to ransom me were known only to you, Murat, and Bigelow. Only Bigelow could have tipped off the police.”

  “You do not suspect Murat?” asked Tilki mockingly, knowing only too well the rivalry between Ozmen and the head of the New York office.

  “Whatever my differences with Murat, I would trust him before Bigelow.”

  “Fair enough,” replied Tilki. “So would I. When I talked to Murat earlier this week, he mentioned that Bigelow is absent on sick leave. He has not returned to the office. I will call Murat again and relay your suspicions. But he is fully occupied now dealing with subpoenas from the FBI. Shooting Bigelow may have to wait.”

  “Whatever you think best,” said Ozmen, deferring to Tilki’s judgment. “But I would not give up on the idea of an alliance with Sinaloa. When I was in captivity, Pedro Guerra, the man in charge, told me that Sinaloa would still like to do business with us, despite the botched ransom attempt.”

  “But Guerra and his men were killed when you were rescued. There is now bad blood between Sinaloa and us. An alliance with them is not worth pursuing.”

  Tilki drummed his fingers nervously on his desk top. “Enough of that for now. We have some unfinished business to attend to—namely, Hayat Yilmaz and her cousin, Husayin.”

  “How is she?” asked Ozmen anxiously.

  “When I called you in Veracruz shortly before your kidnapping, we knew that she is still alive, but we did not know where she is being kept. Then a simple solution occurred to me. The Tilki Foundation is a major benefactor of hospitals in Istanbul. I did not want to involve my father directly. But I know the director of programs, Agah Taner, who is familiar with all of the major hospitals in the city.

  “A few discreet telephone calls by Taner as a friend of the family, interested in determining the health of Hayat Yilmaz, sufficed. Within hours, he discovered that she is being kept at Istanbul University’s Medical Faculty Hospital.

  “Until recently, she was in a coma and kept under tight security, so there was no reason to act hastily. Why run the risk of stirring up a hornet’s nest when she might die of her injuries naturally? However, this last week, she has shown signs of coming out of her coma. That could be bad news for us. Fortunately, security around her room has become more relaxed. If she starts talking to the police, we will need to act.

  “There is also the matter of her cousin, Husayin Yilmaz, the captain of Light of the East, who will be released from a Greek prison in Rhodes tomorrow. My father used his political connections, and the Turkish government has arranged a prisoner exchange. Yavuz, my personal bodyguard, will lead a welcoming committee in Iskenderun to drive home the point to Yilmaz that in matters relating to the Ottoman Trading Company, silence is golden.”

  Ozmen shuddered inwardly. He had seen that mirthless smile on Tilki’s lips before. But better Yilmaz than me, he thought.

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Husayin Yilmaz savored the smell of freedom as the Greek Coast Guard vessel approached the Turkish Port Authority terminal in Iskenderun. For weeks, he had been interrogated by Greek officials about his ship’s mission, but he had not cooperated, withholding any details that would incriminate the Ottoman Trading Company. Kept in solitary confinement, he had not been permitted to fraternize with his crew at mealtimes or during exercise periods in the prison yard, but he had not been mistreated. Still, he had had little reason to expect an early release. There had been no indication that his routine was about to change until this morning, when he had been taken to the prison director’s office and told that he would be released to Turkish officials in Iskenderun.

  He and two other Turkish prisoners were taken on deck shortly before the Greek vessel docked. They were marched into the terminal building by two armed guards, who were greeted by the sole Turkish official in the empty waiting room. Shortly thereafter, they were joined by Turkish policemen guarding three Greek prisoners. The exchange of prisoners and documents was completed in a matter of minutes. The Greek guards and their charges then departed for their ship for the return trip to Rhodes.

  Yilmaz was relieved to be back on Turkish soil, but he did not know what would happen next. The Turkish policemen consulted in hushed tones with the Turkish official. He could feel their eyes on him. The Turkish official shook his head and then shrugged his shoulders. The policemen approached and gave curt orders to the other two prisoners to move to a waiting police van. They said nothing to Yilmaz, who started to follow them. He paused when the official shook his head and winked at him.

  “You are free to go. Your uncle is waiting outside.”

  Yilmaz picked up his bag and started moving toward the open door. He could see a stranger standing outside, away from the police van, smiling broadly and beckoning to him.

  “Welcome home, nephew!” he boomed.

  Yilmaz did not show the surprise that he felt. He did not have an uncle in Iskenderun. Moreover, he had never seen this man before—of medium height, powerfully built, a long scar running from his right eye down his cheek. Not a pleasant-looking man. He was probably someone acting on behalf of the Ottoman Trading Company.

  Yilmaz moved toward the man and embraced him. “Uncle, it is good to see you again!”

  Yilmaz looked back at the official, who had already turned away from the open door, his job done and rapidly losing interest in the matter. The official had only followed orders, and it was not the first time that a prisoner release had occurred without explanation. The police van pulled away from the curb as Yilmaz was escorted to a waiting Mercedes-Benz.

  Yilmaz dropped his bag into the open trunk, pressed the lid shut, and got into the back seat next to the man who had greeted him. The driver stared straight ahead, not acknowledging his presence with a greeting.

 
“You are from Ottoman Trading Company?” Yilmaz asked the scarred man, who had not yet bothered to introduce himself.

  “Yes,” he replied. “As you may or may not know, Golden Horn Shipping no longer exists. I do not know the details. But you still have an employer who will take care of you.”

  The car had by now exited the yard of the Turkish Port Authority terminal and had merged into traffic on a main road.

  “Where are we going?” asked Yilmaz.

  “We have organized a welcoming party for you, outside the city.” As the man smiled, his scarred cheek pulled down the lid of his eye. It was a sinister face, but Yilmaz was not alarmed. In his career as a sea captain, he had met many sailors whose scars bore witness to their brawls. It was only after the car had traveled about twenty minutes and was approaching a dilapidated warehouse district on the outskirts of Iskenderun that Yilmaz began to sense danger.

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  “This is a strange place to welcome a returning sea captain—no nightclubs, no dancing girls!” Yilmaz chuckled as he turned to his companion but then froze. He was staring into the barrel of a small handgun.

  The car halted in front of a gate guarded by two armed men. When the driver lowered his window to identify himself, the gates opened, and the car proceeded to a building that looked in poor repair—broken windows, peeling paint, and rusting, exposed beams supporting the roof.

  The driver, pulling a handgun from inside his coat, came around to Yilmaz’s door and opened it. “Get out!” ordered the scarred man. He motioned with his head toward the door of the warehouse. “In there!”

  Climbing out of the car, Yilmaz glanced in the direction of the gate, calculating his chances of escape. They were not good. He felt a blow to the back of his head.

  “Move!” shouted the driver.

  As they entered the dimly lit interior of the warehouse, the scarred man called out, “We have your friend, Yavuz!”