Accidental Encounters

by George Friesen

  As Yilmaz blinked to adjust his vision from the bright sunlight outside, he could make out four dark figures. Two of them advanced toward him and, grabbing his arms, pushed him toward a tall, burly man whom he had seen before on the few occasions he had visited corporate headquarters on the Nuruosmaniye Caddesi in Istanbul.

  “What do you want from me? Why are you treating someone who has loyally served his company like this?” he protested.

  “Because you talk too much, scum, that’s why!” sneered Yavuz.

  “I told the Greek authorities nothing about our operations. Believe me,” pleaded Yilmaz.

  “Liar! We know that you told that woman professor, your cousin, far too much. If you want to live, you had better tell us the truth! What did you tell the Greeks? Encourage him, boys!”

  Blows rained down on his head before he could ask how they knew about his cousin Hayat. His assailants threw him to the floor, kicking him in the chest and then in the groin. Screaming with pain, he shouted his innocence but to no avail. He tried to rise from the floor but was hurled back against sacks of merchandise stacked against the wall. He recognized the smell of the merchandise. Heroin! It was his last thought before he blacked out.

  He slowly regained consciousness, rising through layers of pain. How much time had passed he did not know. Cautiously he opened his swollen left eye a slit, not wishing to alert his assailants, who were standing a short distance away. Yavuz was talking.

  “Attila! Sirhan! Naim! You come with me! Omer would like us to make a courtesy visit to a customer who has been slow to pay for shipments received. Korkut, Veli—you stay here and guard our guest! We will be back in a couple of hours.”

  Yilmaz closed his eyes, listening to the footsteps recede and a door slam shut. So there were only two left. That improved his odds of escaping. Then he remembered there had been two men at the gate to the warehouse, which was surrounded by a high wire fence. Four in total. The odds were stacked against him unless he created a diversion that would distract his guards. But how? He waited, not stirring. Minutes slipped by.

  Then his opportunity came. One of the guards began pacing back and forth. The other guard stirred restlessly in his chair.

  “Hey, Korkut, I am going outside to have a smoke.”

  Yilmaz did not need to open his eyes to identify the man who had spoken. It was the man who had driven the car to the warehouse.

  The second man responded gruffly, “Don’t take long. I need to make a pit stop. Do you know where the toilet is?”

  It was the voice of the man with the scarred face, who had unwisely eaten a whole package of dates while waiting for Yilmaz to arrive at the Turkish Port Authority. His stomach was now in a state of rebellion.

  “It’s over there, in the corner near the exit.”

  Yilmaz again peered through his eye slits and made out the dark silhouette of Veli retreating in the direction of the exit.

  Korkut got up from his chair. Turning his back to Yilmaz, he shouted to Veli before he opened the door, “Five minutes! No longer!”

  Yilmaz moved his head slightly to survey the interior of the warehouse, which was dimly lit by a few overhead light bulbs and whatever daylight could pass through the dirty windows. On the small table next to his chair, Korkut had placed a kerosene lamp to provide additional light so that he could read a tabloid newspaper that now lay on the floor.

  Fortunately for Yilmaz, the weather outside was beautiful, a sparkling sunny afternoon, although that was not obvious inside the gloomy warehouse. Veli enjoyed his first cigarette so much that he decided to have a second. One of the gatekeepers, bored with his undemanding duties, wandered over and struck up a conversation with Veli about the prospects for the local football team in the Turkish Second League. Meanwhile, Korkut was impatiently waiting inside, cursing Veli under his breath.

  Korkut walked over to peer at Yilmaz, who was lying very still, barely breathing. He muttered out loud, “We beat up that bastard pretty good! Still out cold!” He shook his head, spun on his heel, and walked rapidly toward the toilet.

  Yilmaz did not stir until Korkut’s back disappeared through the toilet door. He suppressed a groan as he pushed himself up from the floor. His head was throbbing. He gripped the chair for support as he lurched to his feet. He had only minutes to act. If Veli returned, his opportunity would be lost.

  He painfully bent over to pick up the newspaper from the floor. He then grasped the handle of the kerosene lamp on the table and moved toward the bags of heroin stacked against the wall. He lifted the lamp chimney and applied the exposed flame to the newspaper, which he tossed next to the pile of bags. The flames flickered brightly as they consumed the paper. Then he hurled the lamp into the flames, smashing its glass body and spilling its combustible contents.

  Shielding his face with his arms as the flames shot into the air, Yilmaz backed away and ran toward the toilet door. The sound of smashing glass would surely have been heard by Korkut. If he jumped on Korkut as he emerged from the toilet, he might be able to wrestle his gun from him. It was a desperate plan, but it might work. Then a better plan came to him in an instant. Good fortune was with him. As he crouched by the toilet door, his foot came to rest on a piece of iron pipe that had been left in the corner. This was a much better weapon than his bare hands.

  “Veli, is that you? What’s happening?” shouted Korkut as he opened the toilet door while pulling up his pants. His scarred face contorted in pain as the metal pipe smashed into his temple. This was one brawl that he would not survive. He collapsed into a crumpled heap at the feet of Yilmaz, who bent down to extract the gun from the shoulder holster of the dead man.

  The door to the warehouse opened. An astonished Veli wheeled and shouted over his shoulder to the gatekeeper with whom he had been engaged in conversation, “There’s a fire! The warehouse is burning down! Korkut, where in the hell are you?”

  Yilmaz had to act quickly. The interior of the warehouse was now brightly lit by the flames engulfing the stacks of heroin bags. Oblivious to his pain, he moved rapidly toward Veli, hurling the iron pipe at him to catch him off guard. Veli stumbled as he reached for his gun, but he was too late. Yilmaz was on top of him, firing his gun at point-blank range into his chest. He caught the slumping Veli and, holding him in front as a shield, turned to face the gatekeeper, who had come charging through the door. Two shots rang out. One bullet pierced the body of Veli, and the other ripped through the throat of the gatekeeper, who crashed to the floor in a pool of blood.

  Three down and one to go.

  Yilmaz dragged Veli away from the door and waited for the second gatekeeper to come. After several minutes, it was apparent that the gatekeeper was biding his time, expecting Yilmaz to flee the burning building. When Yilmaz peered around the edge of the open door, he was greeted by a hail of bullets, and he pulled back quickly. The man was shooting an automatic rifle, probably a Kalashnikov, so he had a distinct advantage in firepower. Somehow, Yilmaz would have to dash through that door to Veli’s car without getting shot.

  The smoke inside the warehouse was now becoming unbearable, making breathing difficult. Yet it could also provide a screen. It had begun billowing in thick plumes through the open door.

  Yilmaz extracted the car keys from Veli’s pocket and also picked up his gun where it had fallen on the floor. A second handgun could be useful if Korkut’s gun ran out of ammunition.

  Placing a handkerchief over his mouth and nose, Yilmaz began to prepare his escape. Several times, he extended his arm around the side of the door, firing in the general direction of the gatehouse before ducking back to avoid the retaliatory salvo. Then at a moment when the smoke was especially thick, he darted through the door and fell to the ground, crawling toward Veli’s parked car. By the time the gatekeeper realized what had happened, Yilmaz had reached the car and opened the driver’s door.

  Bending low over the steering wheel, Yi
lmaz started the engine and accelerated the Mercedes-Benz in the direction of the gate. A burst of gunfire shattered the windshield and riddled the passenger side of the car, but through the thick smoke, Yilmaz was able to make out the shadowy figure of the gatekeeper standing in the middle of the road near the gatehouse. The car hit him with a sickening thud then crashed through the gate to freedom.

  But his problems were not yet over. In the distance, he could hear the sirens of approaching fire engines and police vehicles. Yavuz and his men would be returning soon, and the police would inevitably defer to them. Yilmaz would be the fugitive trying to elude the reach of both the Ottoman Trading Company and the police.

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Hayat Yilmaz stirred and groaned in her sleep on the narrow hospital bed. Her brow was damp with perspiration, a sign of her distress, and with a cry, she raised her right arm as if to ward off a blow. Memories of her past, including a traumatic event whose details were still dim, were beginning to seep back into her consciousness.

  Bilge, the nurse on duty, paused by the open door to her room and entered to check on her. She had taken a special interest in Hayat ever since she had been moved from the emergency ward to this wing of Istanbul University’s Medical Faculty Hospital weeks before. Now, she noted with satisfaction, Hayat was showing signs of improvement. Three days before, she had emerged from her coma, opening her eyes and following the movement of the doctor’s hand over her face. Then yesterday, as her visiting mother had hovered over her, she had smiled in recognition. The old woman had been ecstatic, tears of joy welling from her eyes.

  Bilge glanced at her watch. She had been on duty since early morning, and her shift was almost over. In a few minutes, she would be free to leave on a week’s vacation, although first, she would need to instruct the substitute nurse, Melek, on the specific needs of each patient. She smoothed the sheets on Hayat’s bed and checked the tubes taped to her left arm, to ensure that they had not been disturbed by the woman’s tossing. Everything seemed in order. She walked briskly from the room, smiling in anticipation at the progress she expected to see when she returned from vacation.

  Melek rose from the desk at the nurse’s station as Bilge approached and greeted her. She was a trim woman, middle-aged and experienced, who had formerly worked in a military hospital. Bilge did not know her personally since she was not one of the regular substitute nurses, but she had come highly recommended. Bilge had been surprised that someone with Melek’s credentials would be available to work as a substitute but had not pursued the question. Melek was a reserved woman who tended to deflect questions about her past or her personal life.

  “I am about to leave, Melek. Would now be a good time to do a final tour of the ward, in case you have some questions that I have failed to answer?”

  “Why, of course, Bilge.” Melek’s lips twitched in a brief smile.

  The two nurses walked down the corridor, stopping by each patient’s room to go over the routine for the evening shift. When they halted by Hayat Yilmaz’s door, Bilge murmured softly, “I have prayed for this woman every day since she arrived. She teaches at the Istanbul Technical University, a brilliant woman who has been through so much! But at last she is showing signs of recovery!”

  “Does she have any special meal requirements?” asked Melek, her pen poised over her notepad to write down instructions.

  “For the time being, she is being fed intravenously, and the daytime nurse, Esin, will be taking care of that. But your responsibility will be to administer the medications—again intravenously—because she has been unconscious until a few days ago and still cannot take them orally.”

  Melek nodded. “I understand. And the prescriptions?”

  “They are listed in her file at the nurse’s station. Would you like me to go over them with you?”

  “That should not be necessary. It should be self-explanatory. The medications should be in a plastic bag supplied by hospital administration and kept at constant temperature. All I need to do is to substitute a new bag for the old bag, attaching it to the infusion pump beside the patient’s bed.”

  Melek’s calm voice impressed Bilge with its quiet confidence and professionalism.

  The two nurses moved on down the corridor. Their final stop was by the door of Temel Kaplan.

  Bilge spoke in a hushed voice. “He is suffering from terminal cancer and is in great pain. There is nothing that we can do for him except to give him powerful medications administered intravenously to dull the pain while we wait for the end. That will be your responsibility as well. Any questions?”

  Melek shook her head. “It sounds routine. His prescription will be on file at the nurse’s station.”

  After Bilge departed, Melek went about her chores methodically, stopping occasionally to chat with a patient or with a doctor completing his rounds. By nine o’clock, the ward settled into silence. Visitors and doctors were gone. The telephone had stopped ringing. Melek sat at the nurse’s station, poring over patients’ files and her daily checklist. It would be three hours before the night nurse arrived.

  At ten o’clock, Melek took a key from the desk drawer and unlocked the door to the room where medications were kept under refrigeration in separate trays labeled with each patient’s name. She looked for the tray marked with Temel Kaplan’s name. Putting on surgical gloves, she removed a plastic pouch from his tray and left the room, locking the door behind her.

  Deliberately she walked down the corridor and stopped by the door of Hayat Yilmaz. She looked over her shoulder to make sure that there was no one in the corridor who might see her. Then she entered the room and walked softly to the side of the bed. In a matter of minutes, she had exchanged plastic bags attached to the infusion pump. Then she waited for the patient’s reaction.

  Hayat Yilmaz woke with a start, her body rigid with panic. She felt a crushing pain in her chest. She saw someone standing by her bed and wanted to cry out for help, but the sound died in her throat as darkness enveloped her. The angel of death tiptoed as quietly out of the room as she had entered.

  Once again, Melek went to the room where the refrigerated medications were stored and removed a pouch from the tray carrying Hayat Yilmaz’s name. Then, locking the door, she proceeded to the room of Temel Kaplan. Would the change of medications kill him? Would she have two deaths on her hands? No, she would not feel remorse. He was going to die in any case. Mercy killing—isn’t that what they called it in the Netherlands?

  When Melek returned to the nurse’s station, she sat down to collect her thoughts. Her hands were trembling. She thought about going to the nurses’ washroom to splash cold water on her face but could not bear the thought of looking at herself in the mirror. In the morning, Hayat Yilmaz’s death would be discovered.

  What would her alibi be? That she had mistakenly substituted Kaplan’s medicine for the woman’s? Since both patients were only a few rooms apart, she would say that she had intended to refresh their medications on the same trip and had carried both pouches with her. It was against regulations, she knew, but she had been rushed for time since this was a new job, and she was still struggling to learn what was expected of her. Out of consideration for Ms. Yilmaz, she had not turned on the lamp on her nightstand, and in the darkness, she had confused Temel Kaplan’s medicine for hers. It was a dreadful mistake that would haunt her to the end of her days!

  Yes, she thought, that would be a plausible alibi which should help her to avoid prosecution, although it would certainly ruin her nursing career. What hospital would want to hire her? Her reputation for competence would be irredeemably destroyed.

  Needing reassurance, she picked up the receiver to the telephone and began dialing. Suddenly, she stopped and hung up. Using the hospital line would not be wise because there might be a record of her call to someone outside the hospital at the time of Hayat Yilmaz’s death. Fishing her phone from her purse, she called the man with whom she
had been living for several years.

  “The deed is done. Tell me, Yavuz, that I did the right thing. Was this necessary? I need your support.” Her voice shook as she spoke.

  He told her what she wanted to hear. “You have done well, Melek. Our master will be pleased. We had no choice but to obey. He demands complete loyalty from those who serve him.” Then he hung up.

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Dave was astonished to read the obituary for Hayat Yilmaz, which appeared in the New York Times two days after her death. She had made many friends at the United Nations, where diplomats who had worked with her in the past said uniformly that she was a brilliant woman who had served Turkey well. There was only one sentence in the obituary about what had caused her death—an accidental substitution of medications at one of Istanbul’s leading hospitals at a time when she had begun showing signs of recovery from a near-fatal beating in August. That had left him incredulous. But what could he do about it?

  An angry Jeff Braunstein had an idea when Dave called him. “Let’s go public! There is no point in talking to the Istanbul police because any investigation is going to be obstructed by officials higher up. So let’s get our story into the media—the Turkish media—to light a fire under the Istanbul police.”

  “How do we do that?”

  “Years ago, Hayat introduced me to a journalist who works for one of the Turkish news agencies here in New York. He still works here because I bump into him from time to time. His name is Ahmet Ozak. Why don’t I call him and suggest that he interview you about your experience as the prisoner of a Mexican drug gang? I think you will get a good reception because his agency is associated with the secularist, moderate opposition to the current government. They publish one of the largest daily newspapers in Turkey. They are still smarting over some trumped-up charge of tax evasion, which they suspect the government is using to intimidate them.”

  A week later, Ahmet Ozak was sitting in Dave’s office. He was exploring the human-interest angle of the friendship between Hayat Yilmaz, a leader in the Taksim Gezi Park demonstrations, and Dave Bigelow, a fellow prisoner of the celebrated Demir Ozmen. But he suspected that this was not why he had been invited to make this interview.