Accidental Encounters

by George Friesen

  To Budak, the question seemed innocent, a curious offhand remark; but for Dave, it was loaded, enabling him to redirect the discussion.

  “Oh yes. Emir Tilki is chairman of both the company and the foundation. He is one of the country’s most prominent citizens.”

  “What other interests does he have?” Jeff joined in. He and Dave were two hunting dogs on the same scent.

  “You mean business or personal?”

  “Business.”

  “Well, there have been reports for some time that he has a controlling interest in Galata-Hatay Bankasi, a private bank that caters to wealthy clients. Tayfur Melek, its president, married Tilki’s daughter. We have a correspondent banking relationship with that bank, as of course with many other Turkish banks.”

  “If Galata-Hatay Bankasi asked Europa Bank to make a money transfer on behalf of one of its wealthy clients, would you do the transaction without investigating their client?”

  “Why yes. That would be normal practice. We are required by law to know our own clients, but correspondent banking relationships are unregulated.”

  Dave whistled under his breath. “What can you tell us about this bank? How long has it existed?”

  Budak smiled. “Would you like a short lesson in Turkish history? Hatay is a small province in the southwestern corner of Turkey, bordered by the Mediterranean and Syria. Its largest city is the port of Iskenderun. After the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, Hatay was briefly part of the French mandate in Syria. But in 1939, it was incorporated into the Turkish Republic after a popular referendum. The Hatay Bank was founded in the 1920s, and after the province became part of Turkey, it acquired the Galata Bank in Istanbul. The Meleks are a prominent political family in Hatay, which they represent in the Turkish parliament.”

  “What else can you tell us about the Tilki clan?”

  “Emir Tilki’s second son, Ahmet, is president of Mardin Sigorta, an insurance company serving the southeastern part of the country, where there is a large Kurdish population. Ahmet is a sober businessman who has stayed out of the limelight more than his older brother, Omer, spending much of his time in the provincial capitals of Mardin and Sanliurfa. Family connections probably helped his rise in the company. Ahmet’s mother is Kurdish and the daughter of the founder of Mardin Sigorta.”

  “Aydin, you are an incredible source of information,” Jeff exclaimed. “Now refresh my memory. Under Turkish law, isn’t it true that electronic transfers of money by banks must be reported, but this requirement does not apply to non-bank financial institutions, such as insurance companies?”

  “That is correct,” Budak replied with a twinkle in his eye.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  On the day of his arrival in Istanbul, Dave sent an email to Inspector Polat, asking about Hayat Yilmaz and the police inquiry into the attack on her. Had any progress been made? The response came several days later, when Dave and Jeff were taking a taxi back to their hotel after the meeting with Aydin Budak of Europa Bank. It was from Inspector Korkut Tosun, to whom Polat had forwarded the email.

  Regretfully, there has been no change in the condition of Ms. Yilmaz. She is still in a coma, so we have no new leads as to who attacked her. It is possible that she was robbed and was injured when she put up resistance. Thinking her dead, the robbers may then have panicked and thrown her body into the Bosporus. This, of course, begs the question what a respectable woman would have been doing in that part of Istanbul just before dawn. Moreover, forensic evidence indicates that she incurred the injury eight to ten hours before she was thrown into the Bosporus. We have considered the possibility that she was the victim of a lovers’ quarrel, but her parents insist that she has not been seeing any man for years.

  Dave handed his phone to Jeff. “Look! Read this! What do you think we should do?”

  Jeff wrinkled his face ruefully. “Is there anything we can do? Can two Americans who do not speak Turkish do better than the Istanbul police? We’re amateurs.”

  Then Dave had an inspired moment. “See that?” He pointed out the window at a distinguished building. “Isn’t that the College of Architecture of Istanbul Technical University? That’s where Hayat taught!” He banged on the back of the driver’s seat while pointing out the window. “Driver! Driver! Don’t go to the Park Hyatt Hotel! Go there!”

  The driver nodded to indicate that he understood. He maneuvered into a turning lane and, with squealing wheels, made a rapid U-turn before oncoming traffic. Depositing them at the entrance to the College of Architecture, he asked in English, “Would you like me to wait?”

  Dave shook his head. “No, thank you. That will not be necessary. Our hotel is within walking distance from here.”

  “I was wondering what this building was,” Jeff exclaimed. “I could see it from our hotel. Now I know.” He read the sign at the entrance: Istanbul Technical University, Taskisla Campus.

  The receptionist at the entrance asked them first in Turkish, then in English, “May I help you?”

  Dave, who had decided to come to the building on impulse, now had to think up a plausible reason for their visit. His words came tumbling out. “We’re visitors from the United States, friends of Professor Hayat Yilmaz.”

  The receptionist’s welcoming smile froze. “Whom do you wish to see?”

  “One of her colleagues, someone in the urban planning department with whom she taught.”

  “Of course.” She spoke softly into the intercom, then she turned back to Dave and Jeff. “Professor Davut Oguz will see you. Take the elevator on the right to the second floor. His office is to the left of the elevator when you get off.”

  Professor Oguz was already waiting for Dave and Jeff in the hallway when they got off the elevator. A big bear of a man with a pleasant demeanor, he bounded forward to greet them, crushing their hands in his strong grip as they introduced themselves. After ushering them into his office and settling down behind his desk, he threw up his big hands and asked, “So what can I tell you about my dear colleague, Professor Yilmaz?”

  Jeff and Dave began explaining the reasons for their interest in Hayat Yilmaz’s welfare—Jeff’s longstanding friendship dating back to her residence in New York and Dave’s more recent acquaintanceship with her when he and his family were vacationing in Istanbul.

  The professor nodded his head from time to time, and when they concluded, he remarked, “The particulars of Hayat’s misfortune are very puzzling. When we began our classes for the fall term, there was no Hayat. She was always very conscientious, and if she needed to be absent, she would certainly have informed the department. Then the police came, and we learned, to our horror, that someone had tried to murder her.”

  “Who do you think might have done it?” Jeff asked.

  Oguz shrugged. “They questioned many of us—faculty, students, and administrators—to find a lead but were unsuccessful. She was well-liked by both faculty and students, especially after she joined the demonstrations against the redevelopment of Taksim Gezi Park. The police did not seem interested in investigating whether the developers of Taksim Gezi Park might have tried to eliminate a critic. The developers are well-connected politically after all. They preferred to pursue a potential lead that she might have had a romantic liaison with a faculty member or student, which ended badly.”

  “Why do you think that was?” Jeff wondered. “There was clearly another potential angle.”

  “Pardon me for suggesting that they might be deferring to powerful interests. It may be a simple matter of probabilities. Murders or attempted murders are more likely to result from a lovers’ quarrel than from a cold-blooded corporate calculation to dispose of an opponent. Moreover, no faculty member or student has an interest in the development of Taksim Gezi Park. A romantic entanglement with a faculty member or student is more likely.”

  “Was there any truth to their suspicions?” Dave asked uneasily.
>
  “As far as the faculty is concerned, we are good friends and colleagues. Nothing more. My wife and Hayat are especially good friends. We were dinner guests a number of times at her parents’ home, where she lives. As for students, I think it very unlikely. None of us has even heard the slightest rumor.”

  “Do you know where she is hospitalized? The police would not tell me because they said that her life could be in danger.”

  “They would not tell us either, but I know. Her parents told me. She is being kept at Istanbul University’s Medical Faculty Hospital. It was the closest major hospital to the site of the attack.”

  “Have you seen her?”

  “No, there are visitor restrictions.”

  Dave and Jeff looked at each other. They had learned a little more than they had known a few minutes before, but there had been no major breakthrough. Should they thank Professor Oguz for his time and depart? But something had been bothering Dave as they talked, a nagging thought at the back of his mind.

  “Professor Oguz, thank you for generously spending some time with us. We do not want to impose. However, I just thought of something which might interest you. The afternoon before Hayat was attacked, my family and I were having coffee with her, and we got to talking about her youth. Her father has a shop in the Grand Bazaar. Eventually, she became engaged to the son of the merchant who had the shop next to her father’s. They went to university together, but Hayat decided to break off the engagement because of some major disagreement. I forgot to mention this story to Inspector Polat when he interviewed me. Do you think this could be of interest to the police?”

  Oguz stroked his beard as he thought. “Yes, it could be. In all the years that my wife and I have known her, she has never spoken to us about this engagement. She cannot tell us now, but her parents might.” Checking the faculty directory, he dialed a telephone number. “Perhaps they are at home.”

  After speaking for a few moments in Turkish, he smiled at Dave and Jeff. “They will see us. I explained that two American friends of Hayat—who are visiting Istanbul from New York—want to extend their personal sympathy. Do you have the time, gentlemen? We will need to take the ferry across the Bosporus to Uskudar, the district of Istanbul where she lives with her parents.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  The ferry crossing from the dock at Beskitas to the dock at Salacak provided a spectacular view of Topkapi Palace, the Hagia Sophia, and the Blue Mosque across the water. How they shimmered in a golden haze as the setting sun swung lower in the western sky! If they had not had an appointment, it would have been tempting to linger at a café on the promenade along the water at Salacak. Instead, Oguz hailed a taxi, which took them up a steep hill to a pleasant neighborhood of wooden houses and streets lined by trees and parks dating from the Ottoman period.

  When Oguz knocked on the door of one of the houses, they waited for a moment before footsteps could be heard. An old man opened the door. “I am Cengiz Yilmaz. Welcome to my home!”

  They were ushered into a parlor where his wife, Oya, was waiting to serve them tea and sweet cakes. With Oguz acting as interpreter, they spoke in soft tones, as if they were in the presence of a hospital patient lying in bed. They talked a little about New York and the work Hayat had done there for the Turkish delegation to the United Nations. The parents expressed the hope that Hayat would soon be transferred to a hospital in Uskudar because it was difficult and time-consuming to cross the Bosporus to visit her at Istanbul University’s Medical Faculty Hospital. Of course, they wanted only what was best for her. The old man, fatigue and anxiety lining his face, confessed that they were not sleeping well.

  Finally, Oguz directed the conversation toward the police investigation after the tragedy and the questions that had been asked of faculty and students at the College of Architecture of Istanbul Technical University. The police had focused on a lovers’ quarrel as a potential motive for the attack on Hayat. Had they been asked similar questions?

  The parents nodded their heads in agreement. “We were asked the same questions,” Cengiz Yilmaz said, “and we always gave the same answer. She was dedicated to her career. There was no man in her life.”

  Dave waited for Oguz to finish translating before he asked, “Ever? What about the young man to whom she was engaged when she was a university student?”

  The parents looked startled when they understood the question. “How did you know that? But that was such a long time ago. She has not seen him for many years.”

  The old man shuffled over to a cabinet and, rummaging among papers, extracted an old photograph yellowed with age. He handed it to Dave, who passed it around for others to see. It was a photograph of a smiling young couple—Hayat and a tall, thin young man.

  “It was their betrothal picture,” the old man said.

  “What was the young man’s name?” Dave asked.

  The parents looked at each other. The old man whispered, “Demir Ozmen.”

  Oguz, looking somewhat embarrassed, followed up with a question. “Do you know why Hayat broke off the engagement?”

  The old man’s lips twisted in disgust. “She discovered that he was a drug peddler.”

  Later that evening, Dave fired a response to Inspector Korkut Tosun’s email:

  I may have a lead for you in the Hayat Yilmaz case. You should investigate Demir Ozmen. He was formerly a lover of Hayat Yilmaz when they were university students.

  Breaking Point

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Maria Elena had not left her apartment since the beginning of the hostage crisis at the cathedral in Morelia. She had called in sick to the real estate office where she worked as a broker. Her illness had not been an exaggeration, even if it was only a symptom of her stress. She had lost her appetite, and the little food that she swallowed had nauseated her. She had sat on her living room couch for hours, newspapers strewn at her feet, a litter of cold coffee cups and stubbed-out cigarettes in front of her on the table, with her eyes fixed to her television set.

  The continuous television coverage of the crisis included an address by the president of Mexico to the public, promising that everything would be done to gain the release of the hostages without bloodshed, but she had not felt reassured. She had not slept, afraid that she would miss a breaking development.

  The tension was unbearable. Occasionally, she wept and then she prayed—mostly for her uncle, her father’s brother, Father Cardozo, who had presided at the wedding at the cathedral. He had been appointed her guardian when she was still a young girl after her parents had been killed in a car accident. There was no doubt about the identity of the priest; several newspapers and television channels had confirmed it. He had been a loving guardian, invariably thoughtful and kind. In recent years, after she had moved to Mexico City, she had not been as attentive as she should have been; and now he was the hostage of a murderous drug gang that threatened to kill innocent people at random if their demands were not met.

  The irony of this hostage crisis was that the murderous drug gang was Los Zetas—the group to which her lover, Diego Alvarez, was tied. She had never questioned him too deeply about what he did for the cartel on those occasions when he visited her in Mexico City. Because she knew him to be a decent man, she preferred to ignore media reports about the atrocities committed by Los Zetas against rival drug gangs. On a few occasions, she had even assisted Diego in avoiding a confrontation with members of other gangs, as had happened recently with that American, Bigelow, in the bar at the W Hotel. She had treated these occasions as amusing parlor games without serious consequences.

  The hostage crisis in Morelia was different. She knew that even without talking to Diego, whom she had called to appeal for his help. He had seemed worried and had promised to do what he could. He had called back a few hours later reporting that he was still waiting to make contact with the man to whom the gang leader at the cathedral reported. He had not
said who that man was. No names had been mentioned. His secretiveness had disturbed her.

  Her mind was numbed by the frequent replays of video clips showing the initial seizure of the cathedral by the drug gang and by images of security officials arriving at the Palacio Nacional to consult with the president of Mexico. Would any progress ever be made? Her fear that something terrible was about to happen struggled with her hope that Diego would successfully intervene.

  Several times, the television channels had shown the interview with the cameraman who had borne witness to the gang’s seizure of the wedding party and who had been readmitted to the cathedral to make video clips of the hostages huddled in the nave near the altar. He had spoken briefly to the governor of the state of Michoacán, one of the hostages, who had reported no progress in contacting the kidnappers of Demir Ozmen. He had instructed state officials by telephone to use every unofficial link they had to the alleged kidnappers, the Knights Templar, to determine who was holding Ozmen and where. The governor had said that this kind of delay was to be expected in a matter of this complexity and that he was still optimistic about a successful outcome.

  The cameraman—who stood on the front steps of the cathedral, surrounded by a crowd of newspaper reporters from Mexico, the United States, and Europe—was enjoying his new celebrity. Yes, he answered, the hostages were being treated well. He had spoken to the priest, Father Cardozo, who had alerted the captors to water and food in the cathedral refectory that would be sufficient to satisfy the needs of the hostages. The prisoners were also permitted to take toilet breaks in groups of four, escorted by guards.

  But what about the emotional stress? Were the hostages showing signs of their ordeal? That was to be expected, he replied. He had seen hostages hunched over in their chairs or stretched out on the floor, trying to get some badly needed sleep. And what about the bridal couple? How were they holding up? It had been a poignant scene, he admitted—the bridegroom sitting with his arms wrapped around his bride, who was resting against his shoulder, asleep from exhaustion.