S
ATURDAY
, N
ORTHERN
C
OAST
OF
T
URKEY
Yusuf stood on a steep cliff in the pre-dawn stillness surrounded by hazelnut orchards overlooking the Black Sea. It was quiet, a quietness he knew would succumb to rowdy crews of Kurds hired out of the East by the locals to bring in the harvest. Yusuf had waited a long time for this day and never imagined the final operation would go down in a setting like this. For some reason, he had always pictured it happening in a ghetto quarter of Istanbul in the basement of a historic mosque, an urban shoot-out requiring that a whole block be cordoned off by the police.
His mind flashed back over the ten years of investigation—the sleepless nights, the weeks away from home, the near misses, the false leads and dead ends, and most of all he thought of the colleagues he had lost in this ideological struggle. The struggle to keep faith from being used as an instrument of oppression. His face was grim. He had on his game face, but inside he flirted with the idea of hope. He and his men were preparing to raid the villa that Bekir Kaya had reportedly entered upon his arrival in this small town. Yusuf thought it was a strange place to find the most wanted terrorist in Turkey, but then again this was probably how Bekir had eluded capture for so long. Doing what no one expected him to do.
A stiff breeze from the north had brought relief from the August heat. In the distance, he could see several drilling platforms flaring off natural gas. It was still dark, but the eastern sky showed the faintest hint of approaching dawn as the earth rotated to expose its uppermost crust to a blazing summer sun. Until recently, the small, sleepy town of Akçakoca had been primarily a vacation destination for the middle-class residents of Ankara, who had built summer homes on the steep slopes overlooking the Black Sea. The town boasted the closest beach to the capital city and so naturally it had attracted investment early on. The population doubled to more than seventy thousand in the summer months and became a bustling magnet for domestic tourists, but the tourist season was short.
The cool waters of the Black Sea were only warm enough to swim for two and a half months from mid-June to late August, so for nine and a half months, Akçakoca was practically a ghost town. That had changed slightly with the discovery of natural gas off the coast. There had been an influx of technical personnel working on the platforms and natural gas pipelines and this had brought new life to the city. All of these developments had been positive and welcomed by the residents, but now there was an evil in their midst that most knew nothing about.
A full moon danced on the silent waters below and Yusuf could just make out the villas and small multi-family residences built into the steep hillside. The policeman at his side pointed to a magnificent villa and though Yusuf could not see them, he knew that there were at least twenty plain clothes policemen and counter-terrorism agents hiding in the hazelnut orchards surrounding the building. He looked at his watch. In fifteen minutes, they would raid this building. The policeman began to lead him through the orchard to his position.
The capture of Bekir Kaya, one of the masterminds behind the Turkish arm of Hizbullah, would be the biggest break they had had since 1999 when Abdullah Öcalan, the leader of the PKK, the left-leaning Kurdish separatist group that had plagued Turkey for almost thirty years, was captured in Kenya. This time, their lucky break had come from an undercover agent working at the Harem bus-station in Istanbul, who had told them just last night that he had made positive identification of their quarry.
Yusuf had been tracking this man ever since the organization was crippled by a series of operations in 2000. One of the leaders, Hüseyin Velioglu, had been killed in a police raid in Beykoz that led to the recovery of forty-one computer hard disks. However, twenty-four of these had been significantly damaged since they were riddled with bullets during the ensuing firefight, so the Turkish government finally requested assistance from the FBI, and eventually a significant amount of information was reclaimed. What they learned was shocking. Certain members of the intelligence community and the government had been working with Hizbullah to use its fanatical religious ideology against the leftist PKK.
Yusuf had known before he signed up to work in counter-terrorism that in Turkey it was an especially dirty business, but after his older brother was killed by the PKK in an ambush while doing his mandatory military service, he swore to his father that he would devote his life to the eradication of terrorism in their beloved homeland. Twenty years later, he wondered if it had been worth it, especially after learning how the state had itself founded or funded some of these terrorist groups either to create opposition to another group or to further its own interests through non-state actors. Like Joseph, his namesake of old, had found favor in the eyes of Pharaoh, Yusuf had somehow managed to rise in the ranks of one corrupt government after another. The reason was simple. He was a man of honor and virtue and even the most corrupt were in need of men with character. The real miracle was that he had remained untainted and uncompromised after all these years.
Yusuf looked down at his watch. It was time. The leaders of each team were fitted with an ear-piece and they all heard him give the command.
“Okay boys, I know you want to see this lowlife swinging from the end of a rope, but do your best to take Bekir alive. This does not apply to his comrades. In fact, he will probably be more willing to cooperate if he sees some of their brain matter splattered on the wall. Now, go!”
Yusuf heard a tiny explosion blow the lock on the front door and then it was pandemonium. His men burst through the door shouting, “Down, down, everybody down!” Before he even entered the building, the first thing he noticed was the screams of women.
What the hell is going on here?
The big open room of the villa was empty. He headed for one of the side rooms. It was full of scantily clad young women, some speaking Russian, but others speaking languages he did not know. They were all screaming so that he could not even hear his men. He told them to shut up in Turkish. This did no good. He went back into the main room and saw his men moving in pairs from room to room, weapons at the ready. One team was moving up the stairs. It was over in less than three minutes. Every room in the villa had been searched and there was not a man in the place, much less the terrorist they sought. Yusuf felt himself begin to lose control. Curses flowed like red-hot lava from his mouth. None of the team leaders dared to look at him. He spun around looking for the local police sergeant, “Son, did you bring me all the way from Ankara to raid a brothel? What in the hell is going on here?”
“Captain Demir, I can assure you that we saw Bekir enter this villa and no one has entered or left since then.”
“Then why isn’t he here?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know. Well, you had damned well better find out!”
Yusuf turned to his Lieutenant.
“Move all of the women into the main room. Have you checked the attic and the basement?”
“We have checked the attic and as far as we can tell there is no basement.”
“Really? That is odd. So, why are all of these women here with no guards? They may be here for pleasure, but it is not their pleasure that keeps them here.”
“Sir, all the windows are custom-designed with key locks on them.”
Yusuf looked around the room. The young women were all crowded into the main room. They were clearly from several different countries and spoke different languages, but they had one thing in common. They were all drop-dead gorgeous. None of them looked older than twenty-five and several looked like they might even be teenagers. Most were crying, some were trying to communicate in broken Turkish, but they all had a look of desperation in their eyes. Yusuf raised his voice and asked in Turkish, “Where are the men who were guarding you?”
There was no response. Then he tried in Russian, “
Gde nahodiatsia lyudi, katoriye za vami nablyudayut
?”
Several of the women began speaking so rapidly he could barely follow. He silenced them with a wave of his hand and said, “
Gavarite, no ne vse srazu
.
”
A tall brunette stepped forward. She looked intelligent and when she spoke it was slowly and deliberately as if to make sure that he could easily follow what she was saying. He listened for a moment, asked one question and then began barking orders and walking toward a corner bedroom with the woman in tow. Most of the bedrooms were quite plain. White curtains on the windows, no paintings on the walls or decorations of any kind, a double-bed with large pillows and a small table beside the bed. This one, however, was much more opulent. The curtains were thick, green velvet. At the center of the room was a tall, four poster bed, draped with beautiful tapestries. There was a long, but low chest of drawers opposite the bed with a huge mirror that covered most of the wall hanging above it. A gigantic Persian rug that looked like it might be hand-woven silk covered almost the entire floor.
The young lady pointed to the wardrobe in the corner of the room. It was an ominous piece of walnut furniture and was unusually wide. He ordered two of his men to move it, but the tall brunette walked up to the door, opened it and pointed to the floor. Yusuf followed her finger down to a steel trapdoor. The wardrobe itself was completely empty. In a low voice, Yusuf immediately ordered everyone out of the room. He left one man at the door to keep watch and walked back into the room where all the women had been gathered. He spoke briefly with the young woman who had directed them to the bedroom and then walked out of the building with his Lieutenant and two sergeants.
“If that son of a donkey is hiding underneath that door, there is almost no chance of us taking him alive. If we blow the door, then we are likely to kill whoever is down there and if we try to cut through it with a torch, then they are likely to blow the whole place up and kill themselves and a few of us.”
He felt trapped. He felt cheated. His Lieutenant broke the silence.
“Sir, I know you want him alive, but if dead is the only option then we will have to settle for that.”
“Believe me, I want him dead more than I do alive.”
The Lieutenant nodded in agreement. “But, since those are not our orders, your only option is to get a torch and cut the hinges off. I’m sure there are internal bolts turned by the lock so it will be faster to work on the hinges.”
Yusuf quickly weighed his options.
“I suppose you are right. Get a welder down here. Do we have anyone who can operate an acetylene torch?”
“Yes sir. Several of us can.”
Yusuf managed a weak smile.
“Then, make sure you are not the one doing it. I can’t afford to lose you. In the meantime, let’s put up a few floodlights and make sure the perimeter stays tight. No one in or out without our knowledge. And, get a bullhorn in here so we can tell this walking dead man he is surrounded and he must surrender.”
It was the Lieutenant’s turn to smile.
“Oh, I’m sure he’ll come right out with his hands behind his head.”
“That would be too bad,” said Yusuf coldly, “Because then we couldn’t shoot the bastard.”
Yusuf watched his Lieutenant as he walked towards the men. He was glad to be working with Murat again. They had met in university and taken Russian together. Transfers had kept them apart more than together. Fortunately, his rise in the ranks had given him the right to have a hand in shaping his own team and his first decision had been to bring in Murat.
He turned back to the villa and noticed that a number of women were on the porch and that the local police chief had just driven up. He hated dealing with officers in these small towns. They were usually pompous idiots, but he had to be professional, so he immediately walked up and greeted the man.
“Good morning, sir.”
“Good morning, Captain. So, the man you were looking for wasn’t there?”