T URKEY He hated working on Sunday, but the disappointment over Bekir’s escape was rubbing Yusuf like a pair of new shoes. They had lost him without a trace. There were too many loose ends and unanswered questions. He knew the answers were less important than the process of engaging the facts. This was what stimulated his investigative instinct. Why had Bekir risked exposure by taking public transportation? There must have been something pressing and other arrangements had fallen through. What could be pressing right now? Yusuf racked his brain for any significant developments. Did this mean that the Turkish branch of Hizbullah was being resurrected? Why the Black Sea? He had almost certainly rendezvoused with a ship. Headed where ? Georgia? Moldavia? Ukraine?
Yusuf had gained a wealth of information from the women, none of which shed any light on these questions. Most of the women had come to Turkey after being promised house-keeping, home-care or nanny positions with wealthy Turkish families. When they arrived, however, their passports were taken away from them, and they were forcibly removed to one of several brothels in Istanbul. The very best were selected and then taken to the villa in Akçakoca. The small Black Sea town was really just a stopping place on their way to the Middle East, where they were sold to rich Arab businessmen as concubines. Every week between four and eight of the women had been taken away, never to be heard from again. They were auctioned to the highest bidder over the Internet and those who refused to perform for the camera were brutalized into submission. Then, before they were delivered to their new owners, they were kept busy serving patrons, not all of whom were local.
The most interesting discovery had been a metal safe in the wall of the tunnel under the villa. Bekir and company had made tapes, very revealing tapes of politicians, diplomats and even officials within the security directorate. Blackmail material. Had Bekir used them? He didn’t know.
The whole thing made Yusuf sick. The white slave trade was rearing its ugly head again. Human trafficking by the Turkish mafia had stepped up significantly in the last twenty years. The government had worked with international human rights organizations to put an end to it. The trouble was that it always involved local policemen bought off with money, sex or both. Now, a violent group of religious fanatics had decided they wanted a piece of the action. It was undoubtedly a lucrative business, and they needed cash to fund their operations. Young girls for fascist Arabs, filthy rich with oil revenues. It was an easy source of income.
Only three people even knew the tapes existed. One was Murat and the other was his friend Bülent in Istanbul. He couldn’t afford to use them. The political firestorm it would ignite would certainly cost him his job. It wouldn’t matter that he had simply been tracking a known terrorist and happened to stumble upon them. They might not have him fired, but his career would be over. They would transfer him to some hell hole like Sanliurfa and let the remainder of his natural life serve as purgatory for the sin of exposing the emperor without his clothes. No, he would do his best to keep this evidence out of the prosecutor’s hands.
Yusuf had put the tapes under lock and key, but he couldn’t put the images out of his head. A female Lieutenant had conducted the interviews. Yusuf and Murat had watched from behind a one-way mirror hoping for clues to Bekir’s whereabouts. The tales of brutality, humiliation and cruelty made him sick to his stomach. There was one girl in particular that stood out. She was only seventeen, a wispy blonde with bright blue eyes set like windows looking in on a cloudless soul. She had a dignified aquiline nose sprinkled with freckles. You had to look hard though to see this beauty, past the tears, past the fear that had extinguished her smile. She never stopped crying, a broken,
Yusuf had gained a wealth of information from the women, none of which shed any light on these questions. Most of the women had come to Turkey after being promised house-keeping, home-care or nanny positions with wealthy Turkish families. When they arrived, however, their passports were taken away from them, and they were forcibly removed to one of several brothels in Istanbul. The very best were selected and then taken to the villa in Akçakoca. The small Black Sea town was really just a stopping place on their way to the Middle East, where they were sold to rich Arab businessmen as concubines. Every week between four and eight of the women had been taken away, never to be heard from again. They were auctioned to the highest bidder over the Internet and those who refused to perform for the camera were brutalized into submission. Then, before they were delivered to their new owners, they were kept busy serving patrons, not all of whom were local.
The most interesting discovery had been a metal safe in the wall of the tunnel under the villa. Bekir and company had made tapes, very revealing tapes of politicians, diplomats and even officials within the security directorate. Blackmail material. Had Bekir used them? He didn’t know.
The whole thing made Yusuf sick. The white slave trade was rearing its ugly head again. Human trafficking by the Turkish mafia had stepped up significantly in the last twenty years. The government had worked with international human rights organizations to put an end to it. The trouble was that it always involved local policemen bought off with money, sex or both. Now, a violent group of religious fanatics had decided they wanted a piece of the action. It was undoubtedly a lucrative business, and they needed cash to fund their operations. Young girls for fascist Arabs, filthy rich with oil revenues. It was an easy source of income.
Only three people even knew the tapes existed. One was Murat and the other was his friend Bülent in Istanbul. He couldn’t afford to use them. The political firestorm it would ignite would certainly cost him his job. It wouldn’t matter that he had simply been tracking a known terrorist and happened to stumble upon them. They might not have him fired, but his career would be over. They would transfer him to some hell hole like Sanliurfa and let the remainder of his natural life serve as purgatory for the sin of exposing the emperor without his clothes. No, he would do his best to keep this evidence out of the prosecutor’s hands.
Yusuf had put the tapes under lock and key, but he couldn’t put the images out of his head. A female Lieutenant had conducted the interviews. Yusuf and Murat had watched from behind a one-way mirror hoping for clues to Bekir’s whereabouts. The tales of brutality, humiliation and cruelty made him sick to his stomach. There was one girl in particular that stood out. She was only seventeen, a wispy blonde with bright blue eyes set like windows looking in on a cloudless soul. She had a dignified aquiline nose sprinkled with freckles. You had to look hard though to see this beauty, past the tears, past the fear that had extinguished her smile. She never stopped crying, a broken,
Similar Books
