Constable Osman Almost Gets a Promotion
It was 7:00am on the first Sunday in October and Constable Osman of the Trafik Polisi Turkiye, Güneybatı Bölümü (Southwest District – covering the provinces of Izmir, Aydin and Muğla) woke up with a big headache. October was make or break month for his promotion to Sergeant and he really needed the extra 750 TL per month the promotion would give him since his wife was expecting a new baby soon. September had been a slow quota month since it seemed every car he stopped had a loyal party member of the Justice and Development Party at the wheel. The rumor in the department was that you would be put on an anti-Erdogan list if you gave tickets to Party members. That was probably not true, but that was also trouble Mirac did not need. While he was dressing, his iPhone rang and it was his brother-in-law Omer calling to tell him something to help keep Mirac out of Omer’s pocket by helping him get his promotion. Despite being younger and less senior than Mirac, Omer was already a Sergeant on his way to becoming a lieutenant. He was a crafty guy and Mirac hated when his own father said things like, “Why can’t you be more shrewd like Omer?” Shrewd was a very big desirable characteristic in this part of the world whether you were Muslim, Jewish or Christian. If you were a rug merchant or a lawyer you needed it. In some ways Mirac had joined the force to avoid it since it simply wasn’t in his nature.
Omer was very excited. He reminded Mirac that he was on special assignment to watch Ms. Mujde, the owner of the Nisanyan Guest Houses. Her ex-husband had escaped recently from prison and fled to the island of Samos just offshore, but technically a Greek Island. There he lived openly in Pythagorio (named after Pythagoras and looking out at the not-too-distant Turkish Coast). As a side note, it is said that most of Pythagoras’ best work, including his famous Euclidean Geometry Theorem, was really due to his collaboration with the famous Greek (thought to be Turkish) mathematician, Thales of Miletus…but that’s another story altogether. While staking out the Nisanyan Guest Cottages, Omer had donned a disguise and wandered past the place on horseback, looking like an innocent goat herder. What he had seen was a large group of American tourists, ten on expensive motorcycles, two beautiful women (one dark haired and one fair haired) riding in a luxurious Mercedes van, which they referred to as the “Princess Van” so perhaps they were royal concubines, and an entire large van, just for all their luggage. One of the waiters whispered that the tall slender one was an important politician from somewhere called Montana. Based on all the talk he overheard about Trump this and Trump that, he assumed they were a rich and powerful delegation from America on some sort of secret mission to Turkey. And if they were consorting with that dog Mujde, it could not be anything good or pro-Erdogan.
Omer’s idea was that Mirac should call in his chips with his fellow constables in the traffic squad and orchestrate a program of harassment which would give Mirac a bounty of tickets for his quota and perhaps some valuable intelligence for Omer to share with his superiors. Win-win as the Americans say.
Constable Osman was not a man easily given over to conspiracy theories, no matter what his career ladder-climbing brother-in-law said, but he was desperate to get some tickets written that day and this group of Americans were certainly not Party members. He made a few calls and called in his favors as suggested. The first stop would be just south of Selkuc. His Selkuc team waited and missed the group, the first three getting away before the big one the size of a truck pulled over on command. The tall hunched-over lanky one almost tried to make a run for it, but the team had some newly issued iPads to check licenses and registrations, so they made a show of recording all the information despite the bald Turkish one pleading the tourism case they were so used to hearing. As planned, no tickets were issued as this was intended as a reconnaissance stop to be sure they were Americans and were unarmed. There were several riding two-up who looked like thugs that might be toting AR-15’s but no weapons were found.
The group carried on to the Temple of Apollo at Dityma before stopping for lunch overlooking Lake Bafa. Several undercover officers saw them eating Gozleme (Turkish crepes) and then ordering French fries with ketchup all washed down with Coca Cola Light. This confirmed that they were all, indeed, Americans. Another team stopped them again just before lunch, but their mission was to check out the route map which they openly displayed on their tank bags. The big one started to dismount and had to be told sternly to sit back down on his motorcycle. He readily complied. This confirmed that they were heading for Bodrum, which was the perfect spot for the sting. A third stop after lunch was to put them at ease so the head constable agreed to a group photo. After a quick and now anticipated stop at the Temple of Zeus for another photo opportunity, the group headed towards Bodrum.
Constable Osman set up a speed trap with the department’s new photo-radar rig at kilometer 10 outside Bodrum. It was a perfect road where everyone sped just a little. He then positioned two on-duty young officers at kilometer 8.5 from Bodrum and there they set up their cones and wore their best yellow day-glo vests (something the other policemen always made fun of them for wearing). This had to look official. Unfortunately, that idiot Mustafa forgot his iPad, but at least Yusuf had his.
When the bikes came into sight, Constable Osman was shocked that the lead rider was going exactly the 99kph speed limit. Luckily, about six of the others were going just I-5kph over the limit, so they had them dead to rights, if just a bit on thin evidence. Yusuf and Mustafa pulled over the whole group including the princesses and started the ticket-writing program. The bald Turk was getting pretty upset and they thought he might look like a guy who was known to be a friend of the exiled Mujde, so they watched him closely. Mustafa was hand writing the tickets while Yusuf called in the names to Mirac for a quick run-down. Mustafa had only gotten one signature from someone named Christos Shriver when Mirac hurriedly called Yusuf and told him to just let them all go, NOW! Mirac had put in all the names to Omer and when Omer realized that the tall cigar-smoking one was a governor of someplace called Illinois (as opposed to Montana), Omer freaked out and thought this might get elevated to Erdogan’s staff in a bad way. So he pulled the plug, just in case.
The group went on to their hotel in Bodrum and Mirac went home with his old headache and a bunch of due-bills to fellow constables, especially Yusuf, who saved the day. He swore he would never listen to Omer again. What he didn’t know yet was that that idiot Mustafa had submitted the signed ticket on that Greek guy, Christos, and there was another chapter to the story yet to unfold at Istanbul airport when Christos tried to leave the country…