by Alec Peche
He had a match.
The man’s name was Nico Thomas and he originated from Jakarta, Indonesia.
Indonesia?
Damian tried to think of a link between Hermione’s parents and Indonesia, but nothing came to mind. He thought back to when she told him she spoke Chinese because her parents had lived in China. There were Chinese in Indonesia so perhaps she meant to say they lived in Indonesia rather than China. He’d ask her later though somehow he doubted that she would have been so imprecise with her explanation.
His phone rang and he looked over to see that it was Natalie.
“I got your email and map of the world and can I just say wow?! How long did it take your computer to analyze that data?”
“Eighteen hours and I had to use computer power from the cloud. The computers in my lab aren’t powerful enough to handle that much data.”
“How do I explain this to Detective Shimoda? He needs to see this diagram, but he knows I don’t have the ability to do that.”
“You could tell him that a friend of yours knew a local university was looking for a large scale data project for a student project and both you and I chatted about it,” Damian suggested.
“Yes but how did they know how to reach the banks and currency changers? Was there a legal way to get this information from those institutions?”
“Whoops … good point. Let me think of a way you can use this information. I don’t suppose you could say you have a secret source?”
“No.”
“Don’t the police have confidential informers?”
“Yes, but any average Joe could see that this data run is beyond the brain power of any CI the department has ever used.”
“An average Joe, or in this case the mysterious university students, could have used image recognition software on eSale, Cassim, and similar sites worldwide to look for the non-currency items. That’s perfectly legal.”
“Okay, that will work. Can you re-send this to me with just those data points and insert a fake header labeled Professor Green, UC Berkeley something class.”
He laughed and said he could. “Give me twenty minutes and you’ll have a new chart in your hands.”
They were back on the phone again looking at where goods had been disposed of and of course it was nearly all the same locations as the currency.
“This I can take to Shimoda. They fenced the items over a five year period beginning perhaps a year after the original heist. So how do I use this to find these guys or gals?”
“Get a subpoena to get information about the sellers from these websites. Once the item was sold, money had to change hands between buyer and seller and that is where I would start. I could figure that out for you in advance, but if you’re looking for a way to do this legally, that would be your route.”
“Thanks, Damian. What do you think this says about the robbers?” said Natalie musing about the sale pattern.
“I think it says that this robbery was done by one, two robbers at the most.”
“Why?” Natalie agreed with his theory but was curious about how he’d arrived at that conclusion.
“To be able to wait a year before touching the prize of such a robbery could only happen with one person or two at the most. Any more robbers than that and they would have insufficient trust in the other team members to wait that year.”
That was exactly Natalie’s reasoning and she was surprised that Damian had that insight into human behavior.
“The team that worked on the robbery speculated that it had to be four or five people minimum to carry out the heist,” Natalie said.
“Why?”
“They thought there were too many tasks performed during this robbery for one person or even two to do all the work.”
“Describe the work,” Damian requested.
“You had to lease a business down the street - two doors down from the bank. When people were questioned about the business they described more than one person at that business.”
“Do you think the business owner could have worn multiple disguises so as to make it look like different people?”
“I suppose, but let me re-read the eye witness accounts.”
“Was that the only reason for thinking there was more than one bank robber?” Damian asked skepticism in his voice.
“No, it was the work tunneling into the bank and the emptying of the safe deposit boxes. In the time it was done, it seemed impossible that one person could have done it all.”
“Refresh my mind on the robbery timeline.”
“It was that rare day when there was a three day week-end. Friday was Christmas Eve and the bank was only open until noon. It was closed on Saturday and Sunday. The robbery was noticed Monday morning when everyone came back to work. So at most the robbers had about sixty-eight hours to finish the dig from the florist shop to the bank.”
“Are you sure about that time? If I were a robber, I would dig a little each day perhaps over several months. How long was the florist shop open?”
Damian could hear paper rustling as she flipped around the file to get answers to his questions.
“Nine months. Again witnesses say the owner called it quits on Christmas Eve. Even had a going out of business sale.”
“How did your team come to the conclusion of how long the dig took?” Damian asked.
“They looked at the tools used for the job and decided the speed of the drilling work.”
“How did they know what tools were used? Did the robber leave them behind?”
“Yes, they were found in the tunnel.”
“Did anyone verify that those were the tools used or did they just assume that since they were in the tunnel?”
Natalie let out an exasperated sigh and said, “I don’t know. I’ll have to study the report and perhaps talk to the crime scene techs. In my experience they don’t make assumptions, but rely on fact.”
“Okay. I guess for the time being, I’m done with this case as there’s no other analytics you want from me.”
“Thanks for your help and I’ll get back to you on your questions.”
After they ended the call, he thought that the police got it wrong. He was convinced that there was one or two at most and he’d bet the tools were left in the tunnel as a decoy. If the robber dug for months, then they could have sliced through the vault with a diamond cutter relatively quickly. The difficult thing would have been disarming the cameras or motion detection cameras quickly upon entering the vault with technology from nine years ago. He’d have to study what was available at the time.
Switching topics, overnight he had an idea to point him to the identification of Hermione’s parents. He was beginning to think that one or both of them had the same computer hacking skills that he did. A lot of the precautions they’d taken were what he presently did to protect his privacy on Red Rock Island. Furthermore the kid was smart and some of that genius had to come from her parents.
It was another huge data challenge, but he’d see if he could pull it off. It would all depend on how often city cameras across the east bay cities were saved. He had their pictures from Hermione and so far he’d been unable to identify them. However he thought he would use their images to match what was captured on cameras around the cities like Richmond, Berkeley, and Oakland. He wished he'd thought of this idea four months ago as the footage might have been written over or otherwise discarded by now. He would start with red light violation cameras and move on to others.
Chapter 8
Ariana was running errands in town after she’d dropped Hermione off at school. She had this weird feeling that someone was watching her. She turned around quickly hoping to surprise someone, but no one was there and she felt silly. She had one more stop for Miguel, who was in the dog groomer’s for his every other month haircut, and then she’d head home glad to shake this feeling that someone was watching her.
She pulled into the parking lot and retrieved the dog. The two of them were stopped at the car as she maneu
vered him toward the back seat when her arm was grabbed from behind. She tried to shake it loose and turn around to yell at the person that grabbed her, but he was holding it behind her and beginning to move it upward which was painful.
With an accent that she couldn’t identify, the voice said, “You will bring Hannah Sherwood to me tonight.”
She felt like saying, ‘over my dead body’, but she was too busy wincing over the pain in her arm, then all of a sudden she was free and the man behind her was howling. She turned around to find that Miguel had sunk his teeth into the man’s leg. The man backed up to get his leg out of the dog’s jaws and tripped backwards. Ariana took the opportunity to throw the dog into the car and peel out of the parking lot. Driving towards her home like a madwoman, she debated what to do. Call the police or call Damian or keep driving or go to the school and get Hermione. Her mind started to find its reasoning abilities and she knocked off her options. Hermione was safe at school, so leave her there for the moment, and not call the police because she then had to explain who Hannah was.
She looked in her review mirror and noted a dark SUV following her car. She briefly debated whether this was just another citizen from her community or the creep who accosted her in the parking lot. The car was following too close and so she decided that this was a bad guy. After many twists and turns the road she was on dead-ended, so unless she wanted to make a three point U-turn on the road, her only escape was the waterfront. She decided she would speed up and run for her boat once she got home. She could speed down her street, pull into her driveway and open the garage door like she was running into the house, but detour through the side door to the backyard and her dock. The boat’s ignition key was on her car key ring, she just hoped that Miguel would cooperate and run to the boat quickly.
She pulled out her camera and snapped a picture of her rear view mirror in hopes that the man’s image in the driver’s seat was captured. She then stomped on the gas and drove like a crazed woman. Five minutes later with the chase car about forty-five seconds behind her, she did just as she planned. Quickly opening the garage side door for herself and the dog and closing it behind them, she sprinted to the boat expecting to hear bullets flying at any moment. She had the ties untied and gunned the boat away as she saw the same man come out of her house, gun in hand. The bay was so big that he'd have no idea of where she was going even if he had binoculars and therefore couldn't catch her. Clearly he debated whether shooting at her would be effective or would alert the cops and so in the end he decided not to shoot.
Ariana continued her path across San Francisco Bay towards Red Rock Island, phoning Damian once she was safely out of gun range. She'd been so busy trying to evade the bad guy that she couldn't have handled a phone call during the chase.
“Damian, I’m on my way to your house! Put your dock out,” she commanded over the rushing wind.
“Okay. I didn’t know you were coming over today,” he said a bit puzzled.
“I was attacked at the dog groomer’s this morning so we need to talk about next steps.”
Ariana had quickly calmed down between the cool crisp air of the bay and the knowledge that she was safe at the moment.
“What! What happened?” exclaimed Damian. “Are you hurt?”
Ariana held her arm out, examining it, “I may have bruises develop later and my shoulder may be sore in the morning, but Miguel bit the man for me and then he let go. The man tripped backing away from the dog. We hopped in my car and sped towards my house. I opened the garage door before I got there, and entered and went out the side door and ran for the boat. We were pulling away from my dock when the man ran out on the lawn wielding a gun.”
“Did you call the police?” Damian asked puzzled.
“No, he spoke one sentence to me and it was something like, “Bring Hannah Sherwood to me tonight.”
The sentence chilled Damian. Somehow their guardianship of Hannah/Hermione had been noticed by the thugs after her parents. First the Facebook message, and now this.
“Is Hermione safe?” Damian asked worried.
“I assume so. The school has a locked fence around it, but I think we better both pick her up this afternoon. I don’t know really what to do.”
Ariana was approaching his island and could see him standing on his dock as she approached in the pontoon boat. She tied one end of the boat and he the other and then he said "Hold on a moment, I think you need a hug," and he did just that. As soon as felt her relax he let go.
“I think we should report it to the police. They’ll find nothing wrong with the paperwork concerning our guardianship. I think we need to talk to her first though, just to be sure she’s not surprised by some question of the cops.”
“What should I do about the name ‘Hannah’?” Ariana asked.
Damian thought for a while and said, “How about if we call it her nickname?” After a pause he added, “No I don’t like that.”
“I could say he said to bring Hermione to him tonight and just leave out the name Hannah. He did have an accent so I could use that as a defense on the accuracy of the word.”
Damian sat thinking for a few moments than nodded.
“Do you know her schedule today? Does she have any breaks that she could leave school and chat with us?”
“Yeah,” and glancing at her watch said, “She has one in about ninety minutes. Oh, I forgot to show you a picture I took of the car chasing me in the rear view mirror.”
“Wow, you’re a cool cucumber under pressure. Let’s see,” Damian said glancing at the phone.
“Send that picture to me and let me see if I can enhance it for facial recognition,” Damian said as they turned to walk into his lab.
Ten minutes later, Ariana was able to verify the man that attacked her as being the one in the picture. Damian did a facial recognition search but came up with nothing on the first pass.
“I need to do some more work on this. Let’s return to your house to see if anything is messed up and then we’ll go on to school to have a quick conversation with Hermione. I’ve been rethinking the police thing and I’m not sure we should report this until we have a better idea as to who the man is, and once we do, then we’ll look suspicious for the delay in reporting.”
“I’m okay with not reporting. We’ve gone down the path of being surrogate parents to this teenager and I have to say I’ve fallen in love with her and it would destroy me to see her yanked from our care into the foster system.”
It was the first time Ariana had voiced her emotions about caring for Hermione and Damian volunteered, “I’ve also fallen in love with the kid. I’ll do what I can to help and guide her, and cheer her on in her accomplishments. I don’t want to turn her over to anyone other than her real parents.”
Ariana needed another hug as she squeezed her eyes shut to block out the emotion of the moment. Then she took a deep breath, wiped the corner of her eyes and said, “Let’s go look at my house. Can you sweep it for bugs or something, like they say on TV? What if the man is still there?”
“That’s a good idea, Ariana, I’ll grab some equipment that will make sure it's safe to enter among other things,” he said and the two of them went inside to his lab. She watched him put various items into his duffle bag as well as he took the time to grab the items Hermione had requested and they were ready to head over to her house. After some discussion they decided to take both boats across the bay and before they went too close to her dock, he would use the infrared scanner to see if anyone was still in her house.
Fifteen minutes later, he was running a variety of equipment around her house as she watched in silence. Afterward he invited her out to the dock to talk.
“There are cameras and microphones installed in the common rooms as well as your and Hermione’s bedrooms. I wish we’d thought to do this earlier as I don’t know how long the equipment’s been in your house.”
“I gather by having a conversation out here you think we should leave the stuff in place.” Ariana sai
d.
‘Yeah, I do. We need to go talk to Hermione. I have some ideas on how to protect both of you so at the moment we’re just warning Hermione about her own safety. For at least the next few weeks, she needs to stick to only riding in your car. I think we need to give her something protective that she can always have with her at school. If she has a favorite bracelet, I can modify it so that she can sound a nasty audible alarm if anyone tries to corner her. I’ll also put some tiny GPS trackers in her earrings. Let’s run over to the school and chat with on her break.”
Ariana sent a text to Hermione requesting that she come out to the front to chat with them on her break. A short time later all three of them were sitting in Ariana’s SUV talking.
“Can I still try out for the water polo team?”
“Yes,” Ariana and Damian said in perfect synchronization.
Then Damian added, “Look kiddo, I don’t know who is after you, but we're going to keep you safe. We’re going to leave the cameras and microphones in place, but I’m going to interject myself into the middle of those devices and provide them with a feed different from the real one. So in a few hours your conversations will be secure again. I’m also going to modify your jewelry so that you have GPS and a screaming alarm on you at all times. I know you might get in trouble if you pull out your water gun at school to defend yourself.”
Hermione looked shaken, clearly worried about Ariana. So Damian added, “Ladies, do you want to swap places with me for the next few nights? I’ll stay at your house and you can stay at mine? Then you can come across the bay each morning to reach school?”
“Yes, but what if someone goes after you, Damian?”
“Ladies, how can you doubt my ability to defend myself? Besides what I could do is add a lot more security to your house for the long run which is probably a good idea. So when you get home tonight, why don’t you pack suitcases for three to five nights and I’ll do likewise and I’ll install some enhancements and surprises to your house. Then when I’m done, I’ll debug it.”
