by Peche, Alec
“The hole in our story,” Marie analyzed, “is why didn’t we call the police when we discovered the condition of the hotel room?”
“Good question,” replied Jill. “How about our impulse was to immediately not trust anyone when we saw Inspector Graaf on the tape? This morning after having a discussion, we concurred that we trust the Belgian police rather than Interpol.”
Henrik and Nick had been listening to the women work out their story. “The other option is that Henrik and I are friends and we ran into him last night at the restaurant,” suggested Nick. “Regardless, I don’t think they will look too deep into Henrik as I don’t believe they did so with my friend Max in Amsterdam. Then again, this is the Belgian police, not the Dutch police.”
“Let’s wait until the others appear this morning and get their input,” said Jill. “Now, going back to the tape, how do we figure out who the maid is?”
Henrik replied, “Let’s go back and study her a few times. Nick, you haven’t seen this, and I think as tired as you were last night, you might have missed her performance.”
They all sat around the monitor, reviewing the tape.
“Do you think it is really a woman?” asked Marie. “I mean, she looks like a woman to me and her hands seem female, but I’m just asking the question, given some of the disguises we have seen so far.”
They watched the tape a few more times and agreed it was a woman in the maid’s uniform.
“Throughout this vacation, we have had a variety of people that wanted to harm or kidnap us,” stated Jill. “Some of the people were sent by Chloe, Henrik, Interpol Antwerp, the Russian consortium CEO, perhaps some other Russians, and one other person or group. This woman on this video must belong to the last group.”
“She doesn’t look familiar,” observed Marie. “I don’t remember seeing her in the last ten days, but I admit that on some of the crowded streets, I wouldn’t have noticed her.”
“I have facial recognition software on my computers,” interjected Henrik. “It doesn’t have the depth of faces like you would find in one of those secret U.S. spying agencies, but it may have her face. Some of the companies that I provide security for choose to use facial recognition software to control access.”
“I wonder if I am in your system,” said Marie.
“Let’s find out if you are. Sit in front of this camera and let’s see if I can find Marie Simon.”
About three minutes later a match came up for Marie.
“Okay, that is scary. Does your system match to driver’s licenses and passports worldwide? I think those are the only pictures I have in a database anywhere in the world.”
“The software uses many sources that are growing every day, including Facebook, Instagram, and other forms of social media. Let me try entering our fake maid’s picture into the system and we’ll see what pops up. I take it that depending on whom she is, you may tell Willems about her appearing on the video.”
“Yes, I think that is the right strategy,” affirmed Jill.
“I am guessing the inspector will be here in about forty-five minutes,” Henrik said. “We need to brief Angela, Nathan, and Jo on the latest development so they don’t blow our story. Do you want to wake them and brief them on the plan?”
“Henrik, that is an excellent suggestion. Nathan is a bear in the morning and I think he’ll avoid being around Willems or saying much as that is his nature,” said Jill. “I’ll go brief Angela and Jo.”
Jill stood up to leave the room when Henrik’s facial recognition beeped that a match was found. They all walked over and surrounded the monitor.
Jill read aloud, “Her name is Jessica Rathbone and she is from South Africa. Will you guys do a search on her while I go chat with Jo and Angela? I bet Jessica has a connection to one of the South African mines.”
Jill went upstairs to knock on Angela’s and Jo’s respective doors. Angela was nearly finished getting ready and walked with Jill to Jo’s room. Jo had been awake and thinking about getting up. Jill relayed the morning’s discoveries and Willems’ impending arrival. They agreed on the storyline that Henrik would be Jo’s distant cousin. Angela needed another five minutes and she would join them in the conference room. Jo always took longer to get ready, so she would not be in the room when the inspector arrived. She went further down the corridor to her own room to see if Nathan was awake. He was just barely awake, his brain not engaged. Jill left and went to the kitchen to fetch him a carafe of coffee. He would be alert and ready about the same time as Jo. She knew she could tell him the Henrik story and he would hold it in his memory until his brain was alert enough to process the plan.
Jill returned to the conference room to see what Henrik, Nick, and Marie had found on their internet search of Jessica Rathbone. Angela walked in on her heels.
“Good morning, everyone,” said the typically cheerful Angela.
She received greetings back and Henrik offered Angela her favorite breakfast – tea and a chocolate croissant.
“Everyone has been briefed upstairs, but I don’t expect to see Jo or Nathan for another hour. Tell us about Jessica.”
“Jessica is a thirty-five-year-old resident of Pretoria, South Africa,” began Marie. “Her name is likely fake as there is no history of her beyond about ten years ago. There is no record of where she was born, or went to school. She was a minor actress in her twenties, mostly commercials. She dated Liberian warlord Charles Taylor several years ago, but there is no recent mention of a relationship.”
“Do you think Laura - and now the four of us had a warlord after us?” asked Angela. “From what I have read about conflict diamonds, the warlords are nasty customers engaged in rape, torture, and murder, and make the consortium members look like nice guys.”
“Before Willems arrives, let’s decide if we are going to tell him about the woman on the video,” Jill said. “I would suggest that we do tell him as this case just got more complicated. Furthermore, a warlord may require international assistance and someone in Interpol would be helpful. It may be Dubois; I just don’t know with that agency who is loyal to Interpol’s mission.”
Angela and Marie nodded their agreement with Jill. Henrik and Nick, after a moment’s hesitation, agreed as well. It was perfect timing, as Willems had arrived at the gate of the estate and was being let in. Jill and Henrik went to the front door to meet the inspector and brought him into the conference room.
“Nice place here,” Willems said. “You never mentioned that one of you was of German heritage.”
There was something in his voice and body language that told them he wasn’t fooled by this last-minute relationship. However, as it wasn’t relevant to the reason he had come to this estate, he would let it go for the moment.
“Inspector Willems, this has been a complex case from the start, and it just got worse in our estimation,” said Jill. “As I mentioned on the phone, we have Officer Graaf from Interpol Antwerp entering our room yesterday while we were gone. You are the only person that has been notified of this search of our private property. Interpol seems to have several bad players. This has us doubting Officer Dubois and his motives.
“What I didn’t tell you this morning, was there was a second person that entered our room hours before Officer Graaf. Henrik operates a security software company and identified the woman as Jessica Rathbone. She apparently stole our electronics and passports. Let me play the tape for you now and then we can talk.”
Jo and Nathan entered the room at that point and they joined the inspector to view the tape for the first time. Henrik ran the tape twice, speeding through the twenty minutes that Jessica was in their rooms.
Fifteen minutes later, after intensely watching the video, Inspector Willems sat back in his chair and said to Jill, “I would guess that you don’t know who to trust in this case. For some reason, you mostly trust me. I say mostly because you didn’t trust me enough when you called to tell me about the first person, but in finding out who she might be connected to, you now know you have to t
rust someone. Do I have the situation correct?”
“Yes, Inspector Willems, that about sums up all of our feelings regarding this case. I feel you haven’t shared everything available in this case. However, if any African terrorist organization knows my name, then we need your help. Yesterday you were in agreement with Officer Dubois that the case was closed, but I think today hopefully you can see that it is far from closed. We haven’t looked into the background or financials of Officer Graaf or Officer Dubois or yourself for that matter, but those are our next steps. This case has been so cloudy from the start with multiple people having multiple agendas for wanting to speak with us or harm us and it is getting very difficult to tell them apart.”
“I understand your perspective, but know this: I have been Officer Dubois’ colleague for at least fifteen years. I have never seen him have anything but the highest integrity. I don’t believe he knew about Graaf, nor would he condone that behavior as he believes in upholding the law, and there was no cause to search your rooms.
“You’re correct that we have been holding something back. In Belgium we are quiet about our dirty laundry, so to speak. We thought there was a problem within Interpol, but we didn’t know who was behind it or how many agents were involved. I can assure you that Officer Dubois is not one of those agents; he is actually the one in charge of the internal investigation. It will help him to have Officer Graaf on tape. I need to bring him in on the case. I would like to request he travel here, and then we will move on your second person of interest – Jessica Rathbone. You mentioned she was connected to an African terrorist organization?”
“You’re sure he is a good guy?” asked Marie. “We have had so many people chase us on this trip that we are starting to feel like Madonna facing the paparazzi, or at least how we think she would feel. It’s not that I don’t trust you, but I guess I don’t trust your judgment in regards to Dubois. I’ll do a quick five-minute search and see if he comes out clean.”
“Did you do a search on me?” asked Willems.
“No, we went with our gut feeling on you,” replied Jill. “Please don’t prove our gut was wrong in regards to not being an honest representative of the law.
They waited in silence while Marie worked her internet search magic collecting what she could on Dubois. In the end he seemed to be exactly what he was, so they agreed to bring him into the case. Willems left the room to place the call to his trusted colleague; despite what the Americans desired, he would have included Dubois in this latest finding. He returned about ten minutes later, obviously having taken the time to explain the bigger story to Dubois.
Chapter 17
“He’ll be here in about ninety minutes. If indeed an African warlord has entered this picture, Interpol will be most interested. They have been trying to bring a rather evil warlord to justice for nearly twenty years. If he is connected to this case, it might be Interpol’s chance to finally convict him.”
“Let’s go back to our unknowns for the Laura Peeters and Chloe Martin case,” Jill prompted. “We don’t know who hired the seven men that blocked the entrances to Interpol two days ago. The seven did not identify the Russian diamond company CEO as the person who hired them. We don’t know who killed Chloe and what their motives were. Lastly we don’t understand Jessica’s role in our lives at this time. Is it accidental, or is it related to Charles Taylor, the warlord?”
Marie added, “And now we have one more question – what do we have in our possession that anyone wanted? Obviously, someone thought there was something on those computers that would be of interest to someone. The loss of the two passports is probably just to create a nuisance for us.”
“Let’s talk about the computers,” Nick suggested. “We lost the two laptops provided by my company, Jill’s iPad, Nathan’s laptop, and my personal laptop. It’s a shame that I didn’t put a camera outside of my door to know if both groups visited my room.
“I think we can assume that Jessica got all of the computers from your rooms, but it is unknown if she got mine. On all of the computers, someone with a little computer expertise could look at the browser history to see what we were looking at. I’m thinking they would find the consortium CEOs and companies, conflict diamonds and mining, Laura Peeters and her aliases, Chloe Martin and her aliases, and the men arrested in Amsterdam. What they wouldn’t find was the documentation of what was on Laura’s chip as Dubois wisely kept that documentation in the Interpol building. They also wouldn’t find the information on Jacobs or any of the financial searches done since those were conducted on Interpol computers. Do I have this correct?”
“Nathan’s computer strictly would have his work on it, though a computer expert could hack into his email and see my comments on the case,” Jill imparted. “Since none of those comments occurred after we learned of Laura’s chip, it won’t be too helpful to someone trying to figure out what we know.”
“Good thing Officer Dubois had us shred the paper copy that the lab produced for us,” said Angela. “I didn’t think much about his request that we shred the documents at the time he asked.”
“I believe our next steps lie with Officer Dubois answering questions about what Interpol knows and doesn’t know in regards to what started as a death by nut allergy case and may now be the tip of an opportunity to bring down a large organization,” Jill declared.
Looking over at Henrik she asked, “Is there a path we can take to walk around this estate? I feel a need to stretch my legs, and I bet that Angela, Jo, and Marie will want to join me.”
“Yes, there is a loop that is slightly longer than three kilometers if you follow the path from the library door. I’ll take you there now and point you on your way.”
“Text me if we aren’t back by the time Dubois arrives, but I would think we would be back before then as it will take us probably fifty minutes to walk with Angela snapping pictures along the way.”
“Jill, you can thank Nick for loaning me his camera so I can keep documenting our vacation,” said Angela.
The women left the room to grab jackets, sunglasses, and their lone remaining camera. Upon their return, Henrik guided them over to the start of the path with a few words about what they would see along the way.
The group enjoyed a brisk walk around the estate. The trees were again brilliant in their fall colors. The path curved near the tip of a small lake, fed by a creek. Further on, a gazebo with indoor seating was added to enjoy the bubbling water flow of that same creek on its way to the lake.
A distance from the gazebo, they saw the back of a stone monument and went over to explore. It depicted a woman wearing a jeweler’s eyepiece holding a very large carat diamond in her hand. It had Laura’s name and birth and death dates on it. There was also an inscription in French that they couldn’t read. They might ask Henrik about it later. Jill wondered how he had arranged to have the body brought home, since she was officially listed as not having a family. She had not checked in with Dr. DeGroot to ask if someone had retrieved Laura’s body. The gazebo must have been their favorite spot, and likely Henrik wanted Laura close by.
They were coming back to the house when Jill asked Angela, “Are you going to label these pictures as beautiful fall trees on the estate of the man who kidnapped us from Brussels’?”
“You’re too funny. I thought I would label them as stunning fall leaves on an estate near Dusseldorf and hope my scrapbook viewers wouldn’t wonder how or why we ended up in Germany.”
They shortly returned to the conference room and found that Dubois had just arrived, and Jo and Nathan were already seated in the room.
As it was approaching lunch, Henrik had left to make arrangements with his cook for lunch for nine guests.
“Hello, Officer Dubois,” said Jill upon entering the room.
He stood, nodded at the women, and said “Hello. It seems like you continue to have problems with your own safety. I arrived a few minutes before you, and Nick and Inspector Willems were about to show me the video-tape of Interpol
entering your hotel room yesterday. I want to assure you that Graaf’s entry was not authorized by anyone in Interpol or the Belgian police force.
“I also have been informed that you did not trust my honesty and integrity. I am sorry that I gave you any impression that your safety and the truth in the Laura Peeters murder investigation were not my top priorities.”
“Officer Dubois, you did not do anything personally to make me think that you were not trustworthy,” said Jill. “Rather, it is the agency you represent. As you can imagine, it feels like Interpol has a few rogue agents, making it hard to know who to trust. Inspector Willems has basically sworn in his own blood that you have always viewed upholding the law as your top priority. His endorsement got our agreement to bring you here today. Thank you for making the drive. Let’s move on and view the tape.”
Henrik had connected the video player to a projector, and they sat around the conference table watching the recording play out on the large screen. It was again played and reviewed several times before Dubois was satisfied that he had seen everything on the tape.
“I had hoped you Americans would have left Belgium before any more attempts on your lives or your property were made, but I can see that I was wrong to underestimate this group of criminals. I assume that what I am about to say will remain confidential; if it doesn’t, then we may never get to prosecute Laura Peeters’ killer.”
He looked around the room at the participants individually, looking for a nod indicating confidentiality. Satisfied that they understood the gravity of the situation, he paused, not comfortable with the new member of this group – Henrik. There was something off about the guy, not criminally off, but there was some raging emotion just below the surface. Dubois would just have to trust the women as they had thus far shown excellent judgement of character.
“Interpol has had a small secret group focused on the diamond consortium for about six years,” began Dubois. “We were aware of the problems in the mines and the violation of the Kimberley Process. Interpol, in conjunction with the governments of South Africa, Botswana and the Congo, formed a group to improve their lot about twelve years previously. The deal with the Democratic Republic of the Congo fell apart as they went through a civil war. The country is so rich in natural resources that its government appears to swing from one corrupt leadership regime to another. In regards to the diamond industry, Congo holds 30 percent of the world’s diamond resources. Word of our secret efforts to improve the life of the miners and hold countries accountable to the Kimberley Process got out through our Congo representatives.
