by Estelle Ryan
Amin’s reaction to the ambassador’s words was telling. I narrowed my eyes, determined to observe every micro-expression. “You suspect something.”
Amin looked at me, trying to school his features into a more neutral expression. “Yes. I told you this morning we were here about the artefacts.”
President Godard held out his hand to stop my response. “This is not what Doctor Lenard meant and you know it.”
Ambassador Kanian looked at Amin. “What are they talking about?” He looked at the president. “Please explain what is going on here.”
“We’ve had four brutal murders which are all connected to each other. More importantly, they are all connected to drugs being smuggled into France from Iran.”
Amin closed his eyes, his expression resigned.
The ambassador’s lips thinned and he straightened in his chair. “That is an outrage. You have to know that we have nothing to do with any of that. We fight so hard against all the drugs entering our country, yet it sometimes feels like a losing battle. Anything, we’ll do anything to help.”
I looked at Amin. “Tell us what you know.”
“I really wished it wasn’t true. I didn’t want to find any evidence here to confirm my suspicions.”
“Was this drug investigation your true mission?” the ambassador asked Amin.
“We were here for the artefacts too.” He glanced at Colin. “Apparently, some pieces have been found and will go back with us.”
“The drugs?” President Godard asked.
Amin crossed his arms, then immediately uncrossed them. “My team is only one of many investigating crimes. But we were tasked with finding out who was looting our cultural heritage and selling it to the West. We don’t mind that it’s on display in museums, but at the end of the day these pieces belong to the people of Iran. It’s our history.” He took a calming breath. “The more we investigated the artefacts, the more evidence we found that connected recent exports of heroin to the art.
“I contacted the narcotics team about the drugs. They specialise in finding these dealers and stopping the in- and outflow of narcotics. They told me that they’ve been trying to shut down one specific syndicate, but the leader has been one step ahead of them all the time. Apparently, this syndicate is so good that we don’t even know the names of the players.”
“Why were you in the café?” Manny asked.
Amin glanced at the ambassador, who nodded. He then looked at Manny. “We received intel that the young man had knowledge of the artefacts and possibly the drugs.”
“Who gave you that intel?” Colin didn’t even attempt to disguise his scepticism.
Amin smiled. “You know I can’t, and I won’t, tell you that.”
As he spoke, his smile disappeared, numerous micro-expressions moving over his face. He was busy piecing together the information he had with the questions we were asking and the result was causing him distress.
“Where did you go after you left the café this morning?” Manny’s tone was no longer friendly.
Amin frowned and shifted in his chair. “We split up to cover more ground.”
President Godard held out his hand to stop Amin’s explanation. He looked at Ambassador Kanian. “My people were never informed you had an investigative team here, Sirvan.”
“President Godard, please.” The ambassador raised both his hands, palms out. “Don’t even think this was espionage. This is not what was happening here.”
Manny snorted. “What do you call Iranian detectives in France following a young French citizen to a café and surveilling him?”
Amin’s face lost some of its colour. “We’re not spies. We were just following up on a lead that might give us back our artefacts.”
“Where did you go?” Manny asked again.
“After the café, I went to my hotel room to meet with a contact. And no, I won’t tell you his name. He’s a good man. He helps many of our people here in your city.”
“Hassan? The hawala broker?” The risk I took to voice my suspicion was immediately rewarded.
Amin’s eyes widened, then narrowed. “Don’t make trouble for Hassan. He’s a good man.”
“We know,” Colin said. “Where did you go after your meeting with Hassan?”
Amin looked up and left—recalling a memory. “I went to the ATM to get more cash. Then I went to the mall to buy my wife perfume. She has enough bottles to open a shop, but she wanted something from France.”
Manny’s phone rang. The ambassador frowned, the corners of his mouth pulling down. President Godard wasn’t surprised when Manny answered the call and put the phone on the table. “You’re on speakerphone.”
“Hi, everyone.” Francine’s voice was clear. She was excited. “I’ve been listening to your conversation and Amin has been telling the truth.”
Amin jumped out of his chair and looked around the room. “You’ve been listening? Wait. How do you know I’ve been telling the truth?”
Colin also got up and walked to Amin. He reached out, but didn’t touch Amin’s jacket. “May I?”
Amin frowned, looked at Colin’s hand, then to the ambassador before nodding.
Colin lifted the jacket’s lapel and took out the button camera.
“This is not acceptable.” Ambassador Kanian pulled the cuffs of his suit jacket and pushed his shoulders back. “Actually, this is an outrageous invasion of privacy.”
“Pah! I wouldn’t be calling the kettle black here, Ambassador. That button camera just exonerated Amin.”
“What do you mean?” Amin walked back to the table and sat down, staring at the phone.
“Hold your horses.” Manny pulled his phone closer. “Did you alert Dan?”
“I did. They’re on their way to pick up Shahab.” She paused. “Well, that’s a problem.”
“What now?”
“Shahab’s button camera just went dead.”
“You planted one on Shahab as well?” Amin’s brows pulled together in grave concern. He blinked a few times and I watched as he added yet another piece of information to his conclusions. He gasped and looked at Colin. “What did he do?”
“First problem is where he is.” Manny looked at his phone. “Is he still in the building?”
“Uh, no,” Francine said. “He left as soon as you guys went into the conference room.”
“He suspected something.” Colin sighed. “Can you track him on the city cameras?”
“I’m working on it.” The sound of a mouse clicking and keyboard strokes came through the phone.
“Officer Shahab was the one who suggested they wait outside and only Officer Amin and I meet with you.” The ambassador looked just as worried as Amin. “What did Officer Shahab do?”
“He went to the house of one of the victims,” President Godard said. “Only our investigators know about that crime scene. And the killer.”
“We think he killed all four of the victims.” Colin paused. “After he tortured them for hours.”
Amin put both his hands over his mouth, his eyes wide.
“What can we do?” Ambassador Kanian asked.
“Help us find Shahab.” Manny glared at Amin.
He lowered his hands and put them palms down on the table. “I honestly don’t know where he is.” He shook his head. “It all makes sense now.”
“What does?” Colin asked.
“The fact that we were always at least three steps behind the art looters and the drug traffickers.” He fell back into his chair. “Shahab has been controlling the inflow of intel for years. He’s been in this unit for eleven years and on my team for two. He knows every case and every lead.”
Ambassador Kanian’s mouth opened in shock. “We have to let the police chief know about this breach.”
Amin nodded absently, then looked at Colin. “Does our damaged rental car have anything to do with this?”
“What damage?” Colin’s tone was harsh. “When did this happen?”
“Yesterday. Shahab took
the SUV to meet a friend for lunch.”
“That was around the time we were being pursued by two SUVs.”
“Two?” Amin shook his head vigorously. “No, we only rented one.”
“How was it damaged?” the ambassador asked.
“Shahab came back and said that some hooligans had thrown rocks at the car and even burning rags when they saw he looked Arabic. They were shouting all kinds of racist slurs at him.” He frowned. “There were really burn marks on the paint.”
I swallowed. That moment when the SUV came racing through the explosion and the shots entered Colin’s vehicle, the glass raining down on us—it all rushed back at me and brought tightness to my throat.
“Um, guys?” Francine’s voice pulled me out of my spiralling thoughts. “Shahab’s gone.”
“What do you mean, he’s gone?” Manny was almost shouting.
“I caught him on three city cameras leaving the president’s residence, but then he went into a private parking area and disappeared.”
“Cameras in the parking?” Colin asked.
“They’re on a closed system.”
“Get that intel.” Manny got up. “Now.”
“Oh, God.” Francine’s voice broke, sending a rush of adrenaline through my system. “Oh, no.”
“Francine, what’s wrong?” Manny’s words were breathless, a flash of fear joining his concern.
Even Amin and the ambassador leaned closer to the phone.
“Caelan.” Emotion made Francine’s voice extremely unsteady. “Oh, Genevieve, our boy genius is missing.”
Chapter NINETEEN
“WHERE THE BLOODY HELL is he?” Manny’s frustrated question came out loud enough to register as a shout. I looked into the team room to see him rubbing both his hands over his short hair. “It’s been two bloody hours.”
I cringed at Manny’s use of words, truly hoping that Caelan had not bled at all during these two hours. I didn’t know if Caelan was even able to cope with what was happening to him at the moment.
Daniel had been the one to discover Caelan was missing. He’d gone to Caelan’s flat to check up on him and found it deserted. Caelan’s backpack had been on the floor of his apartment, the contents all over the living room floor. Daniel had found Caelan’s two stress balls still in the backpack and another four amongst the scattered contents. Caelan’s phone was also on the floor, broken as if someone had stomped on it numerous times. We had no way to track Caelan. And he didn’t have his stress balls to help him cope.
Using the same method as at Adèle’s house, Shahab had been dressed as a police officer and had told the officers protecting Caelan he was there to relieve them. It had been past their shift-end, so they hadn’t questioned Shahab or the fact that he’d come alone. They’d been too happy to go home.
We’d never heard the voice of Jace’s killer because he was whispering. But we had heard his perfect French. When Colin and I had spoken to Shahab, he’d used English, so we wouldn’t have made the connection just by listening to his voice.
“I’ve looked everywhere. After Shahab went into that parking structure, he just disappeared.” Francine had not lifted her hands from her computer keyboard or tablet screen since we’d returned to the team room. “I can’t even find him on any of the cameras around Caelan’s flat. He had fifteen minutes to get from the president’s residence to Caelan, but I don’t see him anywhere. I looked at all the cameras along all the possible routes.”
“He’s most likely using a disguise,” Colin said. “Already we know he’s got a police uniform. In this cold weather all you need is an oversized winter coat and a cap to disappear in the crowd.”
Colin was right. Francine also knew this, but it didn’t ease the frustration and concern on her face.
The president had told us to do whatever we needed. When we’d left, he had been busy berating the Iranian ambassador and pushing for any more information they could give on Shahab. He’d phoned fifteen minutes ago to let us know he’d had to let the ambassador, Amin and Hamid go before it became an international incident. They’d not been able to tell him any added information on Shahab, and Hamid had not known about any of Shahab’s activities.
I turned back to the monitors in front of me. There was nothing new I could learn from Adèle’s chart, nor the photos of the labels. All the names and cities from the labels had been matched with descriptions from the chart. But without more context, any conclusions would be speculative.
I closed my eyes and mentally called up an empty music sheet. Instead of my usual speed of writing a Mozart composition, I took my time connecting the top two staves with a solid line. Then I took care to draw the G-clef, finding pleasure in the curls that formed such a beautiful symbol.
My eyes flew open and I turned to the team room. “Where’s François?”
“What are you thinking, Doc?” Manny walked into my room as Francine lifted her phone and tapped the screen. She got up and joined us, her phone pressed against her ear.
I looked at Manny. “François had an undeniable connection to the murders as well as the drugs.”
“Nothing that we could prove and then arrest him for.” The corners of his mouth turned down.
“True.” I thought back to François’ nonverbal cues. “My observations confirm Phillip’s conclusions that François didn’t torture and kill Adèle, Jace, Camille Vastine and Martin Gayot.”
“That animal Shahab did it.” Vinnie was leaning against the doorframe, his arms crossed.
“If we’re working on that assumption, then François is connected to Shahab.” Colin was sitting next to me and had been either working on his computer or phoning contacts to find out if they knew anything about these men. “I see where Jenny’s going with this. If we can’t trace Caelan or Shahab, it might be worth a shot to look for François.”
“His lawyer isn’t answering his phone.” Francine sat down on the chair Manny usually used and tapped her tablet screen. “But... Hmm... I’m hacking François’ phone. Damn, it’s turned off. But... yup, I have his location history.” She tapped the screen a few times. “I’m putting the map on the monitors.”
As I looked up, photos of Adèle’s chart on four of the monitors were replaced by a map of Strasbourg. Red dots littered the centre of the city, a few red dots to the north and the west. They started disappearing.
“What’s happening?” Vinnie asked.
“I’m changing the time to the last four hours.” She tapped a few more times, then looked up. “There. These are all the towers his phone connected to since noon today.”
I saw it immediately. “That’s the route to the self-storage warehouse.”
“Holy hell.” Manny lifted his phone. “I’m phoning Daniel.”
“I don’t know what he’ll be doing there,” Vinnie said. “That place is locked up. All the tenants have been told it’s an active crime scene. And it hasn’t been released yet.”
“Is it guarded?” Colin asked.
“No. Dan told me the crime scene techs went through all the lockers and found no more artefacts or drugs. The brass decided it would be a waste of resources to post officers there when the locks on the doors worked perfectly fine. But the same clever brass also determined it should stay a crime scene. Smart, right? Not.”
Colin’s eyes narrowed. “What kind of locks?”
“Keypad.” Vinnie grunted. “Easy enough to bypass.”
“Their system is ridiculously insecure.” Francine pointed at the bottom right monitor. It was split into three windows, all showing the outside of the warehouse. The parking area was empty and there was no movement anywhere. “Too easy to hack.”
“We’ll talk about your illegal hacking later.” Manny put his phone in his trouser pocket. “Daniel says they were called out to a robbery. They’re wrapping up and will leave in about ten minutes.”
I looked at the security footage and wondered if we would be able to see anything once it got dark. This time of the year, we only had anothe
r thirty minutes of daylight left. I remembered Pink’s disgust at the lack of security and I inhaled sharply. “Adèle had cameras above her lockers.”
“Of course! How could I forget about that?” Francine’s fingers were flying over her tablet. “I’ll put the live streaming on the monitors. This is one of the times I’m happy someone has bad security on their system. I still have access to Adèle’s entire system, including her...”
Everyone in the room jerked and inhaled sharply when the monitor above the warehouse videos came to life.
“Oh, God.” Francine wiped roughly at her eyes and leaned forward. “Caelan.”
He was only partly in view of the camera placed above one of Adèle’s lockers. His feet were out of the view of the camera, his legs stretched out in front of him. He was rocking and slapping his thighs, his mouth moving constantly.
“He’s reciting his geographical facts.” The anger in Vinnie’s voice made me turn around and look at him. Every muscle in his face was pulled tight in fury. “I’m going to find this motherfucker who picks on those weaker than him and I’ll show him—”
“Save that for later.” Colin got up. “We can be at the warehouse in less than ten minutes.”
“It will take Dan and his team at least thirty to get there.” Manny scowled. “They’re on the other side of the city.”
“I’m going now.” Vinnie’s hand rested on his holstered gun. “Whether you’re coming with me or not. I’m going there right now to bring Caelan home.”
“Take a breath and be smart about this, big guy. We’re going, but we need to do this right.” Manny turned to me. “We might need you, Doc.”
“Fuck no.” Vinnie took a step towards me. “She’s not going anywhere close to danger.”
“Will you be able to calm Caelan down and protect him?” Colin took my hand and pulled me up to stand next to him. “Look, I don’t like it either, but with you, Millard, me and the GIPN team there, Jenny will be safe. There will be too much happening for you to focus on Caelan.”
“I’m good at calming him.” Francine didn’t take her eyes off the monitor. “But I’ll be much more useful here.”
