The Becić Connection

by Estelle Ryan

  “It was only up for an hour and fifteen minutes. Then Rene was contacted by the Collector.”

  “So this is how the bloody bastard found out about the treasure.” Manny tapped his index finger on the table.

  “No, I think he knew about it before,” Francine said.

  “I told you there were rumours that the Seuso Treasure had a lot more than only fourteen artefacts.” Colin scratched the back of his neck. “But how did he manage to connect it to Slavko and how did he find Rene on the darknet?”

  “I’m thinking the Collector has somebody on his payroll with mad skills.” Francine put her tablet on the table. “Rene is good. But I didn’t have too much trouble finding him and getting into his email. But the person who contacted Rene, calling himself the Collector? That encryption is military-grade. Better, even.”

  “What did he say?” I looked at my phone. “Do you have screenshots?”

  “I’ll send it later.” She played with the collection of silver bracelets on her left wrist. “His email to Rene was short and to the point. He said if Rene gave him the treasure, the Collector would make Rene’s gambling debts disappear and would continue using Rene’s services.” Fear and hesitation flashed across Francine’s face. “That’s not all.”

  “The next email was from Rene, saying he doesn’t have the treasure yet. He only has clues leading to its location.” Pink cleared his throat. “Then it gets bad. The Collector replies with a video. I don’t think you want to see it.”

  “You really don’t.” The horror of what Francine had seen was clear on her face. “It was an unidentified man being tortured.” She shuddered. “The Collector demanded that Rene deliver the treasure today or he wouldn’t die as quickly as his brother did. Nor as quickly as the man in the video. Rene’s death would be slower and more painful.” Francine drew a shaky breath. “That man on the video did not die quickly.”

  “Rene immediately accepted and said he’ll deliver,” Pink said.

  “The Collector sent another email the next week,” Zork said quietly. “He told Rene that Florian would help Rene deliver the treasure. That email also had a video attached.”

  “This one was easier to watch,” Francine said. “It was just a video of a family pulling their suitcases. The video is focused only on the family and the background is completely blurred out, so I don’t know where it was taken. But it was taken on the day the Collector sent that email. The man in the video was holding a newspaper from that day.”

  “This must be Florian’s sister and her family,” Colin said.

  “How the bleeding hell does this Collector arsehole know so much about so much?” Manny rubbed his hand over his face. “Who is this man?”

  I looked at Francine. “We need to know everything possible about Florian’s sister. Start with where she is at the moment.”

  “We need to know who the bloody, holy hell this Collector is.” Manny looked at Colin. “Frey?”

  Colin leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling for a few seconds. Then he looked at me. “I need to speak to you. Alone.”

  I blinked.

  “No.” Manny stood up, rested his fists on the table and leaned towards Colin. “Speak or so help me...”

  Colin didn’t take his eyes off me. “Jenny?”

  I took a moment to read his nonverbal cues. I nodded and turned to Manny. “This is important. You know we will tell you everything pertinent.”

  Manny sank back into his seat. “Bloody hell, missy.”

  Colin picked up his tablet, took my hand and led me to our bedroom. It was disconcerting to witness the tension in his muscles affecting his usual smooth gait. He closed the bedroom door behind us and pointed at the chair by the window. “I’ll sit on the bed.”

  I walked to the chair, sat down and waited.

  Colin was sitting on the edge of the bed, swiping his tablet screen. The muscles around his eyes and mouth were tight and he swallowed a few times. He handed me his tablet. “Look through that and tell me what you think. There are a few of them. Swipe left to get to the next one.”

  I stared at the tablet for a few seconds before I took it. On the screen was a collection of newspaper clippings. It seemed like Colin had taken screenshots of numerous articles and had put them in one document.

  The first article was dated three and a half years ago. It was from an English-language newspaper published in Egypt. The headline was simple: “History destroyed in fire.” Under the headline was a photo showing the rubble of a building, the roof gone, one of the scorched walls tumbled over, revealing a devastated interior.

  The article stated that a fire had broken out just after midnight. The museum had housed artefacts from the Ptolemaic period, 305-350 BC—small and larger statues made of marble and stone, reliefs, pottery figures, countless items from this period lost in the fire.

  The next article was from a different newspaper, but a few months after the fire. This one stated that the officials had tried to take stock of the artefacts destroyed in the fire, but couldn’t confirm that all of them had been destroyed. In fact, there was suspicion that some silver works were unaccounted for.

  The third article was from a tech blog. It was a short text reporting an increase in trolling in Egypt. Misinformation was being spread about officials not caring about museums, claiming instead of updating infrastructure, they were spending the money on political events. I compared the dates. The trolling had increased a month before the fire.

  I frowned and swiped to the next file.

  This one had screenshots of articles about a bombing in Afghanistan two years ago that had destroyed a museum that had numerous artefacts from the Hellenistic era. Much of the first article was dedicated to the many stoneworks lost to future generations.

  The next article caused me to gasp. As in the Egypt case, this article was written a few months after the bombing. It was published in a university journal, the author expanding on the concerns officials had that they had not been able to find any remains of the large collection of silver coins. I blinked. These silver coins came from the same era as the silver works lost in the Egypt fire.

  A third and fourth article came from different technology news sources. Afghanistan had one of the lowest internet penetration rates in the world. Yet trolls had managed to share posts with the few users who had access. I tried to make sense of the many falsehoods being spread about the different armed forces helping the Afghani people. Both articles stated that this was causing confusion and distrust in people. They didn’t know who to believe.

  I swiped to the next file. And the next. Four files later, I looked up. “You think this is the Collector.”

  Colin nodded. “On their own, these bombings and fires make sense. I mean, who would be shocked that there was a bombing in Iran or Afghanistan? Or a fire in Egypt? Or that a building in Peru that was in desperate need of renovation had a gas explosion?”

  “What made you see the commonalities?”

  He thought about this. “Honestly, I don’t know. I just remember hearing about the Collector and his preference for silver.”

  “You told Manny that he likes to collect obscure sculptures and paintings by unknown artists.”

  “I might have withheld some things.” He smiled when I lowered my chin and stared at him. “In my defence, I really did hear that the Collector likes weird sculptures and unknown paintings.” He sobered. “But I also heard that he favours silver from two thousand years ago, especially silver coins.”

  “The silver from the Seuso Treasure—”

  “Dates back to late fourth, early fifth century, so only fifteen hundred years ago, not two thousand. But the little that I’ve heard about the Collector makes me think that he wants the Seuso Treasure because of the secrecy, the political fights over it.” He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “I think the Collector is mentally ill. Psychopath or sociopath or something. But he’s very smart. There is so little known about him. It’s only in the last year
that I’ve heard a few more rumours about him. And none of them have any concrete information.” He nodded at the tablet resting on my lap. “A few months ago, I started looking into it and found some of that. The rest I found yesterday and today.”

  I looked down at the tablet. “And you think that the bombings and fires are all related. In Iran, Afghanistan, Egypt, Peru, India.”

  He pressed his lips tightly together and took a deep breath. “What do you think?”

  I handed him his tablet and leaned back in the chair. I took my time going over everything I’d read. It didn’t take me long to come to a conclusion. “I agree with you. These have the same pattern.”

  “You see it too, right?” Colin straightened. “I agree with Francine that the Collector has someone who is good with trolling and hacking. This person sets the scene with their trolling so that a fire or a bombing doesn’t come as a surprise. If you have innocent people spreading the rumours, the same people will be happy to be proven right when the rumours are confirmed.”

  “Those are the only cases you found?”

  “Yes. Six of them in the last three years.” He shrugged. “There might be more. And they might go further back.”

  “You don’t think so.”

  “No.” He sighed. “God, I hope not. But I did look for similar events in the last five years and only these came up.”

  “We’ll get Francine to double-check.” I did, however, think we had more than enough evidence as it was. I tilted my head. “Why didn’t you trust your evidence? Why didn’t you just share this with everyone downstairs?”

  He smiled. “You’re the one who taught me that our biases can make us see things that aren’t there.”

  “I would agree with you if there were only two situations that exhibited the same pattern—first trolling, then an event, and later concerns that some artefacts had disappeared. But you have six cases.” I got up. “We have to tell the team.”

  “Millard is going to be pissed.”

  “With reason.” I opened the bedroom door, but stopped. I turned around and studied Colin’s face to confirm my suspicion. At first he stood still like he always did, allowing me to read his nonverbal cues. But then he flinched. I blinked in surprise. “You did this for me.”

  He took a step closer and kissed my nose. “I know that Millard always shouts at you to hurry up. And there are a lot of people downstairs. I wanted you to have enough quiet time to process this information.”

  I stared at him until he started looking concerned. His features smoothed when I rested my palm on his cheek. Over the bruise I’d caused. “You are the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

  “Jenny.” His whisper held a multitude of emotions. He leaned in and kissed me. “I love you.”

  “What the bloody hell is going on here?” Manny was standing on the landing of the stairs, both fists on his hips. “You’re bloody necking while we’re downstairs trying to save the world?”

  Colin laughed and tightened his arms around me. “Jealous, Millard?”

  Manny swore viciously. Colin continued to chuckle, but I pushed away from him. “Don’t antagonise Manny.”

  “You bloody better have something for me, missy.” Manny’s face was red, his nostrils flared.

  “We do.” I walked towards him. “Colin has information on the Collector.”

  “A name?” Manny looked over my shoulder at Colin.

  “No.” Colin sighed. “I wish I did.”

  “Well, let’s get down there so you can tell us lesser mortals.” Manny grumbled all the way back to the dining room table.

  We sat down and Colin immediately shared his discovery. He forwarded the information he’d gathered to everyone’s devices. “Francine, can you make sure I didn’t miss another bombing or something that would fit this pattern?”

  “I’ll help her,” Zork said.

  For a few seconds no one spoke. Then Luka cleared his throat. “Are we thinking that the Collector is planning something here? A bombing? A fire?”

  “There’s no way to say yet.” Colin thought about it some more. “I really don’t know if he would bomb a place to get the Seuso silver we discovered at the fort. It would be out of pattern. He doesn’t have the time to set it up. From the pattern, it always started with trolling four to six weeks before the event. We didn’t even know where the treasure was until a day ago.”

  “Where is the treasure now?” Vinnie asked.

  “Everything has been moved to the Archaeological Museum of Istria in Pula.” Luka took his phone from his jacket pocket. “I’m organising more security for them.”

  We watched him get up from the table and walk to the front door, already speaking in Croatian into his phone.

  Manny looked at Colin, then at Zork and back at Colin. “Any places here this Collector would want to target?”

  Colin’s regret was clear. “I haven’t looked into that. I honestly didn’t even consider the Collector to be part of this. Not until Florian talked about him yesterday.”

  “You should’ve said something earlier, Frey.”

  Colin looked at Manny through narrowed eyes. “And say what? I didn’t have enough to come to you.” He tapped hard on his tablet. “Most of what I have here, I found last night and this morning.”

  We had this information now. I still didn’t know exactly what to do with it. I let the conversation around the table wash over me as I thought about everything we’d learned so far. Years ago, Nikki had compared our cases to building a puzzle. We were still missing so many pieces, I didn’t have any idea what the final picture was supposed to look like.

  I didn’t know who the Collector was. What he planned. What Rene’s role was in the plan. Where Rene was.

  My mind was beginning to spin in a circle with the multitude of unanswered questions. I took a deep breath and mentally played Mozart’s Symphony No. 13 in F major. I was desperate not to waste any time. To figure out the final picture of this puzzle. To put an end to this.

  Chapter NINETEEN

  I GRABBED MY TABLET off the dining room table and searched through the recent documents and information Francine had sent. When I didn’t find what I was looking for, I looked at Francine. “Where are Rene’s emails?”

  “Huh?” She looked up from her laptop, then her eyes widened. “Ooh, I forgot!”

  The conversation around the table had stopped and everyone was looking at me.

  “Doc?” Manny knocked on the table. “What are you thinking?”

  “We need to know why Florian is in such a panic about his sister. He connected Rene and the Collector to her looming demise, so logic dictates that we need to know everything we can about the connection between them.”

  My tablet pinged and I swiped the screen. Francine had sent five screenshots.

  She looked at Zork. “Can you look for more bombings or events that connect to the info Colin gave us?” The moment he nodded, she turned to Pink. “Help me find more emails between Rene and the Collector.”

  “Done.” Pink started tapping on his tablet and Zork took a laptop from his backpack.

  I read carefully through the screenshots. Then I read through them again.

  “Doc, what do you make of this?” Manny lifted his phone. “There’s a lot of intel here.”

  “There is.” I read the emails again, then I looked at Francine. “How do you know these emails are from the Collector to Rene?”

  “Well, I’m one hundred percent sure it’s Rene. I traced his online activity on the normal web. That led me to his darknet activity and I managed to find his email account.” She paused. “Do you want me to tell you more about how I made sure it’s Rene?”

  “No. What about the Collector?”

  “I guessed.” She raised one shoulder. “More like an educated guess. And I’m pretty sure... No, I’m very sure I’m right. We know that Rene told Florian the Collector wanted the treasure. It’s there in the first email that the Collector sent to Rene.”

  It was. I
looked at the short text again. There was no greeting. Just four sentences. I read it out loud. “Remove your ad for the Seuso Treasure immediately. Give it to me and I’ll wipe out your gambling debt with Trudoe and Cblt873. In addition to the nearly half a million Euro in bitcoin debt, I will continue to use your services. And I won’t kill you.”

  “The second email is from Rene.” Luka was looking at his phone. “I don’t have the treasure on hand. It’s buried in a secret location. I have clues to the location.”

  “Interesting how he planned to sell clues to some unsuspecting sucker.” Vinnie crossed his arms. “The idiot didn’t even have the clues yet. Asswipe.”

  We were quiet for a second. Vinnie had brought up a valid point. How had Rene planned to sell the treasure with the little information he’d had to its location?

  “The third email is from the Collector,” Francine said quietly, her voice strained. “It’s that video of the man being tortured and that one sentence demanding that Rene deliver the treasure to the Collector today or he won’t die as quickly as his brother did.”

  The next email was two short sentences from Rene agreeing to giving the Collector the treasure. The last screenshot also showed an attachment. I looked at Francine. “The video attachment in the last email?”

  “Oh, that’s the one of the family.”

  That last screenshot only showed one sentence. ‘Florian Brasseur will help you find your treasure and deliver it to me.’ I thought about this and read the screenshots again. “What services was the Collector talking about?”

  Francine gasped. “I think I know.” She blinked a few times, then sat back in her chair. “I found another few email accounts connected to Rene, but didn’t have time to look at them before.”

  “What did you find?” I didn’t need the long introduction.

  “I’m now looking at another email account Rene is using for his trolling business.” She looked at Colin. “The Collector has been using Rene’s troll farm services.” She held up her index finger. “Give me a minute.”