“All of our vehicles are tracked by GPS. You could try to run, but I’d find you.”
5
Brian
Monday a.m.
“You’re late,” Titus barked.
Brian handed over the flash drive and gave a curt nod. Titus didn’t need excuses from him. The point was made.
Panther Force was spread around the war room. The table that had moments earlier held Dr. Dajani’s computer now had two chairs facing their team. A man and a woman who reeked of Quantico training filled the seats.
“This morning, we heard from the archaeologists working for the AACP,” Titus began. “Iniquus has signed contracts with that organization to guard newly acquired sites outside of war zones and to protect their upper level employees when they’re travelling internationally. Iniquus has also signed a contract with the FBI.” He nodded toward the special agents.
“With the AACP’s blessing, of course. Our colleagues at the Bureau are interested in the black-market antiquities and the monies that are going to fund ISIS and terrorism. I would like to introduce you to two of the special agents with whom we will be working. This is Alandria Andersson from the arts division, and Steve Finley with terror.”
As their names were announced, they stood, nodded, and returned to their seats.
Finley began. “Gentlemen, you’ve just met two suspects that have been flagged by the FBI for conspiring to fund ISIS terrorism. It’s our goal to identify if Dr. Sophia Abadi and/or Dr. Nadia Dajani are in fact culpable, and to what extent they are entwined in the black market sale of Middle Eastern conflict antiquities.”
Brian’s muscles contracted. Titus turned assessing eyes on him. But Brian had already fought his expression into a mask of stoicism and adjusted his posture to calmly absorb the information.
Andersson took the reins. “During the Iraq war, it came to the Bureau’s attention that a United States business, Crafts&More, was possibly involved in acquiring looted artifacts from the region.” Andersson’s disdain was easily read from the tightness in her facial muscles and the squint of her eyes. “This religious based company is developing a Museum of the Holy Bible right outside of DC, in Maryland, to be opened in 2018.”
Titus stood in his usual place toward the front of the room with his shoulder against the side wall where he had the vantage point. His face held its natural scowl. “This group is populating its archives with black market pieces?”
“We believe so,” Andersson said. “And interestingly, it was Nadia Dajani, Sophia Abadi, and their fathers who brought this to our attention. First, a little background on our marks. These two women come from a long line of prominent archaeologists. Sophia’s father was Dr. Amad Abadi, who was born and trained in Turkey, and Nadia’s father was Dr. Farid Dajani from the University of Damascus. Both men immigrated to the United States. Both men became United States citizens at a young age, married American women, and had American children. Nadia and Sophia spent their summers in the Middle East from the time they were very young. Both are fluent in Arabic, Farsi, Turkish, and Hebrew. The last dig where they accompanied their fathers happened in 2011. At the time, the two women were pursuing archaeology degrees at their universities. Sophia was getting ready for her senior year of undergrad, and Nadia was beginning her doctoral work. Nadia is four years older than Sophia.”
“Are the father’s implicated in this case?” Titus asked.
“Sophia’s father is incapacitated with dementia, and Nadia’s father had a stroke that left him unable to speak clearly or use the left side of his body. We’re quite sure they’re not involved. But the women have all of their fathers’ contacts in that region. It’s a close circle of academics that form an extended family.”
Titus shifted against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest and staring down his nose at the special agents. “But the 2011 dig is significant.”
“Yes, their research group was based out of Israel that summer. It was at that time that a shipment headed for Tulsa, Oklahoma was seized by US Customs in Memphis. The shipment held two-hundred and fifty tablets inscribed in cuneiform a thousand years ago, when modern-day Iraq was called Assyria. These tablets were headed to a compound owned by Crafts&More. Since that time, Crafts&More has been under investigation for illicitly importing Iraqi cultural heritage to the US for display in their religious themed museum. We estimate around 40,000 artifacts were purchased by the Gilchrest family, who own the privately run Crafts&More business.”
“How do Nadia and Sophia play into this?” Nutsbe asked, his wrinkled brow showing that things weren’t adding up for him.
Brian was glad to cut to the chase. Why were they going after Nadia and Sophia?
“Provenance,” Andersson said. “Provenance in the art world is the written history of the object. It’s the who, what, where, and when of the piece, giving as complete a history as possible. Think of it as a chain of custody. The story, as we understand it, is that the two young women—Sophia, then aged twenty and Nadia, twenty-four—got into a taxi headed for a restaurant. Instead of going where it was instructed, the taxi took them to a warehouse where Sophia and Nadia were held hostage. Their fathers were told to create fake provenances for the tablets that would pass without question through customs, or their daughters would be killed.”
“I’m Thorn, Nadia’s liaison. I think it’s important that we understand what happened that night. Do you have details?”
Finley rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. “Some. The crime was never solved, so the picture is cloudy. Nadia and Sophia were gone for almost seventy-two hours. They said they were blindfolded and tied up throughout that time. The place they were held was filthy, and they were laying in dirt. They had a bucket to use as a toilet. They were fed once a day and threatened continuously with sexual assault.” Finley paused. “It does not appear that that threat was followed through. We can’t be sure. The women refused medical exams and left the country. The person who brought the women their food woke them up in the middle of the night and got them out of the building. A motorbike was waiting at the street corner. Their rescuer—a female—got the girls on the back of the bike. The person driving had on a helmet and gloves. Nadia and Sophia couldn’t say if it was a man or a woman. The person never spoke to them. They were taken to the US Embassy and left at the gate. The US Embassy contacted local law enforcement, who went to the residence to check on their fathers. As the police breached the door, the captors who were holding the men fled. The families left for Turkey the next day. Between the girls’ account of what was overheard, and what the fathers were asked to provide, our embassy contacted US Customs and the FBI.”
“The fathers had been told their daughters would be held until the packages successfully passed through US Customs and were delivered to the right people,” Andersson explained. “Amad Abadi and Farid Dajani were able to convince the kidnappers that there was no provenance possible that would cover the tablets, since it’s against international law to remove cultural heritage items from their country of origin. They offered another solution that their captors put into play.”
“Wait, the shipment was sent and the criminals didn’t try to silence the families immediately?” Gage, the newest Panther Force member sounded incredulous. He had been a Marine Raider, a member of the elite Special Forces for the US Marines, in the Middle East. He knew as well as the rest of his teammates, all retired from US elite forces, just how violent that area of the world was for everyday citizens, particularly women.
“We’re having trouble with that outcome as well. We assume that something else happened, some other threat was made, and that it was at this point that one, or both of the women became criminally involved with the black market.”
“The tablets were confiscated by customs though, right?” Brian asked.
“Right. The fathers explained to the captors that the only way to get antiquities from their country of origin to the United States was to lie about what was being shipped,” Andersson said. �
��Not so long ago there was a Picasso worth upward of $15 million dollars that a woman, posing as a tourist, brought through customs by saying it was a $37-dollar handicraft. That charade was what the Gilchrest family attempted. They declared that they had ordered replicas of ancient tablets to be manufactured to spec in Israel. They were shipped FedEx and labeled, ‘handcrafted clay tiles.’”
“Which is accurate,” Steve Finley put in. “That’s exactly what they were. What wasn’t honest was the price tag of $3,000, when they’re worth millions. The case is still under investigation. The Gilchrests say they don’t believe they’re antiquities, but instead the tiles they ordered to be made for the museum. Both criminal and civil charges are possible if the decision is made to prosecute. That prosecution is problematic, in that the Gilchrests have a great deal of money and political clout, they’ve invested in a lot of political campaigns over the years—things are moving along slower than they might under different circumstances.”
“What does the punishment look like? Prison time? And are Nadia and Sophia part of that investigation?” Titus asked.
Finley shook his head. “Could go in a bunch of directions. The Gilchrests might have to forfeit the tablets. They might be required to pay a fine. While it’s interesting to the FBI to stop the theft of cultural heritage items, it’s more interesting to us to stop the funding of terrorism. Nadia and Sophia are not implicated in the tablet case. But the Gilchrests didn’t stop with that shipment. We believe that they continue to buy artifacts on the black market and are importing them for their museum, investing huge amounts of money, which in turn goes to fund ISIS. It’s not the art theft, per se, that has us interested. We’re looking to shut down the black market fundraising. We’re focused on the Gilchrest family because they’re getting their intel somewhere. We’re trying to run down that source. This case extends beyond Crafts&More. It’s probable that world collectors are looking for certain items to place in their archives. It’s also probable that there is someone who knows what’s on their list and is keeping an eye open, sending that information along to the buyers, so that as soon as a piece is located they can make a bid.”
“Also, that someone has to have enough knowledge that they can spot a fake,” Andersson said. “That kind of information would command a premium price. There are very few people with the antiquity expertise and the operational access that is enjoyed by Sophia and Nadia—as a matter of fact, they are positioned to commit this crime better than anyone else in the world. As you find out more about what they do and how they operate, you’ll be amazed by their scope of information.”
Brian had met Finley in the hallways of Iniquus before. The FBI and Iniquus had a good working relationship. As a private entity, Iniquus contracted with the various alphabets when egos and career-track ambitions got in the way of playing nicely together. And Iniquus could operate in places where the US needed to keep its nose clean for geo-political reasons. Brian was fairly sure that was why Iniquus was involved here.
This was the first time Brian was meeting Andersson. Her clothes were tailored to perfection and buttoned up tightly. Her feet were lined up directly under her knees. She held her body rigid, like a soldier at parade rest. There was nothing soft or vulnerable about her. She was tense while Finley was much more at home in the war room. Brian wondered if Andersson would relax a bit with familiarity.
Her demeanor heightened the tension in the room. Panther Force typically liked to keep things low key. A calm mind was a useful mind—a stressed brain made mistakes. Maybe it was Andersson’s tightly wound, hyper-controlled composure that set adrenaline flowing through his system, or maybe it was the thought that Sophia might be a terrorist sympathizer. Could his instincts be that far off the mark? Brian squared his shoulders and focused on the information.
“I know the women touched on this, earlier,” Andersson said. “But here are some more details. We are focused on ISIS funding. ISIS has a variety of ways that it funds itself, including kidnapping for ransom. As we speak, your Rooster Honig is in Iraq working on negotiations to free an American energy consultant captured by ISIS insurgents.”
The men nodded their affirmation. There was a shift in the room’s atmosphere. A fellow Panther Force member, known by the call sign Honey, hadn’t been heard from in over twenty-four hours. He’d missed two of his scheduled check-ins.
“Robbery, extortion, human trafficking, and oil smuggling all help to pay the fighters wages and keep their ammunition well-stocked. We’re focused on artifact theft here, which is their biggest revenue producer,” Andersson said. “And particularly the way that Americans are helping ISIS, whether it’s their direct intention or just short-sightedness. Criminal selfishness.”
“How much money are we talking about?” Titus asked.
“We estimate that they’re taking in about three million dollars a day in art,” Finley responded. “They have about two billion dollars in the bank at any given time.”
Gage let out a low whistle.
“These items are thousands of years old. There isn’t really a way to value them, is there?” Titus asked.
“Exactly,” Andersson said. “The exporters know their clients and who’s looking for what, as well as the price they might be willing to pay. Crafts&More, for example, is acquiring items that have a direct connection to biblical scholarship. Those items might bring in a higher price. As ISIS figured out how lucrative the relics were, they’ve made a business of unearthing them. There are more and more available, saturating the market and driving down the price, which in turn, leads to more pillaging to maintain their income flow.”
Finley looked Andersson’s way, and when she didn’t continue, he said, “On the business side, there are three basic ways that paramilitaries get involved in the arts trade. As you can well imagine, there aren’t a lot of ways a man can earn a basic living in Syria. Right now, they view looting as a job, much like fur traders did in early colonial America. They are given coordinates by ISIS, which indicate the specific area that they’re allowed to exploit. After the artifacts are removed and sold, they pay a tariff back to ISIS—twenty percent if the looters use their own equipment. Forty percent if they use ISIS equipment.”
“Equipment like what?” Brian asked.
“Bulldozers, mostly. Shovels, metal detectors, trucks. The tariff is one way to earn money. The others include running the trafficking networks and offering other services like finding services. This last leg of the business model is where we think Nadia and/or Sophia come in. The trafficking networks often follow the drug routes already in place and are worked by families who are familiar with moving illicit goods to international markets. The finding services are paid to those with specialized knowledge.”
“Like the knowledge possessed by Nadia and Sophia,” Thorn said.
“Exactly.” Finley stood. “Let me give you an example. Because we knew what was going on with Crafts&More, we sent in a special agent to gather firsthand information on the underground world. He made contact with a Syrian living in Turkey who Interpol had identified as being in the artifacts trade. The trader had a picture of a mosaic that had just been unearthed. It was an amazing piece that seemed to tell the biblical story of John the Baptist. We had our agent on camera receiving a phone call from Gilchrest family representatives who offered $200,000 if the mosaic could be authenticated and authorized—which means they had provenance that would make it okay to have in their collection, signed by a reputable source.”
“How did the Gilchrests find out about the piece?” Titus asked.
“Good question. We’d like to know that too. What I can tell you is that our field office sent photos to an expert—the piece was the real deal. Imagine, our agents are in this rundown apartment in the city, there are two young Syrian men, boys, really, who were hanging onto a Roman mosaic that was at least fifteen hundred years old.”
“Did you get ahold of the art?” Titus asked. “What was the next step if you did?”
“The boy
s dropped the price to $6,000 when they got spooked. We secured the piece to repatriate at a future date. And guess who developed the satellite pictures for AACP that were used to find that art?” Finley asked.
“Sophia Abadi and Nadia Dajani,” Thorn answered.
Finley swung his head around to catch Thorn’s eye. “Now guess who was involved in identifying and dating the John the Baptist mosaic that was being offered up by the Syrian boys to our special agents.”
“Sophia Abadi and Nadia Dajani.”
Finley pointed his finger at Thorn. “Bingo.”
6
Sophia
Monday p.m.
As soon as she heard an engine pull up to her curb, Sophia jumped up from her desk and ran out the door. She knew she’d eventually need to let Brian into her house; that’s where her office was set up. But she needed another day, one with a little less stress, before she felt comfortable doing that. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe not, she thought as he opened her car door and unfolded his tall frame.
Sophia was close enough now to see a bemused look on his face. His focus was on his phone. As she approached, he turned it her way. “Who is this?” he asked, laughter in his voice.
Sophia looked at the picture of her neighbor who lived just around the corner. She was dressed in a flesh-colored bikini and high heels and was posed like a model on the hood of a convertible parked in the middle of her driveway. “That’s Marla. I saw her too.” Sophia pulled her phone from her pocket and opened her photo album. “I took this when I was heading home from the doctor’s office right around eleven.”
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