Task Force Identity

by I A Thompson

  “Can we stay on topic please?” Martin huffed. “We were able to glean that ISIS made multiple deals with third parties. One with the Syrian government in their effort to preserve as much as possible of the city’s archeological features.”

  “Yes, there are tentacles all over and beyond the region,” Regina added. “I wrote a report not too long ago about where ISIS gets its supplies. We know that their trade routes cross into Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Eastern Europe and North Africa. Some of the players in those countries, no doubt, have ideological ties to the group. The rest of them are in it for the money, whether it comes in the form of oil, gold, antiquities, bitcoin or any other form of payment accepted in those circles.”

  “Correct,” Martin nodded. “Which is probably why Herzog didn’t see any problems with this little beauty. It more than likely came with a perfectly authentic looking certificate of origin. They’re not hard to come by in those parts of the world.”

  “So, according to the database of the Palmyra Portrait Project, the largest collections of these busts outside of Syria, are at the Ny Carlsberg Glyptothek, the Louvre and the Istanbul National Museum. And there are collectors spread across the world. Apparently, because they are relatively portable, they have been subject to looting forever and a day, particularly from the 17th century on when European missions treated the region as a free-for-all. Any chance you all have anyone in one of your local museums who might be able to look at our priest and tell us if he’s the real deal or a replica?” Zach asked.

  “I’m sure Zumbach knows someone at the Swiss National Museum who can help,” Martin said as he got up and walked out of the room, returning a few minutes later with his older colleague.

  Zumbach let out an appreciative whistle when he saw the bust. “I think I may have just the gal who can help us. Beatrice Strobel, my history teacher back in high school. She also held a teaching chair at the University of Zurich for history. We spent what seemed to us an extraordinary amount of time studying Romans, Greeks, Persians and so on because it was her specialty.”

  He dispatched Zehnder to track down his old teacher and get her to come to the villa. In the meantime, they wrapped up the search of the house. Between the main house and the boathouse, a few more items of interest were collected, but no other earthshattering items came to light.

  Professor Strobel arrived in a dated Mercedes convertible. She was a tall, athletic, tanned woman, and even though she must have been in her late sixties or early seventies, given Zumbach’s age, she looked not a day older than fifty.

  Piercing blue eyes that were slightly squinting, scanned the group in front of her and settled on Urs Zumbach. “Mr. Zumbach,” she said as her eyes narrowed a little more. “I take it, it’s not a coincidence to see you here. It’s been a long time.” She stepped forward and stretched out her hand to greet her former student. A gold tennis bracelet adorned with at least five carats of diamonds glittered on her wrist.

  “No, ma’am.” Zumbach shook her hand. “Not a coincidence at all. We’re working a case and you’re the only one I could think of to help us with something delicate. Thank you for coming and it’s very nice to see you.”

  Clearly, Zumbach still knew how to flatter her ego. She smiled and her eyes began to sparkle. “Well, well,” she replied. “There were days when you were not happy to see me. I remember vividly one Saturday afternoon when you were in detention and had to help me clean out a supply closet for the student council,” she chuckled. “Now tell me what you want me to help you with.”

  Zumbach cringed slightly as he turned around and led his old teacher to the study, followed by Martin, Regina and Zach who were all grinning as they envisioned a teenage Zumbach at the mercy of this formidable woman.

  Professor Strobel walked up to the priest’s relief and stopped a few inches in front of it. She squinted again, her head shaking slightly. “Interesting piece we have here. Do you need me to tell you if it’s fake or real and if so, how much it’s worth?” She looked over her shoulder at Zumbach but then continued without waiting for an answer. “You know, there are people who are of the opinion that this type of artifact is only of interest to academia.” She spat the word out as if it was the insult she perceived it to be. “I find that ludicrous. Look at this priest here; clearly he’s of great symbolic or monetary value to the people who live here, otherwise, he wouldn’t be the focal point of this very private room.”

  She turned around and clasped her hands, assuming what could only be described as a lecturing stance; feet slightly apart and in line with her shoulders. “Workmanship, appearance and material all match the period of the first or second century AD. For a detailed analysis, I’d have to take the relief to our lab for testing. If the tests confirm the visual assessment, the price at auction for a piece like this can be anywhere from a few hundred thousand dollars to a few million and beyond. It all depends on who shows up. Now to add some complexity to this, we may not be able to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is the original. There are thousands of first-class forgers at work in Syria who have access to original materials and techniques. Unless they make a stylistic mistake, it’s almost impossible to identify a replica in those cases.”

  Martin raised his hand and when Professor Strobel nodded in his direction, he asked, “Would it be helpful for you to know that this particular piece was reported stolen from the Palmyra National Museum and that it’s on Interpol’s red list?”

  Strobel made a step forward, her body tensing. “Yes, that is of vital importance. It means there may be reference test samples in the museum of origin, if it’s not too badly damaged, but even if that’s a dead end, and even if the relief tests as a forgery, worst case scenarios all around, we can now rule out that the priest found his way to Kuesnacht via the open market. A red-listed item would never make it to a regular auction. It could not have been shipped via standard channels and we can rule out the Geneva and Zurich Free Ports for transit. They’re being watched like hawks since the Geneva Free Port got some bad press in 2013 for storing looted Syrian artifacts that had traveled there via Qatar. So, for the sake of your investigation, you can focus on black and grey markets, regardless of whether we’re dealing with a forgery or an authentic piece.”

  She paused to let her words sink in and watched with amusement as the team exchanged excited glances at the opportunities, she opened for them. “I can see the wheels turning in your heads and I certainly don’t want to hold you back. Can one of your CSIs help me pack up the relief so I can take it to the lab? If it is no longer of use here, of course?”

  38

  Detective Zumbach led the team out of the house and turned to Gabi and Mark. “Guys, please stay here and help Professor Strobel and the CSIs with anything they may need.” The looks on their faces spoke volumes about their sentiments regarding their assignment.

  “You three,” Zumbach pointed at Regina, Zach and Martin. “Are coming with me. Let’s see if we can get some useful information out of Herzog, shall we?” He pulled out his phone, pushed a number on speed dial and got in the car.

  With the morning commute already over, there wasn’t much traffic into Zurich. Light wind curled the water of the lake to their left, sailboats bobbed up and down on their buoys, a passenger ferry zigzagged from one side of the lake to the other. Before long, the lake disappeared from their view and they were surrounded by houses.

  Zumbach weaved the car through a maze of roads downtown until they got to the complex that housed Zurich’s district court, the district attorney’s offices and the district jail. He took a right turn onto the road that housed the prison and parked the car within comfortable walking distance to the gray entrance gate. It looked small and somewhat out of place against the backdrop of four stories of narrow windows with decorative, yet functional, wrought iron bars stretching a few hundred feet to the next street corner.

  “Pretty posh and impressive,” Zach commented as he looked up at the massive structure.

  “
Don’t judge this book by its cover,” Martin replied. “The prison was built in 1916, it’s the oldest in Zurich, and it shows.”

  Once they stepped through the gate, they found themselves in a significantly bleaker environment. They were standing in a courtyard, surrounded by the washed-out rust colored walls of the cell blocks. Deeply recessed in the thick walls were small windows covered with iron bars. Nothing decorative here. A shorter gray utility building looked like it had been added as an afterthought, years after the original building.

  Regina looked around. “Wow, that’s depressing. Definitely not what I expected from the outside.”

  It didn’t get any better after they entered the building and followed a young corrections officer through the narrow, winding hallways to Herzog’s cell. Regina felt as if the whitewashed walls were closing in on her. The smell of foul body odors, stale cleaning agents, mixed with the musty and moldy odor of old concrete, created a nauseating blend that made it hard for her to breathe.

  The corrections officer, whose name tag read ‘Wegmann’, turned another corner and stopped in front of one of the metal doors, told the team to stay back, and then opened the small food delivery window to check the cell, before initiating the process of opening the door.

  Almost immediately it was clear that something wasn’t right. Officer Wegmann stepped back from the window as if he got shocked by an electric current. His face lost all color as he grasped his microphone and started talking in Swiss German. Other officers started running towards them within seconds.

  Wegmann’s hands were shaking as he tried to open the cell door. Eventually, he succeeded and as the door swung open, they saw Herzog, staring back at them with his eyes wide open, a noose tied tightly around his neck. Given how tall Herzog was, his feet were only a few inches away from touching the floor. A tipped over chair was about three feet away from him.

  “Motherfucker!” Zach was the first one to snap out of his shocked stupor. “How the hell is this possible? This guy was locked up for a couple of hours tops and manages to kill himself?” He angrily glared at Wegmann.

  A tall, grey-haired man walked towards them. Everything in his appearance demanded respect. It was clear, he was in charge. “We don’t appreciate that kind of language around here,” he said icily to Zach and then turned to Zumbach. “Urs, please keep your cowboys under control. I understand your case is a top priority for the brass, but we have our own demons to battle and this is our crime scene.”

  Zumbach nodded. “Understood, Charlie, the team will be mindful. If it’s okay, we’ll just take a few pictures and leave the rest of it to you. Martin, Regina, please have at it.”

  Regina was floored, she didn’t have the faintest clue what to do with a crime scene, so she followed Martin and mirrored his motions, her mind was racing. Did Zumbach simply want to sideline Zach to appease Charlie? Or was there something else? She walked around Herzog’s body to take pictures from a different angle, looked up at the ceiling where the curtain was attached to a rod mounted into the ceiling and snapped a few pictures as well, before moving on to the window which was a good foot above her head and then the metal bed frame.

  “Are you guys ready?” Zumbach seemed eager to get them out of the prison. Martin nodded. Regina couldn’t think of anything else important to capture, so she nodded as well. Zach was still brooding.

  Once they were back at the station, Regina and Martin uploaded their pictures and the team reconvened in the conference room, where they pulled up all images on the big screen.

  “So, Regina, any thoughts?” Zumbach asked.

  “Well,” she said. “Apart from not being a specialist in these things, I just find it strange that a prison would fasten curtain rods so securely that a 200-pound man can successfully hang himself. Wouldn’t it make sense to construct those a little flimsier? Just enough to hold the curtain up, but not to support some serious weight?”

  “Since you mention it, I thought it was odd that Herzog would be able to kick the chair he was standing on three feet across the room. Like he was trying to create enough force to snap his neck versus strangling himself. Creative, but very atypical for a suicide,” Martin added.

  Zumbach pointed at the picture of Herzog’s face. “His eyes are completely clear; no signs of asphyxiation. Now, I could be wrong, but I have a strong suspicion cause of death was a broken neck and not self-inflicted. Someone just went through an awful lot of trouble to make this look like a suicide.”

  “Are the insides of cells not monitored?” Regina asked.

  Martin shook his head. “No, because of privacy laws, we can’t do that. The hallways are monitored though, so anyone who went into that cell or came out of it is captured. Shouldn’t be hard to get the son of a bitch who did this. Although, that probably won’t get us much further either. If these guys are good enough to kill someone in solitary confinement in a prison within hours of the person getting there, they’re good enough to cover their tracks.”

  Zach spoke up for the first time in hours. “Herzog’s security system is monitored, isn’t it? Someone must have been watching when he was arrested and when we searched the house. Possibly someone from the monitoring firm? Or someone hacked into the feed. Either way, whoever it is has some serious underworld connections. Given what we know about Herzog so far, my money is on the guys from Trans European Cargo. At the very least, that’ll give us a starting point.”

  Zumbach smiled. “Welcome back, Zach! Good thinking. With that said, we should divide and conquer. You and Martin follow up on the Trans European Cargo angle, Gabi and Regina, I want you guys to find out how Herzog got that Syrian bust, and I will liaise with Charlie Weiss at the prison to make sure we get the latest info from their investigations. We’ll reconvene in the morning to sync up.”

  39

  Despite their best efforts, long nights and all the computing power they could get their hands on, it took the team the better part of three days to sift through all the information fragments. When they finally got back together, they had assembled a narrative worthy of a Hollywood movie.

  “Who wants to get started?” Zumbach looked around the room, smiling at the clearly excited team.

  Zach raised his hand. “We turned Trans European Cargo inside out. The company was founded in 1963 by Conte Raffaele Cavoletto and his brother-in-law, Alberto Baggio. Thanks to their proximity to the major transit roads and the Conte’s connections, the company did well and grew rather quickly. There were rumors in the seventies that the company moved cargo, specifically drugs, on behalf of mob boss Francesco Turatello, but there were never any indictments.”

  “By the nineties, TEC was moving freight all over Europe and parts of North Africa, specifically Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya. In the fall of 1995, one of their drivers was arrested and tried by the UN War Crimes Tribunal for having delivered weapons to the Bosnian Serbs that were then used during the Bosnian Genocide. However, there were no connections leading back to Cavoletto and Baggio,” Martin added.

  Zach took over. “In 2003, TEC entered a joint venture with Byblos Trading Inc, a Lebanese cargo company, and started shipping livestock, food, medicine and other basic goods to the Middle East. They landed a contract with the International Red Cross to deliver supplies to disaster and war zones. That contract was cancelled in 2014, for no longer passing the ethical standards of the organization. Apparently, one of the principal owners of Byblos Trading was suspected to be dealing arms out of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. And once again, there was no evidence that Cavoletto and Baggio had any kind of knowledge or involvement, but if you ask me, there’s just too much smoke around TEC for there to not be any fire somewhere. Just saying…”

  Martin held up the picture of a dark-haired man in an elegant suit. “Meet Omar Salib, the suspected arms dealer. Third cousin to the Emir of Qatar, son of Qatars’s ambassador to the UK. He is quite a character, born in Paris and raised in capitals around the world, as his father’s duty stations became progressively more impor
tant under the previous Emir. He was raised privileged but conservatively. Think fancy prep schools and ivy league colleges.”

  “Summers at the French Riviera with Europe ‘Jeunesse Dorée’ and winters in St. Moritz,” Gabi added. “We have no indication when exactly he fell off the wagon and turned his attention to crime. Could have started as a dare, boredom, or adoration of a ‘player’ he may have come in contact with over the years. We found that his reach extends far beyond weapons, he’s clearly an equal opportunity offender. The guy will move anything that’s not bolted to the ground and sometimes even that. Weapons, medicine, food, art, if there’s a hot market for it, he’ll try and grab a share. We quickly figured out that Byblos Trading used to have a storage unit at the Zurich Freeport, before it was turned into urban living space.”

  Zumbach frowned. “You’re telling me these guys were dumb enough to leave a paper trail? I find that hard to believe.”

  Regina was prepared for that. “It’s not exactly a paper trail, it’s more of a who was where, when, with whom and why. And kudos to the Swiss government; had they not tightened the regulations on freeports and customs warehouses which went into effect in 2016, this would have been much harder to crack. The Federal Customs Administration now records the identity of the owners of goods, and that means, the content of every crate coming into the freeports, as well as the identity of buyers of goods going out. In addition to that, goods can only stay at the freeports for six months unless an extension is granted by the authorities.”

  “Long story short?” Zumbach raised his left eyebrow.

  Gabi, fully aware of her boss’ lack of patience, chimed in, “After we connected Regina’s Centipede program to the right databases, it was just a matter of massaging the search parameters and waiting for results. Turns out, Herzog’s bust was part of a crate that belonged to Byblos Trading. It came in through Embraport, the new freeport outside of Zurich in May 2016. The buyer was a local antiquities store by the name of Mosaik Antik, located in the Niederdorf. The cargo company handling the crate was, you guessed it, Trans European Cargo. Herzog then bought the bust from Mosaik Antik, whose owner is one of his clients.”