He pulled out a business card case and handed me a white linen card. Roselov Fine Art was embossed in an elegant black script, and directly below it was the word London.
“Two weeks ago, Mr. White had called and informed me that he had several paintings come into his possession and wanted to sell them through my gallery. I’ve identified a purchaser for those paintings,” he declared.
I tilted my head upward to look at him. I took note of his square jaw and muscular frame. If you looked close enough, you could catch sight of the colorful tattoo peeking out from his crisp white shirt that was set off by a crimson tie.
“This patron is eager to take possession of the paintings at once. I’ve made a special trip from London to arrange their transport personally. Ms. Collier, I cannot stress enough that time is of the essence,” he said as he did a visual sweep of the area.
I heard a tap on the glass and Aunt Mary said, “Ask him where he is staying and how long he will be here.”
Roselov grinned at her and replied he was staying at the Hyatt for three days and later would be in Boston for four days. She gave him the thumbs-up sign and a goofy smile.
I stepped back as he leaned into me close enough to smell his clean scent. “This may be a bold request, but I am rather desperate. Would you object if I had a look in his studio to see if the paintings are there?”
Ding, ding, ding. Alarms went off, and I needed to decide if I should tell him about the FBI involvement or try to act cool and obtain more information. I honestly hated this feeling of balancing on a razor’s thin edge. Maybe I was jumping the gun, and he was a business associate here to do business. But what if he was part of some criminal scheme? What if he was Russian Mafia? My mind was running wild. Aunt Mary’s crazy conspiracy theories had finally driven me to the land of paranoia, and it appeared I would be taking up residence there indefinitely.
“I understand your predicament, and if I had the code, I would let you in.” I lied to him without regret or guilt. “Jude is the only one with the access information to enter. I have never been inside so I wouldn’t know where to begin to look or how to help you find what you need.”
“Let me be candid. It concerns me because an associate in Boston contacted me to tell me the police met with him about Mr. White’s disappearance. Paintings which Mr. White had picked up from the dealer are missing, and he is worried about his property that Mr. White took possession of on my behalf. But more importantly, Mr. White has possession of two priceless paintings acting as an intermediary agent for him, and we don’t know where those are either. In short, Mr. White has the funds and the paintings. It is urgent we recover the property and complete the transaction. Now my client is out a large sum of money as well as the paintings he purchased.” His face had turned hard and the pleasantness in his tone had dissipated. The charm had slipped from his act.
“That may be true, Mr. Roselov. I know surprisingly little about Jude’s business. The police are holding their cards close and haven’t shared much with me, and they have said they are not in the business of speculating when still gathering facts. Detective Marino is working the case, and I can offer to have him contact you. Or I can give you his information, and you can contact him yourself if you choose,” I offered. “I only know what the police has deemed public information, which is they discovered his abandoned car.”
“I see,” he said. “Did he run off leaving his clients holding the bag?” he demanded to know with anger and malice lacing his tone.
“No, of course not. I have always known Jude as a responsible man. I am concerned he was a victim of a robbery, and he is lying in a hospital bed somewhere unconscious with no identification.” I even had trouble believing my excuse.
Mary tapped the glass with her fingernails for our attention. When I turned to look at her, she shook her head and added, “He ran off with some new woman. You mark my words he’s in the Caribbean with a large fruity drink on the beach snuggling up with some twenty-year-old floozy. Probably covered in tanning oil, drunk, and spending everyone’s money.”
Shocked by Aunt Mary’s outrageous assertion, it took a moment to assimilate the absurdity of her statement successfully breaking the tension of our conversation.
“Let’s hope not. He has duties here,” he responded in a less tense manner.
“As I said, if I have any news—” And he cut me short.
“Would you mind if I peeked in a window of his studio since I have made such a long journey? Maybe they are in plain sight, and if I see them I can assure my client the transaction will take place,” he asked pushing his agenda.
“If it were up to me, I would let you. But Jude is a bit of a security nut,” I replied. “The place is secured better than the United States Treasury. The rare times Lucy, my dog, goes within three feet of the perimeter of the building it sets off an alarm that goes on forever. That racket requires me to call the security company in a panic to shut it off every time. He keeps the blinds covering the windows closed from the inside unless he is working there. So, all in all, checking would be pointless.”
“Well, then thank you for your time. I am sorry to have disturbed you. Enjoy the rest of your day,” he said. “If you don’t object, I will check back in a few days.”
“Here, let me give you my number so you can save yourself a drive back out. Or you can contact Detective Marino,” I offered. “And if you give me a description of what paintings you are looking for, I’ll most certainly be on the lookout.”
“Ah, I would love to, but my client is a very private individual and would not appreciate me sharing his secrets,” he said taking his phone from his jacket to accept my number. “But I will take your number. And I don’t see any need to bother the detective. I’m confident they stay busy enough without people using their time to give updates.” He tapped my number under his contacts in his phone and extended his hand to say goodbye.
He walked to his sleek car with confidence and power rolling off him. He looked briefly toward the lake in the direction of the boats and said, “Lovely view.”
His eyes darted to the studio before he closed his car door and left.
I watched his car wind down the driveway until it was out of eyesight. On the way back inside, I glanced toward the lake as random boats drifted.
Aunt Mary waved her cell phone at me as I stepped into the house.
“What?” I asked.
“Got a bunch of pictures of him,” she responded enthusiastically.
“Oh. My. God. You are brilliant,” I said clapping my hands in front of me. “Wait, is this for some creepy crush thing you will post to Facebook?”
“For identification so the police can trace him. They will be able to run him through some master database in Washington,” she said. With all the CSI she watched, I was sure she was right.
As I looked through the images, my telephone rang. Cillian’s name came up on the screen identifying him as the caller.
“You will never imagine what just took place.” I answered the phone, excited to share this vital information.
I was all over this and had a big revelation for him.
“Dmitri Roselov just left there,” he said unfazed.
“What! How did you know?” I asked.
“We’ve got cameras all over the yard and house for constant observation. As soon as he hit the driveway coming in, we were running his license plate. When the car rental came back to his name our computers ran everything on him. If you look outside I am shutting my truck off and I’m walking to your front door,” he said and sure enough his black GMC was parked at my door. I had no suspicion they had set up cameras, sneaky bastards.
“Emma, not to frighten you, but with the level of vicious criminals involved in this global network, we have left nothing to chance. Hence the added surveillance,” he offered.
Which should have given me comfort. Instead, mulling that information flashed pictures through my mind of a reporter who had been beheaded.
Cillian
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I STILL HAD NO SOLID plan to tell Emma what we uncovered. The discussion would be an ad lib for sure. I wasn’t sure how to break it to her Jude’s activity had put people across the globe in danger. He had his fingers in so many pies it was impossible to count the deaths already attributed to his participation in the network of activities.
Are the two girls snatched while vacationing in Thailand now part of a human trafficking ring funded by White’s activities? Or maybe they were killed for their body parts courtesy of his scheme. What we knew for certain is a coordinated global terror threat was imminent, we just didn’t know where or when it would occur. What we did know was weapons shipments and bombs were being prepared for use and the painting we were watching to be used toward the payment still sat in Miami.
“Hey, I am glad the FBI is watching us, but a heads-up would have been nice,” Emma said as she opened the door.
I entered and followed Emma, making a left into the kitchen. The immaculate stainless steel appliances that didn’t even display a smudge indicated no happy children lived here. The kitchen, like the man who owned the house, seemed sad and barren. I sat in a ladder back chair at the informal breakfast table while Emma prepared a large pot of coffee. I inwardly chuckled as I looked at Mary trying to dispose of the cup in her hands, scheming for a fresh one. This conversation had to go just right or the plans Thad, Jackson, and I put together would fall apart. We were running out of time and ideas. The paintings in the living room were perfect fakes down to the stamps and noted exhibitions. But we needed the originals and we were sure White had them stashed away somewhere. We just had to find them. His customer wanted them for a reason we were all too familiar with, and half a billion dollars could fund a whole lot of death and terror.
“We have evidence Jude has been laundering money through the art he sells and steals. We have uncovered an extensive illegal export operation that has global reach to Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Our discussion must stay in this room, but to help you understand the severity and danger involved, I need to lay some facts out for you.
“His involvement in this network dates back at least three years, and until now the entire operation ran smoothly, mostly because it funded small money laundering needs. Last year, our government became interconnected globally with other countries tracking his network through Roselov. It started as a small cell three years ago. Then two years ago the smaller cell linked up to a larger network and that network hooked up to a global organization last year. Large funds have been accumulating and sitting in banks worldwide, and the use of that money has picked up in the last two months. Money that was stagnant for over a year is moving slowly, but it is moving. And why mobilize it now? We don’t know if the money is for drugs or to finance terrorist activities, or even a small civil war because there is only slow movement and no chatter.”
“Cillian, I have come to terms that Jude has committed crimes. What I can’t begin to comprehend is how I could have lived with a person who pulled the wool over my eyes with no effort. And now I find out he is part of some international art fraud scheme.” Her hands fidgeted with her shirt almost pulling the threads apart.
Mary remained eerily silent. She sat forward touching Emma’s hand thoughtfully.
“Emmie Lou, child. You need to hush right now and pay attention to every word this man says. He’s telling you it is more than your garden variety con. It is something the magnitude of the Twin Tower destruction. So, listen and absorb what he is saying,” Mary said and then gave me the nod to continue.
Emma tensed, swallowed hard and nodded her head.
“Smugglers, drug traffickers, arms dealers, and terrorists use the art market to launder their money because there is no transparency. They can conceal and move millions of dollars through one or two well-planned art purchases. I believe that’s why Roselov made a personal appearance today. White has physical possession of someone’s money, and from the sounds of it, someone’s art as well. I guess in total he might be holding a quarter of a billion dollars belonging to at least two sources.
“The stock market and financial institutions have regulatory bodies that make moving money of that magnitude difficult without a red flag because of the paper trail they leave. It makes it hard to park money there. However, art is bought, sold, or transferred through the public and private sector. If White has someone’s money and art as Roselov suspects, he might be hiding the art somewhere for later use and gathering all his funds to run,” I said.
I waited a beat to let it sink in that this could be personal. I continued.
“So how does this work? And go slow for the seniors in the room,” Mary asked and settled back to soak up all the information I was about to provide.
“Good, I have your interest.” I winked. “I’ll run through all the likely scenarios quickly. Will that work?” I asked.
“Should we be taking notes?” Mary smirked.
“Really?” I asked incredulously, and she returned a laugh.
“The who you would think is simple but not exactly. The easy answer is criminals, and that includes every evil known to man. Anyone who knowingly participates in a crime is a criminal. But specifically, we don’t know the specific individuals because they’ve left no paper trail. They are likely Jude’s associates who want or need to hide their money because they obtained it illegally. And we can’t discount people who don’t want to pay tax or duty on their money, so they need it laundered. And people who want to move large sums of money through compact methods.
“Let’s move onto the why and the how which we still don’t have the answers, so I’m just spitballing,” I said.
Standing up to get another cup of coffee Emma said, “Oh I bet you have some idea. If you’ve been tracking Jude for almost a year, I’m sure you even know what he takes in his coffee.”
“Hate to admit it but I know he takes his coffee black with sugar,” I confirmed her suspicion. “The how part is a bit complicated because of so many layers of hiding and mixing money. The bank calls this activity smurfing. It just means making a deposit in a particular pattern in a bank to avoid a trigger of the bank snooping so don’t get caught up in the term. That’s why they like to use art. Think of art as something fluid and hard to stop because it isn’t regulated, and cash as something that clogs up a system. Art flows through a relatively unregulated market much like water through a pipe without valves. The art market has no valves or regulatory body to regulate the flow of goods. Cash however is stopped by the bank’s regulatory valves. So, like water without anything to control its flow it can go anywhere unimpeded. That’s why criminals are so fond of art and the art market.
“Of all the markets, it is the least transparent and right now the most stable. Seldom do you lose money on a purchase and because of its stability art appreciates and doesn’t often depreciate. Even with the financial crash of 2009 the art market still held steady. That is until now. Now with regulations starting to be enacted the market is getting nervous, and prices are wobbling a bit. People are being more cautious about their purchases and not automatically paying the reserve price. We may soon see people trying to unload some pieces while the market is high because they worry a crash can come slow or without warning.
“My theory is as governments get more serious about tracking the buying and selling of art this will eventually cause prices to descend slowly and that at a point quickly crash. Right now, the value is regulated by what someone wants to pay for a piece; there is no fair market value. If someone wants to hide eighty million dollars in the sale of a canvas worth twenty thousand no one will stop that person. Value like beauty is in the eye of the beholder. It is capitalism at its finest,” I said and waited for comments, and none came.
“The why in a nutshell is several layers deep. I believe part of White’s business was to sell fake art as originals. It was your garden-variety con as Mary put it but also aided money laundering. The other part was trafficking in stolen property. Of course, both done to make mone
y, and he made a lot of it. But from what we are discovering as we dig is that he has somehow become linked to a dangerous global movement. He has become immersed in a group that promotes radical ideas and obtains funding through many sources. But for some reason, it appears he decided to throw a monkey wrench in this well-oiled machine and possibly cut and run.”
“If his machine is working so well, then why stop?” Mary asked.
“Mary, I don’t have the answer to that, but for some reason, Jude has disappeared and seems to be the one to have pulled the pin out of the machine that brought it to a grinding halt. From what Roselov said, White’s got a substantial amount of their funds, and they can’t move forward without it. But with so many players we don’t know if that is speculation or true.”
“So where is the money? This house is lovely, but if he’s sitting on a quarter of a billion dollars it’s not in material possessions we can see. You think he has an island we don’t know about that he bought with his money?” Mary said.
“Hush, Mary. I want to see what Cillian has to say. I want to understand exactly how this operation works in detail. What was going on in that studio alone represented millions of dollars,” Emma said.
“Based on what we’ve been able to piece together, one part of his enterprise involves fencing stolen art. Some he sells himself. The pieces too hot to go unnoticed go to London. From there, Roselov scatters the art through his gallery to the black market.
“The second part of this is where White works directly with Roselov to sell his best forgeries and kicks the money laundering up on a larger scale. These are the multimillion dollar deals that probably involve global syndicates and networks. He produces the art work, and Roselov sells it. White and Roselov work in conjunction with a buyer of the art and they conspire to inflate the price so it looks like a legitimate sale. The buyer gets the fake, White cleans the money, and the buyer’s buyer gets the funds from White. White and Roselov keep hefty commissions, and everyone is happy.”
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