by Peche, Alec
“They were given ten-thousand euros upfront. They were told that they would be watched and she would know when you were captured.”
“That suggests that she has been in the neighborhood of our various encounters with these men,” Angela mused. “Are there any videos in those areas that might be analyzed to find a common woman in the background?”
“We need to question our suspect from today's attempted kidnapping. We have a list of routine questions, as well as some additional questions based on what we know from the first two men. There is room for two of you to observe the questioning, but it is going to be in French. I understand that you wanted Angela to observe, but given the language barrier, I would recommend the gentlemen.”
Angela looked disappointed with that piece of information, but she had to agree that she couldn't overcome the language barrier. Nick’s French was better than Nathan's, and he had experience in law enforcement, but it was good to have Nathan observe as well. The women gave him a list of questions that they wanted asked and the two left the room.
“Did you find anything in our purses or Marie's jacket? I know you've only had the items for about an hour, but I would think that would be enough time to examine them,” remarked Jill.
“I was just about to check on our lab,” replied Dubois as he picked up the phone. While they did not speak French, the women could tell by the conversation that something had been found.
After hanging up the phone, Dubois returned to the table and said, “They found something in the jacket. It appears to be a small computer component that was placed in the inside pocket of the jacket. The lab is trying to access the chip as it is not a normal flash drive. Would you like to accompany me to the lab to see the component?”
“Yes, and can we retrieve our purses at the same time? I feel naked without it on my shoulder,” said Marie as the group left the conference room.
Brussels had one of the largest Interpol locations in the world and the criminal science lab occupied an entire floor. Jill and Marie located their purses next to a technician with a sigh of a relief. They were in a police building, but still had trouble trusting strangers with their personal belongings.
Dubois greeted a technician with what looked like a disassembled computer in front of her. When they got closer they noticed that she had a series of computer components and cords as she was examining what looked like a watch battery. Dubois performed introductions.
“Have you ever seen such a chip or whatever it is before?” asked Jill.
“Yes, if you look inside this computer, you’ll see similar components. The difficulty is finding which component to put this chip in and I’ve located that just now. Let’s see what is on the disk when we power it up.”
“Accès refuse” was the response by the computer.
Marie commented, “I am thinking that is French for ‘access denied.’”
The technician nodded without looking up. She spent the next twenty minutes using various software programs.
The technician’s first goal was to get to a login page and the second was to figure out a username and password. A few minutes later, she was able to hack into the disk. They all leaned closer to read the screen. Again, it was French, so they leaned back and waited for the technician to translate.
“There is a lot of information here. Why don’t I use translation software? It will give you about a 90 percent accurate translation.”
The women nodded and a few minutes later had a paper copy of the files with the content translated into English. They left the lab, following Dubois back to the conference room. Coming out of the elevator on the seventh floor, they were met by Nick and Nathan exiting an adjoining elevator car. They entered the conference room along with Willems and Dubois.
“Inspector Willems, why don’t you start with what you learned in the interview of our suspect, beginning with his identity?” began Dubois.
“His name is Lloyd Judson Benjamin; he is a dual Belgian and South African resident. He is wanted for illegal trading of precious stones, and thought to be connected to jewelry thefts in several European cities. He has no history of violence. He appears to be hired by the same woman as the other two, although she seems to have had a different disguise when she met with him. We don’t think he had a partner, but he does know the other two men in custody. He was offered the same payment as the others fifty-thousand euros.”
“How did one man think he could capture four women?” Jo said, puzzled, ever the strategic thinker.
“Mr. Benjamin is not a violent person by nature – he was looking at the situation as capture and release. He would kidnap each of you one at a time; take you to an apartment to hold you for questioning by the woman that hired him, then release you.”
“He didn’t think we would object to his scheme, perhaps tell the police about the apartment location?” Marie asked.
“Let’s just say he wasn’t the sharpest criminal we have interviewed here in Brussels. Would you gentlemen agree?” asked Willems.
Nathan, of course, had no experience with the criminal element, but even he thought that Mr. Benjamin was likely to have a short tenure in his life as a criminal.
“He is about the dumbest and most naïve criminal I have ever seen interviewed by law enforcement,” affirmed Nick. “He really believed kidnapping you ladies, one at a time would work. The woman that hired him must not be very insightful about people’s skills.”
“When asked how he would contact the woman once he had you in custody, he responded that he had been provided with a disposable cell phone to use to contact her. It is interesting that she didn’t tell the man she would be watching for your capture like she told the first two men.
“We checked the records on the phone, but it had never been used so that was a dead end. When questioned about what she wanted you for, he indicated that she just wanted to talk to you. He really wasn't very helpful. Now he will go through the legal process as this is such a clear case of attempted kidnapping. We have too many witnesses and the picture of him holding a knife on Madame Pringle.”
“Thank you, Inspector Willems. Is there anything else that anyone wants to add about the interview of Monsieur Benjamin?” asked Dubois, looking at Nathan and Nick. They both indicated they had nothing to add to Inspector Willems’ report.
“Now, let's move on to discuss the contents of the disk that Laura Peeters dropped into Marie's jacket. Our lab technician ran the file through translation software and that is the report that Jill is holding. I have additional copies here in French for Inspector Willems as well as Nick and Nathan. Let's all take a moment to review the information.”
There was silence in the conference room while they all examined the report of the disk contents. Dubois waited until everyone appeared to have finished reading the report.
“This disk appears to contain an extensive list of precious stone thefts over a fifteen-year period. My assumption is that we may attribute these thefts to Laura Peeters. I don't know how else she would have these records unless she was involved in the crimes,” asserted Dubois.
“This also seems to be a general ledger of sorts,” proclaimed Jo. “She has the estimated value of the theft, what she received for those stones when she sold them, deposits to what I assume is a Swiss bank account, and deposits to the charity that she operated for the miners. What is odd to me is it appears that she received income from the diamond consortium. If she was stealing from them, why was she getting income from them? It appears to be a direct sale back to the consortium?”
“I don't understand this ledger that you speak of - can you walk me through how you arrived at your conclusions,” Dubois requested.
Jo proceeded to walk Dubois through the financial transactions of Laura Peeters. Angela was researching the charity that Laura operated and Marie was doing an extensive search on the names in the ledger. Inspector Willems had gone to a whiteboard in the conference room and was creating a timeline of Laura's activities over the past fifteen
years or so and added pictures of her, the three men in custody, the unknown woman who had hired the men, and the known heads of the consortium. Jill closed her eyes and reviewed what she knew about Laura.
Obviously, the unidentified woman guessed that Laura had given the disk to one of the four women. So that meant that Laura had informed the woman of the existence of the information. Was the woman a friend or a foe of Laura’s? Was she trying to recover the information to protect Laura or to protect something else? Was the woman related to the consortium? Jill decided she would focus on identifying the woman who was organizing the kidnapping attempts.
Jill opened her eyes and asked Willems for the artist’s sketch of the woman.
Sketch in hand, she said to Nathan “Would you be able to make a few adjustments to the sketch? This isn't your usual wine label, but I figure you have an artist’s eye.”
“Yes, what do you need me to change?”
“The facial recognition software was unable to identify her picture. With all the access that Interpol has to passport and driver’s license pictures, I can't believe there is no match for her picture. What could she do on a temporary basis to confuse our facial recognition of her? I think she could change the shape of her eyes with sufficient makeup. She can't do anything temporary with her chin or nose. She could change her teeth and her cheeks with some temporary dentures and padding, but that might get in the way of her speaking abilities. She could also plump her lips. So let's make subtle changes to her picture and see if we get any matches. Make her eyes a little more rounded, narrow her lips, and thin her cheeks.”
“How is this?” said Nathan holding the sketch up for her to view.
“Perfect! Inspector Willems would you run this picture again through your facial recognition software?”
He left the room with the sketch. Jill continued to think, but was unable to come up with any new ideas. The inspector returned to the conference room after a brief time.
“We have a match! Her name is Chloe Martin, and she’s Laura Peeters’ cousin - And like her cousin, she has several aliases. Jill, altering the sketch was a brilliant suggestion.”
“How do you know they are cousins when we didn’t think Laura had any family?”
“Yes, younger by two years, from Laura’s mother’s side of the family. When we got a match it listed family members. Laura’s mother’s maiden name was Wouters, which was different from Chloe’s mother’s maiden name. As the two mothers were step-siblings, there wasn’t a match for family. We didn’t make the family connection between the two women until we dug a little further into the marriage records of the city of Mechelen, where they were both raised.”
“What do you know about her? Since she has aliases, I am guessing that she is known to the Belgian police?” speculated Marie as she started a new search on Chloe.
“Yes, she is known to both the Belgian police and Interpol. She left DNA behind on a jewelry heist some ten years ago and has been wanted ever since. Officer Dubois, is the diamond heist at the Palace Hotel on the list?”
“If it occurred in 2003, then yes, it is on Laura’s list.”
“Have the police installed surveillance cameras around the city?” asked Jill.
“Yes.”
“Can your information technology people set-up the facial recognition software to examine your cameras across the city for a match to Chloe’s sketch?” Jill suggested, “We would at least be able to identify which sectors of the city she travels in when she is not wearing the full disguise.”
“Is that a technique you used in your last case in San Francisco?”
“Yes, and it worked very well. The San Francisco Police Department was able to make an arrest within an hour of sighting a suspect on-camera. We were amazed at how close he was to the building in which the FBI was keeping me in protective custody.”
“Let me call my chief inspector so that he can have a technician evaluate our ability to do that,” said Willems. “I also think he’ll want to be brought into this conversation, as what began as a simple kidnapping attempt is evolving into a much larger case.”
“Inspector Willems is correct; we likely need to inform both of our superiors as we’ll want to set up a joint task force. Why don’t we plan to reconvene in our Command Center on the fifth floor in four hours? That will allow us time to invite our colleagues in Antwerp and Amsterdam, as well as to notify the U. S. Consulate here in Brussels of your situation and give them sufficient time to travel. Ladies and gentlemen, I would be happy to show you to a cafeteria we have in this building to wait while we assemble a larger group.” Inspector Dubois said.
“Thank you for that offer, but we would rather walk over to the Royal Palace area and explore the treasures of Brussels. I think if you alert the officers in that sector of our possible need for assistance, then we’ll be fine,” replied Jill. “We have two excellent bodyguards. After the museum, we’ll get dinner and then return to this building at the designated time. You have our mobile phone numbers if you need to contact us. We might come up with some fresh ideas about this mystery away from this conference room.”
The group departed the building, heading toward the Royal Museum. They appreciated how nice it was to be outside and act as tourists for a few hours and they agreed that food and beer was definitely in their near future. Keeping an eye out for anyone paying too much attention to them, they were still managing to enjoy the friendship of one another.
From the grounds of the Royal Palace, they could look out on the entire city and the view was incredible. In the distance was the Atomium, built for the World’s Fair in 1958. It looked like a giant molecule. They ducked into the Church of Notre Dame, followed by a visit to the Cinquantenaire Museum. There was a chamber quartet concert being conducted in one of the rooms there that they were able to enjoy for a brief time.
They left the Royal Palace square and followed Nick to a restaurant that served French pub food and, of course, beer. Not wanting to appear intoxicated in front of Interpol and the Belgian police, Jill, the alcohol lightweight of group limited her consumption to one beer. She retrieved the print-out of the materials on the disk that had been found in Marie’s jacket pocket and spread it out on the table in front of everyone. They all took a moment to study the information.
“It looks like there is a detailed listing of each theft,” concluded Nick. “She records the carats of the diamonds, the quantity, setting if relevant, any other stones, and where she delivered or otherwise disposed of the stones.”
“It also looks like she records her estimated value of the theft and what she was able to resell them at,” Jo summarized.
“What do think the initials are for in this column?” asked Marie, pointing to the second column on the paper.
“I have no idea,” Angela said. “She labels the column heading ‘job’ and it looks like there are repeating initials.”
“It appears that there are six sets of initials,” Marie declared. “Do you think that corresponds to the six diamond consortium members?”
“Good catch, Marie. Do the initials compare to the company name, or the CEO, or the family name?”
“Here is the list of the company names let’s compare,” Jill suggested, and they all leaned forward to compare the two lists.
“I don’t see any correlation,” remarked Nathan.
“No, I don’t either,” replied Jill. “Where is our list with their CEO names or any other information we have on the members? I wouldn’t think she would deal directly with the CEO on the thefts. It is too coincidental to have six sets of initials and six consortium members. We just haven’t found the legend to these initial sets.”
“Leave that to me to figure out, since I love puzzles like this little mystery,” said Nathan. He took the list and moved to another table.
The other five returned to the print-out to discuss what other information was contained therein.
“There is an interesting trend on the estimated value of the theft and the re
sale value,” Jo mused. “She seems to have been able to keep a stable 80 to 85 percent. I wonder how she did that over the course of the fifteen years. It seems improbable to me that you would always have the exact same percentage. It almost suggests she had a contract to always guarantee a certain return. If I could see the original spreadsheet, I could determine if there are any formulas in use in any of the columns. That would imply either an estimate or a contractual obligation in some of the columns.”
“She appears to be an exact person in her record-keeping so, Jo, I would concur with your explanation of a contractual obligation,” Marie agreed.
“What other information is available?” Angela asked “Is this all of the files of the disk? Is it just this spreadsheet?”
“When the technician opened the disk, there were three files,” replied Jill. “Do we have that many files worth of information in this print-out?”
“It looks like there are two files,” verified Nick. “We will have to ask about the third file. I don’t think they purposely are keeping something from you - maybe it was just the disk directory.”
“Okay, we won’t worry about missing information. Rather, let’s review the second file,” directed Jill as they all leaned over to examine the second set of pages.
“It appears to be an accounting of her charity perhaps,” Angela observed. “These expenses are wide ranging from health care to clothing to education. The quantity noted suggests her charity was supporting hundreds of people. This is an impressive operation.”
“How many years of accounting does there appear to be on all these sheets?” Jo asked.
“At least ten years. In the beginning, it looks like she started with just education. Over time she added healthcare, clothing, and perhaps some micro-loans. It’s a very sophisticated operation. She is a thief, but I like what she did with her money. She makes me have conflicted feelings since she did so much good with her earnings from thievery,” said Angela, wavering in her impression of Laura. “She is a modern-day Robin Hood stealing from wealthy diamond mine-owners and retail stores that sell conflict diamonds. Then she turned around and gave the proceeds to a miners’ fund. Jo, what is the total size of this charity? Can you perform your accounting magic and summarize this charity for us?”