Dead and Gone

by Tina Glasneck

  “I’m not interested in having a relationship with you outside of my capacity with AACP and the need to have security in place. That I’m even considering letting you into my house to spend the night is against my better judgement. I’m only agreeing to this,” Sophia shook her finger at him, “because Nadia needs to be with her friend, and I don’t want her to feel conflicted or guilty because of me.” She moved her hands to her hips and squinted her eyes. “This isn’t your job. Your job is to secure us while we’re on our expedition. Why are you here, exactly?”

  “So Nadia doesn’t feel guilty.” Brian sent her his most winning grin.

  Sophia let out a huff, spun on her heels, climbed the stairs, and stuck her key into the lock. “This is so damned awkward.”

  “That’s not my intention,” he said sincerely.

  She walked in and flicked on the lights. “I know it’s not.” She turned and the look in her eyes tore at him. “I owe you an apology. I’m having trouble being around you because I feel guilty. I left you without an explanation or a goodbye. Please trust me when I say I was trying to keep you safe. I hope you can forgive me. It was a wonderful night. An amazing birthday. And it’s also over. Done.”

  Brian was caught on the fact that she said she’d left to protect him. It was an odd turn of phrase—”trying to keep you safe.” It was hard to listen to the regret that he heard up until she said an “amazing birthday” then her tone turned to stone cold finality. “Apology accepted,” Brian said without a shade of emotion. “I’m glad we’ve come to an understanding, so we can move forward. Right now, that looks like a pillow and blanket for the couch, please.”

  Sophia huffed out the breath she’d held while he spoke. She glanced up the stairs, then looked to her curio cabinet and seemed to focus on a crystal goblet for an over-long time. She turned her beautiful eyes on him, soft and sad. “I have a guest room. Upstairs. End of the hall. Linens are in the bathroom, next door on the right.”

  They both spun around as the front door crashed open.

  “What the hell are you two doing in my house?” a man bellowed, holding his walking stick like a bat. His face was livid red.

  Brian swung his foot in front of Sophia, creating a barricade with his body. But Sophia pushed around him.

  “Mr. Rochester. My name is Sophia Abadi. I live in this house now. You live next door with your son, Joe.”

  “Joe?”

  “Your son, Joe. Let’s walk over, and you can talk to Joe.”

  “But this is my house.”

  “You’re right, Mr. Rochester. This is your house. But Joe is playing next door, we need to go get him. It’s past his bedtime, don’t you think? Come on, I’ll walk with you to get Joe.”

  The man spun to face Brian. “I’m not leaving this hoodlum in my house!”

  “Of course not, Mr. Rochester, he’s coming with us. He wants to say hi to your son. Joe’s waiting for you.” Sophia gingerly took the old man’s arm and started him across the grass between the two houses.

  They were halfway across the open space when they moved in front of a pine tree, a white bucket filled with engine parts sat beside the open hood of the Buick. Rochester sauntered up and unzipped his pants. Sophia waited patiently as the man pulled out his dick and took a piss. Whoever owned that car was going to be in for one hell of a surprise. Rochester stuffed himself into his shorts, then undid his belt and button so he could get his shirt tucked neatly in place. Brian kept his distance, hoping he was forgotten. The last thing he needed was to have this man try to fistfight him.

  Sophia smiled. “This way, Mr. Rochester, let’s go collect Joe.” She rang the bell and delivered Mr. Rochester to his family.

  “You handled that well,” Brian said as they headed back to her place.

  “My dad has dementia. I’ve had a little experience.”

  They walked up the sidewalk to the front door. Brian stopped himself from putting his hand on the small of her back to guide her in. As a matter of fact, he was consciously keeping a good amount of distance between the two of them, hoping it would make Sophia feel more comfortable.

  “My heart goes out to families who are trying to care for their loved ones. I wish I could take some of the burden off my mom. But my being near her would just increase the problems. Better that I stay away.” Resignation filled her voice. Her shoulders drooped. That unexpected visitor seemed to take the last of her strength.

  Still, Brian needed to know. “Does that happen often, Mr. Rochester coming in your house?”

  “Yes, well, he lived here when it was built. When he was first diagnosed, his son moved in next door to be close to his father, but as the disease incapacitated him, they moved him in with them. My in-laws bought this house from Mr. Rochester. In his confusion, this is where he thinks he belongs. He lived here for over forty years. I understand the situation. I just have to do a good job of keeping the doors locked.”

  “Sophia,” Brian said softly. “Take your pill and go to bed. Sleep.”

  Sophia nodded and dragged herself up the stairs.

  14

  Brian

  Thursday a.m.

  “Nutsbe, can you do a search on Marla Richards in connection with the AACP case?” Brian asked. The three teammates assigned to the case had gathered ten minutes early to put their cards on the table before their FBI counterparts showed up for a meeting.

  “Got anything else?”

  “An address.” Brian pulled out his phone and texted the information to Nutsbe. “Looks like Sophia Abadi has a stalker.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Marla’s actions are serious enough that Sophia’s taken it to her therapist,” Thorn said. “The therapist is advising Sophia to treat the woman as a sociopathic threat.”

  “That’s fucked up—but how does Richards tie into the AACP?”

  “Interesting coincidence.” Brian crossed his ankle over his knee and scrunched lower in his seat. “Sophia gave me a timeline of the car accident that we already have in her file, followed by the move, immediately followed by her tires blowing. Within a week of Sophia moving, the empty house at the entrance of her neighborhood was rented, and a week after that Marla Richards was on scene with her sights set on Sophia.”

  “Sophia made that correlation?”

  “Sophia’s so far down the rabbit hole, she’s just swatting at the next crisis. She can’t see a broader picture—heck, I’m not even sure there is a broader picture. It would be good to have background on the woman in case she was shipped in to gaslight Sophia.”

  “But not Nadia?” Nutsbe asked, his fingers tapping across his keyboard.

  “Nadia isn’t a good candidate for gaslighting—her stress history is clean,” Thorn said. “Her dad had a stroke five years ago. Other than that, it’s the normal everyday shit of modern life.”

  “No love interest?”

  “Nothing significant, and it doesn’t look like she’s looking.” Thorn rotated his pen through his fingers at a hypnotizing speed. “To talk to her, she seems generally satisfied with how things are going. She gets her baby fix when she’s with Lana and Sophia’s kids. When she gets tired of them, she leaves. She has a handful of close friends. She dates on occasion. When she’s not working, she goes to the gym. She reads.” He looked up. “What’s this meeting with the FBI about? Anyone have a heads up?”

  “Nada,” Nutsbe said. “Okay, so this is interesting. The house Marla is in is owned by Pierre Richards, a plastics engineer from Toronto, Canada. He’s here on a work visa. He’s single, with no children, according to his papers. The visa was issued in May 2015. Right before the car accident. Anything seem odd about that accident?”

  “I looked over the reports,” Brian said. “Guy had a heart attack, caught them broadside. He died at the scene with no insurance and no assets. So the Pierre Richards visa lists no dependents? I’ve seen two kids at that house, young, maybe three and five years old.”

  “I have nothing in the database on a Marla Richards a
t that address. Not even a driver’s license in the state of Virginia. Have you seen the husband around, Brainiack?”

  “Nope.”

  “Okay, this looks like it bears further investigation. I’m on it.”

  Titus arrived and held the door wide. Andersson strode purposefully across the room followed by Finley. The Panther Force operatives rose respectfully while the special agents took their seats.

  Once everyone had gathered in a loose circle, Titus said, “Gentlemen, you’ve had a couple of days now with our suspects. Are you starting to get a clearer picture of the players?”

  Brian knew if they shared the data they had collected so far, the spotlight would shine on Sophia. It was a trap. Once an investigation honed in on a player, the brain worked to see all evidence as a link and an affirmation. Sure, if he had to pick one of the two, Sophia had all the branding for a perp walk. Maybe Nadia seemed too clean. Maybe she hid behind the fact that if authorities were looking at the partners, she would look wholesome, while Sophia looked vulnerable to recruitment pressure.

  Brian didn’t wholly reject the concept of Nadia using Sophia as a scapegoat, it seemed farfetched. Lana and Nadia both supported and, he believed, loved Sophia. There was a palpable sisterly bond. “We’d like to get a better understanding of this investigation. It would help us to understand the net you’re casting, so we can identify any possible links to move the case forward.” Brian dodged and wove away from the tackle, trying to pass the ball in a different direction.

  Andersson caught Finley’s attention. “I’ll take the arts side.” She cleared her throat and smoothed her hand over her trousers to remove a non-existent wrinkle. “Private collectors here in America, such as the Gilchrest family, are one aspect of the illicit market that we’ve discussed. We’re also seeing conflict antiquities show up in auction houses. Once the pieces move from terrorists to shipping to private homes, it’s hard to find the pieces again. However, they often resurface when, for example, Christie’s publicly displays a piece for auction.”

  “That seems like a hell of a gamble to put trafficked goods up for auction,” Thorn said.

  “It could take a business down if the seller hasn’t sufficiently laundered the piece. However, from the FBI’s point of view, it’s all but impossible to prove in a court of law that the artifact was freshly dug up. The more recently the piece was unearthed, the safer it is. There’s no prior history, probably not even a record that it exists, certainly no way that we can prove that it was acquired illegally.”

  “Are there industry standards to prevent the auction houses from selling black market goods? Guidelines? Why would they take such a risk?” Nutsbe moved from his computer station to sit in the circle with the others.

  “We talked about how lucrative it is for ISIS to steal and sell artifacts,” Andersson said. “But in the Western arts market, there is a far higher profit to be made from the sale and resale of illicit antiquities. Let me give you Cambodia as an example. When the government fought against the Khmer Rouge, thousands of art pieces were stolen. According to research, in a seven-year span, from 1998 to 2005, Sotheby’s sold more than three hundred of those pieces. To address this issue, AACP and other international art and museum organizations developed what they call red lists. The first was for Cambodia, but since then, they’ve also developed lists for Egypt, Peru, Afghanistan, and a handful of other countries. An emergency list was created in 2013 for Syria. The AACP was a powerful force behind that list, and that list is one of the things that Nadia and Sophia are charged with maintaining. You could see how their positions would give them a unique opportunity to manipulate what can be sold and what is listed as hot, and therefore not saleable—or displayable, for that matter. From the arts side of the investigation, we don’t want these items in the mainstream, turning high profits and encouraging the continuing tide of illegal artifacts pouring into the country.”

  “My focus is on terror,” Finley said. “Stopping ISIS from getting its three-mil-a-day bankroll would go far in shutting them down. Traffickers are entrepreneurs. They know that to stay in business they must, A) maintain a supply chain of looted artifacts, and B) have a buyer who doesn’t give a flying flip about the piece’s origin. The traffickers also know that they have to stay ahead of the law. They shift their routes and methods, constantly evolving their tactics to avoid detection.

  “Bribery, fake documentation, finding different carrier systems, are all ways to get the artifacts out of the conflict area and into the US. And what makes it an even harder task to shut down the illicit sales is that the smugglers know at the end of the day, the punishments are basically a slap on the wrist. We told you in our last meeting that the Gilchrests are looking at a fine and the confiscation of the contested items. That’s it.

  “And that’s why we’re not trying to prove art theft. It’s not worth spending our limited resources. Since the Syrian pieces have a direct link to funding ISIS, we’re going for terror charges. Big headlines. Long prison sentences. We want to frighten anyone and everyone that we can pinpoint as having anything to do with the sale of these artifacts. Going back to the business model, we don’t see any way to shut down the supply side of the relationship. We have to go after the buyers, and those who are complicit in getting the items into the hands of the buyers.”

  “Okay, and so how do you read that directive in terms of Nadia and Sophia? Do you want them in a jail cell? Headlines reading: Eminent Archaeologists Jailed for Aiding ISIS? Or do you need them to supply information?” Titus asked.

  “Both. Either. We got Iniquus involved because we simply don’t have the manpower to determine their roles. Right now, we only know they have unique qualifications, unique access. What’s our end goal here? Well, we’re waiting to see what roles Nadia and Sophia are playing in these crimes.”

  “If any,” Thorn said before Brian could get his mouth open.

  Brian wondered if Thorn was as doubtful about this fishing expedition as he was.

  Finley shot a speculative look Thorn’s way. “You think they’re innocent?”

  “They’re passionate about their jobs. Both Sophia and Nadia light up when they talk about what they do. Are there questions? Sure. Do I think this bears further investigation? Absolutely. But I haven’t come to any conclusions yet.”

  “Our next step might help to make things clearer. We’ve set up a sting,” Andersson said.

  Okay good, Brian thought, leaning forward and resting his forearms on his knees. Thorn struck the same pose.

  Brian had found the space between being a protector and an investigator an uncomfortable squeeze. It wasn’t an impossible task—when he was in Iraq, he always knew that the people he depended on had no real loyalties to him and his team. People in crisis blew with the prevailing winds. If he was expedient in keeping them alive today, they might just as easily find the Taliban helped them survive the next day. He learned to be wary. Distrustful. To question. To arm himself with a healthy dose of skepticism. And to walk that tightrope. In the Middle East, losing your balance was life or death. And if he was honest with himself, and listened to that little voice he’d been pushing down, he’d admit that this task seemed equally perilous—though it was his heart, not his life, that was in danger.

  “We’ve recruited an AACP contact in Syria. We gave them two pieces that would appeal in particular to the Gilchrest family.”

  “Where did you get these pieces?” Nutsbe asked.

  “They were identified and acquired by our assets,” Andersson said. “Tracking units have been put on the pieces.”

  “Surely the traffickers aren’t that stupid, they’d do a sweep looking for that kind of thing. They’re bound to know they’re on your radar.”

  Andersson tipped her head toward Nutsbe. “He’s right. We’ve tried and failed to follow the routes by planting simple trackers on pieces. However, it’s not a fruitless effort even if the trackers are found. It forces the black marketers to change their trade routes. From our exper
ience, though, we have a good chance of going undetected this time. It’s only on rare occasions that anyone checks. And we’re using a new technology that thwarts the basic tools for finding the GPS signal. We’re banking on the traffickers being rather low tech if they do a sweep.”

  “How does this lead back to Nadia and Sophia?” Brian asked.

  “Sunday night, information was sent separately to Nadia and Sophia about a unique piece that we’ve assigned to each woman—a marble slab for Sophia and a mosaic for Nadia—that would appeal specifically to the Gilchrest family. Immediately after the original message, the women were contacted and told that the information was sent to them by mistake and was being handled through other channels. Disregard. These pieces were designed to be too good to pass up. Now we wait and see which piece is taken.”

  “Or both,” Thorn said.

  Brian shrugged. “Or neither.”

  “We’ll have to keep tight tabs on their communications,” Nutsbe said. “We can do that if they’re talking at either of their houses or on any of their phones. But I see lots of holes in this plan. For example, Sophia could share information with Nadia, Nadia’s people could act, and Sophia would look culpable or vice versa. Or they could be sending information over the computer.”

  Finley edged forward, concern creasing his forehead. “Aren’t you watching their computers?”

  Thorn scratched his fingers along his brow. “The problem is, on their AACP computer system, they use a code developer, so every forty-five seconds or so a new code is produced and that’s the only code that can access their computers. No amount of hacking software can break in. If we could get to those computers while they’re working—”

  “A scenario that hasn’t presented itself in the short time we’ve been on the case,” Brian interjected.

  Nutsbe gave him a nod. “If we can get access, then we could plant spyware. The only other option we have right now is to put a keystroke capturing device on the computers, but since their computers don’t have a tower system, it would catch their attention. They’d know for sure someone was gaining access to their system and point the finger at Iniquus—”