Aurum Regium

“What?” exclaimed Jefferson. The piece of news that Dick had been in the hospital since the morning of the previous day had different effects on the inhabitants of the room. David was looking towards Sam as though he felt that the agent was lying, Sam’s eyes were wide and he had wiped his forehead, a gesture which highlighted the fact that he was baffled, while Jefferson had just exclaimed and was staring at the mobile in Sam’s hand as if he felt certain that the harmless piece of technology was playing a joke on him. Michael looked surprised, but after a few moments he fell into deep thought.

“How is this possible?” asked David.

Jefferson looked at Sam who stared back at him blankly. Suddenly all heads turned towards Michael as he said, “It is not impossible, just very, very hard, even with a lot of planning.”

“What do you mean? Cloning?” asked Sam.

Michael laughed a little and said, “Nothing of that sort, this is not a science fiction movie. The thing is the thieves are smart, this proves it. The staff says that they saw Dick on duty, but the hospital record confirms that he was admitted when he claims he was.”

Jefferson grew impatient, he said, “Yes, we know that. What is your point?”

“My point is that there is only one way they could have managed to pull off the heist and that was with the help of an inside man and now we know who that was.”

“And that man is Dick?” suggested Sam

Michael shook his head and said, “Not quite. It was an entirely different man altogether, a stranger, a man who was impersonating Dick with such perfection that no one even realized that a substitution had taken place. It was all an act, a well-planned and elaborate scheme executed with perfection.”

Jefferson shook his head. “That is a far-fetched theory. It is not possible to impersonate a man with such perfection. Even if they could, there is absolutely no way they could have done it in less than a week. They had to monitor his behavior, the way he spoke, everything, and that too when Dick spent most of his time here, on duty, which meant they could not monitor his activities.”

Michael said, “It’s far-fetched, I agree, but it is the only logical explanation, because quite frankly, I don’t believe that Dick has got some twin brother who has managed to evade detection since the time he was born.”

Sam snickered. “Well, it appears we are going to have to wait for the man himself to wake up to shed some more light on the matter.”

“What happened to him anyway? Poison?” asked Jefferson.

“Nope, a blow on the head which resulted in a serious concussion,” replied Sam. “His family says that he was on his way to work in the morning when he was allegedly kidnapped for a short duration of time. No one saw him, a while later the family received a call from a stranger saying that he had found the man in an alley.”

“Did they file a police report?” asked Michael.

Sam shook his head, “Nope. They say they were too worried about Dick’s health to do anything else at that time.”

Jefferson stood up and said, “All right, David, there is nothing more to be done here. A team will scour the crime scene for any evidence left behind by the thieves and we will keep you updated about the progress.”

David nodded and the agents took their leave. Once in the car, all three of them began following different threads of thought which had varied beginnings but the same conclusion. The conclusion was a question, how had they done it? Usually when a robbery is committed, the method is known and the guilty party must be found and brought to justice, but in this case, the way in which the robbery was committed was as much of a riddle as who had committed it.

Jefferson did not say even a single word during the return journey and the younger agents were wise enough to realize that it was best not to disturb him.

Upon reaching their destination, Jefferson went into the office and shut the door. As far as he could remember there had never been a case that he had taken personally, he believed that an objective view was the best when approaching a case as that enabled a person to form theories devoid of their opinion, however, this case was different. This time there was someone out there who had targeted Jefferson, the person had taunted him and then committed a robbery under his very nose. To say the least, this experience was highly humiliating. But Jefferson was not one of the people who let their emotions hinder their performance, he had complete control over his emotions and that was a quality which was particularly useful in the present situation.

While any other person would have been infuriated and many of them would have felt like smashing things, Jefferson took the situation as a challenge and thus, instead of getting demoralized, he was motivated. With the intention of refreshing his memory on the details of the case of the original thieves he decided to dig into the case file. As he turned the pages of the file, various instances began going through his mind and soon he was lost in memories of the past.

After a while he closed the file and devoted his mind entirely to his thoughts. He was trying to figure out how to get an upper hand against the thieves. His mind was formulating various situations when there was a knock on his door and Sam entered, along with Michael.

Sam was practically jumping with excitement. His eyes were wide and after a long time, Jefferson saw that Michael’s facial expression was one of excitement as well.

Jefferson said, “What has gotten into you two? What did you find?”

Sam placed a laptop on Jefferson’s desk and showing him a dark footage, he said, “Look. Just look at the footage, and you will see.”

Everyone focused on the display screen of the laptop, for over a minute all they could see were dark shapes moving around, then there was a small light towards the end of the screen and a moment later, the footage ended.

Jefferson looked at Sam as though the young agent had just pulled a stupid prank on him. “Please tell me what you expected me to see here.”

“Nothing,” said Sam.

“Nothing?” asked Jefferson.

Michael said, “Yes, nothing, but look what happens when you enhance the Image…show him, Sam.”

Sam pulled up the edited footage and this time, towards the end of the footage, just for a split second, there was a car visible. With its license plate.

Jefferson’s eyes went wide and now, he was sharing the excitement which had infected Sam and Michael when they had entered the office. He zoomed the image and then took a long look at it, finally he said, “Did you check out the records yet?”

“Yep!” replied Sam with a flourish “The car was bought quite some time ago, registered to a shell corporation, but there is an address we could check.”

“Very well, you two go and check it out. Remember, do not engage, just survey and report back. If we get something, we do not want to alert them,” cautioned Jefferson.

“Survey? I think we have enough to bring them in and question them till they break,” said Michael.

“No, we need to get the diamonds back and find out if he has any co-conspirators. A guy clever enough to pull off a heist with such sophistication is someone we need to exercise caution with.”

Sam nodded reluctantly and both agents headed out of the office. Michael excused himself to go to the washroom while Sam offered to get the car out front and meet him outside. Michael went into the washroom and walked up to the basin, he splashed some water on his face and tried to relax. Just as he was doing this another agent entered the washroom and began washing his hands. Now Michael grew uncomfortable. Ever since he had left alcohol he had been suffering from certain uncomfortable symptoms, one of them was a feeling of sudden anxiety and a strong craving for alcohol. At the time of these episodes, Michael had to focus in order to stay true to the promise that he had made to Jefferson. He was having one of those episodes now, he washed his face again and could feel his hands shaking slightly.

“Are you all right?” asked the other agent in the washroom.

“Yes, I’m fine,” replied Michael.

He splashed some more water on his face and looked at himself in the mirror. He stared straight into his own eyes and after a moment, he had regained control over his body and mind. He wiped his hands and headed out of the washroom, straight towards where Sam was waiting for him in the car.

As Michael Entered the car, Sam looked at his face and said, “Are you feeling all right Michael? You look pale.”

“It’s nothing, just tired,” said Michael.

This answer did not seem to satisfy Sam, but he decided not to ask any more questions. The reason for this decision of his was that he had seen that Michael’s hands had a slight tremor. Few people knew Sam had an elder brother who was an alcoholic. Sam had spent years praying to God that Alcohol would go extinct from Earth but then he had grown up and realized that the problem was not with the world, it was his brother who was to be blamed. He recognized the symptoms of withdrawal very well and now he knew what Michael was going through. For a moment he decided to keep aside his dislike for the man and try to help him combat the craving for the bottle.

Sam said, “So what do you think?”

“About what?”

“About the case, about how they committed the robbery.”

“I already explained my theory today,” said Michael.

“Come on, you must have a better one by now!”

“Unfortunately, I am fresh out of new theories,” admitted Michael. “The only one that I have is the one that I explained to you and Jefferson in the morning.”

Sam sighed and said, “Well, I don’t know, but I think that there must be a more probable explanation, one that is not so fantastical.”

Michael looked at Sam for a moment and then said, “Thank You, Sam.”

Sam looked at him sharply and said, “For what?”

“Nothing, I just wanted to thank you and I wanted to assure you that I know.”

“Know what?”

Michael stared at the road ahead and said, “To attain the luster of gold, one must withstand the ferocious heat.”

Sam said, “That is a good one, who said that?”

“It’s an original,” stated Michael.

“Well done, then.”

After a rather impatient wait, Sam eased the car to a halt. They had reached the building where Rafool Edmunds lived, at least according to the records. To put it mildly, this was not one of the best neighborhoods in New York.  

Both Michael and Sam sat where they were, unsure of how to proceed. Sam asked, “How do you want to do this?”

“I would have preferred a direct confrontation, but that appears to be out of the question.”

 “Jefferson just ordered that we had to survey, I don’t think he even thought of how we would do that,” replied Sam

“That means he trusted us to find a way.”

Sam said, “Let’s go and ring his bell, I’ll say we are looking into a missing persons case.”

“He is cunning enough to rob diamonds without leaving a trace, you think he won’t make that connection?” asked Michael.

Sharing his just cropped-up idea Michael said, “Sam, give me the number for his house.”

“Why? What are you going to do?” asked Sam.

“Spook him,” replied Michael “I am going to say that a damaged vehicle was found with papers on his name present in the dashboard.”

 “And that would make him nervous, so he would go to check on the car, wherever he had hidden it, right?” asked Sam.

“Correct,” said Michael.

A moment later, both the agents had their ears close to Michael’s mobile. The line kept ringing, but no one picked up, they tried again, but met with the same response.

Finally, Michael disconnected the phone and said, “This can mean only one thing.”

“That he is not at home,” concluded Sam.

“Well, I think of this as an opportunity,” said Michael.

“If you are thinking what I think you are thinking, then it is a very bad idea.”

Precisely three minutes later, Michael had convinced Sam that it was the best idea to “gain access” to Rafool’s apartment while he was out. Although Sam had pointed out that Michael’s plan felt more like a B&E rather than an investigation, but he had ultimately agreed. Now, Sam was on his way up to the apartment while, Michael was keeping an eye on the building in case Rafool returned. Sam had managed to get an image of the man from the DMR database, and their target was revealed to be a heavily bearded man with droopy eyes and a balding head. Michael concluded from the man’s looks that he was the kind of person who would spend the better part of his life sitting on a couch in front of the TV and he was sure that Sam would be able to handle the guy even if there was a confrontation.

The sky was starting to get darker and just a few moments later raindrops began falling on the car’s windshield. Michael was getting more impatient with each passing moment. With the intention of trying to calm himself, he looked out of the window, and he saw an old man sitting on the sidewalk. The man just nodded his head as a woman walked by him and placed a small packet near him, then, after a moment, the man opened the packet, took out a sandwich wrapped in foil and began eating it. Seeing such a gesture on the part of the woman, a smile spread on Michael’s face. But then the woman attracted his attention, she was going into the building where the apartment was located. Michael’s first instinct was to warn Sam, but then he thought that if he went warning Sam at the sight of every person that passed by, Sam’s entire time would be spent answering the phone. Michael picked up Rafool’s photo once again and began scrutinizing it. There was something odd…something unusual about the image, but Michael could not figure out what. It felt like what he was seeing was wrong, but he could not understand why. He was trying to find the answer to his question when suddenly his phone rang, the caller ID confirmed that the call was from Sam.

Michael picked up the phone immediately and said, “Sam! What’s up?”

“Come up here, right now!” said Sam in a hoarse and urgent voice.

“What?” asked Michael disbelievingly “But what if someone shows up?”

“No one’s coming, this thing is way more complicated than we thought.”

Sam’s tone was enough to tell Michael that the matter was serious, he ran out of the car and went up the building. He saw that the door of Rafool’s apartment was open and when he went inside, a cold shiver went down his spine.

Sam was standing in the middle of the living room, the house was scantily furnished, and it was clear that there had been no human inhabitants within its four walls for quite some time. There was a small table in the very center of the room, on this table was a white envelope. But that was not the eerie part. The most disturbing thing in the room was what was on the wall – the name, Rafool Edmunds, written in blood.