Aurum Regium

For a moment Michael could not process what he was seeing, because he felt as though he was in one of the horror movies that made one lay awake at night. His mind was suddenly wide awake and aware of every element of his surroundings. He was aware of the damp and cold room, he was aware of Sam standing right next to him and staring at him, assessing his reaction, and he was aware of the writing on the wall, which made much more sense now that he was looking at it closely. The name Rafool Edmunds was written in block letters and the last three letters of the first name and first two letters of the last name were underlined together so that they read as – …fool Ed…
Fooled. That was what was spelled, and Michael realized with a start that all of it had been a deception, a setup, that the thief had let them see the number plate intentionally. He had guessed that they would follow the lead and end up in this house, right where he wanted them. Instinctively, Michael took a defensive position, the idea that he was where the thief wanted him sent a rush of adrenaline through a system, and his mind automatically activated the defensive mode of his body. Michael was ready for anything to happen, but nothing did. After a moment, he relaxed.  
Sam, who was staring at him, said, “You know what? I am ninety per cent certain that I had the exact same reaction when I’d seen this.”
“You realize what this means, don’t you?” asked Michael.  
“Yes, I do. We played right into the guy’s hands.”
“Did you call Jefferson yet?”
“He’s on his way. Let’s not touch anything.”
The agents did not have to wait long. Jefferson was on site within fifteen minutes, with backup, and his reaction was similar to Sam and Michael’s, but the only difference was that Jefferson’s eyes were a clear indication of how angry he was. It was quite natural, after what he had been through anyone would have been angry, but then he saw the envelope on the table. The anger left his eyes, and its place was taken by intrigue. Everyone watched anxiously as Jefferson walked up to the table and picked up the envelope. Jefferson’s name was typed in bold across the middle of the envelope and inside it there was a single piece of paper. Jefferson read it and Michael saw that his back tensed, he saw as Jefferson delicately placed the paper back in the envelope. It was evident that he was fighting the urge to crumple the paper and stomp on it.
Michael wanted to ask what was written on the piece of paper, but he did not say anything. He was sure that Sam shared the same curiosity as himself but the look that Jefferson gave them was clear – not now, not here.
“Sam, we need to interview the other occupants of the floor, someone must have definitely seen something,” said Jefferson.
Sam said, “Judging by the amount of planning which the guy has evidently put into this job, I’d say that’s a long shot, but still, I’ll check with the occupants.”
“That would be quite a list,” said Michael.
Michael was entirely correct in his observation. The building was divided into several large floors and the houses located in these floors were far from spacious. It appeared that the builder had tried to cram in as many apartments as possible on a single floor and thus, the number of occupants was a little higher than average.
Jefferson beckoned Michael and Sam, and both the agents followed him out with puzzled expressions on their faces. Once they were standing outside the building, Jefferson said, “This guy is smart…”
“Oh, we believe you!” cut in Sam.
Jefferson rolled his eyes and said, “Let me complete. As I was saying, this guy is smart, and he knows that. This combination almost always results in a certain degree of overconfidence and that is what he is displaying now.”
“What do you mean?” asked Michael.
In answer, Jefferson handed Michael the envelope which he had picked up from the table in the house. Inside was a single piece of paper with two lines printed across it. After reading the two lines both the young agents felt a sense of excitement and tension.
“He’s done it again,” said Jefferson, voicing the thought which was in the mind of both the men standing in front of him.
Indeed, he had done it again. The chit of paper was an indication of where the thief was going to commit his next robbery, it was the house of a very wealthy business tycoon, Harold Williamson. But there was only one problem, according to the chit, the thief had claimed that he would rob “the exquisite items” from the businessman’s personal collection, he had even mentioned a date, ten days later. However, as far as anyone knew, the businessman did not have any personal collection, all that he was interested in was running his company and playing golf, he had no other hobby and did not need one.
Michael said, “Will you warn him too?”
“I’m obligated to,” replied Jefferson.
Sam was about to say something when his mobile rang. After listening to the speaker on the other end for a few seconds and contributing a few words to the conversation, Sam hung up.
It was with an expression of urgency that he said, “We need to get to the hospital, the guard, Dick, the doctors say he is fit enough to talk to us.”
No one wasted any time. They were sitting in the car within seconds and Jefferson expertly weaved through the traffic to get them to the hospital in the most efficient time possible. Once they were at the hospital, they were met by a senior doctor who briefed them about Dick’s health situation. The doctor claimed that although Dick had been injured, the blows were expertly landed to make sure that there was only temporary suffering with no lasting effects. From the medical point of view Dick was in an exceptionally good condition for someone who had been abducted, and the doctor was sure the man had not even suffered any trauma. That was the condition of the patient from the physical point of view, but the condition was quite different from the psychological point of view. The man was angry, confused and did not know who to blame for his unpleasant experience. As a result, Dick was being extremely rude to the hospital staff and doctors. Jefferson listened to all of this with a straight face. While he was paying attention to what the doctor was telling them, he was impatient to talk to the man. Finally, they were led into Dick’s room. They were greeted by the image of a man of a large build propped up on the bed with an irritable look on his face. The man was in his mid-forties and had a scraggly beard.  
Dick looked up and said, “Who’re you?”
Jefferson stepped forward and said, “Hello Mr. Smith, my name is Jefferson Brown, I’m an FBI special agent.”
Dick’s cheeks turned red as he said, “I’ll tell you what you are! You are late! I was abducted, do you understand? ABDUCTED!”
“Calm down, Dick,” said the doctor.
“Calm down? they failed to protect a citizen!” said Dick in an accusing manner.
“I would be interested to see your reaction when we tell you that we are here to interrogate a suspect,” said Jefferson.
Now Dick’s anger subsided. He said, “What do you mean? What have I done?”
“Did you know that your employer was in possession of a very valuable set of diamonds?” asked Jefferson.
Dick scoffed and said, “Yeah, diamonds with a fancy French name, so what?”
“They’ve been stolen.”
Dick had a genuine look of surprise on his face when he said, “And you suspect me? I was in a hospital!”
“And yet we have you on camera and we even have eyewitnesses who saw you on the property on which the crime was committed,” said Jefferson.
“And when was this crime committed?”
“On the day you were allegedly kidnapped.”
“Are you even hearing what you are saying? First, you say that I was at the property, now you say that I was kidnapped, I believe you are the one who needs a doctor. A mental one.”
As serious as the topic was, Michael had to stifle his laugh. To Michael, the idea of Jefferson consulting a “mental doctor” was a very funny one, so much so, that he could not control himself.
Dick looked at him and said, “Did I just make a joke?”
Michael was instantly ready with a witty comeback, he said, “It’s your feeble attempt to conceal your guilt that is making me laugh.”
Sam looked at him and raised an eyebrow. Jefferson said, “Why should we believe that you are innocent? You could be a coconspirator.”
“I could be, but I am not. Look, there must be video footage of the hospital that shows my admittance and even the doctors saw me!”
“Like I said, we also have that kind of proof, you will need to do better than that,” said Jefferson.
Now, Dick was losing his cool once again. “I would never do something that would smear my reputation in the security business, especially not when someone had asked for me. It is my job, the only one that I have, it’s my kid’s future we are talking about!”
Jefferson cut in and said, “Wait, what did you just say? asked for you? What do you mean?”
“I mean that my boss told me that the employers had specifically asked for my services for this job,” replied Dick.
Jefferson was about to say something when Michael cut in and said, “Why would they do that?”
“They said I had worked for some friend of theirs and they were pretty satisfied with my work.”
“And had you?” asked Jefferson.
“Had I what?”
“Had you worked for a friend of theirs?”
“I have worked for a lot of people; I don’t remember their family trees or their list of friends! I just took it as an opportunity.”
Jefferson was about to say something when he was interrupted again, this time by Sam, “How did your boss get to know this? Did someone come over to meet him or did he go to meet Mr. David?”
“No, they just called and said they needed another guard, the boss told me that just after he had hung up, the man called again and asked for me specifically. The boss was incredibly happy with me, said I’d done the firm proud and all that.”
Sam did not say anything, but his eyes were enough to tell anyone that he had figured out something important. When he did not say anything else for a moment, Jefferson said, “Who was this man?”
“I don’t know, just some man,” replied Dick.
Jefferson got up and said, “We’ll be in touch, Mr. Smith.”
Saying this, the agents exited the hospital room.
Jefferson ran a hand through his hair and said, “Well, now we need to know who this man was, let’s go talk to his boss.”
“No need,” said Michael “I think I know who it was.”
“How do you know?” asked Jefferson.
“I just do. It’s a perfectly logical assumption. I’ll fill you in on the way to the David Wood’s place.”
“Why do we need to go there again? It takes too much time,” said Sam.
“Trust me, it’ll be worth it,” replied Michael.
The agents soon reached the car and were on their way to the residence of David Wood in no time. Sam and Michael utilized the time of the journey to explain their theories to Jefferson.
Michael went first and said, “Whenever someone needs to hire security, they contact a security firm, that is routine for middle-class people, not billionaires, they have someone else do it for them. That someone varies from job to job but when the security is concerned the logical choice is the head of security.”
Jefferson nodded his head and said, “Simon.”
“Precisely.”
Now it was Sam’s turn to explain, he said, “But I doubt he is guilty.”
“What do you mean?” asked Jefferson.
“Look, there are two things which pointed me in the right direction, there were two calls, and it was in the second one that the man, asked for Dick specifically. Nowadays, all phones have an electronic chip in them, which means that they are digitalized to some extent, and thus, they are hackable. If I timed it right, I would be able to hack into the phone to trick the receiver of the call into thinking that the call was from someone else, in this case, Simon. To make my voice sound authentic, I could take any approach, from voice transformation software to changing the voice without any assistance of technology.”
Jefferson said, “So basically what you are saying is that while Simon thought that the security agency had just allotted a random guy to them, the thieves made sure that the agency sent over the person they wanted for the job.”
“Exactly! Now we only have to find out why they chose this specific man.”
After a moment, Jefferson spoke up. “I know the answer to that,” he said. “Previously we were under the impression that the thieves only had a week to plan the heist, as Dick had only been at the job for a week.”
“So?”
“So don’t you see, they wanted to have Dick as they had been studying him, they had been scrutinizing his behavior, the way he talked, the way he moved so that when the time came one of them would be prepared to pass as the guard. And as to why they chose him, the answer is obvious, the man is an easy mark. He has an unpleasant nature, so no one talks to him much, which reduces the chance of the deception failing, and then his physical appearance is also easily achievable, full beard and heavy build. Anyone could do it. Our original assumption was wrong, they didn’t have just a week, they took their time to perfect their plan.”
Sam and Michael were listening closely to what Jefferson had been saying, now Sam leant forward and said, “And here we were thinking that the chubby guy in a hospital room was the mastermind behind the robbery.”