Aurum Regium

Maximum Security Prison:

The next morning a man was sitting on his bed, in his cell. Silence surrounded him and there were two reasons for the same. The first was that it was quarter to four in the morning, and it was the time when most of the people were not highly active. The second reason was that the man was in a high-security prison, and he was alone in his cell. He had a book of crossword puzzles and a pencil in his hand. After a moment he took off his glasses, lay the book aside and stared into space. He was a middle-aged man with graying, black hair and a fit, although thin physique. His manner was one that made a strong statement that he was one of the people who preferred to use their brains rather than brawn.
The man got up and stretched. After some light exercise, he looked at the small watch at the corner of his bed. The time was four twenty. The man once again took up his book of crossword puzzles. Since as far as he could remember, had never been able to sleep after three in the Morning. There was no reason for this, it was just that his body clock was set in this way. This habit, although tiresome, was quite good for the profession he had chosen. A thief. One of the best, literally, as the only other thief, whom he referred to as one of the best, was his partner and thus, their team was the best. There was no competition. They had pulled off jobs that common thieves would hesitate to even think about. There was nothing that they could not have achieved together. They were the best in the game, but then a young FBI agent had come along and ruined it all.
The man, Brandon by name, was quite sure that the lawmen were nothing more than people who had the compulsive desire to be praised and be the hero, which was why they spent a large amount of the time of their lives trying to pull themselves higher by putting others behind bars. As these thoughts went across his mind, Brandon smirked and shook his head, these officers had no idea how exciting it was on the other side. Sure, there was more threat, but there was also freedom and thrill. As Brandon saw it, everyone was given a chance to improve the quality of the moment of their death while they were alive. They could either die thinking about their unfulfilled dreams and aspirations or they could think about how they had done everything they wanted to do and more. Brandon believed in trying to go for the latter option. While life had made sure that he could never fulfill his dream of becoming a painter, Brandon made sure that no matter what he did, he was going to live life to the fullest.
Finally, after the wait of what felt like an eternity, a guard slipped the day’s newspaper through an opening in the gate of his cell. Brandon leapt up from bed and took up the paper just as a child snatches a chocolate, and as far as Brandon was concerned, the newspaper was no less than the chocolate. Usually nothing new took place, nothing new of criminal interest, to be more precise. Crimes were committed, but for the usual motives and in the same boring manner, but recently there had been a deviation from this trend. A robbery had been committed, and the thing that had been stolen was something that held a special place in Brandon’s life. Les morceaux de Lumiere, the diamonds that had once been the target of Brandon and his partner, had been stolen. But it was not the beauty of the diamonds that made them special, it was the fact that it was during the attempt to steal these very diamonds that Brandon and his partner had been caught. Brandon got so engrossed in reading about the latest developments in the case that he did not realize how much time had passed. Finally, it was time for visitation, but this did not mean anything to Brandon. He never had any visitors, nor did he want any. He wanted to meet only one person in the world, but she was not coming to meet him, she could not. Brandon was so sure of her inability to come to meet him as he was certain that if she ever gained that ability, there would certainly be a mention of it in the papers.
Suddenly, the door to Brandon’s cell opened and a guard entered. The guard, named Wiggins, was a huge man in his mid-forties, although his looks were menacing, he was one of the friendliest guards in the prison. He was strict but friendly, a rare combination. Brandon looked at him with a raised eyebrow, but Wiggins just beckoned him to get up. Brandon did not move. He never did anything until he knew what was going on.
Wiggins said, “Come on Brandon, you have a visitor.”
Brandon did not move an inch. He said, “A visitor? For me?” He laughed. “Is it first April today?”
“I’m not joking, now get up and come out, I won’t ask again.”
Brandon got to his feet and walked over to the entrance of his cell. He was led towards a room in the prison which was usually used for the meetings between prisoners and their lawyers. As Wiggins opened the door of the room, Brandon got a glimpse of the other inhabitant and froze in his tracks. It was him. A fed, no… the fed. The same FBI agent who had put him behind bars and deprived him of the love of his wife, the companionship of his partner in crime and one other thing, there was one other thing that the Fed had done, although unknowingly, but these three reasons were more than enough to earn Jefferson Brown intense hate from Brandon Andrews.
The guards ushered Brandon into the room and closed the door behind him. The two men looked at each other. No words were exchanged for three minutes, after which the Federal agent broke the silence.
“Have a seat Brandon,” said Jefferson, waving towards the chair on the other side of the metal table.
Brandon did not budge. “What are you doing here?”
“Sit, Brandon, then we’ll talk,” Insisted Jefferson.
“There is nothing to talk about,” saying this, Brandon turned towards the door when Jefferson’s voice made him stop.
“I can get you out of here!”
Brandon turned slowly and said, “What did you just say?”
This time Jefferson did not reply and stared at Brandon. After a second, Brandon gave in and sat down in the chair opposite Jefferson.
“Now we can talk,” said Jefferson.
“Look Jefferson, I don’t want my time wasted, what were you saying about getting me out of here?”
“Brandon, you are in prison, all you have is time.”
“But I can choose how I want to spend it, and I definitely don’t choose to spend it in the company of an enemy of mine. Now, what were you talking about?”
“You know as well as I do what I was talking about, I’m offering you a deal.”
Brandon was about to say something but then he froze, after an instant a thin smile spread on his lips as he said, “I see, you need my help with the case.”
Jefferson looked up sharply and said, “What do you mean?”
“Oh, come on Brown, it is not so difficult. A copycat strikes and whisks away the Morceaux de Lumiere from under your nose and then you visit me after years. It is as simple as two plus two, if you’re not bad at math.”
“You’re right, I do need your help, and you’re also in desperate need of mine. Without me, you are not getting out of here,” said Jefferson.
“I refuse,” said Brandon and got up.
“What?” asked Jefferson in disbelief.
“I refuse to help you,” said Brandon as though explaining something to a little child.
“I meant both of you.”
“Pardonnez Moi?” said Brandon in a perfect accent.
“You heard me, I can get both of you out early, if you help me catch this thief.”
“Thieves,” corrected Brandon.
“How do you know that?” asked Jefferson.
“It’s not a one-man job.”
“That’s exactly what I thought.”
“Very well Brown, I will help you, but you will need the help of the three of us.”
“Three?”
“You’re forgetting Claire.”
Jefferson did not reply. Suddenly, he didn’t want to make eye contact with Brandon.
Brandon said, “What is it?”
“I’m sorry Brandon, but Claire’s dead, she died in prison.”
Brandon was shocked. The news had put him in a state of distress, but these were times of negotiations, there was no room for emotion.
He controlled his emotions, suppressed his anger and grief, and said, “Fine, then both of us will help you catch them.”
“Oh no, your partner gets out of jail early only if you help me catch this guy.”
Brandon’s face turned crimson, and he shouted, “NO BROWN! NO! You deprived me of the love of my wife, she was my partner in everything, she was my better half even on the jobs and guess what? You want my help? Then she gets out with me while I help you catch the thief. I won’t wait till some rookies are in prison to see the love of my life!”
Jefferson knew that this was going to happen, the man and his wife were an inseparable duo. It was what the romantics called a match made in heaven. Both were gifted thieves, and each loved the other beyond measure.
“Fine, she gets out too, but know this, if you even try anything stupid, I won’t hesitate to shoot any of you.”
“You never did. Remember last time? You are not human Jefferson, you’re a cold machine,” said Brandon, venom dripping from his voice.
Jefferson stood up and said, “Had I been that I would not have grazed Claire’s thigh, the bullet would have gone through her head.”
Brandon lunged at Jefferson with a roar of fury, but Jefferson calmly sidestepped and said, “Touch me and the deal is off, you and the love of your life will rot in prison for the rest of your lives.”
Brandon controlled himself at the last moment. “Never threaten me with that again, you need us.”
While stepping out of the room, Jefferson said, “Don’t forget Brandon, I caught the originals, I can catch the imitators too, you are just a means of speeding up the process.”
After Jefferson left, Brandon was escorted back to his cell. Just as Wiggins was about to close the door behind him, Brandon called him.
“Wiggins! I need a favor.”
Wiggins turned and said, “What is it?”
“I need newspapers, old ones, at least for the last two weeks.”
“You already have them.”
“I need different ones, as many as possible.”
“Why? Missed a crossword?”
“No, I need to study a specific occurrence.”
Wiggins did not ask any more and said that he would see what he could do. After Wiggins was gone, Brandon took a pen and started writing something in his diary. When a person is in solitary confinement the best way to avoid insanity is by writing your thoughts in a diary, at least that was what Brandon believed. He did not hesitate to write anything and everything that he felt and thought in the diary, but that meant that no one was supposed to touch it, no one. Brandon was a man whose life was filled with secrets, secrets which were only known to one other person on the face of the planet, his wife. They were going to be together again soon, and out of jail as well. That was something that opened the gate to limitless possibilities. Just as Brandon was writing down this thought in his diary a smile spread on his lips and what he wrote next was something which he had been waiting to write for a long time – we’re back in the game.

FBI Field Office, NYC:

“What?” exclaimed Sam.
Jefferson was sitting at his desk, while Michael and Sam were sitting in the chairs, opposite to him. He had just told them what he had done earlier that day and Sam had just expressed his surprise with the aid of an exclamation.
Michael sat up a bit straighter and said, “Did I hear this right? You are getting Brandon and Olivia out of prison?”
“Just so they can help us,” explained Jefferson.
Sam scoffed and said, “Yeah, as if they wouldn’t think of helping themselves! Come on Jefferson, you know what they are capable of, it took years for any law enforcement agency to get them.”
“I am very well aware of that, but we need to get the diamonds back.”
Michael shook his head and said, “I was thinking about that, the thieves would have already sold off the diamonds, why would they keep them with themselves?”
Jefferson tapped the table and said, “See that is what most people think, but it’s not easy, when you have stolen something that has made so much of a buzz, you can’t sell it off without taking the risk of alerting the authorities.”
“So, they’ll just keep the diamonds?”
“At least until the heat has subsided, but that wouldn’t stop them from committing another robbery, that is why we need those two.”
Sam just shook his head and crossed his arms. Michael made an apologetic expression and said, “Look, Jefferson, I don’t mean to be disrespectful but taking the help of thieves? That is not very noble.” Michael had said the word “thieves” as though it was a condition which was a sign of an inferior human being.
“Michael, nobility is important, but for the sake of nobility, we cannot let thieves and crooks do as they please, the importance of balance is as much as, if not more than, nobility,” stated Jefferson in a definitive manner.
Michael and Sam did not say anything else. Taking their silence as acceptance, Jefferson stood up and said, “Now, if you excuse me, I will be on my way to warn a certain businessman that he is about to be robbed of an apparently non-existent collection.”
Michael and Sam also stood up, but Jefferson waved a hand and said, “You kids are not coming with me, you have another job to do.”
Michael and Sam both looked at each other and groaned. They had hoped to avoid the entire “questioning the inhabitants of the building” thing, but now, it was impossible to do so.
Sam made a futile attempt by saying, “What if someone else did it?”
Jefferson refused by saying, “There is no one else who will be able to do it better than you two.”
After Jefferson left, Michael said, “Well, now we need to talk to some uncooperating people who will most likely get annoyed by us.”
Sam said, “I have an idea, let’s divide the task. I’ll do half of the houses on the floor, and you can do the other half, that way we can wind it up faster.”
Michael gave Sam a thumbs up and both of them left for the building. Having a job in law enforcement has its pros and cons. There are moments when you will feel as if you are in an action movie, you will feel the rush of adrenaline and your throbbing pulse. There are also times when you will feel like Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot while using your grey cells to solve a case, but then there is the substantial number of the “other times”. These “other times” are the times when you have to do boring work like making case notes and interviewing witnesses, with a good chance that a few of them would try their best to annoy you. It was thinking about these “other times” that Michael and Sam made their way to the building.
Once on the floor, the matter was to decide which of the two agents would take the apartments on which side of the corridor. To make this decision, Michael and Sam took the help of a very mature and old way of making decisions – they faced off in an intense match of rock, paper, scissors.
Sam won and chose the apartments on the right, while Michael went and rang the doorbell of the first apartment on the left. He heard a door being opened behind him and after a few words in Sam’s voice, he heard the door close again and silence prevailed in the corridor. Michael was left alone, he rang the doorbell again, but getting no answer, he moved to the next apartment. He rang the doorbell and waited. He heard the latch open and a young woman’s face looked out of the door. Michael found himself staring at the woman. It was the same woman whom he had seen while waiting for Sam in the car. The same blonde hair and blue eyes, but what Michael was not able to notice the last time were the beautiful and attractive facial features of the woman.
“Yes?” asked the woman in a gentle voice.
“Ma’am my name is Michael Adams, I’m an FBI agent. I would like to ask you a few questions,” said Michael, while showing the woman his identification.
The woman stared at Michael for a moment before moving back and opening the door for him. Michael entered the house, and his first impression was that of walking into a small but neat space, with the aroma of lavender in the air.
“Please have a seat, would you like some tea? Coffee?”
“Just water please, thank you,” replied Michael while sitting down on the sofa.
The woman disappeared into the kitchen. Michael looked around the room and realized that although the woman was not rich, she had a certain sense which enabled her to arrange what she had in a way that the room looked beautiful.
Suddenly a voice said, “Who are you?”
Michael looked around and saw a boy of about eleven years, who looked startlingly like the woman, standing in the doorway of the room.
“Hello, my name is Michael Adams.”
“Who let you in?”
In reply, Michael pointed toward the kitchen. The boy shook his head and said, “I should have known, she is not alert at all, what do you do?”
“I’m an FBI agent.”
“Yes, you may be, or you may be an imposter, may I see some ID?” said the kid in an authoritative voice.
Michael could not help but smile. The boy was very thin, and his medium-length hair was ruffled as though he had just walked through a storm. Michael showed him his ID and after inspecting it carefully for a minute, the boy handed it back to him.
“It seems authentic,” observed the boy.
“Maybe that’s because it is.”
“Why are you here?”
“I need to ask her some questions,” said Michael pointing toward the kitchen once again.
“She has a name, you know, Evelyn Watson,” said the boy and sat down beside Michael on the sofa.
“And is she your mother?”
The boy seemed alarmed by this thought and said, “NO! no, that would have been unbearable, she bosses me around a lot as it is, she’s my elder sister.”
Michael nodded. Evelyn came out of the kitchen carrying a tray. She placed the tray on the table and said, “Here, I made you some coffee.”
She looked at her brother and said, “Why are you sitting here?”
“Remember what I said about bossing me around? Well, this is it,” said the boy in Michael’s ear.
Michael stifled a laugh. Evelyn was flustered by this statement, and she said, “I apologize for my brother’s behavior.”
“Oh no, it’s quite all right,” replied Michael.
“So, what did you want to talk to me about?”
“As you might be aware, the FBI was investigating the apartment at the end of the corridor.”
“Oh yes, but I didn’t know it was the FBI, it seemed to be quite hush-hush.”
“Yes. Well, we would like to know if you happen to know the man who lives there.”
“Why is the FBI interested in him?”
“I’m afraid I can’t tell you that.”
“Well, I didn’t even know that some lived in the house.”
“Did you happen to see anyone new or unidentified going into or coming out of the apartment?”
“I’m really sorry but, no, I won’t be of much help.”
Michael let out a sigh. “Very well, ma’am, thank you very much for your time.”
Just as he was about to get up, the boy sitting beside him said, “Wait! You didn’t ask me.”
“Rob…” began Evelyn in a warning tone.
Robert spread his hands and said, “What? A good detective leaves no stone unturned!”
Michael decided to play along with the kid. He liked kids, especially smart kids. “So, Rob, did you know the tenant of that house?”
“No, but I did see someone.”