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“You have these men in your jail?” frowned Cam.
“No.”
“No? Then how the fuck did they kill Jones?” asked Mike.
“They broke into my jail, killed him, and left a note.” He held up his phone with the photo written in blood.Tell the girl to return the diamonds.
“Fuck,” muttered Mike. “How did they know she had them?”
“I’m going to bet your boy in my cell decided to spill his guts before they decided to do it for him. Funny thing is I can’t get one of my guards to say they heard anything. I’m tellin’ y’all, these boys ain’t playin’ around.”
“Neither are we,” frowned Luke.
“Sheriff? Have you heard of any antiquity thefts? Stolen furniture, art, jewels, anything like that in this area?”
“No, but why you askin’?”
“We found a storage facility full of antiques that shouldn’t have been there.” The sheriff shook his head.
“I ain’t heard of any but doesn’t mean it ain’t happenin’. Most folks ain’t worried about missin’ china cabinets. They’re worried about stolen vehicles, jewelry, and cash. I don’t get many reports for missin’ antiques.”
“I understand,” said Luke. “Thanks for letting us know about Smith. Anything on the two men he was with?”
“Just this,” he said, handing the men a piece of paper. “This is a photo from a surveillance camera near the Quarter. You can see Smith walking in front of the two men. They have their heads tilted down, but you can clearly see the tattoo on the first man’s neck. Algerian Al’Qa’ida.
“Shit, what have we found?” mumbled Hex.
“What the fuck did Sage find?” said Mike, staring at the others.
“Gotta run, boys. When there’s a dead man in my cell, the feds tend to want to take a closer look. They ain’t gonna like what they see. It was a damn mess. Gonna take me weeks to get it cleaned out.”
“Thanks for coming out here,” said Luke.
“Aw, it was nothin’. Besides, I got to pick up one of them pies at the café on my way in. My wife always likes the pies.” Luke nodded as Pigsty escorted the sheriff out of the offices.
“Strange antiquities, diamonds, Algerian terrorists. Anybody making any connections at all here?” asked Mike.
“I’m definitely not,” said Dan. Behind them, Tony cleared his throat, smiling at all the men.
“Hey, Tony,” smiled Mike. “Did you have something you wanted to add?”
“Maybe. We know that one of the problems for Al’Qa’ida is funding. It used to be they could get funding from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, UAE, any one of them. Even Pakistan and some of the other countries were feeding them what they needed below the table.”
“We know all that, Tony.”
“I know. I know, you know. But if all that has been shut down, or at least limited, how are they still getting funding?” he asked. He looked from one man to another, all of them literally scratching their head or beard. “They’re getting funding from another place. Stolen goods. Think about all the antiquities in the Middle East. The unbelievable history and culture that’s right there at their fingertips. If they have supporters here in the U.S., then they have ready-made thieves to help their cause.”
“That’s brilliant,” said Mike.
“I know,” smiled Tony. “Perhaps this isn’t supplying funding to Al Qaeda, but instead to this Chinese mafia group. Dirty money is dirty money. Also, Martha and Marcel are looking at all the photos, and some of what was in that storage unit are things that Marcel had on his ship when it crashed. Who would know about that?”
“I’m not sure,” said Luke. “Not even Dad knew all the details of Marcel’s ship crashing and sinking. Maybe Grandma.”
“Yes,” said Tony. “And who would she tell?”
“Family,” frowned Mike.
“Family wouldn’t betray us. Who else might she tell?”
