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“That sword was passed on through many warriors as a gift. They had no idea what the gift really was. The diamonds were the gift. Not the stupid sword. Those diamonds will be placed here,” he said, pointing to the small metal bowl on the contraption the men were working on. “When that laser passes through those diamonds, it will have a reaction similar to that of an atomic bomb. Except no one will have any idea what it actually is. We will show the world that it is nothing more than a machine to better view the beauty of such stones.
“I will use this weapon to destroy this pathetic country and all who live here. My men are slowly infiltrating every coast, every major city. When we are done. We will rule this world. So, you see, Farid and Omar. If I don’t have those diamonds in my hand by the end of the week, you will meet a fate far worse than the one of my former son-in-law. Have I made myself clear?”
“Crystal,” said Omar, frowning at the men in the room. The older man smiled at him, chuckling.
“Diamond, Omar. Diamond clear.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“Farid Sharif and Omar Murad,” said Cam as the images appeared on the screen. “They’ve been guns for hire for many years, mostly small-time bullshit involving a lot of theft and fencing of goods. Both are on the FBI’s list and the TSA watch list along with Homeland, but no one can seem to find them.”
“Well, they found Sage,” said Mike, staring at the two men. “She was right about their appearance. On immediate look, you wouldn’t suspect Middle Eastern, necessarily. Although Murad does have black, soulless eyes.”
“I think there’s something else at play here. We know that we have this Chinese mafia moving in, but why do they want those diamonds? Why the art? The furniture? None of that makes sense to me,” said Luke.
“I might have an explanation,” said Zoe. She stood with Megan and walked to the front of the room. “Megan and I have been going over this until we’re blue in the face. Then pretty boy over there opened his gorgeous mouth.”
Jean frowned at the two women, shaking his head. Both were young enough to be his daughters, had he had children. They enjoyed teasing him about his good looks and amazing physique. It was flattering but also a bit embarrassing.
“And what did Uncle Gorgeous Mouth say,” smirked Luke.
“Uncle Gorgeous Mouth will knock that smile off your face if you say that again,” frowned Jean. “It occurred to me that all of these items were manufactured, built, or constructed within about a hundred years of one another. Or so we thought.”
“I don’t understand,” said Mike. “I thought everything was two or three hundred years old.”
“When we started looking at them more closely,” said Zoe, “we realized that they had beenre-constructed. These items are much older than we originally believed. They were built probably in the 14thor 15thcenturies, and at some point, either repurposed or reconstructed to suit the era. We became suspicious with the trunk that belonged to Marcel.”
“That’s right,” said Megan. “The timeframe he gave for the trunk didn’t match some of its details. So, we started to remove some of the layers of its history.”
“How do you do that?” asked Eric.
“Hardware, design, stain, paint, even the wood itself tells us where something came from. As we stripped away what we thought we knew, we found something intriguing. Almost all of these items were built from tamarix aphylla, or Tamarisk.”
“You’ve lost me,” said Mike.
“It’s a type of wood found only in the Middle East,” said Zoe. “Now, why on earth would all of these items have that in common? I suspected it was because they were looking for something else in common with the items.”
“Each of the furniture pieces had traces of a particular mineral compound. It was difficult to find, and I’m sorry to say that we did damage a few of the pieces, but it was important.
“Over a thousand years ago, there was a legend of an ancient diamond mine that had magical powers,” said Megan.
“Like Aladdin’s cave?” frowned Tobias.
“Exactly,” she smiled. “Legend said that anything that was found or grown near the cave had mystical powers. Cyrus I, claimed that he found it, extracting all of the wood around the location and all of the minerals.”
“Diamonds?” asked Mike.
“Diamonds. We gave the findings to the G.R.I.P. team, and they see nothing to indicate anything unusual or dangerous in the compounds. But I think we have to admit to ourselves that we may not know everything about what’s going on here,” said Zoe.
“Zoe, Jean, and I believe that whoever asked for these items to be stolen isn’t just looking for stolen antiquities. They’re looking for antiquities from that region, from that cave, and from that mine. I’m going to bet when we see the jewels at the Sugar Lodge, we’re going to find the same similarities.”
“But why?” asked Tanner. “What is so important about this? Is there anything in the findings that would indicate it could be weaponized?”
“Nothing,” said Ryan. “Thomas and May have been the leads on researching this, but we’ve found nothing that would indicate anything here could be weaponized. Again, we have to have enough humility to admit that we may not know everything.”
“No,” said Hex, shaking his head, “but you’re damn sure the best, the smartest in the world.”
“Hex, I appreciate that,” said Thomas, “but I don’t know everything. Neither does May or Ryan or any of us out at G.R.I.P.” May stepped forward to speak.
