Chapter 20

It was two weeks before thanksgiving when I got a call from Madi. She insisted that we needed to meet. We agreed that we'd meet in a café that I still occasionally visited. I got there early, but still found her there sitting at a table with a man I didn't know. There was something about the guy that made me feel a bit uneasy, but I couldn't really get a grip on what it was. He was an average-looking guy in his late thirties or early forties but yet there was something that didn't quite match. Madi rose to greet me.

"Hi, John. My boss insisted that I should have a talk with this gentleman, here. He confirmed to me that he is what he says he is, and it probably would be very beneficial to all of us to have this discussion. My boss does not know about you, and he is not interested in knowing anything about this."

After that the man rose and shook my hand.

"So, John, is it? I've been wanting to meet you. Look, if you don't mind, I'd rather have this discussion while walking in the park. And if you don't mind I'd hope that you leave your phones with my colleague outside, please?"

I looked at Madi. She nodded to me and so we did what he asked. We left our phones with a guy who looked equally extremely normal and still slightly odd, just like the guy who had been talking to us. After we had put our phones in a box in the trunk of the car, the other guy quickly scanned us with some small wand-like device. He then nodded to the guy who had been talking to us. He remained silent until we were walking slowly in the nearby park.

"First I want to tell you two that the federals have stopped all the investigations they might have had, concerning the riddle of how some con men ended up naked and cuffed in the back seat of a car. To tell the truth they didn't care very much. They were just happy that someone got pissed enough to hand them over."

He let that information sink in for a moment.

"However, they got a bit concerned when they found out that all the guys were mentally quite broken, and very willing to confess to what they had done. Everything, every detail. When they recounted some of the names of the victims, alarm bells rang and we got involved. I think there is no need to say who we are and what we do, but when there are certain important people involved, security measures are always taken. Unfortunately, we aren't always able to protect people from their own stupidity."

We changed our direction a bit but continued walking slowly.

"To cut a long story short, the alarms rang and we were informed. We started questioning the guys. I have to admit that it has not been very often when the interrogation has been as easy as it was with those guys. Even if they were sure that they had been conned, they were also terrified and broken. That worried us a bit. But we got really worried when we found out that they had some network accounts. They claimed the accounts were full of pictures and videos, but we couldn't find a thing. Nothing."

He took a deep breath.

"Since we knew that there was, or were, some important people that could have been blackmailed to give out critical information, we started investigating. But we found nothing. Since there were no backups on those cheap accounts, we couldn't find a thing. It also seemed that those two sites had never been compromised, which was sheer luck as their security was almost non-existent. But we weren't happy. There were some people who had an idea that those three guys had been selected by professionals, so that they could have their videos and pictures. After all, what we found out from the three certainly pointed towards a professional operation."

I'm not sure how Madi was able to keep herself together, but I started to feel a bit worried.

"I'm quite sure that the building that was used on those guys was torn down a bit more than a week later. We couldn't find any trace of the car, even though we knew in which direction it was heading. We do have some bad footage of two persons, probably a man and a woman, but that was something we already suspected. So, we seemed to have a dead end. Then a colleague of mine, quite accidentally, had a few words with a pilot whose services we occasionally use. That opened a totally new line in our investigations. First we had to check that there was no other local bureau that had been cleaning its tracks. God knows we have too many of them. A quick check pointed out that this wasn't the case, which left us with the local private companies. I'm quite well aware that even if the private companies here usually work within the law, there sometimes may be cases in which some steps on the dark side are sometimes taken."

He had a pause and looked at Madi.

"You may not know it, but your company sometimes helps some governmental institutions in their investigations. We sometimes even share some information that can be beneficial to both of us. However, without going into details, we had access to your archives. We managed to dig out some information that connected you to this case. As we knew of your living arrangements, we then managed with a certain level of certainty to connect some financial transactions to your friend, But, once again, that was a dead end. Why would either of you do that? Certainly not because of money."

Once again we changed the direction as we were going around the park.

"I would never admit this elsewhere, but we tapped your phones, and then it all started to unravel. There wasn't any big plan to get some blackmail material. It had all been something very personal. But, John, I just need to know - why did you divorce her, if you care about your ex that much?"

"It wasn't about her. It was my son's fiancée. She was drugged and raped."

He was silent for a moment.

"I see. But how about the material, the videos and the pictures?"

Now it was Madi who opened her mouth.

"All of it was destroyed as soon as we found out that it existed."

"So there is no recorded material available that could come out some day?"

Madi looked at me.

"Nothing that we know about."

He pondered what he had heard for a moment before turning to me.

"Are they back together now?"

"I think so. At least it looks like it. They are again talking to each other, and seem to be in love."

He nodded before answering and looking back to me.

"That is great. I have two kids of my own. I hope that I don't have to face the situation like that, ever. But if it happens, I hope that I'll have enough guts to do that the right thing for them."

"I'm sure you would."

We walked a moment in silence before he continued.

"I think I can inform my superiors that we can close the case regarding those men. I know that there may be some people who might be mad at you because of what you did, but my superiors and I are quite happy that it turned out like this. After all, if they had been able to continue, it would have blown up in our faces someday. As it is, all that got wasted was some of the taxpayers' money during the investigation. But, even if you are off the hook for now, please give a second thought before doing something like that again."

When we were back by their car he gave us back our phones, and then they were on their way. Two ordinary-looking guys in their most ordinary-looking car. I took a deep breath.

"John, there is another thing we'd need to talk about. Could you come with me, and meet with Kath in the café?"

Once again we three were sitting at the booth in the corner. Kath and Madi were sitting on the other side of the table and it was clear that they were holding hands and the both of them were looking nervous. I looked at them and finally Kath nudged Madi who took some breath before looking at me.