Insomvita. Oleksandr Dan
looked at the sheikh, then at Mehmet, and answered in Arabic: “No, not alright, gentlemen. This man is not who he says he is. He is not Guinean. And most likely his name is not Kone. I was just informed that our gemologist, Mr. Zimme, was poisoned."
The sheikh nodded and one of his bodyguards approached the Czech and the other – the gemologist. The bank officer called the bank’s security.
Dumbfounded and sweating profusely, Kone looked around and with trembling hands lowered the stone into the metal box, as though defeated.
The scam was simple, but daring and craftily elegant.
Mr. Zimme, whom the Arabs trusted fully, had performed the first examination of the diamonds. Then he was sidelined. Poison was the simplest way to go and, seeing as Zimme was polite and friendly, did not require additional preparation. While he was distracted by conversation, someone slipped a small dose of poison into the gemologist’s food.
If the Arabs were to go back on the deal in the absence of the gemologist, they would have been forced to pay the fifty-million-dollar penalty. Nobody wants to lose this kind of money on an almost closed deal. Naturally, the buyer would approach top gemologists in Antwerp or Israel in search of an experienced professional. On their side, upon getting the information about the gemologist chosen by the buyer, the scammers took steps to ensure that he was unavailable by offering him a better job which he could not refuse.
Then using an employee of the Israel exchange, who suspected nothing, the scammers offered Mr. Kone, who was known and respected there. To replace Kone with their own person, a gemologist, was just a technicality. Nobody really cared where the real Mr. Kone was at the moment, as a beneficial contract worth over a billion dollars or a huge penalty for disruption of the deal was at stake.
When the switch was made, the new “Kone” was presented to the parties as a person of the buyer, i.e. the Arabs. The only thing he needed to do was to confirm that all the stones complied with the gemological certificates and that Mr. Zimme did all the work regarding their examination.
After “Mr. Kone” confirmed to the buyer that everything was good, the box with fake stones would be passed to the buyer and the buyer would transfer all the money to the seller’s offshore account. To make it more convincing, several of the stones were authentic and “Kone” showed them to the sheikh, as the latter could easily tell a fake just by looking at it. The rest of the stones were excellent fakes from wonderfully cut cubic zirconia.
Nobody would have thought to examine the diamonds immediately thereafter. So, the scammer had a huge time advantage to tie up any loose ends.
Because the seller did not act directly, but through representatives, he might not have had any idea about the scam. His own people might even be using him, taking advantage of the trust. After the scam was complete, the scammers would have had the real diamonds, which they could leave in a safe deposit box in the same bank.
The scam was win-win. The scammers would benefit in any case – the fifty million dollar penalty if the deal fell through at the least or a lot with high quality diamonds worth over one billion dollars at the most.
The police arrested the gemologist and one of the Czechs. The one who had left the conference room disappeared.
After Robert spoke to an officer of Interpol, Mehmet, the sheikh’s aide, approached him.
“Mr. Blanche,” he said politely. “His Highness would like to discuss with you some of the details of what happened here and invites you to his suite at the Savoy.”
Robert was in a rush to get to his hotel. He looked at his watch; it was close to five. All his thoughts were with Chloe now; she hadn’t answered his calls for three days. He also needed to pack his things. His flight to Prague was the next morning. Still, Robert agreed to the meeting.
“Please tell His Highness that I will be there at nine.”
“No, no, Mr. Blanche. His Highness kindly offers his limo and security men. He is already waiting for you at the hotel. If you don’t mind, we can leave now.”
“Ok, let me collect my things here and I’ll be ready in ten minutes.”
“Very well, Mr. Blanche. I’ll be waiting at the hotel for you. John and Jake are at your disposal.” Mehmet pointed at the two bodyguards in black suits, who gave short, almost imperceptible, nods to Robert. “They will accompany you.”
Mehmet politely said goodbye and left the bank. The two strong bodyguards with unmoving faces, equal in height and build, looked like twins. They never let Robert out of their sight.
On the way to the hotel, Robert tried reaching Chloe a couple of more times, but was unsuccessful.
Mehmet was waiting for him at the hotel’s reception desk. He nodded at Robert and said to follow him.
The sheikh's suite was huge with several spacious rooms in the elegant Edwardian style with a view of the Thames. In the distance, on the south bank, Robert could see the flickering lights of the 135-meter London Eye, one of the London’s main attractions.
The sheikh came up to Robert, greeted him and asked him to sit at a small table.
“People, Mr. Blanche, always desire to see more than they can,” he began in Arabic, pointing at the Ferris wheel. “But what they want most is to enjoy what they see. Isn’t that so? What do you think?”
“That is human nature, and there is nothing you can do about it. The desire to enjoy is the driver of progress, to some extent.”
“Robert… May I call you that? I call all my friends by their given name.”
“Of course, I’m humbled that you are calling me your friend.”
“You speak Arabic well. Not many Europeans speak Arabic as fluently as you do. These days, everybody wishes to speak only English.” The sheikh paused and then asked, “Would you like tea or coffee?”
“Thank you. Well, we are in England, so tea, only tea.” Robert smiled.
The sheikh poured tea into two porcelain cups and handed one to Robert.
“Did you know, Robert, that nearly three hundred million people speak Arabic,” the sheikh continued proudly. “That’s the size of the population of the United States. By the way, Arabic is one of the oldest languages in the world. And it is the language of the Holy Quran. Did you study it somewhere?”
“No, Your Highness. I had a very good teacher. We studied different languages every night, including Arabic. Ever since I was a child.”
“Well, let’s switch to English. After all, as you rightly said, we are in England and we are drinking English tea. So, it would be unfair not to use this opportunity and practice a bit, maybe improve my English,” offered the sheikh and continued in English. “What about African languages? Your teacher must have been a polyglot.”
“Bambara, that’s different,” Robert answered. “There is a story there, which, by the way, is related to the diamonds from Guinea and Sierra Leone."
“Well, I hope you will share this exciting story with me one day, but now I would like to ask you, Robert: when did you suspect or guess that they were scammers? My aide, the former chief of security, is a very experienced and cautious man, yet he was caught with his pants down, as they say.” He stressed ‘former’.
“It wasn’t just a guess. I don’t know much about gemology, but I do have pretty extensive experience in law and I do not rely on chance. The first time I had a suspicion was when Mr. Zimme suddenly had a heart attack. We had dinner at a restaurant the night before and he looked very healthy. Then, when we were in the conference room, I got a call from my law firm’s security service, which said that the heart attack was caused by some strong toxin. Comparing these facts, I realized that the gemologist was the weakest link. And the fact that he was introduced to us as a Guinean and my modest knowledge of Bambara – those are pure coincidences." Robert smiled and placed his cup on the table.
“I do not believe in coincidences; everything happens at the will