Hunt for the Lost Sanctum Read online

  _______

  Ever since the first news update on how two con men succeeded in pulling one of the biggest scams in history filled the TV screens at various homes, Dani Hagreaves hadn’t looked at Miles the same. For the past 24 hours, their blooming romance had taken a nosedive. If it wasn’t for Miles, she would still be in the street, specifically at the Golden Tulip, lap dancing for drug dealers and various comers that fancied her voluptuous body.

  Dani had never followed a client home until she met Miles. What could have ended as a fling gradually changed into something regular. She used to wonder what Miles had seen in her to treat her so differently. Her philosophy of men had deteriorated over the years until Miles showed her a different perspective. She quit her job at the Golden Tulip. Not that Miles asked, but she made the decision two months after they met. She did it out of respect for him. And now, she was expecting a child—Miles’s child. None of them knew what to expect. It was Miles’s idea that they kept it as a surprise until the big day. But somewhere at the back of his mind, he secretly wished it would be a girl. Sometimes, he had let it slip in his conversations. Dani also wanted a girl.

  Things were different now since the news. Miles hadn’t said a word for the past five hours since he came back from God-knows-where. The silence only fuelled the rising tension. Miles was quietly drinking from a wine bottle, standing beside the fridge in the kitchen. Dani’s eyes traveled from the TV screen to the bag that Miles left on the sofa and back to the screen.

  Immediately, Miles strolled into the bedroom. Dani scampered toward the bag. She contemplated unzipping the bag but had a second thought. She felt the contents, and her expression agreed with her suspicion. She heard a phone beep and turned to see that Miles had left his phone on the fridge. Her investigative instinct was at full bars. With quick steps, she moved into the kitchen and pretended like she was going to get something from the fridge. She glanced at the screen of the phone and saw a notification—a message from Carlo, warning Miles to be in the wind. The following sentence said something about Dean being captured. Dani was awestruck. For a minute, she stood there, contemplating how to react. She found herself at the door of their bedroom with Miles's phone in her hand. The moment she saw Miles tapping his feet on the floor and sipping his wine, she knew she had to make a decision. She had seen it a few times—Miles tapped his feet whenever he processed a thought he didn’t want to share with her or anyone. Before Miles looked up, Dani had deleted the message.

  “Did someone call?” Miles asked as soon as he noticed his cell phone in Dani’s hand.

  “I don’t know. You left it on the fridge.”

  Miles collected the phone while his girlfriend walked back to the sitting room. There was no recent activity on the call log, as he confirmed, but the edginess about him had gained some weight. Maybe it had a little to do with the tiny percentage of alcohol he had consumed. Or, he was just conscious that the recent revelation about his illegitimate source of income had swallowed the trust in their relationship. The latter was the case, for as soon as the thought occurred to him, he overheard the door close. He looked through the window and saw his girlfriend rushing out with the bag of money he had dropped on the sofa.

  “Sixteen months!” The words gnarled out of Miles’s teeth as he rushed out of the apartment. “You’re going to throw it all away because some journalists in fancy suits had some opinions about me.”

  Dani stopped. She was two feet away from Miles’s car. She turned to face Miles, still carrying the heavy bag of cash.

  “Prove it to me right now, Miles. Prove to me that they were wrong about you. Go on, tell me to my face that you’re not a goddamn fraud!”

  “Why does that matter?”

  “To you, it doesn’t, you deceptive son-of-a-bitch. You made me believe you were an accountant. I trusted you, believing all the crap you told me. And to think that…” She sobbed quietly. “To think that I loved you! I could have been living with a serial killer and not known a goddamn thing!”

  Dani froze as she heard the sound of sirens approaching from a few miles away.

  “Oh, God, what did you do?”

  Miles assumed that she had called the police and quickly snatched his car keys from her hand. He got into the driver’s seat, opened the other door, and asked her to hop in. Dani obliged. She threw the bag to the backseat as they drove out of the front yard into the road. The sirens approached from the left side of the road. Miles drove in the opposite direction, but the cops in the first car had seen his car. Miles accelerated at a hundred miles an hour before slow traffic ahead altered his direction. He turned to a different route, leaving the major highway as the chase continued. They bumped into trash cans, tables, and chairs in front of a coffee shop and narrowly missed some incoming vehicles that emerged at intersection points.

  Dani was scared to death. When she was exhausted from screaming at the top of her lungs, she sobbed bitterly. He would lose the cops for a second, then run into more backups until he eventually stopped in front of a clinic. He reached his hand for the bag, unzipped it, and began to hide stacks of cash under Dani’s dress. She was too tired to protest or inquire about his plan. Five police cars had surrounded them at this point, but he didn’t come out until he had hidden a few stacks under Dani’s clothes, using her pregnancy as a disguise. He unlocked the car door for her and asked her to head into the hospital while he stepped out with his hands in the air.

  ______

  Southern District Court, Department of Justice

  Three weeks later…

  A week ago, contrary to expectations, the preceding at the jury trial seemed to favor Miles and his colleague, Dean Bowen. Howard Grant, the CEO of the Bloom, the software company that was swindled out of 2.5 billion dollars after a negotiation deal with a Japanese company in the production of autonomous intelligence driving technology for third parties such as Tesla, Audi, and others. The trial was televised nationwide. The media was agog with interest on how the trial would go, with most viewers predicting that Miles and his colleague would get thirty to forty years of prison time.

  With his good looks, calm demeanor, and 6.2 feet in height, Miles Cleveland possessed none of the negative descriptions as portrayed by the prosecutor. His narrow eyes barely looked up at his accuser the whole time. But it wasn’t just his innocent features that got the viewers and the jury rapt in the vocal melee between the attorneys. When Howard Grant was cross-examined by Miles’s defendant, the jury learned how the billionaire tech giant ignorantly implicated himself in the deal. Miles and Dean Bowen had posed as stakeholders in the Bloom organization, promising the Japanese firm a mouth-watering offer that beat other competitors on the table. They set up a meeting in Boston, and when the Japanese representatives asked to test the AI driving software, Miles presented a video on the screen. The conversation subtly digressed when images of a software lab at the Iron Mountain surfaced. Knowing that the Japanese guys would research the information, the con artists had already manipulated some archives online, placing their faces amongst Bill Gates and Steve Jobs at various events.

  The 2.5 billion dollars was paid to an offshore account. The duo would have earned another 15 billion in bond and other assets if the entire scheme hadn’t been detected by Hayden Emett, a mere Level 2 analyst that worked in a cubicle at the Bloom. When Hayden tried to warn his manager about the discrepancies in the agreement, he was told off because it wasn’t even in his job description. He was later taken seriously when Howard overheard the rumor of the argument between his manager and the analyst.

  The jury trial was over. The court was in session again a week later to hear the judgment on the case. Just like his first two appearances, Miles looked sharp in his grey suit and purple tie while Dean, now clean-shaven, wore a black blazer over his sky-blue shirt. Howard Grant was seated on the prosecutors’ side.

  The hushed voices, sounds of footsteps, and other noises became muted the moment the judge stepped into the courtroom. The attorneys were allo
wed to have their closing arguments, and then the moment that everyone, including viewers in their homes and workplaces, had been waiting for, finally arrived.

  “After a thorough hearing and resolution on Case 5101 C, the Bloom versus Pierce Neumann and Dean Bowen, here are the jury’s verdicts: On account of falsification of business documents, the jury unanimously found the defendants not guilty since the prosecutor couldn’t produce reliable evidence to present his case.”

  While Dean Bowen smiled for this victory, Miles maintained an expressionless face. Howard Grant, on the other hand, tried to contain himself from adding contempt of court to the losses.

  “On the grounds of the first-degree forgery, a class C felony charge,” the 60-year-old judge continued, “the jury unanimously voted guilty against the defendants.”

  The smile on Dean’s face fizzled out momentarily. The judge went on to announce a guilty verdict on other crimes like grand larceny and identity theft. The punishment could have amounted to at least forty years with a five-billion-dollar fine, but since the signatures of the entire board at the Bloom were verified to be true, a brilliant trickery that was masterminded by Miles, the judge sentenced the defendants to serve a ten-year prison term if they could remit 2 billion dollars. It sounded like a victory for the defendants. Howard stormed out of the courtroom, angry and disappointed with his counsel and the justice system.

  As the cops put cuffs on the defendant, Miles turned to the young Harvard lawyer that not only owed Miles the victory they had just achieved but more so because Miles was responsible for her tuition and her current job at one of the most prestigious law firms in New York.

  “I did what I could, Mr. Neumann,” the beautiful counsel said with concern in her voice.

  “You did well,” Miles said in a hushed voice. “And hey, I told you I never liked that name.”

  Chapter Two

  Gaza Strip

  April 2014

  "Hassan, be gentle with your sister. Come on. Let her play with the octopus. You know it's her favorite," Jakub scolded his firstborn when he saw him snatch away a toy from his little sister.

  "She's always playing with it," Hassan grumbled but still left the toy for her and grabbed something else.

  Jakub loved spending time with his children. In his busy schedule, he always managed to get appointments shifted or moved so he could be around his family.

  They were in the backyard. Jakub was on the lounge chair next to the pool while Hassan and Reina played in the kiddies pool. He was sipping a Coke and watching over them. A sound suddenly came from inside the house.

  "Mama!" Reina exclaimed, using her tiny, pudgy hands to push herself out of the pool. Another crashing sound came, and Jakub stood suddenly.

  "Hassan, hold your sister and wait for me."

  Hassan nodded and held his sister by the shoulders, a look of fright on his face as he watched his father make his way back into their house.

  "Sofia? Is that you?" Jakub asked as he stepped into the house. He grabbed a nearby vase and stepped carefully until he turned the corner into the living room, where the vase dropped from his hand and crashed on the marble floor, breaking apart.

  "Sofia..." he gasped as he tried to make sense of what he was seeing. His wife was laying down on the ground next to the coffee table with the diffuser and scented candles she loved to buy right next to her.

  She looked up at him with strained eyes, her hijab sliding down her head. Jakub launched himself at her and held her close to his chest.

  "Sofia! What happened? Oh my God, what happened?"

  Her face was bruised and swollen, her eyes were barely opening, and her lips were busted. Jakub wasn't aware of when he started crying, but tears were already streaming down his face.

  "H-Hamas..."

  "What? Don't talk. I'll call an ambulance now, and you'll be fine—"

  "Mom?" Hassan's voice came from behind them.

  Jakub turned his neck sharply and saw his children standing in front of the broken vase, looking confused.

  "Hassan, I told you to stay!"

  "Mama!" Reina screamed and broke free from her brother's grip, running over to her mother.

  "Mama, what's wrong? What's wrong, Mama?" she asked, but Sofia gave her no answer. All she could manage to do was hold her daughter's face softly.

  "Hassan, get me my phone. Now!" Jakub yelled, causing him to jump and rush to do what he was asked.

  "Daddy, why are you crying?" Reina asked and started crying herself.

  "J-Jakub..." Sofia rasped.

  "Sofia, please, just hold on a little more. Hassan!"

  "J-Jakub...pl-please…" She gripped his hand and did her best to look into his eyes. "Protect them."

  "We will. We'll both protect them. Save your strength, please."

  Reina's cries were so distracting and loud, and Jakub could feel despair creeping upon him. Hassan still had not brought his phone. Where could he possibly be?

  "Dad!" Hassan rushed to his side and handed his father the phone. Jakub's hand shook violently as he tried to call the police. Hassan's cries joined Reina's as they tried to keep their mother awake.

  "Don't let her die, Dad, please," Hassan whispered and looked up at him with glossed-over teary eyes.

  "I won't."

  Her grip loosened, and she suddenly went limp in his arms. Jakub felt his heart drop to the ground. It felt like the world went mute, completely. He could hear his son calling him, and he could hear Reina crying, but they were like background noises, and he was out of touch with everything else.

  He did not know when he laid her gently down or when he called the police, or when they arrived.

  The whole day passed in a blur. Even when the policemen arrived, it still felt like things that were happening were not to him but a completely different person, and he just happened to be observing.

  _____

  The next day hit him like a tidal wave. Sofia was already dead by the time the ambulance and police arrived. They told him that she had been raped, cut, and beaten badly. They found shards of glass and metal inside her vagina, she had internal bleeding, and multiple lacerations on her thighs among other things. The police said they found it odd that she made her way back home, grilling Jakub about where she had gone and what had happened to her.

  As he laid on his bed, replaying the events of the previous day, he felt like he was slipping out of sanity. He looked to his side and saw Hassan and Reina huddled together. Both of them were unable to sleep alone, and he had let them sleep in their room.

  He wanted to scream or pull his hair out or something that would snap him out of what still seemed to be a dream, but he managed to stay quiet, watching his children sleep silently. His phone suddenly started buzzing on the nightstand.

  Jakub sighed and swung his feet down, and reached for his phone. It was the number of the detective that had spoken to him about Sofia's death. It was surreal speaking to him the day before. He felt like he might have said some stupid things or some things that did not make sense.

  "Hello? Good morning, Detective."

  "Good morning, Mr. Stilinski. How was your night?"

  "Terrible. Can I help you?"

  "I'm sorry to hear that. We need you to come down to the station today. We have a couple of questions, and—"

  "Haven't you asked me everything already?"

  "Sir, we have follow-up questions."

  Jakub went silent and looked up to the ceiling, feeling tears welling up in his eyes that were already raw from crying.

  "Sir?"

  "Alright. I'll be there shortly." He hung up and stared at his phone. His screen saver was a selfie of Sofia with the kids. As the screen went dark, his tears fell onto it, and he sobbed silently.

  Jakub arrived at the station two hours later. Sofia's parents had arrived in town and lodged into a hotel despite him pleading with them to stay in the house. He had to drop off his kids with them, and they could barely look him in the eye.

  Reina surpris
ingly understood everything that was happening. She was only three years old, but she was very assertive and refused to let her dad convince her that her mom was only gone for a while.

  Hassan, who was three years older, had it the worst; he wouldn't stop crying. When they got to Sofia's parents, he ran into his grandmother's arms and started crying like crazy. Reina hugged him and comforted him when it should have been the other way around. Jakub left them there, feeling like he should have said something or done something but having nothing to do or say.

  He pulled into the parking lot of the police station and made his way inside. It was really busy, and it felt like he was being ignored or like he wasn't there because everyone kept brushing past him.

  "Mr. Stilinski?"

  "Yes?" He turned his head to the side and saw the detective approaching him.

  "Sorry about the buzz. We had a series of break-ins and robberies an hour ago, and everyone's trying to get on top of it. Come with me."

  "Okay."

  Jakub followed him through the building until they reached what he could only assume was an interrogation room. It was steely, cold, and impersonal. There was a desk that was drilled to the ground, with a chair on one side and two on the other.

  "Please, sit down."

  Jakub watched him indicate to the single chair.

  "Am I in trouble or something?"

  "No...no...well, not exactly."

  Jakub leaned back into the cold iron seat and swallowed. He had watched enough crime documentaries—thanks to Sofia—to know that the spouse is always the first and primary suspect, and even though he had his kids with him, they weren't reliable witnesses, and he would still be suspected of killing his wife.