Friends Always Win in the End!
by Ruwen Rouhs
Chapter 13
One Track Lost, Another Found
"We have a lead on Goldtooth!" Chief Kraft informed his assistant Henner three days later. "The police found the camper near Amsterdam. It was completely burnt out and could only be identified on the basis of the vehicle identification number."
"And Goldtooth?"
"Remains missing. Anyway, there was no body in the car."
"Is that good news or bad news?"
"Whatever you think. I'd say rather bad. Either he left the Netherlands in direction Iran or he has gone underground. He would be a greater danger underground. But even if he's no longer in Europe, that doesn't mean the danger for Arash is over."
"Of course, the mullahs can send another man after Arash, perhaps the one who used to throw Naim up in the water."
"Do we actually know what he looks like?"
"Arash described him as being in his mid-twenties, with dark curly hair and no beard. He's said to have blue eyes. Quite unusual for a Persian."
"That means we have to reckon with the fact that not only Iranians but also Europeans, probably Germans, are involved in the case."
"That's not all, my dear Henner! Who gave us the tip about Goldtooth? Naim! Therefore, Naim is in danger also. But not only him, but also his family and of course Severin."
"Severin too, of course. I didn't think of that at first."
"Severin secondarily, as well as Tanner." Henner's boss scratched his head and pondered for a moment, "What about you and Tanner? I've been told that you meet up every day."
Henner face suddenly turned crimson, looking at his toes he asked, "Is it forbidden..."
W hen he paused briefly, his boss interrupted him, "Not really, but..."
"I've always wanted to ask you, is it illegal for me to help Tanner prepare for the police exam?" Seeing the questioning look on his boss's face, Henner explained, "Tanner wants to pass the entrance exam to the police academy. But his grade point average isn't that great and he needs extra tuition. I'll give it to him after work."
"That's fine with me and explains your connection." Henner's boss said relieved. Noting this, Henner dared to ask, "Are you on the autid committee like the years before?" When the Chief Kraft nodded in affirmation, "Please treat Tanner according his knowledge. He is a pert boy if excited, answers without thinking. However, he corrects his answer after thinking twice. I'm sure he can answer every question correctly. Please be patient with him, like you are with me!"
Tanner knew instinctively that his friends were in danger. Therefore, he asked all his friends, but especially Roger, to keep an eye on Arash and Severin. So that the surveillance was not too conspicuous, the two of them were invited by a different person every evening; once to a surprise party, then to a boat trip, then again to the movies, etc. As Severin was actually a loner, the many invitations seemed strange to him, but he blamed it on Arash. "Everyone likes Arash! And they just put up with me."
Arash, in turn, suspected something similar, as he didn't know anything about Severin's solitary nature. "They all like Severin! He is so handsome. He is so cute. At least cuter than me with my big nose!"
Otherwise, the two of them stuck to their daily routine. Every morning they checked the night shots that the wildlife camera had taken of the road in front of Severin's house. Every other day they cycled to Arash's house. They fed the fish there, got the letters from the mail-box and swapped the SD cards of the two cameras. Taking back the SD-cards to Severin's they studied the takes carefully.
Everything seemed inconspicuous. No strange cars parked in front of Severin's house at night, the R4-buggy never drove past and only the neighbor came by the house at midnight as usual. Severin knew him and his two large dogs that he walked at night. The same applied to the street in front of Arash's house. However, more was going on in the back-garden than they had expected. A pair of hedgehogs always showed up around 9 am, a fox dropped by around midnight and rabbits hopped through the rapidly growing grass and munched on dandelions. Because no one disturbed them, wood pigeons were soon nesting in the tall fir tree. Nature gradually reclaimed the back yard.
In the night from Saturday to Sunday the R4-buggy showed up again. Parked across Severin's house and left early morning. A s they had changed the angle of vision of the camera they were able to record the license plate. It read: "0 149-133". The "0" indicated the car was registered to a diplomatic mission. The code number "149" indicating the country the diplomats were presenting and "133" indicated the user of the car had a low status. The code number was a mystery however. "149" was a free number meaning it was not be assigned to a special country. Reporting the number to Henner triggered a search for the car. The hunt was not successful. Tanner, who learned the license plate number from Henner, immediately informed his friends and asked them to keep an eye out for the R4 buggy with this license number.
Roger, Tanner's friends was more successful than the police. Three evenings later, Roger Roth discovered the car in a dark dead-end road n front of an empty house. He knew the run-down house. It was a hiding place for home-less, junkies, dope addicts and other strange people. Immediately he took a photo of the buggy and the house and decided to mail both to Tanner. Afraid to enter the house he hid in a playground at the junction with the cul-de-sac. Sitting in a cubby home on top of the climbing frame of the playground he had a nearly perfect view of the derelict house and the buggy. He had to wait until around midnight. It was already dark when the driver left the house and walked to the R4-buggy. Roger took some pics with his phone and mailed them to Tanner, asking him to forward them to Henner.
At the laboratory of the police they were able to process the blurred pics Tanner had taken in the dark. The photo of the driver matched by and large the description Arash had given of the person who had dunked Naim during the ball game.
Next morning a police squad in plain cloth searched the empty house, the suspect had visited the night before. The door was locked and the windows broken and boarded up. The house was a dump! The rooms at the ground-level were dirty, full of broken furniture and stank of urine and feces. On the second floor accessible via a rickety staircase, mattresses and sleeping bags characterized the rooms as sleeping areas of home-less. But not only bums seemed to have spent their time in these rooms, as broken crack pipes showed that drug addicts hung out here also. The police wondered why the electric light could be switched on, but quickly found out that the "guests" had bypassed the electricity meter. The third floor presented a similar picture, as did the attic.
The police found no signs indicating a visit by a representative of a diplomatic embassy. They were still talking when Tanner and Roger showed up with new information, "The house is adjacent to a property on which there is a shack that is used as a mosque."
"Do you know which Islamic community it belongs to?"
"Nope!" said Tanner, "They're weird, at least much weirder than the one my dad belongs to."
In the meantime, Roger had started to tamper with the boarded-up windows that led to the adjoining property. "Holla, look!" He pointed to a locking mechanism and when he pressed it, the boards slid aside very easily. Roger and Tanner immediately wanted to climb through the window onto the property with the mosque. "No! Stop!" Chief Stark held them back, "No! We have to get a search warrant first. Religious communities are under special protection. We have to get permission from the public prosecutor first and the application has to be well-founded. It is not enough for us to state that we are suspecting a suspicious character may have gone through to the next property and eventually visited the mosque. We need more valid reasons."
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