The Investigators, Inc. The Case of Papa Levi. Chapter 4. Diplomatic Immunity.

Today is not going quite the way I had thought it would. This Papa Levi is somewhat more intelligent than we figured him to be. I certainly never expected he would get his embassy working on his side, but that is what he did. And it does pose a greater problem than we usually face. Now, yesterday this ambassador had admitted to kidnapping four of our girls at the market in town. Then he proposed exchanging them for Nadia and Ilyana. He said our 4 women are likely more important to me than Nadia and Ilyana.

“Yes, those 4 women are very important to me,” I said, “but you had something wrong, Nadia and her daughter mean nothing to you. For you they are just slaves, to be tossed around, to do your bidding, to satisfy your desires, to be beaten at your pleasure. They mean nothing to you. But to me, they are as important as all the other women here. And I will make sure you never get your hands on them or take them back to Belarus. Now, you return those 4 women to me, or you will not leave here.”

He laughed. “I have diplomatic immunity,” he said, “you cannot arrest me or do anything else to me. You cannot even prove that I kidnapped your women.” He laughed again. “That is where you are wrong!” exclaimed Mandar, “We have laws here and you just admitted to kidnapping those women. We will have you arrested for kidnapping and blackmail.” “I will just deny everything,” he said, “and my government protects me. How will you arrest me? I have diplomatic immunity.”

The police arrived at that point and said they had searched every inch of the premises and Nadia Kovalyuk and her daughter Ilyana were nowhere to be found. “That is totally impossible!” exclaimed the ambassador, “they must be here and you will be severely reprimanded by your superiors for not doing a complete and comprehensive search of this building!” “I told you before,” I said, “they left on the bus this morning. Now, return the 4 women you have kidnapped, then you may leave.”

“They kidnapped 4 of your women?” asked the senior officer. “Yes, he admitted to doing that,” I told him. Then we lowered our monitor and played back the recording of that part of our conversation where he had admitted to kidnapping the girls. “You can do nothing to me,” he said again, “I have diplomatic immunity. But I will have you arrested for detaining me unlawfully.” Carine had already informed me that the Black Wolves have the girls safely back.

“Okay, you may go,” I said, “but don’t come back, you are not welcome here.” He smiled and the three of them left, followed by the police who apologized for putting us through this terrible ordeal. I assured him it was not his fault, he was only obeying orders, which I did not mind. After they had all gone, then one of the Black Wolves vans showed up, with our girls and also with Alfred. He had come to take a look at the emerald found in Ana’s teddy bear.

“Well Alfred,” I said, “what can you tell me about this little green stone?” “Well, it is not so little,” he said chuckling, “and it once belonged to the Queen of Denmark, though not the present Queen. It was stolen some 17 years ago along with other jewels and a good size shipment of gold, though the jewels and gold were stolen at different times, but within two weeks of each other. It was amazingly executed too and the trail of the thieves disappeared from sight rather quickly. Nothing was ever recovered, until now.”

“So, it is possible that this Papa Levi was part of the group responsible for this theft,” I said, “and Nadia’s husband found one of the jewels and stole it from him.” “Well, this isn’t just one of the jewels Steve,” he said, “it is the ‘key’ jewel for finding the remaining jewels and gold which I think were well hidden, but not everyone in the gang knew where. Then perhaps something happened to the ones who hid the loot, so it was lost. Until now. See this engraving on the back of the emerald?”

“That actually says something?” I asked. “It is rather tiny,” he said, chuckling again. We had to put it under his microscope to read it, and even then I couldn’t read it because it was in Belarusian. I asked Aurora and Sapphire, our two Russian girls to come to my office. They wrote out the message on the back of the emerald and interpreted it for us. I decided that now would not be a good time to return the emerald to it’s owner. Mandar agreed with that. We then had a lengthy discussion about the present case and then he had to leave and continue with his business trip.

But he would return immediately if we needed him for anything. Then he called for Richard to come and pick him up by helicopter, instead of driving back. This also provided us with another opportunity to make a switch, so we did. Nadia and Ana went back with Mandar and will stay in his private residence for a while. I also sent Jennifer, Kat, Celestine, plus Muffin, Storm and Snow along too. I told Nadia and Ana it would only be until we could persuade Papa Levi to go back home.

It shouldn’t really take long to convince him now. Without Nadia and Ana here, we can begin to apply some greater pressure on this Levi “creep”, as the girls keep calling him. There was this little matter of the two embassy vehicles that were completely destroyed and the staff in them that had been killed. Apparently they had decided to fight the Black Wolves, instead of surrendering, as they were ordered to do. However, no one in town saw anything that could help the police.

I assured the police that no criminal gang works for us, but there is a criminal gang in Canada by the name of Black Wolves. The police didn’t like the thought of another criminal gang coming to France. Anyway, it satisfied them for now and got them away from us. Now, time to go after Papa Levi, and we know where to find him in the city. First, we get rid of the ones who are watching our chateau day and night.

That turned out to be quite easy, they were not too far away across the road and part way up the hill on the other side. We had some of the guys bring them to us and then we went to the city with our “catch”. Finding Papa Levi wasn’t so hard, we just waited for him to show up at the hotel restaurant for dinner, then we joined him…

To Be Continued. ©2025 Steve McLeod.