The Investigators, Inc. The Case of Papa Levi. Chapter 5. Jailed.

While we were in the city looking for Papa Levi, who was not hard to find, Jennifer had come home briefly to pick up some things. Unfortunately, while home, the police arrived again. But not our local police, these came from Paris with arrest warrants for Jennifer and myself. There were more than 30 police officers who once again searched our chateau and clinic, looking for Nadia and Ilyana, whom they naturally didn’t find.

Jennifer reminded them that Nadia and Ilyana had left us on the bus yesterday, but for some reason the police did not believe her. The arrest warrant claimed we had been harboring a dangerous international criminal, a murderer, thief, extortioner and a few other things. She had supposedly escaped from a maximum security prison in Belarus, killed her husband and took her daughter here, with our help. We had taken some extra precautions already, so that Kat’s Wildcats and Sky’s Bad Girls were gone to a different location, just in case there was trouble at home.

They are not officially listed with our Investigators at any time now, so that helps. The Black Wolves are also not listed as working with us and they hid everything pertaining to the Black Wolves before the police arrived at their door. The police that were out yesterday to do the search had also been arrested for cooperating with us. I quickly came home, handy being able to travel this way, so that I could be there with Jennifer as we were arrested. Sienna told us not to worry, she would have her lawyers get us out of jail right away.

However, her lawyers had already been warned to stay away from us, or they would risk being arrested as accomplices, as well as being disbarred. I would say that someone in our government is working with these people, and that person has great influence, and that means we are in trouble. We could easily have fought our way out of being arrested, but these police officers, at least most of them, were innocent men and women. We didn’t want to harm them in any way.

Besides, it wouldn’t really help our case, it would just make us look guilty. For now, we go along with this foolishness. Sky took Kitty to help Kat protect Nadia and Ana, plus she brought Rusty, Sir Night and Jewel to help. Richard got in touch with Mandar right away since the police had come looking for him as well, but just for questioning, they said. Mandar did not like what was happening, he realized the seriousness of the situation, so he went into hiding briefly to think about what needs to be done.

Then he got in touch with Aari and asked if he still had some good contacts with larger “organizations”. Aari said he did. So Mandar suggested getting in touch with a couple of them and try to frame this as a definite threat to them. “If this Papa Levi gets hold of all this money,” said Mandar, “then he could move his operations right across the continent and easily push these other organizations out of business.” “Hmm, that is a thought,” said Aari, “and one that some people I know would not like very much. I will see what I can do.”

Unfortunately, this would mean revealing that Major is still alive and that could be a problem. Right now we have a bit of a stalemate, since we still have the emerald, but Jennifer and I are in jail and have been refused bail since we are considered a high risk to flee. This is especially due to having helicopters and jets at our disposal, and I will admit, that thought did occur to me. And it still might happen, though if we did try to run and hide somewhere, police departments around the world would likely be looking for us.

A couple of new charges have been laid against us now, kidnapping the ambassador (because we detained him for a few extra minutes at our chateau) which he claimed was a traumatizing experience. Plus we had apparently beaten him, even with our police present. He was seen by a doctor in Paris who confirmed the ambassador had indeed been beaten (probably by one of his own men). When our team tried to interview this doctor, they discovered he had died of a heart attack the previous day. That was certainly convenient.

But it made things much more difficult for us. Kat kept all of this information away from Nadia and Ana, so they would not be worried. But how long can we keep this information from them? Our computer girls are working overtime trying to find the link between someone in our government and this ambassador. There must be a link, or this could never happen the way it did. I communicated with Carine to tell Aari not to reveal himself to his old friends just yet, that could just bring more troubles which we don’t need right now.

Aari agreed with that, so he will try to find a different way to get word out. Well, here we sit, in jail, trying to figure out how to get out of jail, legally. We could easily escape, but that wouldn’t really help, it would just make things worse. Okay, maybe I said that before, but sitting in this jail cell is a new experience for me. Well, somewhat anyway. It has been a week now and that is the longest I have spent in jail, except for one being kidnapped by one of our enemies, along with Dawn. That was when we first met.

Seems like such a long time ago now. The guard left my cell door unlocked today, but I didn’t try to escape. It was obviously a trap and I wasn’t going to fall for it. Meanwhile. “This is not working,” said Levi, “that man is in jail, Nadia is gone somewhere and those Investigators still have our emerald.” “Yes, this is taking much longer than I expected,” said the ambassador, “perhaps we could arrange a deal, they would be set free if they give us the emerald.”

“He would never go along with it,” said Levi, “unless he and his wife were set free at the same time we received the emerald.” “Then let us do that,” said the ambassador, “after all, this is getting us nowhere, and people back home are getting a bit anxious.” The next morning, after breakfast, Papa Levi and four men headed out to their car. Just as they arrived, there were two shots, and two of Levi’s bodyguards fell dead instantly…

To Be Continued. ©2025 Steve McLeod.