The NamSeok Mysteries

Seven

They saw Jacquie tapping furiously at her phone. When she saw them, she said exasperated, "Finally! What took you so long?"

"We only spoke 20 minutes ago Jacquie, patience is a virtue you know," replied Hoseok.  Jacquie rolled her eyes and pulled out a small envelope from her bag. She quickly scanned the area around them to make sure nobody else suddenly developed an interest in seeing lost dentures, and then said, "This is what Maggie left for us."

Namjoon and Hoseok gathered in closer to see what it was. "Looks like a map," said Namjoon.

"Yes and no. It's not a navigation map, but a schematic diagram of very old, underground, hidden, Russian mafia smuggling routes."

"What?!" Hoseok asked. "What on earth are they smuggling, and where on earth are these routes? Here?"

Jacquie looked at him for a few seconds, uncharacteristically hesitating before answering. She glanced at Namjoon. "Not here. They're smuggling diamonds. Blood diamonds."

Both Namjoon and Hoseok stared at her in disbelief. "How do you know? Did you find anything else?"

"No, this was all Maggie left, with the initials SL. It was a miracle no one else found it, but Maggie knew where best to hide this. I did a historic check of this 'map' against areas in Sierra Leone. It came up pretty quickly once I knew what I was looking for. These routes are obviously the ones used illegally all those years ago, and technically, don't exist anymore according to their Government. Looks like Maggie had somehow found out that the Russians had been smuggling these diamonds for the last 20 years to sell on the black market. I'd even bet my BM they paid the authorities there enough money to turn a blind eye and clear all the channels to let them get away with it."

"It seems too incredible to be true, but...." Namjoon paused.

"But?" the other two asked curiously.

Namjoon sighed and said, "Full disclosure. I work for MI6." He paused for dramatic effect. Getting no reaction from his audience, he repeated, "MI6, you know, UK Secret Intelligence Service. Spies, James Bond etcetera." He looked at them expecting gasps of surprise and awe. Still nothing.

"To be honest, Namjoon, you weren't that quiet when you were on the phone before. And you did say you were a cryptanalyst. Wasn't a big stretch to work out the connection," said Hoseok patting him gently on the shoulder.

"Oh," said Namjoon, a bit deflated, then recovering quickly, "well, I don't think MI6 caused Maggie's death, despite what Mr Moore said. They are definitely involved, but looks like they were trying to protect her once they discovered she had stumbled on this. I also think MI6 must have assigned Strike to follow her, but unfortunately he was silenced before his newest assignment could even start."

Jacquie pondered his new suggestion. "You know, if you'd told me this shit a day ago, I would have told you to f- off back to London. But with all that we've found out so far, this isn't the craziest thing you could have said."

Hoseok was trying to process all this new information; Maggie, Russian smugglers, mafia, MI6, blood diamonds, retired spies, Sierra Leone. This sounded more like something from a blockbuster movie, not a real-life event in a sleepy village. Namjoon noticed that Hoseok was unusually quiet. "Father Hoseok, are you ok?"

"Yes, yes, don't worry about me, I'm just trying to get my head around all this. It's a lot that's happened in just under 48 hours. I think I naively figured that this was a local crime which I could help solve. I wanted to do right by Maggie to find her killer. I didn't imagine it would involve Russian mafia and the secret service. Maybe this is bigger than the three of us?" he suggested.

Without warning, Jacquie hugged Hoseok, catching him off guard. Then holding his shoulders at arms length, she said, "Father H, you are the best person I know. And you know I don't think much of people. The fact that you didn't hesitate about bringing to justice Maggie's killer, and bringing in extra help, even though he may not be my first choice (Namjoon raised an eyebrow), means you are absolutely the right person to see this through. And you're a man of the cloth, so we have the Big Guy on our side, right?" Jacquie looked at him desperately. She was right. He'd have to see through what he started, even if it meant going up against some unexpected rivals. And Namjoon looked like he was going to be a real asset after all. He nodded and said, "Ok Namjoon. We've learnt as much as we can from our side, now you have to take the lead. I'm sure Jacquie won't mind." It was her turn to raise an eyebrow. "Whatever, yeah, tell us what to do Sherlock, but you'd better not fuck this up," she conceded.

Namjoon winced inwardly. "As I said before, my skills are not based on observations and intelligent guesses. I will use the information we have in front of us, and my connections, to work out what to do next. It just so happened that before I came here, I'd been asked to decipher some messages coming out of Sierra Leone. Of course at the time I didn't know the context of those messages, I just made sense of them and passed on my findings...."

"God, I forgot you love to talk. This isn't a Sunday sermon you know. Cut to the chase Sherlock!"

"Jacquie...."

"Oops, no offence Father H, but even you have to admit he needs to trim his monologues."

"Ok, ok. Cutting to the chase then, MI6 were just days away from bringing down the Russian mafia, but looks like the deaths of Strike and Maggie disrupted their plans."

Jacquie's phone suddenly buzzed to attention. She read the message and said, "Strike, Maggie and Mr Moore. Police just found Moore lying face down in the reservoir near his home."