The Throwbacks, Book 1 of The Scotland Yard Exchange Program Series

The Throwbacks, Excerpt # 12

Chapter 8

David followed Dan into his office, closed the door behind him and sat in one of the two serviceable guest chairs.

“I don’t know what’s going on with this gallery manager.  I hate to send you all the way down to New York and not be able to find him,” Dan said as he sat behind his desk and picked up his phone.  “I’ll call Nick and see what he’s found out.”

David turned to the door as it opened and Nick walked into the office. 

Dan slammed his phone down.  “What are you doing here?  Shouldn’t you be in hiding at the loft?”

Nick nodded at David and sauntered over to the other chair and sat.  “I couldn’t stand it another minute—besides I have some news.”

“Let me guess, you can’t get a hold of the gallery manager in NYC?” David pre-empted Dan for the fun of it.

“Right.  I had a friend go to the gallery and it was shut down.  Turns out the guy’s not at his home either.”

“That’s just great.”  Dan looked at David.  “We can cancel your road trip to New York City.  It’s too bad.  I was hoping we’d make some progress on this before you leave for London.”

“Don’t worry.  We still have the Peruvian Inspector,” David reminded his friend.

“What? What about Peru?” Nick leaned forward with interest.  Dan updated him on their visit with Dr. Doris.

“We should probably call I.C.E. in before we call Mateo.  To be polite.  They’ll probably let us handle it,” David said as he picked up the plastic bag with the copper to have another closer look at it.

“You haven’t called ICE yet?” Nick sounded excited.  He grinned at Dan.

“No.”  Dan looked at David.  “Do you have a contact there?”

“Yes, I’ll give you his number.”

Dan’s office phone rang then.  “Hello, Mr. Mayor.”

“Don’t tell him I’m here.” Nick sat on the edge of his chair.  David liked the young chap, but he seemed to always be on edge.

“Nick?  He’s right here,” Dan said.  He looked at Nick with an evil smile.  “The Mayor has politely suggested that you return to the loft to protect Theresa and Rick.”

Nick sat back down and flipped Dan a finger.

“I’ll put you on speaker phone,” Dan told his boss.  He pressed a button and put the receiver down.

“So how is this case going?  Any more good leads?  Update me.”

“The New York City gallery manager has disappeared.  Nick will follow-up on that for us.  We got the name of an official from Peru, Mateo, who might know something about the artifacts from that end.  David is going to call I.C.E. in on the case before we call Mateo,” Dan said.

“Who’s ICE?”

“Immigration & Customs Enforcement,” David enlightened the Mayor with a quirk of a smile for Nick and Dan.

“Do we have any idea who these smugglers are?”

“The Peruvian Inspector Mateo supposedly has a name for us—a missing treasure hunter,” David cut in.  “I’m going to follow-up again with the local gallery manager, Lester Lump.  I’ll see if I can get some names of suppliers and some local warehouse locations to check out.”

“I’ll look into getting search warrants,” Dan put in.

“Good plan, but remember the days are dwindling.  I don’t want them making any more attempts made to get that vase back.  These people have already proven that they’d resort to violence.”  The Mayor signed off.