Natalie had just put Seri to bed and was about to call it an early evening herself. She hadn't let on before Adrian left, but she had been having headaches and some stomach cramps ever since the doctor changed her medication. She had visited the endocrinologist late that afternoon, and had been told that the side effects were somewhat common. The doctor took some additional bloodwork to see where her thyroid levels were and she was given medication for the headaches and cramping as well. Because one of the medicines said that it could make her loopy, she avoided taking the medication while Seri was up, but now with the baby in bed, she sat down on the couch and took the pill and turned the TV on to see what was on Channel 10. She certainly could have checked other channels, but Channel 10 was a comfort to her.
She was sound asleep when her cell phone rang. She fumbled around finally picked it up. It was Adrian's number. Answering the phone, she didn't sound like herself.
"Helllllo" she said drowsily.
"Hi beautiful." Adrian said as he sat in a chair just inside the room looking out at beautiful morning sky overlooking the Mediterranean.
"Whooooo izz this?" she said.
"Who is this? What do you mean? This is your husband." Said Adrian. "Who else would be calling you beautiful?"
"Ahhhhh…Adrian! Hi honeyyyy." She said. "Did you get that stain out of the toast?"
Adrian pulled the phone away from his ear and looked at it, then he placed it back to his ear.
"Did I what? Natalie, are you okay?" he asked.
"I'm ffffine. Just put the toothpaste to bed, and wasss takin' a little nap myself." She said with her eyes shut.
"Put the toothpaste? You don't sound fine. Are you okay?" he asked.
"Doctor whatsaface gave me a little something to help with some side effects and I am feeeeling no pain!" she said in a silly manner followed by a giggle.
"The doctor gave you medicine? What for?" he asked.
"Doesn't matter." She slurred. "Hey? Did you see about the mayor?" she asked.
"The mayor? No. I haven't turned on any news in the past twenty-four hours. What about him?" he asked.
"Someone tried to run him over and mash him flat." She said giggling.
"What?!" he exclaimed. "Someone tried to kill the mayor?"
"And mash him flat!" she said. "Honneeyy I hate to do this, but I'm sleepy."
"Natalie, hang on a minute. You sound like you've had some sort of adverse reaction to this medicine." He said.
"No adverbs." She said giggling.
"Not adverbs. Adverse. Negative. I'm going to call TK Stottlemeyer and have her come stay with you tonight." He said.
"TK. I love TK. She's nice. Did you know that Leland and her got married?" she asked.
"Yes dear. We were in their wedding. You just rest. I'll have TK come over and when she gets there let her in, okay? I love you." He said.
"Love you too, you handsome hunk of a man." She said as they hung up.
Adrian immediately called the Stottlemeyer residence and informed Leland and TK about Natalie's condition. They agreed that TK would go spend the night at the luxury condo, and Leland let TK know that there was a case they were working on and that Natalie was undercover and that it was sensitive. He told her nothing about The Alliance, so she assumed it was with the SFPD. The less she knew the better, he thought.
Adrian also asked about the mayor, and they indicated that it was true. Someone had tried to run the mayor over in a car earlier that day and that the Police Commissioner had done a report from his office for CNN detailing the incident.
As he ate breakfast in his room, he watched CNN International in hopes that they would carry the story but had to leave when Luca came into the room and said that Campen was ready to go. He would have to catch the story later. Right now, he had to attend to the business at hand.
He grabbed the Cargo vest he had brought with him and placed his cell phone in its pockets along with the remote to turn the listening device, which he now had hiding inconspicuously in his ear. In the opposite pocket, he placed a palm-sized hand-cranked emergency radio/generator in case they got someplace and needed electricity for any reason. Lastly, he took the charger to his phone just to be safe.
They met Campen in the lobby and then the trio drove about an hour east to the third largest city in Lebanon, Zahle, the "City of Wine and Poetry." And stopped at an unassuming bookstore deep within the orange tiled roofs of the city.
As they entered the shop, they were greeted by a man somewhere in his 60s.
"Mr. Campen! It has been too long!" said the gentleman, coming forward and giving Doug a hug.
"Ahmad! How in the world are you? How has Raima recovered from her surgery?" he asked.
"Oh, my friend, she is progressing well. Thank you so much for asking! Please, introduce me to your friends." He said.
"Yes, this young man here is named Luca Rossi, he is the assistant of my good friend you see standing here, Nico Gentili. Nico has flown from the United States to do a little shopping here in Zahle. Is Jaheem here?" he asked.
"Certainly. He has been awaiting your arrival. He is in the downstairs storage room. Please, make yourself at home." Said Ahmad, pointing the way towards a basement door.
TK arrived at the condo in the early morning hours. Natalie was still a little loopy but not as bad as before. TK picked up the bottle and checked the dosage. She then asked Natalie how much she had taken which highlighted the problem.
"Natalie, it says take half a pill. In your fatigue you took an entire pill." She said.
TK called the hospital and asked them about the dosage and they said there should be no danger in the double-dose, but to watch her. So, TK grabbed a blanket and pillow and slept in a chair next to the couch that Natalie was sleeping in that night.
Jaheem Saliba stood up as Campen, Adrian, and Luca entered the room.
"Campen! My friend!" he said, slapping Doug on the arm! "I've been waiting for you. And this must be Mr. Gentili and…?"
"Luca Rossi. Mr. Gentili's assistant." Luca said, announcing himself.
Jaheem looked at Doug nervously, but Doug nodded and told him it was okay.
"I'm uh, pleased to meet you, Mr...?" 'Nico' said with his Italian accent.
"Saliba. My name is Jaheem Saliba." Jaheem said.
"Jaheem and I have been business associates for what? Three years now?" Doug interjected.
"Actually, I think it is four years now. We met at that expo in San Francisco." He said pointing to some pictures on the far wall.
"That's right! Jaheem impressed me back then with the quality of items that he could come up with then. I know you will be just as impressed." Said Campen.
"I certainly hope so. Having flown all of the way around the world, I'm ready to see some impressive items." Nico responded.
"Great! Well, you are standing in my warehouse. Of course, these are some of the smaller items we have. The larger items are kept offsite. I understand from Doug that it is the large items you are looking for? No?" said Jaheem.
"Yes! I want to turn my new home into a Museum-like showcase. The entire first floor I would like to be dedicated to antiquities, particularly from ancient Babylon and the Levant." Nico responded.
"I think you will be quite pleased by what you see then. We should have exactly what you want." Said Jaheem. "Please, let's go outside to my truck and take a little trip."
Jaheem drove Adrian, Luca and Doug about 15 minutes West of his shop to a small area outside of Kamel. There, they visited a storage building the size of an average American warehouse, absolutely filled with columns and statues from throughout the Middle East ranging from the early Biblical area into the Roman Empire. Several of the items, Adrian recognized from The Alliance's catalog of stolen merchandise. This was excellent news! He took careful mental notes of everything he had seen. Finally, he had the idea of getting things down in writing so he switched on the listening device hoping that Ambrose would pick up and begin taking notes of what he was seeing.
Ambrose and Heather were still sleeping when the pager went off. Ambrose, being a light sleeper, was startled out of bed and ran and put the device in his ear.
"I'm here!" he said in Adrian's ear.
"Goooood! This is very gooood! Mr. Saliba! You were not lying when you said that you had some really beautiful artifacts here! My Mattie will be very very pleased. Tell, me Jaheem, how on earth were you able to come upon these items?" he said in a thick Italian accent.
As Jaheem spoke, Ambrose picked up on what Adrian wanted him to do and began to take notes. The entire operation in that area was detailed - the various people they met with, which organizations they were a part of, the dangers involved in some of the operations due to working with some particularly bad actors.
"We would not want to take you up North." Said Jaheem.
"Why is that?" asked Nico.
"Bad people are just over the border in Syria. They are in the middle of a Civil war and some particularly bad terrorist organizations have bounties out for Westerners. I won't even go there. I generally reach my contacts up North via the mail system when it runs there. Can take several days." Said Jaheem.
"Why bother with them at all?" asked Nico.
"The artifacts, of course. That is how we got the artifacts out of Mosul and Nimrud, and some of the latest ones from Syria. It's the same group doing it all." Jaheem responded.
"Fascinating." Said Nico.
After a few hours of looking at Jaheem's wares, Adrian whispered "Thanks. Later." And turned off the listening device. Ambrose couldn't wait to call Leland to let him know that he had heard from him, but since it was only 5AM, he figured he would wait until Leland got into the office a little after 7AM.
Back at Natalie's place, Natalie had gotten up early and had a little bit of a medication hangover. TK took care of Natalie and Seri, making sure that Natalie was stable and on her feet before she left at around 7:30 AM. As she exited the building, she ran into Leland's right hand man from the commissioner's office, Mike Bradford.
"Hey, Mrs. Stottlemeyer! What brings you into this neck of the woods?" he asked.
"Oh, I was just here helping Natalie Monk while Adrian is in the Middle East. She got sick last night and…" TK said.
"Monk? Doesn't he live over near Broadway?" he asked.
TK suddenly realized she may have said more than she should have. "Yes. But, Natalie was just visiting this area…look, I need to get home to do something. We'll talk later." She said as she hurried towards her car. She tried calling Leland to give him the heads up, but he was not at his desk.
Back in Lebanon, the party had made its way back to Jaheem's shop back in Zahle. Jaheem and Nico were busy discussing the merchandise that Nico was interested in and Nico was explaining to Jaheem his terms of payment. After they came to an agreement, Jaheem went to a kitchen area and brought his guests a nice pot of Turkish Tea as a sign of hospitality. While they drank the tea, he turned on the television to Al Jazeera.
"Oh, can you turn the TV to CNN by any chance?" asked Nico, hoping to get news about the mayor.
About ten minutes into the broadcast, the report from the Commissioner's office came on. Adrian listened intently as Commissioner Joe Carlisle explained precisely what had happened. As he explained, he picked up a notepad where he had drawn a map of where City Hall was and the streets that surrounded it. Using his pen to show where the Mayor had crossed the street, he illustrated where the automobile had come from and exactly where it had almost hit the Mayor. As he was explaining, Adrian's blood ran cold.
"Oh my word!" Adrian whispered, as Campen and Jaheem talked in the next room.
"What is it?" asked Luca.
Adrian pointed at the screen. "The notepad. Look at it! What do you see?"
Luca looked at the screen and tried to discern what Adrian was seeing.
"What? A roughly drawn map of the streets of San Francisco?" he asked.
"No. The logo. Look at the logo on the stationary." Adrian responded, as he flipped on the "Ambrose" switch inside his pocket. Ambrose immediately listened in.
Luca tried to focus. "Wait, is that? Is that a rose?"
"Yes. The rose on the Commissioner's notepad is the same rose shaped logo from our hotel here in Beirut." Adrian said.
"What? What does this mean?" asked Luca.
"It means…it means Commissioner Carlisle… he's the guy." Adrian whispered to Luca's astonishment.
Leland sat in Carlisle's office and listened as Carlisle handed out orders regarding next steps in the Mayor's case. As he was talking, Bradford came in the room and pulled up a chair.
"Mr. Bradford, I trust whatever delayed you this morning was more important than trying to figure out who tried to kill the Mayor?" said Carlisle.
"Sorry sir, I didn't mean to be late. Traffic was bad and I had a hard time getting here." Bradford replied.
"Don't let it happen again." Said Carlisle.
"I won't sir." Said Bradford.
As Carlisle finished up, Bradford turned to Leland. "Hey Leland, I saw TK at my condominium complex this morning."
Leland froze for a second. TK had been seen?
"She said she was just leaving from taking care of Natalie Monk since Adrian is in the Middle East." Bradford said.
Leland felt all of the blood run from his face and he closed his eyes.
"Monk is in the Middle East?" said Carlisle. "He's not allowed to do that, he has standing charges against him."
"Sir… I can explain…" said Leland.
"You can explain? Are you a part of this?" asked Carlisle.
"Sir…" said Leland.
"Where? Where is he?" asked Carlisle. "Oh, forget it! I have to call the International Police and let them know we have a fugitive at large. I'll get back to you later."
Leland left the Commissioner's office and slammed some papers down on his desk. He had to call The Officers at the Alliance. Monk's cover was compromised.
Carlisle picked up the phone and instead of calling the International Police, he called Campen.
"Yeah." Said Campen as he answered the phone.
"Campen, this is Carlisle. I'm sending you a picture from the internet of a guy from San Francisco, you may have heard of him. His name is Adrian Monk. I need you to look right away and let me know if he looks familiar."
"Alright." Said Campen.
30 seconds after Carlisle sent the photo, Campen came on the line.
"Well, son of a…It's Gentili, without a beard!" he said.
Carlisle slammed his fist on the desk, threw a pen across the room and cursed.
"You know what you have to do." Said Carlisle. "They can't convict if they do not have evidence."
"You've got it. I'll take care of it." Said Campen as he hung up the phone and gave a sinister glance towards Adrian.
As Leland dialed the phone, he noticed a text come into his cell phone. Before he could check it, Jonathan Carter answered the landline.
"Carter speaking."
"Yeah, Carter, this is Stottlemeyer. We have a situation here."
"What's that?" asked Carter.
"Monk's cover, it has been compromised." He said, as the phone buzzed again.
"Compromised? How?" Carter asked.
As they spoke, Leland picked up his cell phone and saw two messages from Ambrose. They were short, but they were not sweet.
The first read
Mayday! Mayday! Nico in trouble!
The second one caused Leland to nearly lose his breakfast.
I repeat, Mayday! Heard from A.M. - Carlisle is the guy! Repeat! Carlisle is the guy!
"Oh, dear heavens!" Leland said as the toothpick dropped from his mouth.