Page 83 of Made of Steele
Her laptop still sat on the table so she grabbed it, plugged the drive into the side, and opened the file. “Hundreds of pictures.”
“Open the ones from his most recent trip.”
She clicked on the first December picture. “He’s attending a soccer match.”
Drew leaned closer and pointed at the screen. “Not just any soccer match. See the banners on the stands? It’s a World Cup playoff game.”
She clicked through the action pictures of the game and paused on a closeup holding Romo and a guy with inky black hair, a neatly trimmed beard and broad nose, wearing a green soccer jersey.
“That’s the Iraq flag on the guy’s chest,” Drew said. “And Romo is beaming at the man like he’s something special.”
“Let me do an internet image search.” She uploaded the photo to a search engine, and it came back with many listings for the name Nasim Jabal, a former Iraq National soccer player and a man revered in his country.
She read down the entries. “Looks like he’s a legend in Iraqi soccer.”
“Makes sense,” Drew said. “Romo seems excited to meet him.”
She looked at Drew. “You think this means anything?”
“Could I suppose, or it’s just something that happened on this trip.”
“Should we get Nick looking into it?”
“Sure, but only after he finishes searching for the youth rosters.”
Teagan sent Nick a text, praying this could be what they were looking for even though she seriously doubted the murders had anything to do with a famous soccer champion.
22
The next morning, Teagan ended the call with Benton Hoyle’s wife and looked across the dining table at Mackenzie and Drew, who were still eating the rosemary quiche, fruit, and toast Teagan had gotten up early to make for them. Drew hadn’t been followed by anyone last night or this morning. Thankfully, that meant he felt more comfortable coming to breakfast.
He swallowed the last bite of his second large piece of quiche. “What did she say?”
“Boyledidtravel before he disappeared but not to the Middle East. He went to Moscow for work. His company has a training facility there where he trained their workers.”
“Not at all related to the other two then.” Mackenzie stabbed a bite of cantaloupe.
Teagan shook her head. “I asked her if he took any pictures while there, and she said she’d look and forward anything she finds to me.”
Drew drained his orange juice glass. “I need to move some money to the Contis first thing this morning and pay them a visit. After that we can visit our victims’ workplaces and gym.”
Teagan’s phone chimed. “Text from Nick. He’s emailing the soccer rosters he found and a background report on Nasim Jabal along with pictures he says we should look at pronto.”
She pushed her plate away and grabbed her laptop so they could view the photos in larger format. Drew and Mackenzie both came to stand behind her.
When her computer dinged, she quickly clicked on the message and opened the first of three photos. “Nasim Jabal and Benton Hoyle. At a World Cup match, too but in 2018.”
“That’s a strong connection to Romo,” Mackenzie said.
“Anything for Forte?” Drew asked.
She selected the next picture and gaped at it. “It’s Forte with Jabal.”
Teagan glanced over her shoulder at Drew. “Who do you think this Jabal guy is?”
“Obviously that’s what we need to find out.” Drew held her gaze. “Open the last picture.”
She clicked on the photo showing Jabal and Rossi at one of his youth soccer matches, where Jabal was holding a clinic for the kids.
