When Robert picked up the phone, he could only hear short beeps. Robert replaced the receiver and waited for a couple of minutes, but nobody called back.

As he was returning to his table, Robert noticed from afar an unknown man of Middle Eastern appearance stop near the gemologist. As soon as Robert approached, the man excused himself and went to another room of the restaurant.

Zimme was still in a good mood and joked: “Well, Mr. Blanche, it seems like we keep getting interrupted.”

“Was that someone you know?” Robert asked, disregarding Mr. Zimme’s comment.

“You mean that guy? God forbid, Robert, he had me mistaken for somebody else,” Zimme said indifferently and continued to thinly slice the large piece of meat on his plate. “I’ve been mistaken for others many times. Once, I was even mistaken for Sir Anthony Hopkins and asked for an autograph. What do you think I did? I gave the autograph! And this one time in Israel…”

He continued to tell funny stories, and from time to time the old man would laugh so hard tears came to his eyes. Robert thought he had never met a more cheerful person in his life.

In the morning, Robert was awoken by a call from Mehmet, the sheikh’s aide. In a troubled voice he informed Robert that Mr. Zimme had had a heart attack and been taken to the ER, and so they had to quickly find a new gemologist. He also said that all the documents where Mr. Zimme was mentioned as an expert needed to be revised.

At that moment, Robert felt a suspicion that someone wanted to disrupt the deal. He immediately called his boss and reported the incident.

To keep the deal on track, the Arab side tried to get a gemologist from Israel. However, he was too busy and had to decline. The same happened with a gemologist from Belgium. Unexpectedly, the Israeli Diamond Exchange offered a professional gemologist from Guinea, who was in the UK at the moment.

The sheikh’s security quickly screened the gemologist’s documents and confirmed that Mr. Kone, a citizen of Guinea, was indeed an excellent expert, who had been in the business for thirty years, providing his services in West Africa, Angola and South Africa. Mr. Kone was immediately summoned to London and introduced to the sheikh.

It turned out that Mr. Kone was short, sturdy, black, and sixty years old. He was very polite and spoke French and English fluently.

That same morning, a white Maybach Landaulet drove up to the bank with the sheikh and his aide. The sheikh’s security detail and partners were already standing at the entrance and politely greeted him.

After all the formalities were observed, the representatives of both parties entered the conference room.

The sheikh was the first to enter, followed by his two strong bodyguards and three Arabs, the sheikh’s partners. Everybody, except the bodyguards, were dressed in long white robes of thin cotton and a keffiyeh affixed with a black head ring. The bodyguards, dressed in black suits, white shirts and colored ties, stood with stony faces in the corners of the room. It was clear from their appearance that they were American. Their conduct, hair and square chins gave away that they were former US special forces, likely Navy Seals.

Then the representatives of the seller, both from Eastern Europe, Czechs or Slovaks, entered the room. Everybody, except the bodyguards, sat down at the big round table, greeted each other and waited. One of the sheikh’s aides, upon his order, opened a grey MacBook and launched the bank’s app to access the account.

Several minutes later, Robert, gemologist Kone and two bank representatives with a metal box entered the room.