Debris Line (Gibson Vaughn) Page 7

  Luisa and Anibal led them on a slow circuit around the perimeter of the circle. They walked side by side, but distinctly apart. A suspicious cancer was growing between the two old allies. Jenn had watched it metastasize since leaving Baltasar’s estate. Both recognized that the existing status quo had changed, but neither yet saw how they fit into it. For now, Luisa gave the orders and Anibal followed them, but there was a touch less certainty in Luisa’s voice. And Anibal seemed a step slower in responding.

  Luisa walked backward, as if giving a guided tour of a historic monument. “There. And there. And there. Do you see?” Luisa pointed out black bundles that dotted the shipment at regular intervals. They paused so George could study them through the binoculars they’d borrowed from the security station. Jenn glanced back at Gibson, who trailed behind the group like a recalcitrant child in a museum.

  “You’re sure those are explosives?” George asked, handing the binoculars to Jenn. “It could be a bluff.”

  “They look real enough from here,” Jenn said.

  “No, we’re not sure,” Luisa said. “But this is as close as we can come without tripping the motion detectors.”

  “And the motion detectors are real?” Hendricks asked.

  “Yes, of that I’m certain,” Luisa said and stepped across the yellow line.

  From the center of the shipment a Klaxon blared. Luisa took a second step, and the horn sounded twice more. She took a third and final step toward the shipment, and a mechanical voice began a countdown.

  “Cinco . . . Quatro . . . Três . . .”

  Luisa retreated back behind the line. The countdown stopped, and the Klaxon shrieked one last time, sounding almost disappointed. The warehouse fell silent once more.

  “Well, that was dramatic,” George said.

  “As you can see, we’ve no option but to take the hijackers at their word,” Luisa said. “For now.”

  “What about IMS? Ion-mobility spectrometry,” Hendricks elaborated. “Do any explosive detectors work at this kind of range?”

  “We’re making inquiries with our sources in the GNR, but it will probably take time we do not have.”

  “And I assume there’s no coming up from beneath or dropping in from the roof?” Jenn said.

  “The foundation is solid concrete, and the motion detectors cover the airspace above the shipment.”

  “It’s kind of ingenious when you think about it—stealing something without actually stealing it,” Hendricks said admiringly. “Cuts out transportation, storage, security. Then they just sit back and wait to get paid or else blow it into orbit.”

  Jenn saw Gibson’s head jerk up as if Hendricks had given him an idea. He took the binoculars and stood at the yellow line, studying the shipment. This time she decided against joining him. Better to let him work.

  “So, as you can see, we’re in a difficult position. I am open to suggestions,” Luisa said, the admission clearly painful for her.

  “Why is Baltasar so sure it’s an inside job?” Gibson asked, cutting to the chase. The question had been on all their minds since leaving the house, but Jenn hadn’t planned on asking so bluntly.

  Luisa’s eyebrows raised. “Did he tell you that?” she asked. “What did he say?”

  The reason Jenn hadn’t asked Luisa directly was because it raised this exact question. Baltasar wouldn’t appreciate them exposing his deception to Luisa.

  “He didn’t say anything to us,” Gibson said. “He didn’t have to.”

  “Then what makes you think that?” Luisa demanded.

  “Because we wouldn’t be here if he didn’t,” Jenn said, covering for Gibson.

  Gibson nodded, picking up on Jenn’s misdirection. It felt good to be on the same page, if only momentarily.

  “Only reason to bring us in is if Baltasar doesn’t trust his own people,” Gibson said.

  “So, why doesn’t he?” Jenn asked.

  Reluctantly, Luisa laid out the situation. “Because the hijackers had information that they should not have had. We receive four shipments a year from Mexico and never use the same location twice. The exact date of each shipment is a closely guarded secret. Our own people aren’t told until the last possible moment. And my uncle owns a dozen warehouses and facilities.”

  “And yet these guys knew when and where,” Jenn said.

  “Yes,” Luisa said. “More than that, they knew our security and how to breach it. If it wasn’t an inside job, then the hijackers have turned at least one of our people.”

  Anibal looked pained but said nothing.

  “And you have until noon tomorrow to pay?” Jenn asked.

  Luisa said, “Yes, but we cannot afford to wait that long.”

  “Why is that?” George asked.

  “Because if I do not have this shipment in transit within seventy-two hours, the cartel will want to know why, and they’re not the kind of people who forgive. If we can’t guarantee the safety of their shipments . . .” Luisa paused, calculating the implications as if it was too terrible to consider. “They will move in. We will resist them, but they are bigger, stronger, richer. They will wipe us out.

  “Perhaps you think to yourself—so what? What difference does it make if one group wipes out the other? We are all just criminals. Perhaps we are. But it’s not only we who will suffer. The cartels are a plague, and Baltasar is all that stands between them and the Algarve.”

  Jenn had to hand it to Luisa—it wasn’t easy to make a crime boss sound like a social worker. Next time she should get some bunting and fireworks. Throw a parade. Or maybe that was just Jenn’s cynical black heart talking. Good for Luisa if she thought her uncle was the second coming of Robin Hood.

  Luisa said, “That is why—”

  Gibson cut her off. “Is that where your people left the shipment? Or did the hijackers move it?” He shivered in his sweat-stained T-shirt and shorts.

  “No, the hijackers moved it to the center of the warehouse to give their motion detectors more operating room. Why?”

  Gibson took out his phone. “Is this place wired for Wi-Fi?”

  Luisa stared at him with a mixture of loathing and triumph, as if he’d proven everything she’d argued to Baltasar. She cursed in Portuguese. “For what? So you can check Facebook?”

  “Noon tomorrow,” Gibson said, underlining the urgency of the situation. “Maybe just answer my question, huh? Is this place wired for Wi-Fi?”

  “Yes, of course, this is a business. Why are you asking?”

  “I’m just curious what that camera is connected to.”

  “What camera?” Luisa asked.

  Gibson pointed to the shipment. “That camera there.”

  Jenn didn’t see anything. She took back the binoculars and trained them where he was pointing. It took a minute, but she finally saw the glint of the lens. How the hell had he seen that?

  Luisa snatched away the binoculars to see for herself.

  Gibson said, “They’ve been watching us the whole time.”

  Luisa cursed in Portuguese.

  “What are you thinking?” George asked.

  “Not sure,” Gibson said. “I need my equipment. Everything in my laptop bag. It’s under my bed.”

  Luisa nodded at Gibson. “I know where it is.”

  “Well, that’s damn creepy,” Hendricks muttered.

  “Can we make that happen?” George asked.

  Anibal nodded and made a call. Gibson jogged away and made a lap around the shipment. Jenn noticed he had a slight limp and a bloody sock. What had he said about getting hit by a car? He returned and confirmed the presence of cameras at regular intervals that would give the hijackers 360-degree coverage of the warehouse. Gibson had a funny smile.

  “I thought you weren’t interesting in helping,” Jenn said quietly.

  Gibson shrugged. “That was before. This is cool as hell.”

  “Okay, but don’t put it that way to Luisa?”

  Gibson made a sinister face and winked at her.

  G
reat.

  “What do you suggest?” Luisa asked.

  “That we talk outside. If they’ve got cameras, I wouldn’t bet against them being wired for sound.”

  Luisa turned a color that a clever interior designer might dub midnight murder. In silence, they left the warehouse. This time George did take Jenn’s arm. They reconvened outside. Anibal said Gibson’s gear would be here within the hour. Luisa pressed Gibson for his assessment, but he resisted and said he’d know more soon.

  Anibal’s and Luisa’s phones both rang simultaneously. They looked at each other in concern and stepped away to answer.

  “What do you have?” Jenn asked Gibson.

  “Nothing for sure until I get my equipment. How much do you know about ransomware?”

  “A bit. What does ransomware have to do with it? This isn’t a computer hack.”

  “You’re thinking about it the wrong way,” Gibson said.

  Before Jenn could reply, Luisa hung up and barked at Anibal for her car to be brought around. For once, Anibal didn’t hesitate.

  “What’s happening?” George asked.

  “We have a development,” said Luisa. “Maybe a lead. My uncle wants you to be there, so I’ll need you all to accompany me.” She turned to Gibson. “Except for you. I would like you to stay here and wait for your equipment. Finish your evaluation. Anibal will stay behind and provide anything you need.”

  Hendricks asked, “This development of yours, it happen to be a crime scene?”

  “No, one of our men missing since last night has turned up alive.”

  “That’s a good thing,” Jenn said.

  “Not for him,” Luisa replied.

  Hendricks said, “All the same to you, then, I’ll stick around and keep Gibson company. I want to take another look around.”

  Luisa agreed that would be acceptable. Her car pulled up, and she got in the back. George got in beside her and left the front seat for Jenn, mostly to keep her from having to sit beside Luisa. That was why she loved him. It was the little things.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Gibson stood on the loading dock and ran his fingers through his beard, scratching at his neck, deep in thought. The whiskers drove him crazy, particularly in this heat. He wasn’t really a beard guy and would kill to shave it off. But the beard hid the scar that ran across his throat from one ear to the other. A souvenir from the time he’d been hanged in the basement of his childhood home.

  Something Hendricks had said about stealing without stealing had given him the crazy idea that hackers were behind the hijacking. But he’d be damned if it didn’t look like a ransomware attack. Ransomware attacks had gained prominence in the mid-2000s, but the first such crime actually dated to 1989. The attacks had become much more sophisticated in the decades since, but the principle remained the same: Malware would encrypt a person’s or company’s computers, rendering everything on them inaccessible. The victim would pay a ransom to get the digital key to their own data. A hijacking without actually physically taking anything. Like ransomware hackers, Baltasar’s hijackers had “encrypted” his shipment. He still had physical possession but couldn’t get near it, and he would need to pay a ransom to regain control.

  Hendricks snapped his fingers in front of Gibson’s face. “Hey, Coma Boy. What are you cooking on in there?”

  “Nothing. Just tired.” Gibson wasn’t ready to answer that question. His theory was still loose change in his pocket. He preferred to wait until he knew exactly what he had before sharing his suspicions.

  “Don’t even. I’ve seen enough movies about genius white people to know when you all are having your big thoughts.”

  Gibson had to laugh. “What movies?”

  Hendricks shrugged. “Rain Man.”

  “Zing.”

  Hendricks flicked the butt of his cigarette off the loading dock. It tumbled end over end and landed in the dust. “So, what do you actually think? What made your head pop out of its gopher hole?”

  “I don’t think this was an inside job,” Gibson said.

  “Interesting,” Hendricks said in his least interested voice.

  “And there’s at least one American involved.”

  Now Hendricks gave him a dubious look. “And what color are his eyes?”

  “How the hell would I know?”

  “You wouldn’t. Just making sure you aren’t Sherlock Holmes–ing me.” Hendricks turned serious. Well, more serious. “Tread lightly, all right? Don’t go overboard being helpful just because you found something shiny. We could be screwed here either way, but let’s not do it to ourselves.”

  “Jenn is pretty adamant that if we don’t help Baltasar, we get squashed,” Gibson said.

  “Maybe. But help too much, and we get squashed another way.”

  “Like a bug,” Gibson agreed.

  “Like a bug.”

  “I mean, that’s a lot of heroin in there.”

  “How would you know what a lot of heroin looks like?” Hendricks asked.

  “Trainspotting.”

  “I need for that to be the last time you talk.”

  “What? I thought we were doing movies now,” Gibson said.

  “I’m going to walk the scene. See what I see.”

  Without his equipment, Gibson didn’t have a lot to do. He didn’t feel like waiting out here with Anibal eyeballing him. “Want company?”

  Hendricks paused, something caustic on the tip of his tongue. But then he shook it off. “Why not?”

  “Really?”

  Hendricks walked away without another word. Gibson took that as a yes and followed him inside. Together they made another lap around the yellow circle. Anibal’s nephew Tomas strolled along behind with his shotgun like a bored chaperone. No one spoke, conscious that they were under surveillance. Gibson stopped dead in his tracks.

  Five gray network cables snaked up the central column in the middle of the shipment. Gibson had missed it the first time. Virtually unnoticeable. Whoever had run the cables knew their business. It was clean, meticulous work. But why go to all that trouble? The hijackers had clearly been on a tight timetable—they’d thrown down the yellow paint so sloppily it was practically a lost Jackson Pollock. But not the cabling. That they’d taken the time to do right. Gibson traced the cabling across the ceiling until it disappeared discreetly into a cable tray that bisected the warehouse.

  What didn’t they want anyone to notice?

  Gibson followed Hendricks the rest of the way around the circle. It gave him time to process. His first hunch had been that the cameras and motion detectors protecting the shipment were using the cannery’s Wi-Fi to communicate with the hijackers. That’s why he’d asked for his equipment. To see if he could break into their traffic and get a sense of what he was up against. But if they’d taken the time to hardwire themselves into Baltasar’s network, then Gibson would need to do the same. There was also the possibility that they’d set up their own network. He’d eliminate that possibility first.

  Back out on the loading dock, it became clear that Hendricks had seen something too. He pulled Anibal aside. “I need someone to get the paint cans and bring them out here. But not you or Tomas. Get one of the men who’ve been here all morning. Real casual. Okay? Throw it all in a garbage bag like they’re just cleaning up a mess.”

  Anibal dispatched one of his men back into the cannery. Since Gibson’s equipment still hadn’t arrived, he thought he’d see if he could figure out where the cabling terminated. It was either a server closet or the roof. While he was waiting for his equipment, he’d start with the roof.

  “I need to go up top. Check something out.”

  Anibal said that was fine as long as Tomas accompanied him.

  The roof was accessible by an exterior fixed ladder. Gibson went up first. Tomas fumbled around at the bottom, trying to work out how to climb a ladder while holding a shotgun. It was pretty damned comical. Finally, he rested the shotgun against the wall and followed Gibson up.

  “I don’t see
any bandits,” Gibson said, patting the young man on the shoulder. “I think we’re safe.”

  Tomas gazed longingly down the ladder.

  The roof was dominated by a series of large white air handlers and air-conditioning plants to cool the cannery below. Pipes and conduit snaked everywhere like weeds in the cracks of a sidewalk. The sun reflected crazily off every surface, blinding in every direction. Gibson squinted and shaded his eyes. Nothing leapt out at him.

  He circled the roof, looking for anything that didn’t belong. If the hijackers had set up their own wireless network, then it would need an exterior antenna from which to transmit. With all the existing equipment up on the roof, anything they’d set up would blend right in. No one would even notice unless they knew what they were looking for. Gibson did. On the northeast corner, he found it.

  At first glance, he’d dismissed it as a security camera. An easy mistake to make. Pole-mounted on a pan head, its curved white cover and glass front looked the part. He almost walked away but then hesitated. He hadn’t seen cameras anywhere else at the cannery. And it was a strange place for one—pointed aimlessly off at the horizon. Plus, there was no way a sardine cannery would have a laser bridge on its roof. Except this one did.

  Gibson walked around the device like he’d discovered life on another planet. A laser bridge was fairly state of the art. The US military and businesses used them to transmit large quantities of very low-latency data. They had a range of about a mile and a half and required line of sight but were all but unhackable. That kind of security didn’t come cheap. This model probably ran twenty-five thousand, not including its paired twin. Gibson smiled—now all he had to do was find the other end.

  The smile melted from his face. There was rust on the mounting bolts. How could there already be rust on the mounting bolts? Gibson knelt and looked carefully at the cabling. It was sun-faded. That wasn’t right. This laser bridge had been here a lot longer than twelve hours. More like twelve months, judging by the grime that had accumulated in the corners of the roof mount. Probably longer. Unless the hijackers had set this job up a year or two ago, the laser bridge had nothing to do with it.

  He stood up and dusted off his hands. Tomas looked at him questioningly.