Page 55 of Fighting With Light

“I’m good, Tarzan, so what do you want me to do?”

“Can you keep watching footage we recorded? While you’re doing that, I’ll hack back into Ferreira’s clothing company and sift through the shipping invoices to see if any larger shipments are being sent out. I’m hoping I’ll find something useful.”

“Okay, I can do that.” She shifts around and hits the space bar for the footage, and I get to work looking for clues.

It doesn’t take me long to hack into the clothing company, but it takes a while for me to go through all the paperwork they have. At first glance, it just looks like a successful clothing company that ships worldwide, but digging deeper, I think it’s a front based on the money going in and out. The only problem is it’s hard to prove because they make luxury clothing, so seeing a box of fifty shirts worth twenty thousand US dollars isn’t unusual. I cross-checked the shirt, andit retails for a thousand per piece. It’s not like they take pictures of what’s going into the box prior to getting it packed up. The only way to prove anything is to open a box and go from there. I can’t trust that the weights listed are correct either, but this is the only legitimate lead that we have potentially connecting Marco Costa and Fred Coldwell. Or I’m just digging the wrong hole and we’ll have to start at square one again.

Aelia gasps and hits the space bar so hard it makes me wince. I’ll have to replace those keys if she keeps doing that. She hits the button to rewind, then hits the space bar again. “There, that’s different. I haven’t seen a truck like that go in there yet. All of them have been semis or those shipping containers, not a white truck like that.”

I type in the tags to Portugal’s equivalent of a Bureau of Motor Vehicles and it comes up as a truck for a rental company. I go to the rental company and see who rented the truck, and it’s a man I’ve never seen listed on paperwork before for the clothing company. Reverse searching his name, he’s a nobody. His name, or face, doesn’t pop up on international databases. He’s clean, too clean.

“Do you think he works for Ferreira?” Aelia asks.

“Not sure, but he’s clean, no speeding tickets, he’s not married, no kids.”

“A lot of the guys that work for my father are like that. Some of them have families, though.”

“I’m not sure a family is an indicator of a made man, but maybe his clean record is. He would skate past under the radar, which is what you would need to work for a mobster.”

“Works for my dad,” Aelia sighs.

“Well, it’s our first lead. Now I just have to wait for the shipping yard to upload the shipping manifest and designate a container so we know if it’s Ferreira’s.”

“You can do all of that right here?” she asks.

I dip my chin and start running my malware program to go around the shipping yard firewall, which is not nearly as strong as it should be.

“It shouldn’t take me long. But I think we’re onto something because Ferreira’s clothing company had both hardware firewalls and software firewalls,which is unusual unless you are very concerned about someone getting into your system. They also did backwards encryption, which again, is unusual for a clothing company. That kind of security is found with defense contractors. I mean, I got around it, of course, but it made me feel like they are hiding something.” I glance at Aelia and she’s looking at me with a confused expression on her pretty face. “What?”

“I have no clue what you just said, but can you get the information we need or not?”

I chuckle and pat her thigh. “Yes, I can get it. It just might take me a second because I have to find the paperwork on Ferreira’s end to cross check it.”

“How long is that going to take?” she asks.

I glance at my other screen, and then it dings, signaling the successful crack for the shipping yard.

“Not long,” I mumble, and search for shipping paperwork from this truck.

An intake sheet was submitted about an hour ago and it matches the other clothing manifests. Then, on the third page, I spot the box with the same weight and designation as the others that appeared on past shipping manifests. It’s always the exact size, weight, and designation. Everything else is too inconsistent. “I think they are going to ship this out tomorrow,” I mumble to Aelia.

“Wait, does that mean we have to go tonight?” I nod, still looking at the form.

“If we wait until tomorrow, I think we’ll miss our window.”

Aelia stands from her chair. “So are we doing the ninja thing or my idea?”

I look up at her. She’s ready to go, whatever it takes, and a smile grows on my face.

“I think your idea is going to work.”

Her face breaks into a wide, sparkling smile, and she kisses me on the lips before running out of the office.

“I have to look the part!” she yells. Chuckling, I stare at the empty doorway before I go back to double-checking everything, to be sure. It would make me feel better if I had confirmation that this is what we are looking for, but I don’t and I have no other way to get it. Regardless, I refuse to think about our plan going south, but at least we have guns, which makes me only less apprehensive.I push away the fact that I have a major surfing competition tomorrow because this has to be done, and we can’t waste any time.God help us.

***

“Liam!” Aelia yells.