Page 64 of The Grave Artist (Sanchez & Heron #2)
Jake nodded as Su Ling strode into the Garage with her tablet in hand.
“I’ve got what you asked for, Jake. You want it on the murder board?”
“Yes.” He resumed staring at the monitor.
A moment later some of her crisp evidence photos flashed onto the screen. Three electrostatic prints of shoe soles arranged top to bottom.
Su said, “The one on the top is HK’s. Garr’s.
We know that from the shed at the cemetery where he rigged the booby trap with the hedge shears.
The second and third are the same. The second was among those lifted from Garr’s front walk by one of my people.
And the third, the one it matches?” She circled it with the cursor.
“It’s from the case you two solved a month ago. It’s Tristan Kane’s.”
“Jesus,” Sanchez muttered, then looked at Jake. “Cinderella. The shoe. You suspected.”
“We had two epic hacks in the past couple of days. Getting into our system and diverting the emails and calls to Italy. And cracking the LA camera network.” He shrugged. “I could do it. Aruba could. And Kane.”
“But I don’t get how he became involved,” Mouse said.
Sanchez snapped her fingers. “Reynolds’s damned email.
Kane must be constantly pinging us, searching for breaches and checking on our investigation against him.
He got in, saw the HK case and—with a shitload of hacking and a shitload of money—scored Garr’s identity and contacted him.
He’s the silent partner we were speculating about. ”
“For money?” Tandy asked. “Garr hired him?”
“No,” Sanchez said. “I doubt it. He’s using Garr to get to us. A weapon.”
Mouse asked, “But CERN? The internet hub in Switzerland.”
“Let me check.” Jake sent a text to the authorities there asking if they’d noticed any attempted intrusions into the facility’s web operations or other infrastructure.
None, the contact reported.
He told the others, “The leads to Switzerland were misdirection.” He said to Sanchez, “We’ve got info on Garr’s vehicle. Let’s get the SHIT detail on it, and the same camera network.”
Sanchez sat in the chair beside Jake and began to keyboard. She frowned.
Jake asked, “What?”
“There are no hits.”
Tandy asked, “Maybe he’s out of the surveillance zone.”
She turned to Heron and the detective’s monitor. “No. It’s not returning hits on any Mercedes. Anywhere.”
Tandy muttered, “Impossible. There are as many Benzes in LA as out-of-work actors.”
She lifted her palms. “Nothing.”
Jake said, “Frank, can you patch me through to the system admin?”
“Sure.”
In five minutes they had the answer. Jake pointed to his monitor. “Somebody hacked the system and loaded this script.”
import java.io.File;
public class DeleteFile {
public static void main(String[] args) {
File file = new File(“F;\Admin\Main\LATraf\Surveillance\Make\Mercedes.txt”);
file.delete();
}
}
Tandy frowned. “The hell?”
“It deleted records of all Mercedes picked up on camera for the past hour. The admin’s removing that script, but if Garr wasn’t out of the surveillance zone before, he probably is now.”
Jake noted Sanchez’s eyes closing briefly. He could only imagine the agony she was feeling about her sister.
It was then that a man’s booming voice startled Sanchez. “Guess my invitation got lost in the mail.”
Fuck.
They all turned to see Stan Reynolds striding into the Garage. He added, “Of course in the digital age, the odds of any missive getting lost are rather rare, aren’t they, Mr. Internet Maven Heron? No postal service issue.”
Sanchez said, “Things have moved fast. We just got his ID minutes ago.”
“Time is relative, as Einstein taught us.” He gazed at the surveillance videos. “We are where?”
She explained about the unsub’s identity.
“Well, bully for you. I’ll forgive you for failing to find his assets and dig up dirt on his foreign agent registrations.
And lying to me about it. No, no, no. No denial.
You’ve saved your bacon by identifying Ivanov’s hit man.
Garr. Maybe short for Garritsky or something.
So. What kind of Russian connections have you found?
” Reynolds was staring at the video feed from Grange’s tac team cameras.
That again.
“None, sir. We’re convinced he’s a true sociopath. He’s obsessed with causing grief and sorrow. He kills, yes, but it’s only so he can watch people mourn at the graveside.”
Reynolds said cynically, “Who on earth would get excited about that? No, he’s no serial killer at all.
It’s a perfect cover. We’re all looking for Norman Bates in Psycho , and he sneaks up behind us and murders Anthony Brock.
Brilliant when you think about it. But good thing I took over.
We stopped him in his tracks.” He pointed at the screen. “And he’s holed up in his house?”
“No,” Jake said. “He’s not inside. Nobody’s there.”
“Location?”
“Unknown.”
“Is he alone? Some wily GRU officer with him? Maybe his handler.”
Jake glanced toward Sanchez and sensed that they’d arrived at the same decision.
“He may have a potential hostage,” Jake said.
It would be a bad idea to admit that the individual was a relative of the lead agent on the case. He would likely kick Sanchez off the investigation immediately, and Jake might soon follow.
“My,” Reynolds said, frowning. “Anybody official? High up? Somebody it might be suggested we were supposed to be guarding but slipped up on?”
Reynolds had gone straight into ass-covering mode. Jake boiled at his callous narcissism. “No.”
“Good. Now, does Garr have any other residences?”
Sanchez said, “Not that we could find.”
“So, all his records are in there.” Reynolds stared at the house.
Jake said, “And he has no safety deposit boxes.”
Reynolds jumped on that. “You hardly expect him to rent one in his own name, do you?”
A pause. Jake noted Sanchez sighing loudly. Reynolds, like most narcissists, missed the dig. She said, “Declan took that into account. He correlated visits to safety deposit boxes in a fifty-mile radius to Garr’s credit card, FasTrak and license plate scans for the past month.”
Reynolds was still for a moment, perhaps wondering if he’d just been belittled.
“Of course, he might’ve parked a mile away and walked to a bank or storage facility. Did your YouTube bot take that into account?”
Jake said, “Yes, it did, Stan.”
Reynolds ignored the parry. He paced briefly, staring at the house. “All we need is one teeny-tiny bit of evidence linking Garr to Ivanov. Maybe the Russian gave him a present. A painting.” He glanced at the digital murder board. “He’s an artist, right?”
“No. A collector and art historian.”
“All the more reason to gift him something. Moscow at Night. Or a landscape of Siberia. Maybe there’s a shipping label. We find that and Ivanov’s ghost is cooked.”
“Goose,” not “ghost,” Jake thought. He suppressed an eye roll and said nothing, though Sanchez caught his expression.
“I think it’s time to move in,” Reynolds went on. “We can collect whatever evidence there is and lie in wait. Sneakily.” He snapped his fingers.
Sanchez said patiently, “Heron scanned it. Lots of security outside and in. We’re worried that there’s a trip switch or something that will send a message to him that his house has been breached. And he’ll blow out of town—maybe flee the country.”
“To Russia. Then we’ll get him at the border.
Meanwhile, we’ll have evidence on them both.
Ivanov and Garr. RICO, conspiracy. I’m not worried about safes.
We can always get into those. For now, I want all the devices in there.
” Pointing to the monitor that depicted the multiscreen version of Garr’s house.
“This is looking better by the minute. But keep in mind booby traps. They were popular during the Cold War.”
Sanchez said, “We’ve been through as many internet purchase orders and other records as we can find, credit cards, debit cards. He’s bought ammunition in the past six months, but no explosives or fertilizer or quantities of gasoline, anything else that would suggest a homemade bomb.”
“Who’s in charge there? I mean, tactical?”
“Liam Grange.”
“Is he good?”
Another sigh from Sanchez. “Yes.”
“Get him on the horn.”
She hesitated.
“Agent Sanchez, who is running this organization?”
“You are, Stan.”
It would be “sir” no longer.
He glared. “Then let’s do it now. I want Garr’s computers and phones. That’s an order.”
Then an idea occurred to Jake. But there was no way to explain. He straightened and looked at Sanchez, willing her to see his intensity.
“Heron?”
He responded with, “HTW.”
“What’s that you’re talking about?” Reynolds asked. “HTW. Hostages Tactics Weapons?”
“Initials of an individual we’ve been working with,” Sanchez said.
Jake said, “I need to talk to my source in private.”
Sanchez seemed like she was about to object but thought better of it.
He paused on his way to the door. “Deputy Director Reynolds is right.”
“Heron,” Sanchez said, frowning, as if she couldn’t believe what she’d heard.
“No. We need a tactical assault. How many people does Grange have?”
After a moment’s hesitation she said, “A half dozen.”
Heron said, “That’s not enough. We need another ten or fifteen.”
Drawing a satisfied smile from Reynolds.
Sanchez told him, “That’ll take a half hour to put together.”
“Do it,” Heron said.
As he walked from the Garage, Reynolds, beaming, turned back. “The majority wins, Agent Sanchez. Democracy at work. As soon as you get those reinforcements to Garr’s house, move in. And make sure there’s a Russian translator there. Spasibo ! ”