So, letting a company do your dirty work on command, be deniable and cheaper than a cruise missile strike, was an obvious reason to look the other way when they conducted their business.
But how would you go about making such a company, obviously protected by the government at some level, leave him and Jackie alone? Finding the name and address would only be the start of the problem. Somehow, they needed to find a way to leverage the company into forgetting them on a permanent basis. This wasn't going to be easy to do when it would always be cheaper and easier to just kill them both and walk away.
Any company had vulnerabilities that could be exploited for various reasons. The concern was, how do you find them and use them when the company may be protected by the federal government, which had infinite resources, time, money and really didn't care about squashing an annoying bug or two?
The data contained on the Blackberry might be an inside into the company. He was way the hell outside feeling comfortable. Just give him a target, put a rifle in his hands and step back — all this spooky stuff was enough to make your head hurt.
Jackie broke him from his thoughts, saying, “We're here.”
Leo looked around. They were in a strip mall, way too public for Leo's taste with the number of people walking around, some burdened with packages. Hadn't they just burned down a building not a ten minute drive from here?
“Pull in here,” she said, motioning to a parking slot in front of a cell phone store. Leo noticed the camera pointed right at them and kept driving.
“Why didn't you park there? It was perfect.”
“Except that it was being watched by a video camera. The fewer of those that we show up on, the better.”
She was quiet as he found a place towards the back of the parking lot and backed the truck in so they could easily get out.
Not sure what he was getting into, he followed Jackie across the parking lot and into the cell phone store.
Jeff Silver was not having a good day and the FBI was having an even worse one. The bank robbers had gotten away with almost a hundred thousand dollars without leaving a clue. It was like they were ghost — appearing to rob the bank and then disappearing into the ether.
Not one bit of physical evidence was found despite the old adage that “Criminals always take something from a crime scene and always leave something.”
They knew the location and abilities of all the security cameras, inside and outside the bank. No one saw them leave in a vehicle, but then again, no one saw them walking away on foot — all backed up by the security cameras. The one camera that could have provided valuable information, located across the street at a convenience store and pointing into the parking lot, had been vandalized the night before, and no, the vandal hadn't shown up on any of the cameras either.
The robbers wore gloves, black clothing and rubber Ronald Reagan masks. Their guns were real based on an interview of the security guard who was fresh out the military after spending three tours in Iraq, in combat every day from the time he landed in-country until he left. It was sad that a decorated and honored veteran could only get a job as a security guard despite his selfless service and sacrifice. Jeff made a note to call a buddy in FBI recruitment to see if there were any job openings in this area for someone who could keep their head while having a gun pointed at them. Maybe the FBI could use him.
Sipping cold coffee that tasted like road sludge, he stepped back and looked over the scene again. The Albuquerque Fire Department had brought in a light truck that illuminated the front of the bank in a ghastly whiteness and produced strange shadows that were almost as bad as complete darkness.
He knew that there wasn't going to be anything found here that could help. Crimes weren't solved by forensics, despite the slew of TV shows that seemed to prove otherwise. Shoe leather is what solved crimes — crooks liked to brag and someone, hopefully soon, would talk. Someone, somewhere, knew something and would use it to get themselves out of a bind with the law.
His cell phone buzzed. Flipping it open he saw that it was a Denver number.
“Hello?”
“Special Agent Silver?”
“Speaking. How may I help you?”
“This is Detective Chris Lee, of the Denver PD. We were told to be on the look-out for anyone using thermite to disguise a crime. Well, it's happened. Someone almost burnt down a building trying to hide what appears to be a sniper rifle. But not any sniper rifle that you've ever seen; it's sitting in some sort of base and there were a lot of electronics and motors in the debris.”
“Was anyone shot by it?”
“No. This is the strange thing; a building up the street had a bullet hole through the glass door, but there wasn't anyone there to shoot at that we can find, no blood, or traces of anyone breaking our crime scene tape.”
“Crime scene tape?”“Yes. There was a car bombing in front of that location a couple of days ago. The intended victim has dropped off the radar since then. We locked the business up and secured it hoping to pressure her into coming to talk to us, yet it hasn't happened.”
Something sounded strangely familiar about this scene.
“Thank you very much for the info. Can you forward copies of all the pictures and what your lab finds out about the rifle to us? And if it's too much, or you are too busy, just send the entire mess to the FBI office in Denver and they'll take over the investigation.”
“Thanks. But you haven't heard the strangest part of it yet.”
“What's that?”
“We found two bullet holes that we can't account for.”
“How is that so strange?”
“The rifle system was bolt action and fired a .308 caliber bullet. The bullet holes we found were something much faster. And more importantly, they were coming into where the rifle was located, not outgoing.”
“So, someone was shooting back?”
“Not from the angle of the bullet holes. We tried to laser it, but ours aren't powerful enough and got lost about a hundred yards away. Based on the angles, the best we can determine was that the other shooter was six hundred yards away. And get this, the two bullet holes were almost touching. Quite remarkable shooting by anyone's standard.
“Several years ago, I took a sniper class taught by the FBI and while I thought the FBI snipers were really good, this guy, if the shot placement is deliberate, makes them look like rank amateurs.”
There was something larger going on here. Gut feeling meant a lot to him, and his guts were churning — and it wasn't caused by bad coffee.
He made a decision. “Seal the crime scene, post an officer and someone will be there shortly, if not me personally.”
“Great. That means one less case for us to deal with. Can you tell me what this is all about?”
“Something probably worse than we can imagine.”
Flipping the phone closed, he went off to find his boss who wasn't going to be happy to have to assign the “Ronald Reagan Robbers” case to someone else. He was going to have to call in a lot of favors to pull this off and really hoped that it would all be worth it. More importantly, he hoped that he would be in time to stop whatever was going to happen next.
Chapter 15
Jim Fox, the Second Finger of the Black Hand, walked quickly away from where he had placed the car bomb in the trunk of the government-issued Buick assigned to the IRS Criminal Investigation Division. His favorite device, the Explosively Formed Penetrator (EFP), would immolate everyone in the car, no matter where they sat, with a five thousand degree jet of superheated plasma. Identification of the bodies would be difficult as there shouldn't be anything left from the waist up, including tooth enamel.