“That’s three full boxes!”
“So, a transport!” she said, pointing to the far end of the narrow room.
Lopez rushed over and wheeled a wobbly cart to her side. Together they hefted three large boxes full of files onto the slight metal surface.
“This is definitely not my idea of stealth. I hope this doesn’t collapse.”
They sped out of the building as fast as possible, Houston with one hand stabilizing the boxes, Lopez pushing the cart from behind as they navigated prone bodies, ramps, and the sharp rise of the hill. They were forced to remove the boxes and fit them through the hole in the fence one by one, bringing the cart awkwardly through at the end.
“It’s no good. We can’t get that thing up the hill,” said Lopez.
“Okay, bring the car around. Tape the plate, but we’ll have to lose it tonight.”
He nodded and sprinted up the hill. Houston waited in the cold night air, her fogged breaths coming quickly. She heard the engine cough.
Lopez rounded the corner of the hill and braked hard beside her, popping the trunk. They worked quickly, flinging the boxes in, the car bouncing with each impact. Houston slammed the trunk and ran to the passenger side, Lopez already seated. He gunned the engine.
Red and blue lights flickered in the distance, reflecting off the low lying clouds.
“Wait, Francisco! We’ll need a back road. Listen!”
Sirens. The police were converging on their position from the main route. Lopez spun the car in a one-eighty and tore down the road in the opposite direction.
He laughed ruefully. “Well, this sure feels familiar."
SAVAS Deposition 3
CBD: And so the computer records led you to the warehouse on Long Island?
MR. SAVAS: No. The hard drives melted down.
CBD: I’m sorry?
MR. SAVAS: Well, not literally. But all the facility’s computers were infected. Turns out, the worm was indeed monitoring the records of the drone sales, so Fawkes at least saw that as a potential vulnerability.
CBD: The worm erased the files?
MR. SAVAS: Nuked all the drives. One after the other as they tried to access them. Maybe Angel could have prevented it, although I doubt it. But Lopez and Houston didn’t have the digital chops to even try.
CBD: Then it was the paper records you mentioned.
MR. SAVAS: Yes. Can you imagine? Two burglars with the police bearing down on them toting six months of paperwork out of a secured facility? I don’t know if Sara guessed there might be a problem or it was just instinct to get everything they could get, but it saved our investigation. They must have spent hours going through that crap. But they knew what they were looking for: shipments of large drone models, likely in quantity. And they found them.
CBD: So, all of them went to the Long Island facility.
MR. SAVAS: No, they weren’t that reckless. In the end we’d find that they ordered multiple drones from several facilities, using a series of aliases for each order, often multiple orders under different names from the same facility. Then they’d ship them to one of five or ten storage locations, then re-mail them.
CBD: How did you discover this?
MR. SAVAS: You’ll have to ask Lopez and Houston. Too bad they aren’t here.
32
A misting rain partially solubilized the grime on the gray Ford Taurus that pulled alongside a nondescript brick warehouse in Long Island City. Lopez and Houston exited, both dressed in dark trench coats and shades. Passing underneath the “Your Storage!” sign and the security cameras, they entered the small business.
The office was more a glorified hallway outfitted with a narrow countertop and secretarial equipment on the right side. Behind the counter was a receptionist, a slight African American woman, with thick glasses and makeup obscuring much of her face. She spoke into a microphone on a headpiece as she motioned for them to sit. Houston turned to look behind her at a small and uncomfortable looking bench. She shook her head at Lopez.
Reaching over the counter, Lopez removed the headset in one quick motion, tossing it to the side. The receptionist looked stunned.
“Hey! Just what do you think you’re doing?”
Houston placed a hundred dollar bill on the counter. “We’d like to purchase the expedited service.”
“The expedited…?”
“Just get your manager out here now and you’ll get another one.”
Grabbing the bill in her hand, she stood up slowly, her eyes ludicrously exaggerated in the strong lenses, her bright purple eyeshadow giving her features a slightly alien quality. “Just a second.” She stepped out from behind the counter and clicked to the end of the room in impossible heels. She opened a flimsy door. “Hey, Ryan. A man and a woman need to speak with you.”
“What do I pay you for, bitch? You deal with it!”
The receptionist startled as Houston handed her another hundred. “Go on back to the call. We’ve got it from here.” The woman took the bill and scampered away.
Lopez opened the door and stepped into a crowded room. Likely an addition to the hallway, the walls were a temporary attachment, the flooring added over part of the cement below it. He canvassed the ceiling and corners, the desk surface and walls. There were no cameras.
A bald man sat over a terminal and flashed them a puzzled expression.
“Who the hell are you?”
He gasped as Houston pointed her Browning at him. Lopez closed the door.
“We’re the ones with the guns. Don’t scream. Keep your hands over the desk.”
“Oh God, oh God, oh God. Please. Take what you want. I have a safe, there!”
“Shut up,” said Houston, ignoring his gesture. “I’m going to ask you a few questions. You are going to answer them truthfully and quickly. Or I’ll let my partner deal with you.” Lopez held a hunting knife in his hand.
The man swallowed, struggling to speak. “Yes.”
“So, Ryan,” she began. “What do you do here?”
“We, ah, store things.”
“What things?”
“We don’t ask. It’s like a remailing service. People ship here, we get another address for the item, and ship it there. Keeps buyers and sellers separate. Anonymous.”
“Anonymous?” said Lopez.
The man stared at the knife, terrified. “Yeah. Private. That’s why we don’t ask what’s in the boxes. It’s all perfectly legal.”
“So you don’t know where the boxes come from. How do you know where to send them?”
“Paired codes. The sender has a code that has to match the buyer’s code before we ship to the buyer’s address. They get those from whatever exchanges they make their deals on. That way nothing can be traced.”
“But you put the items in the mail. In their original boxes?”
“Oh, yes. We never open a box.”
“Then you must know the weight of the items. For postage.”
He nodded. “Yes.”
“And you have records of that?” Houston asked.
“Of course. That’s our main expense. Why are you asking this?”
“The people with guns ask the questions, Ryan.”