It was time to hunt.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Tuesday morning landed with caramel-topped lattes for the entire crew. The unit had taken Monday off, but Wolfe had slept most of the day away, healing. By the time the morning arrived, Dana was stretched thin, wondering when Wolfe would want to have that discussion. Or rather, that fight.
Dana led Roscoe into the basement offices with Wolfe carrying the trays of lattes. She wanted to get going on work and tried not to champ at the bit to get back on this story and take down Theresa Rhodes and Gary Rockcliff for Candy.
She grabbed two lattes and hustled to case room one, where Serena was waiting. “Sorry about the delay.” They’d talked on their burner phones that morning. “Wolfe insisted on getting drinks.” She handed one over to the cryptologist.
“Thanks.” Serena gestured to the notes on the board. “There you go. They’re all deciphered, although it looks like some sort of shorthand that she intended to expand when she wrote the story. A lot of it doesn’t make sense to me, but now I’m passing it on to you.” She flipped her wrist over to read her watch. “I have to get to class. The summer school classes are some of my favorites, and I like the extra money in my checking account. Call me if you need me, and I’ll be here.”
Dana paused. “Thank you for doing this. Nobody else could have.”
“I’m happy to help. Let me know if you have any more puzzles.” Serena reached for her pens. “Want me to give any message to Jethro? He’s teaching today, too.”
Hmm. Did Serena want an excuse to talk to Jethro? Dana racked her brain for a response. “I don’t have anything specific, but I think he left a couple of books on Malcolm’s desk. Would you return those?” At least it was a fairly decent excuse for dropping by his office.
“Sure. No problem.” Serena skipped out.
Dana turned her attention to the deciphered notes, catching the sporadic connections. If each page dealt with a single subject, it would’ve been easy. But Candy had jumped around, as usual. Dana started with the page on Frank Spanek and read through his aliases, his arrests, and his known associates, moving on to Albert Nelson and then to Theresa Rhodes. The connection was clear, as Serena had detailed the other day.
She then moved to the page on Afghanistan, and her interest was piqued. Though Candy didn’t have Rock’s name anywhere, she had a nice timeline showing the theft and movement of the heroin, even posting several questions about an inside man from the military making it all happen.
Man, Candy had been good at her job. How odd that her story on women entrepreneurs connected to Wolfe’s investigation of Gary stealing the heroin. Life was strange sometimes.
Malcolm stepped inside at some point. “Hey. The HDD handlers are asking us each to go be interviewed about our team and a bunch of bull . . . crap. We’re only going to be able to hold them off for a few days or so. We’ll meet up this afternoon or tomorrow morning to prepare.”
Great. Dana knew the HDD wanted to shut down the team.
“Okay. Thanks.” Right now, she needed to finish this project before she started worrying about lying to federal agents. Did it matter if she was working for federal agents? Probably not. She stepped to the side to read the page featuring Albert Nelson, which included how to reach him, his Captive affiliation, and several other connections. She’d start researching the names and see if Brigid was up to conducting some deep dives.
After a couple of hours, Dana finished making her own notes, came up with a plan to conduct more research, and wondered if anybody had thought to order lunch.
Angus Force appeared in the doorway. “How’s it going with the deciphered notes?”
Dana partially turned, her gaze caught by the mottled bruises down the side of Angus’s face. “Ouch. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” A bruise over the entire right side of his face, giving him a black eye, belied the words, although his tone strongly suggested she agree with him.
She had enough to worry about with Wolfe’s injuries and wasn’t about to argue with Angus Force as well. “Candy did some incredible research.” Dana turned back to the papers taped to the board. “However, she wouldn’t use a complete sentence to save her life. These papers are more like lists and phrases, just to keep her straight and organized. We need to follow the trail she left.”
Angus prodded a bruise on his neck. “Sounds good. Anything interesting so far?”
“Yes.” She pointed to the page about Albert. “As you already know, Candy discovered that Nelson and Spanek were drug traffickers, and they worked with Theresa Rhodes and another partner, whom I’m assuming is Gary Rockcliff. There are also a number of places listed, and I’m not sure what those mean.” She pursed her lips. “The town of Culiacán is starred in two places.”
“Culiacán?” Angus drew abreast of her and studied the document. “Nice job, Dana.” He quickly strode out of the room.
“Wait a second.” Dana jogged after him. “What did you just figure out?”
Angus reached Wolfe’s desk. “We have a problem.”
Wolfe looked at Dana and then focused on Angus. “Define problem.”
Mal and Raider looked up from their desks, while Brigid and Nari emerged from their offices.
Angus planted a hand on his ribs and took a shuddering breath. “Dana has been looking at the journalist’s decoded notes, and it looks like Culiacán is the place in Mexico.”
“Oh.” Wolfe ground a palm into his left eye. “It wouldn’t be Culiacán itself, but areas in the mountains that are used for production. There are many labs there, so it would make sense that Gary chose that locale to process the heroin. We can reach out to our contacts—one of them should be able to pinpoint where the action is right now.”
