“We couldn’t see it very well—it was dark, and they were pulling a bag over it, but there was something sticking out of one end.”
“I think what they did was built themselves a pig.”
Pipelines, he said, had a variety of internal monitoring and maintenance jobs done by “pigs,” which were metal or plastic tanks that were dropped into pipelines and pushed along by the oil inside the pipes. They were also used to separate batches of oil from different companies.
“You put a pig in a pipeline through a launcher. The launcher inserts the pig into a stream of oil that pushes it along. I suspect they made themselves a pig that somehow gets into the stream and then maybe... expands? Or extrudes some feetlike things that cause the pig to jam in the line? The oil would back up through the launcher and you could pump it out to your truck. Interesting. That would explain why they steal it from a bunch of different companies. They wouldn’t know which batch of oil they’re getting.”
“You were right about Winks. That’s where they’re unloading it,” Letty said.
“All right. Good. Let’s get the FBI on it, right quick...”
“Not too quick, or we’ll miss some of these guys,” Letty said. “The other thing is, we don’t know if they killed the Blackburns. We’ve got work to do before we can establish that, even as aprobability.” And she lied a bit: “Our DHS people are coordinating with the FBI right now. We could have something before you’re back in your office. We want to make sure we get them all, and we get them for the murders.”
“Excellent work. Excellent,” Wright said. “I’m willing to let them steal the oil for a little while, anyway, if we can hang them on the murders. You go ahead and do that.”
Colles was not in his office, but a secretary who knew Letty said he would call back that afternoon. “There’s an interagency clusterfuck going on about museum construction on the Mall. He’s in the middle of it.”
At the McDonald’s,Letty summarized what they’d figured out. “We’ve got three guys we’re pretty sure of: Duran, Crain, and Max Sawyer. They all live too close together in Monahans not to be linked up. Greet says Duran is in this Land Division and I found that militia stuff in Crain’s moving boxes. Any of them could point us at Low and Jael, if we had a way to convince them to do that.”
“That’s not really us, that kind of action, squeezing people,” Kaiser said. He lifted up the top of his biscuit, looked at the bacon below it, frowned, put the biscuit back together, and took a bite. He winced, swallowed, and asked, “Why would they even believe us?”
“That’s a problem,” Letty conceded. “Something wrong with that sandwich?”
“Yeah, I’m probably gonna eat about four of them,” Kaiser said. “Say what you like about McDonald’s, they can make a sandwich... and, not to change the subject, it might be time to call in the local cops.”
“We can’t be sure of them. Probably okay, but possibly not: that’s what Greet told me,” Letty said. “I’ve got a feeling that what weneed to do will be boring: we need to pick one of these guys and watch him. See who he’s talking to.”
“Greet could help with that—DHS has all kinds of cybersecurity and intelligence units; one of them should be able to get Duran’s cell phones and see who he’s talking to.”
“Good. I gotta learn about DHS resources.”
Kaiser poked a finger at Letty. “If Duran’s got any brains, he’ll have a burner phone, but the intelligence guys can get at that if they know where he lives, and if he makes calls from that location.”
“I’ve got his address. He’s on the other side of Monahans from Sawyer’s place.”
They called Greetfrom the car, and she said she’d make inquiries about identifying cell phones calling from a particular location, but without the phone number. “I’ve never done that, but I think we can. There might be a price on it—I don’t know. If we have to rent an airplane or send out special equipment. If they’re at all security-aware, they’re probably calling from one unidentified burner to another.”
She said she would get back when she’d learned something.
The outdoor temperature had turned up several notches by the time they got to Monahans. Letty was driving as they cruised Max Sawyer’s and Victor Crain’s houses, and both seemed unoccupied, inert. Sawyer’s Jeep was gone.
They drove across town, passing through a much richer area of sprawling brick ramblers, and then back into a more run-down neighborhood. At Duran’s address, they found the two pickups they’d seen the night before, along with a tan Jeep that was newer and a higher trim level than Sawyer’s. There was no way to know for sure, but the Jeep might have been the one driven by the woman who’d shot at Letty. The Jeep was pulled into Duran’s yard, and was sitting sideways to the street.
“We need the Jeep’s plates, and we’re not going to get them with a cell phone,” Letty said. “Why don’t we have a decent camera with a telephoto lens?”
“We don’t need an Axel Adams photo, all we need is the tag number,” Kaiser said. They were sitting at a stop sign, looking down the block at Crain’s house. “I’m rolling down my window. Drive on past, don’t slow down at all. I’ll keep my head below the window, put my phone on video, nothing sticking up but the phone.”
“Ansel,” Letty said.
“What?”
“Ansel Adams.”
“No, I’m talking about the other guy. Axel Adams, from over in Lafourche Parish.”
Letty said, “Oh.”
Kaiser laughed and said, “Gotcha.”
