“No,” Addy said. “But Harris said a detective came acrossRazo in another investigation. When the detective called our office to loop us in, I was the agent who took the call. I have no idea how Razo learned about the investigation, but if we assume the threat to my mother was directed by him, then it’s clear he knows I’m investigating him.”
Addy took a breath and shook her head. “What I don’t get is if heisthe guy who took my phone, why didn’t he just go ahead and kill me to get me out of his way? He obviously isn’t against killing. And he had to have followed me when I went to talk to Rob, so he might even have figured out that I knew about the cable. Or maybe he tapped my phone.”
“Maybe we have this all wrong and he doesn’t want to kill you.” Mack frowned. “Sure, he might gain some satisfaction from revenge for a perceived wrong he thinks you’ve done. But taking you out would make things worse for him.”
“How so?” Addy asked.
Mack leaned closer. “You don’t murder a federal agent and get away with it. Harris would bring in every resource to hunt him down. And even if you were taken off Razo’s investigation, it wouldn’t go away. Someone would replace you.”
“I guess that makes sense,” she said, thinking it over. “So, he really might just be warning me to back off.”
“Not that we can let our guard down. Not for a second.” Mack wrote Razo’s name on the board and underlined it with a vicious slash of his red marker. The discussion about Razo was obviously bothering him, and she didn’t like seeing the worry in his eyes. He cared deeply for her. His feelings had become clear in the time they’d spent together, and she was being drawn to him in a way she couldn’t explain.
“Okay,” Mack said. “We have this guy who once had carte blanche to move drugs across the border from Mexico. And at the same time, we’re deploying X-ray machines at the front lines. Now he needs to work harder to keep up the business. So he does what?”
“Rob may have given us that answer,” Addy said. “Seems like I believed Razo discovered the X-ray imaging systems were operating on one of the cable feeds. So he finds the location—maybe from the map Cam put up on the TV—and he cuts the cable to take the systems offline.”
“It’s not quite that easy, though,” Cam said. “The map isn’t exact. It’s stylized and only shares the general location, but he could do additional research.”
Cam clicked on one of the blue cables. “See here? It lists the company who owns the cable and their contact information. And if he’s behind the hack of your office, he either has hacking skills or he’s had to hire someone. I suspect he hired someone.”
Addy held Cam’s gaze. “Can you try to find out who that might be?”
“I can put out feelers.” Cam’s eyes narrowed. “But don’t hold your breath. Unless the guy’s bragging about cutting the cables, I doubt we’ll find his worker bee.”
“If I worked for Razo,” Kiley said, “I wouldn’t be bragging about anything. I’d be too afraid he’d take me out for talking.”
“Exactly.” Mack pointed at the screen. “Walk us through what we’re looking at, Cam.”
“The different colored lines seem to distinguish between multiple cables in a particular area. So if you look closely at the U.S. here—” he paused and used the mouse to zoom into the West Coast—“you can see the routes that originate on the Oregon coast. Clicking on one of them brings up the cable owner’s information.” He clicked on one of the lines, and the sidebar displayed company information.
“If the Feds or a state owned any of these cables, it would show up here,” Mack clarified.
Cam narrowed his eyes. “I’m not familiar with this map, but that’s my take.”
“I have to say, it’s impressive that Razo figured it out and went this route,” Mack said.
Addy didn’t want to be impressed with Razo. Not at all. “If he did, I have no proof of it, and not remembering why I thought it was a possibility, I can’t even defend my position.”
“So if we knew where Razo was taking guns across the border, we could check the cable owners at those locations.”
Cam nodded. “And if not, we can look at every border crossing area, but I just checked and there are fifty crossing locations.”
“If we have to, we review and clear each one,” Mack said.
Kiley arched an eyebrow. “That’s a large number of crossings to research.”
“It’ll take time, but it’s doable.” Mack looked at Cam. “Most of the crossings don’t have the X-ray systems on the front lines yet. Or at least they didn’t back when I lived in Texas. Shoot, one of the locations is nothing more than a hand-pulled ferry crossing the Rio Grande. Can you knock locations like this one off the list right away?”
Cam shook his head. “I doubt it’s public knowledge which ones have the X-ray imaging systems, and I’d have to go one by one. It would take some time to do alone.”
“I’ll call Eisenhower and put analysts back in D.C. on it,” Mack said. “Hopefully we’ll soon have actionable information and can move this investigation forward.”
Chapter 12
SILENCE FELL OVER THEGROUP,and the mood turned dark and ominous. They had to keep the dire consequences foremost in their minds to remember innocent lives depended on them and finding the guns had to be their top priority.
“You get to work on this map, Cam,” Mack said. “Addy, Kiley, and I will go change and be right back.”
