Mack shook his head. “Which is totally wrong, as the sniper is in the person, not the rifle.”
“What do you mean?” Kiley asked.
“Absolutely any rifle can be used by a sniper. In fact—not so much these days, but in the past—military snipers would use a standard-issue weapon they would prepare and sight in because many of these guns needed to be ditched, and they didn’t want to lose pricey rifles.”
He paused and took a long breath. “Anyway, the story says this .50 caliber rifle is one of the most popular weapons among Mexican cartel fighters. Only guns that best it are the AR-15 and AK-47. The Barrett has a range of more than a mile and can shoot through a wall of concrete block with no problem.”
Kiley shuddered. “Not the kind of gun you want in the hands of a drug dealer.”
Mack nodded. “Surprisingly, it’s not restricted for civilian ownership in our country. If you can pass a background check, you pay cash for one—no paperwork whatsoever—and you aren’t breaking any laws.”
“Which makes them easy to resell,” Addy said.
“Yeah,” Kiley said. “And someone can go in and buy as many as they want, take them home, and sell them at their leisure. Even if ATF knows about the purchases, they’d have to sit on these guys twenty-four seven to wait for a sale. That’s just not practical, so these buyers get away with it most of the time.”
Mack shook his head, letting his disgust flow through it. “The guy in this story with the FFL was making replacement parts to be smuggled to a big cartel.”
“Speaking of FFLs,” Cam said, “I struck out on finding anyone holding one who would be a strong suspect in our investigation.”
“Thanks for digging into it.” Disappointed in another failed lead, Mack turned his attention to Kiley. “And your story?”
She lowered the screen on her laptop to look at him. “It’s an article that dispels the myth that criminals get guns by stealing them.”
“Then how do they get them?” Mack asked.
“Number one method is through straw purchases, like the .50s we just talked about. Someone who can legally buy a gun does so for someone who can’t and sells it to them. And the next biggest source are sales made by legally licensed but corrupt at-home and commercial gun dealers.”
“Do we think Razo is dealing in other guns?” Mack asked.
“I wish I knew.” Addy frowned. “We should watch for it as we go through my files. But I would have to think if he is, I didn’t catch him in the act or he wouldn’t still be on the street.”
“Does he have priors for illegal gun sales?” Kiley asked.
“He does,” Cam called out. “He did time back in the nineties, which is when he first came onto the Feds’ radar. I just got this info, and I’ll email it to everyone in a few minutes.”
“Thanks, Cam,” Addy said but looked at Mack and Kiley. “What’s the connection to the internet cables in the stories? Why did a search engine connect these links to my stories?”
“My article mentions how they believe some of these dealers use the dark web to expand their business,” Kiley said. “Maybe the internet connection created a link to cables.”
“Okay,” Mack said, trying to process. “But with such a looseconnection with Razo to the internet, I still don’t see why these links would connect to our stories.”
“It’s gotta be metadata-driven,” Cam said, talking about the key words that search engines indexed and attached to internet stories. “I can look into that for you, but you should know, it probably won’t help the investigation. It’s more likely a search engine dynamic than anything else.”
“We need a stronger connection.” Addy studied the whiteboard. “What about dates? Or towns? Or maybe both—maybe that’s what caught my attention. I really think I need to look at the actual case files.”
“Then we better hope Sean’s as good as he claims to be,” Mack said. “If he can’t locate them on your office server, no one can.”
As dinnertime approached, Mack could feel the clock ticking down while they continued to research the cable lead, and they weren’t getting anywhere. They really needed Addy’s files, but Sean hadn’t called yet so there was no news on that front.
Mack looked at Addy’s face, hoping to find clues to tell him if she was still doing okay or if her medical condition was worsening. She looked tired, and she massaged her head.
“Do you need to rest?” Mack asked.
“No.”
“Are you sure? Because you won’t be any good to anyone if you burn yourself out.”
“I’m good for now.” She smiled, but it was strained.
