They had done a good job of protecting the digital data.
This was a smart person behind the camera, not a cunning person. A cunning person would sweep the camera across a business name or a street sign, focus in on a license plate, so the FBI could get there fast.
He was back to the two-witness scenario—a smart person and a cunning person.
A cunning person protecting an identity might have wanted the FBI to know about the special agent but not to figure out the location, because they were afraid of being identified. Gabriel bet that was the case.
Gabriel jotted on his pad:Was this video edited? Did they take out any information? If yes, where was the cut made?
If yes, Gabriel would focus on the last frames of the splice to see if they accidentally left anything there.
At any rate, the videographer got their intended end. Here he was looking into the reflection on the window to see two white license plates on two gray sedans.
Could be happenstance.
Might be a clue.
Of course, about eighty percent of the cars on the road were on the gray scale, and a shit ton of states had white license plates.
The steering wheels were on the left. So that canceled out a few countries. They weren’t in London, for example.
Gabriel looked at the frame with the gun resting at the base of the victim’s neck.
If only the agent had looked up, then others in the research department could have run that image against all the FBI agents out there, figured out who was grabbed, and known what city he was in.
Oddly, the collars on both the men’s jackets were up, concealing their ears, ears being biomarkers that could identify them, not that this video had enough pixels that it was possible.
“What else, Whiskey? What else could give me a clue?”
Gabriel stood and walked around his desk and crouched down, his knees splayed wide, and he reached between his thighs for Whiskey's soft, floppy ears.
Whiskey was a droopy-looking dog, a dog whose face melted into folds of flesh.
But Whiskey was no slacker. Despite her appearance, she had amazing stamina and focus.
For a free dog, she was exceptional—even if she hadn’t been free, she would have been exceptional—a highly skilled sniffer dog. From field tests and competitions, she was one of the best in the state at tracking.
Daniel had lucked out when he found a sign on a telephone pole that read: “Bloodhound puppies need a good home.”
As soon as he saw the sign, Daniel had made up his mind. He was going to get a puppy and have his up-the-street neighbor, Reaper Hamilton, train her up at Cerberus Tactical as a field dog.
Gabriel remembered that phone call. It had been one of the infrequent moments of elation that reminded Gabriel of when they were kids. Daniel had become darker and broodier with age. A little enthusiasm, a little bit of joy, Gabriel hoped Whiskey would provide both for his brother.
Whiskey was born for the job, lived for the job.
And now Whiskey didn’t have the man who doted on her, and Gabriel didn’t see how she could continue the work that she loved.
Sure, Gabriel was a tracker, too. But no part of his job description put him in the woods as it did for Daniel when he was looking for arms stashes and meth production along the state border.
“Mopey dog, this is going to be hard on you,” Gabriel said. “You just lost the two things that gave your life meaning. Now you’ve got me, and I’m sorry about that. But I appreciate your patience today.”
Whiskey looked up at Gabriel like she understood every word.
With closed eyes, Gabriel leaned his back against his desk, rubbing Whiskey as he thought through the clues, trying to come up with a strategy that would produce results.
His mind kept bringing him back to the telephone pole and the sign offering free puppies.
Had he picked up something?
