by Rodolfo Peña
“I will,” she said. “Would you like for me to call you a taxi?”
“No, it’s OK. I’ll just walk down to the avenue and get one.” He said goodbye and walked down the street midst the bright sunshine. He sighed as if he were relieved to have done with a difficult chore.
Once he was in a taxi, he called Lupe Salgado. “Look I have to see you right now. Where? Where is your office? OK, I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
He tapped the taxi driver on the shoulder and said, “Take me to the Kalos Building.”
Chapter 19: The Keys to the Tale
The Kalos Building in Monterrey is the flagship and corporate offices of a large real estate and business parks empire said to be owned by an ex-Governor of the State of Nuevo León. It houses not only the headquarters of the Kalos Group itself but also the headquarters or offices of a gaggle of international corporations.
Lombardo walked into the building and read the directory. He saw that “Omega IT Consulting” was on Level A-3. “Lupe must be doing good business to be able to afford this,” he said aloud.
The security guard by the elevator doors turned to look at him but said nothing.
When he walked into Lupe’s office, he gave the secretary his name and told her he was expected. Lupe was busily typing into his computer so he greeted Lombardo without looking away from the screen and asked him to sit down.
Lombardo put the plastic bag and the paper the widow had given him on Lupe’s desk and took out his cigarettes and lighter. “Do you mind if I smoke,” he asked the busy Lupe.
“Yes,” Lupe said, “but go ahead anyway.”
When he finished typing, Lupe turned to Lombardo and extended his hand. “Sorry about that,” he said, “but I had a lot of emails to answer.”
“That’s a snazzy looking three-piece suit you got there, Lupe. You’ve come a long way from the computer operator I met in the Technological Institute so many years ago.”
“Well, you know what Manolete said, ‘To be a bullfighter, you not only have to be one, you have to look like one’; the same goes for consultants,” he said laughing.
“Yeah,” agreed Lombardo, “but that’s not true for cops—at least not in Mexico.”
“I can see that,” said Lupe pointing at Lombardo’s mackintosh. He looked at what Lombardo had put on his desk and asked, “What have you got there?”
With small puffs of smoke punctuating his words, Lombardo said, “The paper in the plastic bag was in the victim’s trachea; the paper with the letters and numbers was given to me by his widow. She said he instructed her to give it to someone in authority, someone she could trust.”
“So, why did she give it to you?” said Lupe laughing at his own sarcasm.
Lombardo did not laugh and continued, “After the long series of letters and numbers, in that paper she gave me, it instructs the Dean of the University that this is a ‘private key.’ Now, I have a general idea of how encryption keys work, which I think this is what these are, but more importantly, I have a hunch that this has something to do with what he was doing at work, maybe what he was doing the night he was murdered.”
Lupe picked up the paper the widow had given Lombardo. He looked at it carefully as if he were an archeologist looking at old parchment. Then he picked up the plastic bag gingerly, as if afraid it would stain his fingers, and looked at the paper inside.
“I think the guy knew he was doing something that could put him in some kind of danger, that’s why he gave that paper to his wife.”
“Well, if he was using it as insurance, it didn’t work,” said Lupe glibly.
“I don’t think it was insurance. I think he just wanted someone to know what had happened to him, in case something did happen to him.”
“He must have had a pretty fatalistic outlook on life,” said Lupe after putting down the plastic bag. “Why didn’t he just deliver the thing himself instead of this roundabout, mysterious way?”
“I think he was setting the thing up and maybe doing some last minute work that night with the intention of giving the key to the Dean the next day. He never got the chance, but something or someone must have told him that what he was doing was dangerous so he made sure the Dean would get the key.”
“A loyal employee, eh?”
“Yeah, too loyal for his own good—and loyal to the wrong people. I think the Dean is fooling around with stuff he shouldn’t and Victor was just carrying out orders. So, do you agree that these are keys? Have you used stuff like this before?’”
“Of course that’s what they are. What you have here is a set of encryption keys, alright. The one in the paper the widow gave you is the private key; the one in the plastic bag is the public key. The public key is used to encrypt information—anyone can use it and it is usually freely distributed. The private key is used to decrypt information encrypted with the public key.”
“I see,” said Lombardo and was silent for a moment as he thought about what Lupe had said. “So, I am probably right in assuming that he set this up before he went to work that night—or maybe that same night. He gave the paper to his wife to make sure it reached the Dean in case something happened to him, but why would he hide the public key from his abductors? It would not have helped them.”
“Unless they wanted to send an encrypted message,” said Lupe snickering.
“No, the killers were sure he had the private key on him,” said Lombardo reflectively.
“How could they know that?”
“Someone told them,” said Lombardo. “Someone who knew what he was doing that night.”
“An inside man! But, how in the world did that paper get into his trachea?” asked Lupe picking up the plastic bag again.
Lombardo lit another cigarette. He was more relaxed now because he now understood what had happened and why.
“There was water in his lungs,” he said leaning back while staring at the paper in the plastic bag. “I think he somehow managed to put the paper in his mouth as he was being beaten up. He must have fainted or maybe they tried to ‘waterboard’ him, I don’t know; in any case, he aspirated water, dirty water, and the paper went into his lungs with it.”
“Damn! That’s horrible,” said Lupe putting down the paper.
“Yeah, that’s horrible,” repeated Lombardo. “The thing is, he was either pretty foolish or pretty brave to take such a beating, but he took it for a purpose. He knew the public key was useless to them but the fact that he tried to hide it was meant to convince the killers it was the private key.”
“Man, that was either pretty foolish or pretty brave of him.”
“Both,” said Lombardo. “Lupe, how could we get hold of what he was encrypting that night, or at any other time?”
“Talk to the system managers; get them to show you the logs. But, I am sure they’ll know if there are encrypted files or volumes in their machines.”
“I questioned David López yesterday. Do you know him?”
“Yes, I met him once when I was trying to sell the University on some network security software. He worked for Victor; he should know exactly what Victor was doing.”
“I asked him if he knew what Victor was working on that last night and he sort of shrugged it off saying that Victor was probably going about his normal duties.”
“That’s bullshit. Most system managers know what the other guys are doing. There’s reports and logs one looks at, and meetings. Big servers keep lots of logs, so many, in fact that they have a guy, a log manager, dedicated to that. They keep a record on everything: user logins, file activity, security measures being applied, you name it. Lots of stuff is recorded and system managers systematically look at logs to see what’s going on. You have to know where to look for things, but then when you are familiar with your machines you basically know where to find information. When you’ve got a problem, the main tools for finding out what went wrong are the system logs.”
“I suppose I should get that David guy to show me some of the logs but I wouldn�
�t know which ones I should see. Will I be able to read them or are they, you know, in computerese?”
“They’re not like a handwritten diary, I can tell you that,” said Lupe. “You’ll need help to understand just what the information means.”
“Will you have time to come along with me if I go to the University tomorrow?”
Lupe sighed. “I’m pretty busy with the report I am preparing for my client in Mexico City; it depends on when you want to go. Look, why don’t you go and see him and if you find he’s being unhelpful, we can then go together and I’ll have a look at the logs, too.”
“OK, I’ll do that. But, what about making a list of the logs you think I should see.”
“Yeah, I can do that right now.”
“By the way,” asked Lombardo, “if we find that file or files Victor encrypted, we’ll be able to open them with these, right?”
“All you need is the private key,” Lupe assured him. He handed Lombardo a paper. “Here’s a list of some of the logs you should see. This one will tell you how he was moving around, logging into what computers and so on; this one will let you know about the files he was accessing. Now, the security files and logs are kept pretty well guarded so they might balk at letting you see them, but be sure to lean on the log manager, he’s a pretty nervous little fellow but he’ll help you, I’m sure.”
“Thanks, Lupe.”
As Lombardo left Lupe’s office, his cell phone rang: it was the University’s chief of security. He told Lombardo that the information he had requested was ready. It had been recorded on a DVD. Lombardo asked him to send it by messenger to his home, not his office. He asked for the messenger to deliver the disc to him personally.
When Lombardo got home, the messenger was there standing by his motorcycle, with the disc in his hand. There was also a note from the Security chief. It said that they had thoroughly searched the security recordings and found only a brief glimpse of Victor but that there was something very interesting on the disc and that he hoped it would help Lombardo in his pursuit of the killers.
Lombardo sat on his easy chair and watched the blurry black-and-white images. Indeed something very interesting had been recorded—the time shown was 1:32 a.m. In the sequence, Victor came through the Computer Center main door, looked to his left, zipped up his jacket, and went off camera as he walked down the steps. A few minutes later, at 1:37 a.m., a car whizzed by the camera. Lombardo assumed that it was Victor’s car. A few seconds later, a second car was recorded going by. A second car!
Lombardo hit the Back button and stopped it as Victor’s car went by; then he forwarded the disc, frame by frame until the second car showed up. He tried to see who was in the second car but the image was too blurry; it was dark and the parking lot lights shone on the windshield and car windows.
Excited, Lombardo called the University’s security chief. He asked him for the make, model, and license plate number of Victor’s car. “Sure,” said the Security Chief, “we have all employees’ car registration and plates on file—for insurance purposes, you know.”
“I’ve got to find that car,” said Lombardo as he called his good friend Ramiro Lozano who worked in the State’s Traffic and Road Security Department.
“Ramiro,” he said when his friend answered the phone, “I need to find an automobile right away.” He gave him the make, model, and license number and told him to send it over to the Federal Highway Patrol as well as the Metropolitan Police. He told him to warn officers that the car would probably have been abandoned somewhere south of the city or maybe even outside the city, perhaps near one of the reservoirs. They had to act quickly because most likely that car was going to disappear.
Chapter 20: A High-Stakes Meeting on the High Seas
The large yacht sailed out of Acapulco’s sheltered marina, turned to port when it cleared the peninsula, and then to port again as it headed out to sea.
The guests stayed in their cabins until the coast was out of sight; then, a crew member came around tinkling a bell softly and announcing that cocktails were being served on the aft deck.
A large man dressed all in white and wearing stylish sunglasses stood, drink in hand, leaning against the aft railing. As his guests arrived, a waiter offered the men whiskey highballs and the women champagne.
The last to arrive was a tall blonde woman who took a glass of champagne and went to stand by the large man in white.
“Salud,” said the man and all guests repeated “salud” and then sipped their drinks.
“I am glad all of you could come on such short notice. As I mentioned on my telephone calls, I arranged for this meeting because we have urgent business to discuss and some important things to arrange tonight. For your information, we will sail up the coast to Mazatlán. You don’t have to worry about how to get back home because I have arranged flights for all of you from there. You’ll be back by morning and no one will know you were even gone,” he laughed expansively after he said that and looked pointedly at Abelardo Unzúntia, who instead of being in his jail cell awaiting the outcome of an extradition procedure, had been “allowed” out for the night by the jail’s warden.
“But before we get down to business,” said the man in white whom everyone knew as “the President’s cousin,” “let’s enjoy this wonderful sea air, our delicious company,” he said as he bowed to the blonde woman, “and the great meal the chef is going to cook for us tonight, eh?”
“Yes, of course,” they all agreed and again raised their glasses when he said “salud.”
The meal was indeed grand. The chef had agreed to come on this trip because the man in white had lured him away from the Maria Isabel Hotel with an offer that doubled his pay at the hotel and provided for an interest free loan and help so he could set up his own restaurant in Mexico City.
After the dinner, the women went back to the aft deck to lie down on the deck chairs and gossip in the balmy night air. The sea was calm. The yacht glided effortlessly over the small waves and the women’s laughter floated out into the moonlit night. Far-away the lights of a coastal town twinkled like stars that had fallen to Earth.
The men sat in the dining room, chatted loudly, puffed on their large cigars, and drank generously from their snifters of port. The last crew member to leave the room closed the heavy glass doors. Now the chatter and laugher of the women in the aft deck could barely be heard in the dining room.
Alfonso Echeverría, who was not only the owner of the yacht and the evening’s host, but also the President’s cousin, turned to the young man on his right, Francisco Elizondo, the recently elected Senator from the northeastern State of Coahuila, and asked, “So, how are the arrangements going?”
Before answering, Senator Elizondo ran his hand through his hair. His young face seemed curiously mismatched to his thick, gray mane. He sighed and said, “I think I have the right man ,but we are still checking him out.”
“What does that mean, ‘checking him out’?” asked Governor Sanchez who was sitting at the end of the table—the “place of honor” according to the host.
Senator Elizondo turned to him with a weary look and said, “It means we are looking into his personal and professional life to see that there are no loose ends.”
“Let’s not get into details, don Platón,” said the President’s cousin to the Governor. “I am sure that the distinguished representative of the State of Coahuila will handle this as it should be. The important thing is to get things done before our ‘cousins from the North’ can act.”
“What is the latest on that? Do we know anything more?” asked a dark-skinned man who was still wearing sunglasses even though night had fallen and surrounded the yacht in gloom hours ago. Since he had come on board, the other men on the yacht had hardly spoken to him, except for the exchange of the necessary civilities. He was the necessary evil of the group: Abelardo Unzúntia Jimenez, underboss of the powerful Gulf Cartel. If he had been asked he would have let his fellow guests know that he had no qualms about going b
ack the next day to the jail cell where he was supposed to be awaiting the outcome of his deportation trial; he already knew what the outcome would be. The week before, a hundred thousand dollars had been deposited in a Swiss bank account. The number of the account had been mailed to the judge who would “decide” his fate. His cynicism made the others detest him, but his well-known penchant for violence made them fear him as well. The fact that he was there at all was a demonstration of the power and reach of the Gulf Cartel.
“Our friend who works for our adversaries said that they are ready to move; he thinks that the announcement will come sometime next week, probably Friday so the markets don’t have time to react.”
“How are they going to do it? Does he know?” asked the underboss.
