by Mark Dawson
Milton parked the Yukon. He put the cap on his head, pulling it down so that the brim was low over his forehead. He got out, locked the SUV and went up to the door of the facility. The window offered a glimpse inside, and it looked as if the desk was not manned at this late hour. That was fortunate; Milton had wondered whether he might have to spin a lie to get inside.
The building was accessed by way of a swipe card. Milton reached into his pocket for the card that Jessica had given him and ran it through the reader. The machine chirped, the lock buzzed, and the door opened. Milton kept his head down and went inside.
The reception was quiet, with lights flicking on as his presence was detected by a motion sensor somewhere nearby. He glimpsed a security camera on the other side of the room, pointing down at the door, and turned away from it, confident that the cap would shield his face. He went to the door that led to the storage area, used his elbow to push the handle down, and then shouldered his way inside.
A series of corridors bisected the warehouse. Storage units were arranged on either side of these, and each unit was secured by substantial metal roller doors. Strip lights provided the illumination, their harsh glare glinting off the doors and the polished epoxy floor. Hisco security cameras were placed at regular intervals. Milton didn’t like the look of them, but he was hopeful that they were up high enough that they would be defeated by the cap; he pulled it down a little more to be sure.
He found the unit that he wanted, knelt down and inserted the key into the padlock that fastened the door to the metal bracket on the floor. The lock turned easily and the clasp popped open. Milton hauled the door up enough to allow him to duck inside.
The unit was dark. Milton used the flashlight on his phone to find the light switch and flicked it. A bulb flickered on and he looked around.
The space was reasonably sized—perhaps five feet by ten—and would have been big enough for small pieces of furniture or several large storage boxes. Despite that, the only item stored inside was a single briefcase. Milton crouched down beside it and examined it. It looked expensive: leather, with metal clasps and two combination locks that secured the lid. He picked it up and hefted it. It wasn’t heavy.
He was about to open it when he heard the sound of breaking glass.
Someone was forcing their way into the building.
Milton took the case and, as quietly as he could, stepped out of the unit and lowered the door so that it was down to the ground. He slipped the padlock through the clasp and locked it, then made his way swiftly and silently along the corridor to the first junction. He waited there for a moment, holding his breath, until he heard the sound of approaching footsteps. He reached around for the pistol, holding it in a loose grip and slipping his finger through the trigger guard.
He heard a voice and then another. Spanish? It was difficult to be sure. Two men, he thought. Relaxed, perhaps even a little bored. That was good.
The footsteps approached and then stopped. It was difficult to judge, but Milton guessed that the two men were now next to the unit that he had just been in. He heard the rattle of the padlock against the clasp and then a frustrated invocation.
“¡Ábrelo!”
“Estoy haciendo mi mejor esfuerzo.”
Milton stayed stock-still. He heard the sound of something metallic clanging against the concrete floor, a grunt of effort and then a metallic popping sound as, he guessed, the padlock was forced with a pair of cutters. The roller door rattled as it was pushed up, and there came the sound of a click; a flashlight, perhaps.
Milton waited.
“Esta vacio.”
“Puedo ver eso. Oscar va a estar enojado.”
Milton’s Spanish wasn’t good enough to translate what was said, but he could tell that the men were irritated. He could guess at what they were discussing: the unit was empty and Oscar was going to be mad.
Milton waited.
The first man muttered an angry “Bastardo!” and the door was lowered again, the handle ringing as it crashed back to the concrete. Milton heard the men’s footsteps moving away from where he was standing and back to the main door. He gave a moment’s thought to whether he should follow and take them out. There was eventually going to be a confrontation after what had happened tonight, and thinning out Oscar’s complement of muscle a little more would be helpful. He dismissed it; the men had no idea that he was here; his car was an anonymous rental that they likely would not even notice, and killing in cold blood was not something that he relished. There was no need.
He waited for the sound of the exterior door as it opened and closed, the lock automatically fastening again, and then took another thirty seconds until he thought he could hear the sound of a car engine from outside.
He pulled the cap down again and walked carefully to the door. He reached the reception just as it was raked by the headlights of the car that was pulling out of the lot. He couldn’t make out the details save that it was a big Lexus, the engine rumbling as the driver hit the gas and accelerated away.
28
Milton parked the Yukon in the empty parking lot of Angelina’s Pizzeria on West Cheyenne. He collected the briefcase from the back seat and put it on his lap, switched on the vanity light and examined it. The case was obviously expensive, with a logo that identified it as made by Aspinal of London. It was fronted with calf leather in a dark brown pebble texture, with a soft and supple feel to it. The tactile materials, the precise contrast stitching, the chrome fixtures, and the sturdy handle all suggested luxury. The case was sealed with reasonably substantial clasps. The clasps were held in two locks, one on either side of the case, each lock secured by a combination.
Milton wondered whether he should take the case straight back to the hotel. It wasn’t his, after all, and he should leave it up to Jessica as to what to do with it. On the other hand, he still felt that he was operating in the dark. The girl had been unable to provide any suggestion as to why her father might have been abducted, and she had been sparing in what she had told him until he’d threatened to abandon her to her fate. He needed to know more. He would give her the case and whatever was inside it, but only after he had examined it himself.
Unlocking the case was a simple enough trick. Milton turned it around so that it was positioned vertically on his lap, and then angled it backwards so that he was able to look down at the sides of the combination locks. There were three dials on each. Milton started with the left-hand lock. He thumbed its rightmost dial around until he had found the small bumps beneath one of the numbers. Then, working one twist of the dial at a time, he turned it in a clockwise direction before trying the lock. It took six attempts, but, eventually, the lock opened and the clasp popped free. Milton repeated the trick on the left-hand dial, popped the lock and opened the case.
The lid opened to reveal a generous leather-lined compartment. The main pocket contained a large collection of American banknotes. Milton thumbed through six thick wads, each fastened with a rubber band. The notes were all of high denominations—fifties and hundreds—and Milton guessed that there must have been a hundred thousand in total, maybe more.
Milton put the money back and turned his attention to the pockets in the lid, each closed with a snap. There were three slots: one for a phone, another for business cards and a third for pens. Milton opened the phone pouch and took out a phone. It was a simple TracFone LG with a flip design. It looked new. Milton fired it up, but it required a password to proceed. He powered it down and put it back into the case.
He opened the next section and took out two USB drives. They were identical: white, marked with the logo of the manufacturer—SanDisk—and with a capacity of 64 GB each. There was nothing that gave a hint of what might be contained on them.
Milton turned the drives around in his fingers and looked down at the cash.
Oscar’s pursuit of Richard Russo suddenly made a lot more sense.
29
Milton arrived back at the El Cortez at two in the morning and went
directly to the twenty-four-hour business centre. There was a table with four old-fashioned PC terminals together with a printer. He went to the terminal that was farthest from the door and tapped the keyboard to wake the screen. He took the first USB drive out, plugged it into the port in the tower, waited for the computer to detect it, and then clicked the icon when it appeared on the screen.
A box popped up asking for a password. Milton had no idea what that might be, and closed it down. He swapped the first drive for the second and, this time, the directory showed four files that were ready to be opened: two Word documents, an MP4 file and an Excel spreadsheet.
Milton opened the spreadsheet. The various tabs were a maze of accounting figures. Deposits, withdrawals, and interest calculations. The numbers were detailed, but the information that accompanied them was not. There were initials here and there, and a few random notes typed into the documents, but he was not able to untangle where the numbers were from or what they meant.
He closed it down and clicked the first Word document. The program fired up and, after a pause as the old PC struggled to open the file, several paragraphs of text appeared on the screen. Richard Russo had composed a draft email and had saved it onto one of the sticks.
Milton read:
My name is Richard Russo. I am head of network security at the Stardust hotel in Las Vegas. I recently found myself in significant debt after paying for cancer treatment for which I was not insured. I was introduced to a man called Oscar Delgado, who lent me the money to clear those debts. His offer did not come without obligations, and, as a result, I have been forced to work for him in the operation of a sophisticated scam.
Señor Delgado hired me to identify customers in the hotel database with perfect credit scores. I was responsible for hacking the identities of those individuals and, using their names and addresses and social security numbers, I assisted him in opening credit accounts with a number of other Las Vegas casinos. The accounts were provided with large initial deposits to foster the illusion that the individuals were liquid and to encourage the casinos to extend lines of credit.
Señor Delgado then recruited a number of credible gamblers to pretend to be these people. He continued to top up the accounts and paid down the markers. The players looked like high rollers and the casinos were happy to increase their credit lines.
It is at this point that the scam is operated. The gamblers lay large bets of ten or twenty thousand dollars. Most of those bets lose, but some do not, and when they are successful, hundreds of thousands can be won. The gamblers cash out the accounts, usually leaving large debts behind. The casinos pursue the individuals who had their identities stolen, and quickly find that they have no recompense against them. They have lost tens of thousands of dollars, and the individuals I targeted have their credit ratings ruined.
You will find evidence of Señor Delgado’s fraud in the financial documents that are attached to this email. These are the bets that he laid and the amounts that were won and lost.
Milton rubbed his tired eyes. He had suspected that there were depths to the mess that he had stumbled into, but not how far those depths might extend.
He opened the second draft email.
Further to the financial crimes that I have detailed in my previous note, I can also prove that Señor Delgado is responsible for the murder of those who have stood up to him. I am aware of at least three such homicides. I will set out details below.
Oliver and Christoph Lindermann were German brothers who worked for Señor Delgado in 2015. Oliver had a particular skill at counting cards, and Christoph was his chaperone. They threatened to expose Señor Delgado unless he agreed to pay them $500,000. Their bodies were found burning at the side of the road in Yermo, California. Señor Delgado told me that he was responsible for their killings, in an attempt, I am sure, to win my continued cooperation by putting me in fear of my life.
Joseph Singleton worked in The Dunes as an account manager. He was brought into the operation in order to help me identify possible targets with pre-existing credit histories at that resort. He was arrested by the Las Vegas police on an unconnected matter, and, in an attempt to reduce the charges against him, he offered to give evidence against Señor Delgado. He was murdered at Delgado’s commercial property in Sunrise Manor. I understand that his body was dumped near Needles, California. I am aware of television reports of unidentified human remains that were found there, and believe that they belong to Singleton. I am sure a DNA check would prove that I am right.
Whereas I can offer only circumstantial evidence of Señor Delgado’s involvement in the murder of the Lindermann brothers, I have concrete proof that he murdered Singleton. I had previously installed a Trojan on his computer in order that I might capture some of the financial evidence against him that I have provided under separate email cover. Using this, I captured an audio recording of Singleton’s torture and murder. I attach that evidence to this email.
Milton closed down the draft email and navigated back to the drive’s file menu. The MP4 was labelled with a single word: SINGLETON.
Milton checked that the room was empty and the volume was down low. He pressed play.
The recording wasn’t clear—it sounded as if the microphone was in a different room to the voices it had captured—but the content was still audible. There were two distinct voices: the first was angry and threatening, the second apologetic, almost pleading. Milton caught several phrases from the louder of the two speakers—“you betrayed me!” and “how could you be so fucking stupid!”—and then the sound of a blow, of something thudding into flesh. He heard mewling, then a plea—more desperate this time—and then another blow, and another, and another. This went on for a minute, and then two. Milton listened intently, inured to what he was hearing, recognising it from his own experience. There came another blow, a pause, and then the crack of a single gunshot.
The conversation stopped, but the recording still had another thirty seconds to run.
Milton let it play.
“¿Qué dijo el?” a new voice said. It was clearer than before, as if the speaker was in the same room as the microphone.
“Nada.”
“¿Qué quieres que haga?”
“Llevarlo al desierto,” he said. “Los coyotes pueden tenerlo.”
Milton leaned back in the chair and scrubbed his hand through his hair. It had been obvious that the man with whom he had spoken—Oscar Delgado—was dangerous, but he now knew Delgado was more than that.
He was a killer.
30
Milton awoke at six after three hours’ sleep. He felt sluggish and knew that he would benefit from a little exercise. He went down to the store in the lobby and found a rail with a small selection of swimming shorts. They were as garish as the T-shirt that he had purchased here last night, and, with little in the way of choice, he made do with a pair in a lurid lime green with ‘Vegas’ printed across the back.
He changed in a restroom, went to the pool and grabbed a towel from the stack that had been left next to the line of loungers. The atmosphere was very different to how it had been last night; instead of the light glowing from beneath the water and the neon from the signs overhead, everything was bright and sharp. There had been an edge of Vegas glamour here before, but now that the darkness was gone, it all felt a little tacky and jaded.
He dove into the pool, swam a few strokes under the water, surfaced and then stretched out into a front crawl. Milton was a strong swimmer and the pool was just fifteen metres long; he reached the end in ten strokes, rolled through a tumble turn and kicked back in the opposite direction. He stroked out again, churning quickly through the water and settling into a steady pace. The strokes became repetitive and he quickly drifted into the meditative state that he always tried to find when he was working out. It was purer even than the peace that he found in meetings: just the water, the rhythm of his strokes, the burn that was somewhere between pain and pleasure that he felt in his shoulders and quads.
He lost track of time and, eventually remembering that he had a lot to do today, he slowed his strokes and cruised to the wall. He looked up at a pair of legs and, as he shielded his eyes against the sun, he saw that Jessica was standing there.
“Morning,” she said.
“Morning.”
“That was impressive.”
“You been there long?”
“Long enough.”
Milton put his hands on the side of the pool and boosted himself out of the water. He stood next to her, a head taller, the water running off his body. She looked at him, her eyes a little wider. He could guess why that was: she was looking at the tattoos on his body and the scars from the times that he had been injured in the course of his work.
“You’ve got a lot of ink,” she said.
He turned to grab the towel and heard her exclamation of surprise. “What?”
“On your back,” she said. “The angel.”
She meant the tattoo of the angel wings across his shoulders.
“Where’d you get that done?”
“South America,” he said.
“That must’ve hurt.”
“I was drunk.”
He dried himself down and tossed the towel onto the nearest lounger.
“You didn’t wake me last night,” she said.
“I didn’t get back until late. I thought you needed sleep.”
“But—”
“Nothing was going to happen that couldn’t wait until today,” he said, cutting her off.
