Stealth Attack

by John Gilstrap

  The results for Carlos were far more encouraging. Married and a father of three, he’d defaulted on three different car loans over the years, and his credit score was among the lowest Gail had ever seen. Eight months ago, he and his family were evicted from their apartment for nonpayment, and he’d moved into his mother’s house in Colonial Beach. That house was paid for, but Mom had been sent to a nursing home just after he’d moved in. That’s where she resided now, and according to visitor records, Carlos spent time with her at least three times per week.

  “How do you get all of this stuff out of the internet?” Gail asked.

  “You just have to know where to look,” Venice said with a grin. “It also helps to have really advanced technology. But really, no one takes firewall security all that seriously. As more and more people work from home”—she used finger quotes—“companies are dropping their guards even more. The fewer barriers there are to entry into the system, the less work the technical services department has to deal with.”

  “But a nursing home is a medical facility.”

  “True enough, but it’s a medical facility primarily for old people,” Venice explained. “The patients are technologically clueless, so their case management turns to their kids or caregivers, who don’t know what the heck they’re doing, either. Hospital systems are generally a lot harder to break into. Not impossible—I mean, I’ve done it—but their tech people are better than most.”

  “But the visitor records?”

  “Okay, that was a gift,” Venice admitted. “I wanted to know how much of a mama’s boy Carlos was, and I got lucky that the visitor records are in the system.” She took a few seconds to gloat in the glow of her success, then asked, “So, what’s next?”

  “You can pull up the security cameras in the school lobby, right?”

  Venice clacked the keys, and the screen filled with a view of the lobby. The image was grainy and black-and-white, but the detail wasn’t awful. The man at the security desk looked exactly like the website’s picture of Carlos Palma, right where he belonged.

  “Ready when you are,” Gail said.

  Chapter Eight

  Luis Alvarez lived in a single-wide trailer, dead center in the middle of the Sam Houston Mobile Home Park. In Jonathan’s experience, such parks were often less than well maintained, but here at night, in the middle of the desert, it was hard to tell. Scalloped ankle-high wire fencing defined the edges of Alvarez’s front yard, such as it was, where stubby cacti rose above sand and gravel. No grass that he could see, but, well, it was the desert. Orange flagstones marked a path to the front door, which stood open, protected from the elements by a storm door.

  Boxers cruised the Suburban past the home, drove to the end of the cul-de-sac, and then turned around. “How are we doing this one?” he asked.

  “Let’s be FBI,” Jonathan said. He pulled his counterfeit badge from his pocket and clipped it to his belt.

  “Oh, man, I hate that,” Boxers grumped as he fished out his own badge. Just a little under seven feet tall, Big Guy had a not-unsubstantial gut that was made of stone. The tiny FBI badge looked like a toy when he clipped it to his waistband.

  It was the nature of Jonathan’s relationship with Irene Rivers that no favor was ever bestowed without a thumb in at least one eye. That’s how Boxers’ federal alias became Xavier Contata. Jonathan survived pretty well with Cornelius Bonner, a name that was easily reduced to Neil. Xavier was a bit more problematic. Big Guy had tried several alternative aliases to cushion the embarrassment, but the rest of the team wouldn’t let him get away with it.

  It was too much fun to mess with him. Until you went too far. A pissed-off Boxers was a frightening creature.

  As they approached the walkway, Jonathan twisted the knob on the portable radio that was likewise clipped to his belt and fitted the transceiver bud into his ear canal. “We’ll keep it on channel one. PTT, just in case.” Push-to-talk, not to be confused with VOX, which would mean voice-activated transmission. “Just to be safe, go around to the black side and let me know when you’re in place.”

  A thousand years ago, before Jonathan and Boxers had served in the Army’s First Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta, a.k.a. the Unit, someone had decided that buildings shouldn’t have fronts and backs, but rather white sides and black sides, along with green sides (left) and red sides (right). Modern Unit operators had moved past those to numerical designations, but Jonathan saw no reason to adapt his system to theirs.

  As he waited in the street for Boxers to get into position, Jonathan kept an eye out for interest from the neighbors. The presence of badges in a neighborhood brought notice. While most were just curious, others got nervous. He and Boxers posed zero threat to anyone on the street, but the people on the street didn’t know that.

  “Hey, Scorpion,” Big Guy said in his ear. “I’m in place. There’s a back door, but it appears to be blocked from the inside. All the windows are closed.”

  “Roger that. I’m heading to the door.” The short wire tripping hazards continued running parallel to the flagstones all the way up to the one-step stoop. When he got to the door, Jonathan glanced inside and saw a young man in a wife beater sprawled in a puffy chair in front of a television. If he wasn’t mistaken, the guy was watching one of the old Adam West episodes of Batman.

  Jonathan rapped on the glass with the knuckle of his second finger. When the guy didn’t respond, he tried again, a little harder. The guy jumped awake, spilling the bottle of beer he’d had balanced on his knee into his crotch.

  Jonathan kept his features neutral as the occupant rose from the chair and walked bowlegged to the door, doing his best to brush away the wet spot as he guzzled what was left in the bottle. Jonathan keyed his mic. “You can come back around,” he said to Boxers.

  The occupant of the trailer was nearly to the door when recognition hit. He must have seen the badge. For a brief second or two, he considered running. It was written all over his face, emblazoned in his eyes. Then, maybe he remembered that he’d blocked his back door. The man’s shoulders slumped as he closed the distance and opened the storm door.

  “Good evening,” he said.

  “Are you Luis Alvarez?”

  “You know I am.”

  “I’d prefer to hear it from you.”

  “Yes, I’m Luis Alvarez.”

  “Are you here alone?”

  “What’s this about?”

  “Can you answer my questions, please?”

  Alvarez folded his arms across his chest and shifted his weight to one leg. “After you answer mine,” he said. “Look, this ain’t my first rodeo. I don’t have to—”

  “Did you sell out a couple of kids to some bad guys this afternoon?”

  The question hit Alvarez hard. Color drained from his face. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that Boxers had just stepped into view.

  “You were about to tell me whether you’re alone inside,” Jonathan prompted.

  “Yessir, I am.”

  The sir was not lost on Jonathan. People always show a little more respect when they’re frightened.

  Alvarez pivoted his body to let Jonathan enter. “Please, come in. Your friend, too.” As Boxers passed, Alvarez craned his neck to track his progress.

  “What, you pissed yourself already?” Big Guy asked, noting the beer stain.

  Alvarez said nothing.

  The guy didn’t ask for identification, so Jonathan didn’t bother to introduce himself. “Tell me about the men you talked to.”

  Alvarez’s eyes twitched as he worked the angles. “Do you mind if I sit down?” He started back toward his chair.

  Boxers stepped in his way. “Yeah, we do mind. This doesn’t have to take long.” Somehow, he made himself even taller. “Or, we can stretch it out all night.”

  Alvarez puffed up a little. “Are you threatening me?”

  Boxers kept his lips pressed together as they pulled back into a smile.

  “Yes, we are,” Jonat
han said. “Well, I’m not, but my colleague most definitely is.”

  Alvarez turned back to Jonathan, and his shoulders sagged again. “What do you want to know?”

  “The whole thing,” Jonathan said. “Word for word, front to back. Start with when you dropped the kids off.”

  “You mean at the Shady Sun, right?”

  The guy was stalling, and he wasn’t very good at it. “How many kids did you betray today?”

  Alvarez objected, “I didn’t betray anybody. I didn’t know they were going to hurt them.”

  “Who said they were hurt?” Boxers asked from above and behind.

  Alvarez pivoted to look up at Big Guy but came back around to Jonathan. “You’re here, aren’t you? Throwing around the word betrayed? How big a stretch is it to guess that they were hurt?”

  “Everything that happened from when you dropped them off,” Jonathan prompted.

  “Do you have anything to do with the lady who called earlier about this? Constance somebody?”

  “Not that I know of,” Jonathan lied. Constance DuBois was Venice’s FBI alias.

  “Why is there so much interest in this one fare?”

  “Why don’t you just answer the questions we ask so we can let you get on with your night?” Jonathan countered.

  “Okay. I picked the kids up at a hotel. On a side of the hotel where we don’t normally pick people up.”

  “How old did you think they were?” Boxers asked.

  “I don’t know. Fourteen, fifteen, maybe?”

  “And that didn’t give you a moment’s thought?” Boxers pressed. “Kids that young calling for a car to take them away from a hotel?”

  This time, Alvarez did turn, and he addressed Big Guy as eye-to-eye as was possible. “Don’t you try to paint me as some kind of perv,” he said. “People call, we pick them up. I’m not even allowed to ask questions. If they’ve got a service llama with them, I gotta take them. That’s the way the system works. Whatever happened, whatever this is about, is no way my fault, you get that? I’m just the goddamn driver.”

  “You knew that the guys who asked where you dropped the kids off were probably up to no good,” Jonathan said. “I’m not casting blame on you, but let’s not paint an overly rosy picture.”

  “Fine. I picked them up and took them to the Shady Sun Water Park. They got out, and I drove off. When I was headed back into town on Route 85, this Beemer SUV pulled in behind me in my lane and started flashing its lights. I looked in the mirror, and they were waving me over to the side of the road.”

  “You pulled off?”

  “Onto Prickly Pear Avenue. You know, to get out of traffic.”

  “You weren’t concerned?” Jonathan asked. “Someone asks you to pull over, and you just do it?”

  “I thought maybe something was wrong with the car, you know? Or, maybe it was one of you guys. A cop.”

  “Why would a cop be pulling you over?”

  “It’s what they do. I’m on parole, you know? I get rousted all the time just because they’re bored. It sucks, but it goes with the territory. One of the reasons I like to cruise the same areas is that the cops have learned that I’m okay to leave alone.”

  “So, you pulled over, and they came to your door. What did they look like?”

  “Mexican, I think. Not white, not black. Dressed well. They were wearing suits. Even more why I pulled over.” His eyes brightened. “You know what? I bet I have pictures of at least one of them.” He started to move, then stopped. “I need to get my phone.”

  Jonathan nodded to Boxers, who stepped out of the way. “Your phone better not look like a weapon,” Big Guy said.

  Alvarez hurried to the chair where he’d been sitting and lifted a smartphone from the table next to it. “These days, you’ve got to be careful, you know?” he said. “I keep cameras in my car. There’s the one that everybody knows is there—the one that sees the passengers in the back—but I’ve got a hidden one, too, that watches me the whole time.” As he spoke, his thumbs danced over the screen of his phone.

  “Why do you do that?” Jonathan asked.

  Alvarez stopped typing and shot Jonathan a look. “Remember, you asked. It’s because of shithead cops who pull me over. When you’re a parolee, you can get jacked up for anything. Jacked up because it’s, like, Thursday, you know? The camera makes a record, and the fact that it’s hidden keeps the assholes true to their instincts.”

  Jonathan didn’t say anything, but he thought it was a damned good idea, for the same reasons he believed in body cameras for cops. When you’re on the job, there’s no reason not to record yourself doing the right thing. And if you’re forced one day into an altercation, it’s always good to have proof that it wasn’t your fault.

  “The camera records to the cloud, whatever that is,” Alvarez continued. Once he got started, he seemed to enjoy talking. “I got an app that lets me get to it and watch it.”

  “Do you do that a lot?” Boxers asked.

  “Only after some asshat stops me. I live for the time one of them steps way out of line and I can get his badge. Sorry.”

  Jonathan gave a noncommittal shrug. What did he care?

  “So, while you look for the picture, tell us what—”

  “Here it is,” Alvarez said, and he handed the phone to Jonathan, who quickly pulled up the share function, typed in a phone number, and hit SEND.

  “Hey, what are you doing?”

  “I sent the picture to my office.”

  “I didn’t say you could do that.”

  “You didn’t say I couldn’t.” Jonathan handed him back the phone.

  “I hate you people,” Alvarez said.

  “Now we have the pictures. Will we have the audio, too?”

  “It’s all there, yeah.”

  “Excellent. That much less for you to have to worry about. Just for the record, though, and in case the video doesn’t work, what are we going to see when we play it?”

  * * *

  They watched the video in Harry Dawkins’s apartment, a short-term rental for the remaining weeks or months that he would be assigned to DHS’s JTF—joint task force—focusing on illegal immigration, drug smuggling, and human trafficking. Together, they watched as the camera caught a brief glimpse first of Ciara Kelly and then Roman as they slid into the backseat from the driver’s side. The images were surprisingly clear.

  The angle of the camera was such that virtually none of the backseat was visible, and the audio was likewise configured to focus on sound from the front half of the vehicle. With the sound cranked up, they could hear snippets of adolescent chatter, but nothing of substance. Yet they stayed with it for the entire drive, all of about twelve minutes. Alvarez pulled to the curb, presumably let the kids out, and then he was on his way again.

  With the car empty now, Jonathan fast-forwarded to the point in the video when Alvarez clearly was reacting to something in the mirror behind him. They rode with him as he turned right and stopped.

  Alvarez rolled down his window, and as he waited, he cast a glance over to the camera, presumably to make sure it was working.

  “Good afternoon,” a voice said from off camera. A torso appeared framed in the window, a shirt, tie, and sport coat, and then its owner bent at the waist and looked inside the vehicle.

  “That’s our money shot,” Jonathan said, pointing. “Mark the time stamp.”

  “Got it,” Boxers said.

  “What’s going on?” Alvarez asked.

  “Those kids you picked up,” the visitor said, standing straight again. “Where did you drop them off?”

  Alvarez hesitated. “Why do you want to know?”

  “When you talk to me, it’s never a good idea to answer a question with a question.”

  Jonathan heard the sound of knocking, and Alvarez spun in his seat to cast a frightened look out through the passenger side window.

  “Don’t worry about him,” said the man in the driver’s window. “He’s my partner. Look at me.”
>
  Alvarez returned his gaze back to his window.

  The man said, “We saw you pick up the kids at the hotel, but we lost you in traffic.”

  “I thought I saw you following me,” Alvarez said. “I lost you at a light, right?”

  “Shouldn’t’ve done that. That’s why we’re having to have this chat here.”

  “Why are you looking for a couple of kids?”

  Window Man thumped Alvarez’s left temple with the heel of his hand. “Don’t lose focus, friend. Where did you drop them off?”

  “At the Shady Sun Water Park.”

  “Not lyin’ to us now, are you?”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “If we find out that you did, we’ll find you and hurt you.”

  Dawkins clicked the remote and paused the video. “Not a lot there to go by,” he said.

  “Bet you a hundred bucks that guy in the window has a record,” Boxers said.

  “Sucker’s bet,” Jonathan said. “And if he does—since he does—Mother Hen will be able to nail down an identity.”

  Dawkins rose from his chair, a scratchy beige-plaid Danish modern monstrosity with arched wooden arms. “I’m getting a beer. Want anything?”

  “You promised scotch,” Jonathan reminded.

  “None of that super-smoky expensive shit you drink, but I’ve got a blend. Passport, I think.”

  Boxers made a retching noise.

  “What about gin?” Jonathan tried.

  “Again, nothing expensive. Beefeater.”

  Jonathan beamed and shot to his feet from his own Danish modern monstrosity. “Vermouth?”

  “I can make you a martini, if you want,” Dawkins offered.

  “No, you can’t,” Jonathan countered. “I’m the only bartender I know who doesn’t screw up the recipe for a martini.”

  Chapter Nine

  Security Solutions operated a small fleet of nondescript cars with current registrations and inspection stickers, ones that could not be traced back to any real person or company. If pulled over for some reason, the driver would present the registration to the police officer. If pressed for something more, there was a stash of business cards in the center console.