“So, it’s safe to say this guy was probably one of the men from the alley?” Dace added.
C.T. nodded in agreement. “Safe bet, at this point. Is the camera feed coming up yet, Liam?”
“Yeah, it should be on the wall in a second.” Liam continued to peck at his keyboard. “These pings. They’re all over the place. I’ve lined up the call logs from all three vics and synced dates to see who was calling who when. Maybe a clue. Problem is, none of it’s matching up for the location.”
“Can you dumb that down?”
“Sure. Basically, I have five calls on our first victim's phone, and each call hit a different tower despite a timeline of about two hours.”
Dace shrugged it off. “So he was on the move. Different locations, different towers.”
“Right, but how was he in Portland during call one in the sequence, then Hong Kong an hour later, only to be in Wyoming, Connecticut, then back to Portland?”
“Son of a bitch, like a spoofing app?” Wylie asked.
“Yes and no. This isn’t a typical spoofing program you’d use, so your wife thinks you’re at the office when you’re really at the bar a mile away with your mistress. This is sophisticated, far more advanced than a $3.99 download on your phone. This is what most of our intelligence agencies use when they want to hide operatives around the world. They bounce the signals off random towers using satellites and…”
“Read the room, Brother,” Luke chimed in.
“Right. Basically, this is like a very expensive spoofing program – whoever is using it can make it look like they’re anywhere in the world. They’re doing a shitty job bouncing it around like they are, a total giveaway, but…”
“Can you hack it?” Luke asked.
“Of course. Nobody has it but me and…the government.” Liam shrugged.
“How do you know it didn’t get into the wrong hands? Maybe the cartel has their hands on it. Money talks, and they tend to have a lot of it.”
“Because I wrote the program. I’m literally looking at my own work here. I own all rights and have it on a government contract. It’s on loan, per se. It’s a beta project they’re testing.”
“Get Carter in here. He needs to start digging into the agencies you have testing it,” Dace instructed. “We may have our first major break.”
“If the feds are involved somehow, it’s out of my jurisdiction. I’ll ride your wing as far as I can, but Carter may have to call in help if this lands above my pay grade,” C.T. said.
“On it,” Wylie said, pulling out his phone. “He’s in the building. I’ll get him down here.”
“There’s only one number that I cannot unlock, and I think it’s our smoking gun. Whoever has that phone is a player. It’s too obvious for them not to be. Now that I know what we’re dealing with – my fucking technology – I can unwind it. But like everything else, it takes time. Do we know where Ivy got her phone? The encryption and layers of security make sense now. Hate to say it, but this got really big,” Liam added.
Eli shook his head. “I’ve been saying it all along. It’s her father. He isn’t a damn florist. He’s government, and he gave her that phone.”
“Is your phone one of his too?” Liam asked.
“Hell no. I trust no one and left that one back in Moss Bridge. And it seems with good reason now.”
“The other phones we confiscated from the crime scenes weren’t as sophisticated and easy to crack – basic phones. That’s pretty telling.”
“How so?” Eli asked.
“Because they’re clearly associated with the smoking gun and Ivy somehow, running new drugs, cartel connection…why didn’t they have phones with the same level of security if this person is trying to hide? It’s a direct lead. It’s like whoever this is wanted us to get those phones and crack them.”
“And lead them all back to Ivy,” Dace added, looking at Declan.
“I have to agree,” Liam said. “Why would you go to all this trouble to hide signals, locations, encrypt and secure two phones, but then leave the rest out there in the open if they can lead back to you somehow?”
“They were hoping we’d find a dead end when we connected to Ivy. Didn’t anticipate us digging deeper.” Dace smiled, pleased with what they were uncovering. It felt like a weight being lifted from his shoulders.
“That’s my assumption. We weren’t supposed to find those pings in fricken Hong Kong and piece it together. These phones were never with the victims at all. Not until they were already dead.”
Dace rubbed his hands down his face. “They were planted. The police were supposed to see the random locations and assume it was a glitch.”
“Yep. When, really, the phones were on the move with our suspect, and he or she was just hiding its movement.”
Eli chuckled. “Jesus, you’re really fucking good. I’ve worked with some of the best, and this tops it all. You suppose our unsub knows they’ve been using your technology to set up Ivy and fool you?”
“Doubt it. I’m a pretty well-kept secret when it comes to things like this. Agents in the various branches may know who Brother’s Keeper is, but likely not Liam O’Reilly, the tech genius who sells them all their shit and maintains it.” Liam gloated.
“Right on, mate. This is getting good. How long does this take now? What do we do next?” Eli asked, thoroughly entertained.
“We wait,” Dace chimed in. “We wait until boy wonder over there digs out our guy and gives us someone to chase. He’ll crack it. He always does.”
“It’s just harder when it’s my own tech. I’m pretty good at design, and it’s even hard for me to break my own work.” Liam laughed as if he’d just delivered the ultimate punchline. “I should be able to get into the pieces of Ivy’s phone I couldn’t before now too. I’ll be able to untangle all this and get a steady trace.”
“I still say it’s her father,” Eli insisted. “The man disappears without a trace and then reappears out of thin air. This has him written all over it, especially if he’s using all that shit you’re talking about. He could be right under our noses and still flying under the radar.”
“I agree,” Dace concurred. “We have a solid suspect to consider now. Ivy’s off the table.”
Declan nodded. “Unless we’re given a reason to put her back in the lineup.”
Dace wouldn’t let that happen.
“Videotapes are loading, check out the screen.” Liam and the men watched the large wall of screens as videos began to play, slowly syncing together until they showed the traffic in the area of the crime. Liam paused the video and smiled. “Bingo. We have a match at the murder scene. Black SUVs.”
CHAPTER 25
“They’re all cartel. Same small cell,” Eva said, giving an update via video conference on Moss Bridge and the bodies they’d identified. “The MC helped. It was a little too close for comfort for me, and I didn’t want to blow my cover. I laid low, and they grabbed intel.”