by David Spell
“Amigo, your cousin didn’t send me here to get rid of you. He wanted me to keep you as my lieutenant. But that’s not going to work. If I can’t trust you to deal with your people, I don’t want you with me. If you weren’t El Jefe’s cousin, I’d kill you myself,” Juan snarled.
El Loco had heard through the grapevine that the new boss wanted to see him. For two weeks, the coked-up gangster had tried to hide but Reinaldo and Daniel finally found him with one of his girlfriends. He was quickly secured with duct tape and tossed into the trunk of their car. When they searched Marcelo’s apartment, they had found the shoebox containing over thirty thousand dollars and almost a kilo of cocaine.
Martinez had been secured in the unfinished basement of the house that Juan had rented for himself, Tito, Daniel, and Reinaldo. The leader summoned some of the key gang members to assemble on Thursday night. When everyone had arrived, they were greeted to the spectacle of El Loco secured to a chair in the center of the room, duct tape across his mouth.
“Amigos, we’re family,” Juan had said. “Family takes care of each other. Family watches out for each other, has each other’s backs. You never steal from your family.
“This piece of shit,” he said, motioning at the bound thug, “stole from us. He stole money, he stole drugs, and then he lied about it. I hate lying as much as I hate stealing. If he hadn’t lied to me, it would have been much better. He would have just gotten a bullet to the head, but now he has to be punished.”
Martinez’s eyes bulged as he tried beg for his life through the gray tape over his mouth. As Guerra talked, he slipped his hands into his pockets, sliding the brass knuckles onto his hands. For ten minutes, the gangster had pummeled the thieving gang member, blood spraying some of the bystanders.
Now, Juan walked over to where Pablo stood, trying not to vomit. He grabbed the deposed gang leader by the neck and pushed him over to where the bloody figure sat. Guerra pulled his own 9mm Sig pistol from his waistband and handed it to Cortes.
“This was your mess that I’m cleaning up, Pablo. You put a bullet into this bastard’s head and I’ll tell your cousin that you eventually did the right thing.”
Cortes stared at the pistol that Juan had thrust into his hand. He knew that he had to do this. The disgraced gangster pointed the gun at the battered man’s head with a shaking hand, closed his eyes, and squeezed the trigger. The sound was deafening in the enclosed space. El Loco’s head recoiled and then fell forward as the 9mm round drilled into his forehead. Even more blood, now mixed with brain matter, poured down onto the dead man’s chest and onto the floor.
Guerra took the gun from Cortes’ hand, pushed the decocker lever, and then slid it back into his waistband. He gave Pablo a nod before speaking to the rest of the assembled gangsters.
“Amigos, like I said, we’re family. We can all make a good living here. The gringos are great customers. We work hard, we play hard, but we don’t steal from the cartel. Everyone understand?”
Heads nodded all over the room, no one wanting to meet the same fate as El Loco. Juan made eye contact with each one of them before speaking again.
“Okay. Get rid of him,” he ordered, pointing at the body. “Dump him somewhere hard to find and clean up this mess.”
Leesburg, Virginia, Friday, 0915 hours
Gabriella Vargas stood in Sandra’s open doorway and cleared her throat, startling Dunning as she stared at her computer screen, lost in thought.
“Ms. Dunning? Sorry, ma’am, but I found something that you’ll want to see,” the computer whiz said, excitement in her voice.
The older woman fought the urge to lash out. Sandra hated being startled and surprised. It was her own fault, though, for not maintaining her situational awareness. In reality, she was finding that she had a much shorter fuse and a quicker temper since being confined to a wheelchair. That’s something I’m going to have to get a handle on, she thought.
Forcing a smile onto her face, she said, “All good, Gabby. What’ve you got?”
Vargas seated herself across from her boss, flipping open the folder that she was holding, glancing at the top page.
“You asked me to dig around to see what I could find in those two investigations, the one on Alfie’s ‘disappearance’ and the one on Erin’s death. So, I accessed LAPD’s report for Alfie, no problem. It’s available through the Freedom of Information Act. Easy. It really didn’t have anything useful in it. Nicholson’s body hasn’t been found so they’re still treating it like a missing person/presumed drowned.
“In Honduras, though, it was a different matter. I managed to get into the federale’s servers and got us a copy of their investigation. While I was at it, I got a copy of the FBI’s report, as well.”
Dunning knew that both of those actions were illegal, but didn’t bother to point that out. Vargas was a world-class computer hacker and knew the law as well as anyone.
“It looks like that crime scene was altered a bit before the locals called in the FBI,” Gabriella continued.
“How so?”
“It’s kind of interesting. The dead colonel’s driver didn’t try to dispose of the drugs or money. He did take what looked like three passports out of the colonel’s jacket and slipped them into his own pocket. An employee from the hotel was with the driver because he had let him into the room when they found the bodies. This clerk was smart, though. He didn’t say anything to the Honduran Federal Police about what he had seen.
“When the FBI showed up and started interviewing everyone, the hotel worker told them what the cop had done. Of course, when the feds asked their Honduran counterparts about evidence being removed from the crime scene, they were told that they must be mistaken. No Honduran cop would ever alter a crime scene.”
Sandra chuckled. “Yeah, right. What else?”
“Other than that,” Vargas continued, “both investigations show it as a clear-cut case of a drug deal gone bad between an American movie star addict, her two bodyguards, and a corrupt Honduran police officer. But, it gets better.”
“How so?”
“The FBI is thorough if nothing else. When they checked Erin’s phone, her calendar indicated that she and Alfie were going to meet that afternoon on his private island in the British Virgin Islands. The FBI agents in Honduras got in touch with the feds in LA and asked them to check Alfie’s calendar. His staff didn’t want to cooperate so the agents had to get a search warrant for his phone. It showed the same thing. Nicholson and Knight had been scheduled to meet on the island the same day he went missing and she died.
“Two of the agents from LA flew to the BVI and were able to convince the local cops to get a search warrant for Alfie’s mansion. This was probably the biggest case that the Royal Virgin Islands Police Force had ever been involved with.”
“What were they searching for?” Dunning queried.
“With Alfie missing under mysterious circumstances and Erin dead in an apparent homicide, they were looking for anything related to drugs, illegal weapons, and of course, this wouldn’t have been on listed on the warrant, but anything to do with sex trafficking.”
“What did they find?”
Sandra now felt her own excitement building. Maybe she was about to find some answers to the questions that she had been asking herself. Gabriella flipped through the folder, extracting several photos that she had printed out, handing them to her boss.
Dunning had started her career with the CIA towards the end of the Cold War and knew all the tricks of the espionage business. She immediately recognized what she was seeing in the photos.
“Every single one of the guest rooms at Alfie’s compound were wired for video and audio, ma’am. Technically, this didn’t fall within the scope of what the BVI cops or the FBI agents were searching for, but they took pictures anyway and added them to their file. There were at least two cameras hidden in each room.”
“How many rooms did they find that were set up for recording?”
“Eight, ma’am. One of
the girls who worked there said that those rooms were where they were forced to have sex with Alfie’s visitors. At first none of the girls would talk, but once they had been assured that Erin was dead and that Alfie was presumed dead, one agent wrote that it was like opening the dam. The nine girls on the island told how they had been forced to do all kinds of things with and for Alfie and Erin.”
I’m so glad those two have been dealt with, Sandra thought, her anger rising at how many young women they had hurt.
“Is the FBI taking the girls off the island?”
“The FBI and the BVI police will be working on it together to get them back to their home countries. But, back to the video cameras in all the rooms. The girls knew they were being taped every time they had sex with someone. That was part of how Alfie controlled them. He would say that if they didn’t behave, he’d send those videos to their parents.”
Dunning’s mind raced. How many rich and famous people had visited Alfie’s island over the last several years? Who all had starred in Alfie’s home movies?
“What about the footage? Did the FBI mention that?”
Gabriella sighed. “No, ma’am. Because that wasn’t part of their search warrant, they couldn’t look for hard drives, servers, or computer equipment.”
“Of course. The FBI would never want to violate a dead sex trafficker’s rights,” Sandra said, bitterly. “This is great work, Gabby. Are you sure that you were you able to get in and out of those data bases without being detected?”
“Nothing to it, Ms. Dunning,” the young woman said, dismissively. “The Bureau has pretty good firewalls and is usually one of the tougher organizations to break into. But that’s primarily talking about getting into the servers in DC. The field offices are much easier.”
Sandra nodded slowly, the wheels inside her head spinning. Was it just a coincidence that Nicholson had hidden cameras in each of his guest rooms and the fact that Sterling wanted her dead? Had the movie producer and the CIA Director even known each other? Those are some interesting questions, she told herself.
“It sounds like Nicholson was secretly recording his guests having sex with the girls who worked for him, most of whom are underage. The only reason that he would do something like that was so that he could blackmail them or use the footage for leverage later. Would you agree?”
“Ma’am, I’m no expert like you but that’s what it sounds like,” Vargas replied.
“If that’s the case, Gabby, where would you think to look for the video footage?”
“I’ve been thinking about it and I think there are three possible scenarios. Number one, Alfie had computer servers hidden on the island somewhere. Number two, he’s storing the files in the cloud, or number three, he was storing them on an external hard drive. And, I guess the fourth possibility is that he was using a combination of the three.”
“Okay,” Dunning smiled. “This could turn into something really big. Your job now is to find where he hid the video. Let me know if you need some help and I can get Stephen to jump in with you.”
Vargas shook her head. “I can handle it, ma’am. I’m sure Stephen has plenty of work on his own plate. I’ll get started right away on this. The first thing that I’ll need to do is take a trip to LA to hack into the network at Nicholson’s house. Hopefully, it hasn’t been disconnected yet. Maybe we’ll get lucky and he’ll have left a trail to his cloud account.
“Another thing to consider is whether or not he had video stored on external hard drives. If he did, it has to be hidden somewhere, maybe in his house in LA or in the mansion on his island? Or, he could have copies hidden in different locations.”
Dunning processed the information quickly. “Go ahead and fly out to LA asap. I’ll authorize the travel and all your expenses. How will you break into his network? Will you need to get inside the house?”
“No, I don’t think so. I’ve got pretty good equipment. I’ll park near the house and see what kind of signal I can get.”
“Great. Let me know what you come up with. If we need to get inside the house, that’s something that we’ll discuss later. What about the network on Alfie’s island? Maybe the footage is there?”
“Could be,” Vargas nodded. “That’ll be a little tougher to access because it’s a private island and his compound is the only thing there. I don’t know if there is security on the island or not. Let me start in LA and see what I can see.”
After Gabby left to make arrangements for her trip, Sandra stared at the ceiling. Very interesting, she thought, picking up one of the photos of a hidden camera in one of Alfie’s guest rooms. How many people had Nicholson managed to get video of? If Gabby could locate those files, some very big names could be in a lot of trouble.
Georgetown, Washington, D.C., Saturday, 0720 hours
The cell phone on the bedside table buzzed, waking the CIA Director. Sterling picked it up, becoming instantly awake when he saw who was calling him. He swiped the screen to take the call.
“Ethan, I hope you have some good news for me.”
“Looks like we’ve got a problem, Max. A big problem.”
Ethan Sharpe was another of Sterling’s college friends. Sharpe had been a computer prodigy as a teenager, even hacking into Yale’s database and changing their grades a few times. For him, everything was a game. Ethan hadn’t even graduated from Yale, getting expelled after he was arrested trying to break into the Central Intelligence Agency’s computer system. Thankfully, he had only received probation and a fine, plus he had learned that he needed to improve his skills exponentially if he was going to make a career as a hacker for hire.
Sharpe had done just that, becoming an expert at breaking into corporations, banks, foreign governments, or anywhere else for a price. Ethan made a good living, stealing information, transferring money, locating dirt on people, or planting computer viruses. Maxwell had stayed in close contact with his friend over the years, often using him to find information when it needed to be done discreetly, apart from governmental channels.
The CIA Director had reluctantly called him the day before to see if Ethan could locate Nicholson’s video files. Maxwell knew that Saleem wanted him to let the matter drop and make no more attempts on Sandra Dunning’s life. At the same time, with Alfie having been dead for three months, this was the perfect time to see if they could locate the movies.
“What kind of problem?” Sterling answered, climbing out of bed and walking into the living room.
“It looks like someone beat us to the punch.”
Maxwell felt himself squeezing his phone, sweat beading on his forehead.
“What are you talking about?” he asked, trying to not let anger creep into his voice. Ethan hated it when people lost their temper with him.
”I got to LA late last night and haven’t even been to bed yet. I drove right over and parked near the house and was able to get into their network. It had some pretty good security and firewalls in place, but I was inside within five minutes. I could see that someone else had been there a few hours earlier and had downloaded a bunch of files. I mean a lot of files, Max. It must’ve taken them a couple of hours. After they got what they wanted, they deleted over a hundred gigs of data.”
A stabbing pain crept up behind Sterling’s left eye as Sharpe spoke. Who had done this? Who else was looking for Nicholson’s home movies? He took a deep breath, realizing that the list could actually be very long, considering how many high rollers the movie producer had entertained on his island.”
“Max, you still there?”
“Yeah, Ethan, I’m still here. Any idea what was on the files they downloaded or who this mystery person was?”
“They covered their tracks pretty well so I’ve got no idea who it was. As for what they got, I’d guess it was the video files you were wanting me to look for. I went through all the files that were left and there were no more movies.”
“And there’s no way to track this hacker down?”
Maxwell felt desperation welling up
inside of him. In the wrong hands, which of course was anyone but him, these files would spell disaster for the CIA Director and could even hurt Bashir’s chances of getting elected.
Sterling heard the sigh over the phone. “No, sorry. There aren’t many people able to get in and out like that without leaving a trace. You got any of your people working on this?”
“My people? Of course not. That’s why I’m paying you. Why would you ask that?”
“Well, let’s face it: the CIA has some of the best computer people in the world. Just checking.”
“Ethan, there’s got to be something else that we can do. These files are very sensitive and very important to national security.”
“National security?” Sterling heard his friend laughing. “Don’t BS me, Max. If this was about national security, you wouldn’t be asking me for help. This is personal and I’m OK with that. I know this was the late Alfie Nicholson’s house and everyone is well aware that he was into young girls. You and I have been friends for a long time; I know you’ve always liked ‘em young, but that’s your business. This is just another job for me and unless you’ve got some additional info, I don’t think there’s anything else that I can do.”
The CIA Director wanted to deny everything and lash out at Ethan, but the hacker was right. They had been friends for many years and he did know many of Sterling’s deep, dark secrets.
“Fine, Ethan, but I still need your help. What if there were additional computer networks? This guy had a private island in the Caribbean. Could you hack in there? He probably uploaded the video from there.”
“Why didn’t you say so? Maybe what you’re looking for is on a local server there. That changes everything. How do I get to this island? I’ve been needing a vacation and I love the Caribbean!”