Karen Vail 01 - Velocity (39 page)

As the room lights brightened and the sky shaded a deep steel blue, Vail walked into the next room over, the break room, where she grabbed—and downed—a can of Diet Coke. She then paced the hal way, where she fended off Dixon’s attempts to keep her mind focused on other matters. But Vail found it difficult to concentrate on anything other than Robby.

At some point, Mann had ventured downstairs and gotten a status report on the downed SWAT officers. They had suffered moderate concussions and one would likely have a temporary hearing deficit, but otherwise they would ful y recover.

DeSantos, after talking with a number of agents and support personnel in the building, now had his sleeves rol ed up and was huddled in the corner of the conference room. He seemed deeply committed to working his phone, trying to track down known associates who could provide a lead for them to pursue—some way of narrowing their search in a meaningful manner.

“I’ve left messages,” he told Vail. “We’l see if anything comes of it.”

“Yeah, wel , jury’s stil out on the value of Sammy’s
lead
.”

DeSantos pushed the glasses up his perspiring nose. “You’re a tough person to please, Karen, you know that?”

Vail feigned surprise. “No, Hector, I’ve never been told that before.” A moment later, she apologized. Then she resumed pacing.

When Athena’s cal vibrated her belt, Vail startled, then fumbled the BlackBerry as she attempted to answer it.

“Agent Vail, this is Athena from Microsoft. I’ve got some good news for you.”

“I can use some of that.”

“Can’t we al ?”

Athena, you have no idea what I’ve been through.

“I’ve run the photo through that Flickr database,” Athena said, “as wel as through some new image matching technology cal ed robust hashing that we’ve developed.

And I think I’ve got a hit for you.”

“What’s robust hashing?”

“Microsoft Research created it for our digital crimes unit to match up signatures, or hashes, in photos. It’s part of our PhotoDNA software, which we developed for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to help them catch child pornographers. The idea is to match color grading variations between known and unknown photos using a mathematical algorithm. It codes the colorations across the unknown image to establish a specific signature that can then be matched against the signatures in a known database. I took your photo, applied the robust hashing, then cross-referenced that information with Flickr GPS data. And I’ve got something.”

Vail felt her respiratory rate drop precipitously. She wanted to speak but had to force air up through her lungs, scrape the words from her throat. “So where is he—

I mean, where was the photo taken?”

“The picture appears to have been taken in a desolate area near San Diego, east of the Cleveland National Forest. Clover Creek, to be exact.”

Vail motioned to Dixon, whose attention had been roused by the phone cal . Vail rotated the handset away from her mouth and said, “Clover Creek.”

“There are no maps in here.”

Vail’s eyes searched the room. “The PC,” she said. Dixon moved behind the podium and tapped the touchpad. The screen woke, displaying the Windows desktop. “Hang a second, Athena.” Vail dropped the BlackBerry from her face and walked into the back room, where the projection and audiovisual equipment was located. A technician stood there stacking digital media. “Can you turn on the projector? We need to find a map on the Internet.”

“Sure thing,” the woman said. She moved to a stack of electronic equipment, threw some switches, then fol owed Vail out to the podium. Dixon moved aside and watched as the woman opened Bing maps and pul ed up the bird’s-eye view of San Diego. Behind her, on the large rear projection screen, the countryside appeared.

“Clover Creek,” Vail said to the technician.

The woman typed in the location, then rotated and zoomed, and Clover Creek appeared onscreen.

Vail brought the phone back to her mouth. “Okay, Athena. I see Clover Creek.”

“I’m afraid that’s al I’ve got. If you want, I can continue to work on it, see if there’s someone else here who can refine that a bit more.”

“I’d appreciate that. Anything breaks, cal or text me. And thanks for your help.”

Vail slipped her phone away while eying the map.

Dixon, who was stil examining the region identified by Amanda Hu, pointed at the screen. “Look what we’ve got here.”

Vail stepped closer and the bold print nearly hit her like a poke in the eye: three Indian reservations—Mesa Grande, Los Coyotes, and Clover Creek. Given what Turino had told them about some reservations serving as drug trafficking portals, the text didn’t need to be highlighted. It jumped from the screen.

“Hey, look at this,” Dixon said to Mann and DeSantos, who were huddled against the far wal , looking at a display case of Chal enge Cup trophies won by the field division.

Before they could move, the command center door swung open with a whisk of air. A clean-cut mid-forties man rushed in holding a sheaf of papers. “Which one of you is Agent Turino?”

“That’d be me,” Turino said from behind the man as he came through the door.

“You are?”

“Jack Jordan, NTF. Narcotics task force. I’ve got something you people might be interested in.”

Vail’s heart rate ticked up a notch. “Rob—Roberto Hernandez?”

“No,” Jordan said. “But some definite activity in the area. It’s a bit of a long shot, but Agent DeSantos told us that if we came across something of interest, anything, you people’d want to know.”

“We’re scrambling for leads,” Dixon said. “We’l look at anything you’ve got.”

Jordan slapped the bundle of papers in his hand. “When the economy tanked and the real estate market col apsed, the flood of foreclosures caused some unwanted side effects. Houses were left empty, abandoned by owners skipping out on their mortgage. Renters lost their jobs and moved out. Home builders suddenly had new houses they couldn’t sel . Bottom line, there are a lot of vacant homes. In some cases, large sections of communities are vacant or abandoned.”

“And an abandoned house anywhere near the border is a haven for il icit drug trafficking,” DeSantos said.

“Exactly.” Jordan stepped up to the map. “And il egal human trafficking. The il egals are smuggled across the border for a fee, usual y around a grand, paid by family members in the U.S. But when the il egal gets here, the price jumps to five grand or more, and their loved one is basical y held for ransom. The cartels, looking to expand their business model, got into human smuggling several months ago. It’s been a real big problem.”

“How do the houses play into this?” Dixon asked. “They hold the relative there while waiting for the ransom to be paid?”

Turino stepped forward, shaking his head vigorously. “They bring dozens of people across and pack them into what we cal ‘drop houses.’ They strip them down to their underwear and beat them, threaten them with pistols. It’s al about control.”

Vail nodded.
Exactly.

Jordan said, “They either occupy abandoned homes or they rent ’em out on the cheap from distressed owners who’re happy to be getting something, rather than nothing. The owners have no idea how their house is being used. It’s been a huge issue in Phoenix, and now we’ve got it here.”

“If you know the location of these vacant houses, why don’t you just raid ’em?”

Mann asked.

Jordan held up the sheaf of papers, as if that explained everything. “There are literal y thousands.”

Vail knew no further explanation was needed for those in the room. Law enforcement was stretched to its limits as it was, and committing substantial resources to search thousands of homes was not feasible. Complicating the matter was that they could check a hundred houses, only to have a cartel move into one of the ones they had just cleared.

“There’s no way to monitor al the homes that go vacant,” Turino said. “And it’s too profitable, so the problem isn’t going away on its own. Some of the cartels have also taken to storing their drug caches in these houses. We’ve found entire marijuana grows and processing factories in several of them.”

Vail’s eyes found the Clover Creek map. A wave of impatience hit her like a blow to the back of her neck. She blurted, “Agent Jordan, you said you had something for us.”

“I do,” Jordan said. “I do. One somewhat effective way of combating this drop house problem is by using surveil ance and phone traps. In some cases, judges have denied us, but we kept at it, and final y got one to sign off on a wiretap warrant.”

“You heard something,” Dixon said.

“Oh, yeah. They’ve got a house packed with il egals and one of them is from a family in Carlsbad that’s got some money. Once the cartel found out who they had, they went ape-shit. Lots of chatter starting yesterday afternoon. We picked up on it and dispatched a UC to do surveil ance, then got a search warrant. This morning, they seemed to be talking about something else, something bigger. ‘A major asset.’”

DeSantos poked his glasses with a finger and again pushed them up the bridge of his nose. “How good is your undercover? These cartels, they’re wise to that shit.”

“No worries. Our guys are good. They’re out there doing survey work on the road down the block from the house. So we know which one it is. They’ve located two of the phone parties, one at the house and one a few miles away.”

“If it’s il egals, wouldn’t ICE be running the show?” Vail asked, referring to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “Don’t you need il icit drugs to be involved?”

“We have reason to believe they’re using the garage as a marijuana processing plant,” Jordan said. “ICE has been notified, and they’l be going in with us. Along with SWAT, who’s been doing their surveil ance of the house: they’ve shot aerial photos, assembled a floor plan, sketched out an entry strategy. They’re ready to move. Given the possibility that this ‘major asset’ could be your TFO, I think we should move now, rather than later this evening, when it was planned.”

“I don’t know about this,” Turino said.

“Did I miss something?” DeSantos asked. “This is good shit. ‘A major asset’

could be Roberto Hernandez.”

“Not likely,” Turino said. “I know these cartels. They’re not holding Hernandez for ransom, I can guarantee you that much.”

“But,” DeSantos said, “even if it’s not Hernandez, there could be a cartel lieutenant in there who can be squeezed. Right now, we got nothing. If we rattle the bush . . . ”

“Fact is, there’s no direct evidence Hernandez is being held in that house,”

Turino said. “I just don’t want you getting your hopes up.”

DeSantos pul ed up a chair and sat down facing Mann, Dixon, and Vail. “Look.

These cartels, they’re like the terrorists I track every day. They talk in code.

There’s no way for us to be sure of anything. But this is what the DEA does. In the drug world, there are none better at putting two and two together. And right now Agent Jordan is tel ing us it’s adding up to four. No guarantees, but I think we’ve got something worth tracking down here.”

“I agree,” Jordan said.

Vail sat down beside DeSantos. “There’s something else. That map,” Vail said, indicating the rear projection screen. “We got a hit on a twenty where that photo was taken, the one we took from Cortez’s house. I asked Microsoft for help and their analysis located it nearby, about an hour from here. There are three Indian reservations: Mesa Grande, Los Coyotes, and—”

“Clover Creek,” Jordan said with a knowing nod. “Makes sense. Lots of rough, desolate terrain. We’ve seen an uptick in smuggling activity there, especial y the past ten, eleven months. We’ve gone in and raided some meth labs, but the problems there run a lot deeper.”

“So,” DeSantos said, “we’ve got two potential leads. Both could lead somewhere and both could lead nowhere. But we need to vet both.”

Vail closed her eyes. She couldn’t be in two places at once. “Al right. We split up.

Some go to Clover Creek, some to this drop house.” She crooked her head toward Turino. “You okay with that?”

“There’s a team ready to move on the drop house, so actual y you can al go to Clover Creek.”

“No,” Vail said. “I’l go with you to the drop house.”

Turino held up a hand in protest. “That’s not necess—”

“We’l need transportation,” Dixon said, eyeing the map.

“Done,” Jordan said. “Meet me downstairs in the lobby in five.” He grabbed the knob and yanked open the door.

Vail bit down on her lip, then rose quickly from her seat. “Keep me posted, Hector. If you find out anything—proof of life . . . or death—I want to know ASAP.”

DeSantos winked at her. “You’re already on speed dial.”

67

R
obby pried open his left eye, then the right. His head—a throbbing mass of pain mounted atop his shoulders—bobbed as he feebly pushed himself upright. He stopped, the pounding worsening as his heart kicked into higher gear to pump against gravity.

Outside the shack—or shed—or wherever he was being held—voices rambled on in Spanish. Anger . . . restrained . . . though now that the headache eased a bit, he realized it was a heated discussion. Not anger, but disagreement.

He rol ed slowly onto his knees and crawled closer to the voices. Sat back against the wood wal board. Listened. His Spanish was fluent—truly a second language—and even in its trampled state, his brain translated on the fly—at least, the parts he could make out.

“Wants him moved—now.”

Second voice, which he could now identify in his sleep: Ernesto Escobar. “I’l get him.” Jangling of keys, then the metal ic click of a tumbler sliding and shifting.