"But--it wasn't a gang that did it."
Dance cocked her head.
Her boss continued, "Mercenaries."
TJ said, "Working for a crew, then. Didn't want to get their dainty little fingers dirty."
"No. Not working for a crew. They got out of the country but left some tracks behind. Guess where they were based? Baja."
"But not working for one of the Mexican cartels?"
"No. Working for someone else."
Dance understood. "Well, well: Santos hired them. He was behind it."
"Bingo," Overby said.
Chihuahua police commissioner Ramon Santos, who'd called the other day to excoriate the U.S. contingent of Operation Pipeline for not doing enough to stanch the flow of guns into his country.
"He took matters into his own hands."
"Oakland DEA contacted some of their people in Mexico and confirmed it."
Dance grimaced. "Thought he was taking down a source for the guns? Well, he shot himself in the foot. That warehouse was a great source for intel. Does he know he's set us back a month with his little fireworks display?"
"He will," Overby said, "after I call him this afternoon."
Whatever else about his personal style, Overby combined righteousness and indignation very, very well.
"So Santos," TJ said, "has got an interesting approach to enforcing the law. He breaks it."
Then a sound behind her, paper ruffling, footsteps. Michael O'Neil came into the office.
"Ah, Michael."
"Charles."
She looked his way. He nodded to everyone. "'Morning."
Overby said, "Okay, the Solitude Creek unsub. Where are we?"
O'Neil glanced toward Dance. She said, "Well, all we have are dead ends with the unsub's Honda. But Jon Boling's hacking into the unsub's phone now. It might be the burner he used to call Sam Cohen or the one at the Bay View Center, where he called nine-one-one, the media and the restaurant on Fisherman's Wharf after the Bay View incident. Or maybe another one. Jon's also cracking Stan Prescott's computer--the man killed in Orange County. We hope it gives us some clue why the unsub went to all that trouble to murder him. And, TJ? Update on Anderson Construction?"
The young agent reminded Overby that he was trying to track down officials from the Nevada corporation hiring Anderson to do some construction work in the Solitude Creek area. In hopes of finding some witnesses. "They're taking their sweet time getting back to me. Weekend-itis maybe. I'll definitely squeeze them tomorrow. And I'm keeping up canvassing of people who were at the roadhouse that day. But, same old. No leads."
Overby nodded and looked at O'Neil, who was opening his briefcase and extracting a file folder.
"Crime scene report from Orange County?" Overby asked.
"That's it. Not much. Some trace elements. Footprints that probably are the Louis Vuitton. They have good security video at the Global Adventure theme park but all it shows is the crash, then
our man jumping over the car through the gate. The teams down there canvassed a hundred people but nobody saw anybody who could've been him."
He added, "And some OC detectives looked over Prescott, fine-tooth comb. Talked to most of his friends, bosses, coworkers. All his redneck buddies. No connection to our unsub. He just randomly pulled the picture of Solitude Creek off the Web and posted it in his rant."
Dance said, "So, he just had the bad luck to pick our boy's attack to use in his post."
O'Neil continued, "That's the best conclusion. Now, there were nearly four thousand texts and voice calls out of the park, once the rumors started to spread. A handful of those would be his prepaid mobiles--one of them, or maybe two, would be his new phone. But Orange County can't devote manpower to go through every one and try to narrow it down."