A Touch of Regret (A Nick Bracco Thriller Book 8), page 6
Berto stood there frozen with fear.
Gallardo scowled, then nodded to his men.
Berto saw the gesture and turned to see them open the back of his SUV. His K9 German shepherd immediately hopped out and began sniffing the dirt for a scent, doing his job.
“Please no,” Bert murmured.
One of Gallardo’s men took out his pistol and aimed it at the dog.
“Do you remember what I told you back when we made our little arrangement all those years ago?” Gallardo asked.
Berto stared at the innocent animal who was completely unaware of his impending demise.
Gallardo grabbed Berto’s chin. “Don’t look. Just pay attention to me. Do you remember what I said?”
“This relationship only ends when one of us is dead,” Berto recited Gallardo’s words perfectly.
“Very good.” Gallardo tapped Berto’s cheek a couple of times.
The gunshot echoed throughout the valley. Berto flinched, then turned in time to see the dog stumble for a couple of feet before a second gunshot put him down for good. Berto stared at his dog, his partner, lying there on the ground, motionless. A growing red stain leaked from the dog’s head and pooled on the desert floor.
“Now,” Gallardo said. “Imagine that is your daughter lying there instead of your patrol dog.”
Berto leaned over with his hands on his knees, taking deep breaths while bobbing up and down.
Gallardo placed a hand on his shoulder and spoke quietly. “What you are experiencing is a learned fear. The synaptic connections between your sensory and motor neurons are giving off powerful signals of danger. These traits were first discovered by Eric Kandel in his work with sea snails, which earned him a Nobel Prize back in 2000.”
Berto appeared to be dry heaving.
“I’ll bet you don’t have these kinds of conversations with other cartel leaders, do you?”
Berto kept panting.
“He is still in Arizona somewhere. I want you to bring him to me. Do you understand?”
Dots of perspiration dripped down Berto’s neck. “What if he is decomposing in the desert?”
“Have you spied any kettles?”
“Of course,” Berto said. “But they have not led us to a human carcass.”
“Then he is not dead yet,” Gallardo said. “When the vultures find new meat, you will know it. Until then, I believe he is free and out there causing me trouble. You better hope you find him before I do, because I will have no use for you afterwards.”
“Please,” Berto pleaded. “This is not my fault. Leave my family out of it.”
“I’m sorry, my friend, but this is part of our agreement. My problems are your problems.” Gallardo hovered over Berto and whispered, “You never knew the price would be so high, did you?”
Berto looked like he might faint.
“Now go and siphon information from every friend, every contact, every halcón we have working the streets,” Gallardo ordered. “You have tremendous powers as a law enforcement officer. Use them.”
Chapter 10
Jake stood behind a thick brush of oleanders at Kennedy’s, a diner on Grant Road in Tucson known for its breakfast menu. He’d arranged to meet Stevie at ten a.m. on the back patio, away from the street. With only four tables and nothing but umbrellas to ward away the Arizona sun, after the breakfast crowd left, the heat scared everyone else away.
Stevie and Nick sat on the patio with the umbrella above them and three containers of coffee on the table.
“Shit,” Jake murmured to himself as he plodded over to the table, still hurting from his trek through the Sonoran. He sat across from Nick and next to Stevie.
“I told you to come alone,” he told Stevie.
“Nice to see you too,” Stevie said, handing Jake his coffee, then pointing to the scrapes just above his sunglasses. “It looks like you needed help.”
Nick glared at Jake like he’d just stolen Nick’s wallet.
“What?” Jake said.
“Do I even have to bring up the Hodgkin case? We waited five hours for you to show up and ID the guy. Five hours. And when you finally get there, he’d already left the apartment complex and went on to kidnap his next victim.”
“Here we go,” Jake said, expecting it.
“Of course, you were on an all-night bender so you couldn’t respond to our calls.” Nick looked at Stevie. “Do you remember that?”
“Yeah, I remember,” Stevie said reluctantly. “But that was a long time ago.”
“All right already,” Jake said.
“That kid ended up pretty traumatized,” Nick added. “And what did Walt do? Did he boot you? No, he found a way for you to remain an agent. He gave you a soft landing in some border town counting cactus. But you couldn’t even stay focused long enough to do that.”
Jake held up his hands in retreat. “I get it. I was a mess back then, but I’m sober now.”
Nick’s hand was balled into a fist, but he added nothing.
“How many times do I need to apologize?” Jake looked at Stevie now. “Tell me? How many times?”
Stevie gave Nick a glare. “Are you going to let him talk?”
Nick pushed back in his chair and flicked the back of his hand.
Jake looked around. “Where’s Matt?”
Nick folded his arms across his chest.
“Holy crap. You really think I’ve turned?”
Nick and Stevie remained quiet.
“So Matt is your backup in case I’m setting you up? Is that where we are?”
“Jake,” Stevie said. “There’s a report out of Phoenix that Caesar Gallardo has you on his payroll.”
Jake was still loopy from a night of torture and his desert trek. He couldn’t put all the pieces together. “What?”
Stevie waited.
“Gallardo’s men came to my home two nights ago and took me prisoner.”
“Why?”
“Because I’d been hacking into his computer system. Or at least that’s why he took us.”
“Us?”
“Me and my sponsor, Bruce. We were eating pizza, watching the D-Backs game when I hacked into Gallardo’s computer.”
“Wait, what?” Stevie asked. “Gallardo is not exactly a novice at computer networks.”
“Of course not. We’re watching the game with my laptop on the couch and I decided to do some phishing around for Gallardo’s computer system. I’d been hearing stories about him and thought I’d dig into it. He uses the same satellite provider everyone does down there, so it was an easy hack. After a short while, I actually cracked into his server.”
“Get out,” Stevie said. “How?”
“Here’s the thing,” Jake said, his head on a swivel. “Gallardo graduated from MIT ten years ago. That’s where his education of cryptology ended and his association with cartel hoodlums began. Compared to those mouth breathers, Gallardo is a genius. He went to school to learn code and these cartel guys are still using flip phones. He never upgraded his knowledge of coding though. He was still using DES. He got lazy and hadn’t updated his firmware in a while because I was able to crack his system in under five minutes. His files were labeled so easily, he never expected anyone could crack into them. I learned so much.”
“Like what?”
Jake shifted in his seat, his head glancing around suspiciously.
“Who are you looking for?” Nick asked.
“You need to understand, Gallardo has this presence on the dark web. He’s weaponized it to recruit a network of spies for his operation. He leaves chores posted on his site with reward money that he pays out in cryptocurrency. It’s called Dark Wallet.”
“What kind of chores?”
Jake was frustrated now. “Are you going to let me talk?”
Nick frowned.
Jake continued, looking at Stevie for a reference. “Well, you know how my place is up on a hill by itself, away from any developments. About thirty minutes after I cracked into his system, I saw headlights heading my way from the south. As soon as they turned their headlights off, I knew I had three or four minutes before they busted down my door. I told Bruce where to hide, hoping they were only wanting me. Then I ran that destroyer app on my laptop to delete everything and hid the laptop to allow time for it to delete my entire computer. They dug through my place until they found Bruce, then put hoods over us and drove for an hour in multiple directions before they shoved us into this facility and split us up.”
Jake paused, wondering how much to hold back.
“This Bruce,” Nick said. “Would his last name be Walker?”
That’s when Jake felt the nerves bubble to the surface and his stomach lurch with guilt. “Yes,” he said, exasperated. “He’s Senator Walker’s son.”
Stevie and Nick glanced at each other.
“You said he’s your sponsor?” Stevie asked.
Jake lowered his head. His voice broke. “Bruce is more than just my sponsor.”
Nick and Stevie had known him a long time. They each knew what he meant without ever having to say the word partner.
Jake found himself holding back the tears, grateful for the sunglasses.
He heard Nick take a deep breath, then sensed a presence next to him. When he looked up, Matt was sitting next to him.
Matt grabbed Jake’s shoulder with a firm grip. “What more can you tell us about Gallardo.”
Jake calmed himself, returning to his mission. Save Bruce. “I know he likes to gamble. He moves around playing Texas hold’em in different locations. I’ve heard once a month he has it in one of his own facilities. He also runs up debt with different bookies. He bets soccer, baseball, cricket, but he’s terrible at it. They let him run up a tab, afraid to collect. Maybe millions. No one ever knows where he’ll be at any one time.” Jake ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to Bruce. I just pray he’s still alive.”
“He is,” Nick said.
Jake gazed at Nick hopefully. “How can you be so sure?”
“When you were going through his computer, you ever see a reference to Falcon?”
Jake’s eyes widened. “Yeah, I did. I suspect Gallardo is involved with him.”
With that one answer, Jake could see Nick’s attitude change. It was as if Nick expected a different reaction and now he had to recalculate things. He leaned forward and clasped his hands together on the table. “Because Gallardo is actually Falcon,” Nick said in a low voice. “That’s the name he used when he messaged Senator Walker.”
Jake was trying to absorb what Nick was telling him. Falcon was practically a myth among cybersecurity agents. Like the Boogeyman. When it came to ransomware, Falcon was on the Mount Rushmore of global terrorists. “Seriously? What are you talking about? Why would Gallardo message Senator Walker?”
“About kidnapping Bruce.”
“Wait... he knows who Bruce is?”
Nick nodded. “He was after Bruce, not you. You were just ancillary cargo.”
“What are you saying?” Jake asked. “He didn’t know about my hack?”
“I doubt he knew anything about it at the time,” Nick said. “They came for Bruce.”
Jake’s mind wandered back to that night. The abuse. The pounding. The interrogation. Did they actually ask him anything about the hacking? He couldn’t remember now.
Nick lowered his head, almost looking up at Jake for effect. “No one knows anything about the kidnapping except Walker, Walt Jackson, and the four of us. There’s a bill coming up in the Senate that will allow the US to arrest and extradite any cybercriminals in North America, including Canada and Mexico. It’s up for approval next Tuesday and Walker is the deciding vote. If Walker votes yes, Bruce will be killed. If Walker tells anyone about the situation, Bruce will be killed. That information cannot leave this table. Do you understand?”
Jake couldn’t hide the grin from his face. “So, he’s alive.”
Nick nodded. “But the second it gets leaked, or someone tries to bullrush one of Gallardo’s compounds, it will cost Bruce his life.”
“So, he’s alive,” Jake repeated.
“Listen to me,” Nick said. “I’ve known Walker for years, ever since we moved to Arizona. I’ve been to his home. Even watched Bruce bowl in local tournaments. This is personal to me as well.”
“How did you escape?” Stevie asked.
“I tried the door, and it was open. This must’ve been like two or three in the morning. I was suffering from a concussion among other things, but when I opened the door, there was guard who’d fallen asleep. I found a side door that went outside, then I ran from there.”
“To where?” Stevie added. “How did you get here?”
Jake told them everything, including Carlos saving his life while searching for his sister in the desert.
The conversation stopped, however, as the back door to the restaurant opened and a Hispanic dishwasher carried a large trash bag over his shoulder and made his way to the back of the parking lot and heaved the bag into the dumpster.
On his way back to the kitchen door, the dishwasher looked at the three of them with a more than casual glimpse. Nick had his back to the event, but Jake saw it.
“We need to get out of here,” Jake said.
“Why?” Stevie asked.
“Because Gallardo has halcones everywhere. Lookouts.”
“I think you’re being a bit dramatic,” Nick said. “We can handle ourselves.”
Jake shook his head, not wanting to explain too much. He glanced at his coffee, getting cold even in the heat. “Don’t underestimate Gallardo’s power online. He may have become overconfident with his own security, but don’t misjudge his ability to infiltrate other computer systems with ransomware. And I saw something else in my hacking. Something that gave me a chill even before those headlights headed our way.”
“What’s that?” Stevie asked.
“Killware. He’s found ways to manipulate computer systems at water and sanitation sites. More frightening, I saw where he infiltrated an air traffic controller system at Sky Harbor airport. The tower shut him out before he could cause any damage, but I felt it was just a trial run. He’ll be back.”
“How long were you in there?”
“Not long enough.”
“Did Bruce know what you were doing?”
“He knew nothing.”
“So, we have enough information to start an investigation and catch him in the act,” Nick said. “Do you think you could get back into his computer?”
“No,” both Stevie and Jake said together.
Nick looked to Stevie for the explanation.
“He knows by now someone was in his system,” Stevie said.
“How?”
Stevie gestured for Jake to answer.
“Well, I used a back door hack in his installation of MS SQL Server,” Jake said. “Even though he wasn’t using the software, the hack can still be exploited to gain access to his computer. Unfortunately, it leaves behind a record in the logging file that will flag him the next time he logs in.”
Nick seemed to absorb the information. He was calmer now, letting Jake take the reins. “Go on.”
Jake shrugged. “Well, he knows someone was inside his computer, but doesn’t know who. He would have made the necessary adjustments by now. However, I know where Dark Wallet is, and we can always monitor that.”
“What else did you see?” Matt said.
Jake scanned his perimeter once again, except no one chided him this time. “Well, I know he has law enforcement on his payroll. I don’t know how many or how deep, but one name I saw was a Border Patrol agent named Berto Alvarez. The thing is, he only needs one or two people in the right place to get him the intel he needs about me. If I show up at the Bureau office, he’ll know. He’ll have halcones monitoring the place. He offers different levels of reward money to achieve his goals. If someone tells him they saw me at the Phoenix branch, they’ll get a thousand dollars. Follow me to a hotel and that’ll be twenty-five thousand. You see how this works? He gets all of his minions to be his eyes and ears, then he sends in the heavy hitters to finish the job.”
The three of them watched Jake, maybe wondering about their next move. Then it dawned on him. They wanted him to make the decision.
“I think we need to find someone who can navigate the underworld,” Jake said. “Someone who isn’t in law enforcement. Maybe someone who can infiltrate Gallardo’s social circle. Find out why his gambling debts go unpaid. I saw a ledger with a larger dollar amount preceded by a negative sign, filed under Giordano.”
“Arnie Giordano,” Nick said in a tired voice. “He owns a trucking company, a bunch of racehorses, a chain of restaurants, all kinds of things, but he still works underground with his loansharking business. He’ll lend money to degenerates who can’t get legitimate loans or people who want their funds hidden or diverted from crypto to cash.”
“So Gallardo’s a deadbeat payor,” Stevie said. “What do we do with that?”
“Maybe we get someone to find out why Giordano doesn’t collect his debt?”
“Or,” Matt said, “this guy goes straight to Giordano and tell him he’s a bill collector and word is out there you need help recovering your debt. He’ll do it for a percentage.”
“What guy?” Nick said. “What are you talking about?”
“It would have to be someone nobody knows,” Jake said. “A complete unknown in these parts. He could at least find out where Gallardo’s primary compound is.”
“Listen,” Nick said. “This is the worst idea I’ve ever heard. Who’s got the balls to call in their chips from Caesar Gallardo?”
“There are people who would do that kind of stuff freelance. They take a cut of the collection,” Matt explained.
“Of course there are,” Nick said. “But a person with that skill set doesn’t exactly advertise their talents. They work underground, away from the spotlight, then disappear once the payment’s made.”
