Page 17 of Astrid
“We do, then we hope you can help us out.”
“Show me what you’ve got.” He followed them from the gym over to what he considered the war room, then sat at a chair. Without anyone telling him anything, he was set up with a laptop, and told to play several videos. Thirty minutes later, he looked up, and said only two words, “Holy shit.” Before he looked at Joyce. “Are you okay?”
“I am, but the truck needs a new back window.” She lifted the sleeve of her tee, and went over and showed him the wound that Wyatt had stitched up. He’d only removed the stitches the day before.
“Damn…” he started to say, but Astrid shook her head.
“There’s more. This next video is what I took this morning.” They watched as he pressed play.
When he was done, he looked at them in open-mouthed shock. “Hell, when I talked to Chip and Tom about you guys going out and getting information for us, I never expected anything like this. Do you have the coordinates on this location?”
“Actually, we have the exact address,” Astrid said, then pointed to the screens she’d mounted on the wall earlier. Carl turned and watched. “These are the first three men, the ones with the rifles that took our phones. Don’t worry, I made sure they were burner phones, and didn’t have any real information in them. If they downloaded what was on there, everything would come back as a bogus number.” She giggled, and when the others looked at her strangely, she shrugged. “Who’s to say there might be a malware bug implanted that would ruin their phones, or computer, whatever they tried to download our phones on, and the information would be sent back to a secure line, and I’d have all their information from the device they tried to download our phones on.”
“Good, damn, they have rap sheets.” He stepped closer to read what was on the screen.
“Yes,” Astrid said as she stepped up next to Carl to point to the screens. “These are the next set of men, the ones carrying the military rifles.” They appeared, and again Carl read them, along with the next set. “Now, this next thing is or was confusing. I did facial recognition on everyone so far, and as you saw from the tape, I have both Neil and Mandi on camera. Nothing is coming up in facial recognition, they’ve been running for over three hours. However, Alan came to me and told me he had the contract they both signed, and I was able to lift prints from them. This is what came back.” She pressed several keys, and everyone watched Carl as he watched the monitors, Morgan and Joyce had to reach out and catch him as he stumbled backwards. He whipped around and glared at Astrid.
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
“No, as you said when you walked down the stairs earlier, you can change your face, but not your prints. This is the man that introduced himself to Alan and me this morning as Neil Mason. As you can see, his prints came back as Nelson Carter.” She frowned and looked at Joyce. “What was the name you wanted me to run?”
“Gus Carter,” Joyce said, and looked at Carl. When she saw his confusion, she explained. “Gus is the guy that was arrested for stealing Stella. He’s the one that we’ve received all this information from.” She pointed to the walls around him, “Well, not us, but from the tracking device I put on Stella. Alex was able to gather all of this information.”
Carl shook his head, and went over and read everything they had, whistling when he finished. “Okay, before I tell you what you’ve stumbled onto, let me ask you this. During any of your fact-finding missions, have you ever encountered anyone by the name of Rocco Monroe?”
“Yes,” Joyce said, and quickly went to the laptop and accessed her tape. “I taped this a few hours before that big black truck came after me. We’ve yet to run the guy’s face after I shot out his windshield.”
“Don’t bother,” Carl sighed heavily as he sat back down to watch the women’s reaction to his statement.
“Why not?” they asked.
“Because, the man driving that black truck is Rocco Monroe, he’s known to run with not only the Cartel, but also with the mob.” He moved his hands up and down, indicating that one hand played with the other. He frowned when they didn’t react the way he anticipated. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Joyce only accessed a laptop, and pointed to it. After only a few seconds, he stopped what he was viewing and glared at them. “How the hell did you get photos of Rocco’s known associates? My office has been trying for months to get confirmation of just who worked for him.”
“That’s why you pay us the big bucks,” Morgan said with a grin. She then organized everything for Carl to review again, and after almost two hours, she anticipated what he would say, and only passed him a flash drive. “It’s all on there. The reason I contacted you was that I wanted to know if you could go undercover with some of us, as well as update you on our progress. We have heard nothing from any other bowl of soup, and we’ve talked to you several times. I feel you will be our main contact, and I’ll leave it up to you if you want to read the other agencies in.”
“I’ll be honest here, I don’t want to at this time, because I don’t want them to come in and try to take over. Keep doing what you’re doing, and keep me abreast of the situation.” He lifted the flash drive in his hand, and smirked at them. “However, don’t wait until you have all this information to dump on me. Don’t get me wrong, I want stuff like this, but this is a lot of stuff to comb through.”
“Yeah, well, as you can see, we’ve been busy in the last few days.” Joyce sighed as she refilled her coffee cup, then filled the others that wanted it. “You didn’t answer Morgan’s question. Will you go undercover with us?”
“Doing?” Carl frowned at her.
“When Alan goes to install the cabinets in four weeks,” Astrid said. “I went there and was introduced as his assistant, so I’ll be there helping install the cabinets. I can put in cameras so we can get more information, but it won’t be legal if it goes to court. I thought you could take the data we just gave you, go back to your office, do what you have to do, and maybe get a warrant or whatever you need to put up the cameras. This way, when, or if, this ever goes down, we’ll have a legal search, or whatever you call it.”
“I understand, who else will be going with you and Alan?”
“At this time, he thought of taking John and Josh with him, because they own the construction business, and would be able to know and anticipate what he needs done.”
“I’d take Chuck with you, too,” Morgan said. “He’s their job foreman, so he’d know what would be needed also.” She looked over at Carl for confirmation. “I can have Dillon work with those four on the hand-to-hand.” She paused then swore. “No, I can’t. Dillon leaves in two weeks, and will be gone for ten days.”
“May I ask where he’s going?”
“He and his family are taking DJ to Missoula for college. DJ and Lucas will be in one truck, while Dillon and April will be in the other. When they return, Lucas will be riding back with his parents.”
“Do you think Dillon can work with them at least an hour or two every day before he leaves?” Carl rubbed the back of his neck. “Once I go to my supervisor with this,” he said as he held up the flash drive. “I might even be able to come work undercover. I’d have to get a hotel room, but I’m sure I can find something closer than I am now.”
“Stay here,” Ava said, and looked at Morgan’s shocked expression.
