Page 64 of Gentleman Sadist

“I saw. You think he’s Tristan?”

Robert hedged, “Not sure. Could be though. Will is the only one who can say for sure. When or if he identifies him, we can run the photo through NCIC along with the state and see what turns up.”

“Sounds like a plan, because I got nothing from the security guard,” Benjamin griped. “The asshole should be fired as it stands.”

“He probably won’t be. He was scheduled for taking an hour break, so there isn’t much he could have done.” Robert shrugged. “Now, the fact the courier company knewwhenhe would be on break, is another thing altogether. They were scouting the museum.”

Benjamin nodded, pulling away from the curb. "I agree. It's the only logical conclusion I can come up with as well."

“We should have the local PD canvas the area for CCTV and security footage for the last week or so,” Robert said. “If they’ve been watching the museum, one of the buildings surrounding the area will have captured them. They might have leverage when it comes to knowing the delivery schedules for each site, but they wouldn’t know when the pieces would be ready for showing, nor when security was on-site unless they were there.”

“I’ll get with Detective Ramos when we return to the office. When can your hacker start digging?” Benjamin passed through the tape and turned back onto the main highway.

“As soon as we return I’ll get in touch with my source and go from there. If she’s as good as I’ve been told, we should have the answers we’re looking for within the next few hours.” Or, at least Robert hoped so. AJ was supposed to be one of the best in the country, maybe the world.

Once they were back at their desks, Robert put in the call to Duncan. The man answered on the second ring. “What’s going on?”

“We had another heist. I need AJ’s help ASAP is that possible?” Robert hoped it would be anyway. The sooner they had answers, the quicker they could get the ball rolling and shut the operation down before they skipped the country.

“She’s ready to go. Can you video conference?” Duncan asked.

“I can. Give me five and I’ll call you back.” He glanced at Benjamin as he grabbed his laptop and the folder he kept on the desk for the theft ring. “I have a video conference in five.”

“I had to leave a message for the detective, mind if I sit in on the meeting?”

"Sure. Bring your stuff," Robert answered. "You should know going in, this will be a little different. According to the little bit of information, Damian gave me, she’s part of a team. Her partner is deaf, and she is his interpreter, which is how she got to be so good at hacking.”

“Noted,” Benjamin said. “Anything else?”

“Yeah,” Robert replied, “You should know my source also works for a black ops government entity and has higher clearance in some respects than we do.”

Benjamin whistled. “How did you happen onto them?”

“Another agent,” Robert stated, stepping into the conference room. “He recommended Damian after the second case in Tampa.”

He dropped his laptop and file onto the table then went to work setting up the projector and call-in system. Five minutes later, he dialed Duncan’s number. The video popped up on the screen a few seconds after Duncan showed up, so did a woman and another man, Scotty if he assumed correctly. After a brief greeting, Robert jumped in with the situation, not wanting to waste any time. “I’m glad I could get your help today.” He motioned to his partner. “This is Agent Benjamin Wilcox, my partner. I’ve briefed him on how you’ll be helping us today.”

AJ's hands flew as she translated everything Robert said to her partner. "Anything we can do to help agents. Can you give Scotty and me a little background info? Du—Damian gave us a very quick, very brief overview of this case earlier."

Robert started at the beginning and explained each case then dug into the more important information. "Over the weekend, we received information about a courier company that has been at every site of our heists. We also found a few yellow slips from the company without signatures. We have a witness who has given information about one of the drivers for the company and we have security systems that have been bypassed or tampered with at some point to erase timestamps and codes."

“And you want us to hack the security systems?” Scotty signed while AJ voiced the question.

“Yes,” Robert said, no sense in beating around the bush. “We want you to backdoor the systems to see if you can find out which codes were used to turn off the systems along with seeing if a signature was left behind by the suspect.”

“Seems pretty straight forward,” AJ said. “Do you have the accounts from the security companies?”

“Yes,” Benjamin said. “We’ll be sending those, along with the timeframe and dates.”

“Great,” Scotty signed while AJ answered. “If we do it together, it won’t take long. How many sites?”

“Eighteen,” Robert said. “We’ve been working on this for a while.”

“Not a problem,” AJ replied. “We’ll split the list and he’ll finish first.” She pointed at Scotty who grinned.

“Don’t pout,” Scotty signed.

“I’m not,” AJ muttered. “Asshole.”

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