3 The Braque Connection (17 page)

“What do you see, Jenny?”

“He recognised me. It’s hard to be sure with this quality image, but his expression suggests recognition. That ridiculous disguise didn’t work.” It was improbable that this man had recognised me from that distance, but I was convinced that was what I saw on his face.

“Then a lot of this makes sense,” Colin said. “When he saw you at the warehouse, he must have thought he was no longer behind the scenes and was about to be arrested or something. He had us drugged and killed Hawk in the process.”

“There are a lot of missing pieces in your story, but it sounds plausible.” Manny looked at Vinnie with uncommon severity. “We need to find this guy.”

“Done.” There was finality in Vinnie’s voice as he turned his attention back to the image on the monitors. “Jen-girl, can you zoom in on his belt?”

I did that and saw the butt of a gun. “Isn’t it dangerous to put a gun in your trousers, pointing towards your genitals?”

Vinnie laughed. “Supremely stupid, yes. The movies make it look cool, but it’s not a good idea. And you really need to make sure the safety is on, else you can shoot your own dick off.”

“Why are you looking at the gun, Vin?” Colin was also studying the butt of the gun, but there was no recognition on his face. “What are we looking for?”

“I don’t know.” Vinnie tilted his head again. “Something isn’t right with this gun.”

“It looks like a SIG Sauer P228.” Manny had also walked closer. I felt crowded with three tall alpha males surrounding me. “What doesn’t look right about this piece?”

For a long while, Vinnie didn’t answer. He tilted his head in the other direction, stared at the monitor and sighed a lot. “I really don’t know. This SIG looks off.”

I twisted to look at the men behind me. “Is this a modified weapon? Could this be the type of gun we are looking for?”

“This is so not a zip gun, Jen-girl. It looks far too real, but it looks like a toy gun that should be a SIG. This is just too far and unclear to get a good look-see.”

The redundancy of his expression didn’t bother me this time. I was too absorbed by what this could mean. I turned back to study the monitors again, looking for the connection that was eluding me. I knew this gun had significance, but exactly how I didn’t know. Not yet.

“What are you all looking at?” Francine’s soft question startled us all. She laughed at Manny’s rude expletive.

“What do you want, supermodel?”

“Oh, you sexy man. You have such a way with words. The question is not what I want, but what I have for you.” She ran her manicured nail along Manny’s collar, her full lips in an exaggerated pout. “That little encryption you gave me was no challenge for me. Do you think that little of me?”

“You have it decoded? Great. Doc, put it on the monitors.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about.” I hated it when people included me in a conversation I had not been part of from the beginning.

“She can’t put it on the monitors, Manny. I haven’t connected that computer to our system.”

“What are you two blabbing about?” Vinnie asked the question foremost in my mind.

“The crime scene guys brought Hawk’s computer here for her to get into.”

“Hawk had used some baby encryption to keep the amateurs out. It took me all of seven minutes to get into his laptop.”

“What’s on there?” Manny asked.

“A lot of stuff. I haven’t even looked at a tenth of it, but there is something interesting. Hold on.” She hurried out the room and came back a few seconds later carrying a silver laptop. It was open, a file on the screen. She put the computer down in front of me and waved away my frown. “What does this look like to you?”

I pushed past the disruption to my organised workspace and looked at the laptop’s screen. I had seen similar documents when I had investigated the first case involving Kubanov. That case had included cruise ships and art auctions at sea. I had looked at hundreds of similar documents. “This looks like a shipping manifest.”

“Exactly! See? Another connection to Kubanov.”

“Where?” I asked. “Is his name on this document?”

“No, but—”

“This is not a connection, but we do have a connection between the first abduction and Hawk.” I gestured to the monitor with Dukwicz, the scarred man. “Dukwicz worked with Hawk in his warehouse and is the same man who punched me.”

“Dukwicz, you say? Do we know where he is?”

“Nope. But I’m going to find out.” Vinnie’s jaw muscles were tense.

“I’ll see what I can find out about him online.” She raised one hand towards Manny and turned her head away from him. “This bastard kidnapped and punched Genevieve, then did it again. I will break any and all rules to find him.”

“Do it,” Manny said softly. “But leave no evidence behind.”

“Leave Hawk’s computer with me or email me all his files, whichever is better,” I said. “With his computer, I am sure I will get more data to work with. If you give me a few hours, I will tell you what I have.”

“And I’ll nag the crime scene guys to get me my report,” Manny said. “I want to know what is in that warehouse.”

We agreed to meet in the team room at four o’clock. I exhaled in relief when only Colin stayed behind. Together we went through the footage again, looking for anything I had missed. When I couldn’t see anything new, I clicked on the link to the folder Francine had emailed me. She had copied the entirety of Hawk’s computer and put it on our server.

Colin and I had a slight disagreement on which documents to peruse first. We compromised by dividing the work. I checked the inventory lists and Colin looked at the financials on his computer. I compared it to the list of products bought with Colin’s credit cards. Every one of those items was in Hawk’s warehouse.

Too soon, it was four o’clock. Standing up, I felt the effect of not moving out of my chair for hours. I stretched and wished to be home, lying in a tub of hot water.

“Coming?” Colin waited at the door for me. I picked up my notes and walked past him into the team room. Everyone was seated at the table, Phillip included. His interest was not uncommon, but his involvement in this case was noticeable. Nothing he did was without reason. I suspected his reason was concern.

As I sat down, Angelique entered the room with another tray. Apart from the steaming coffee mugs, there were two large bowls. One held fresh berries, the other pralines. Energy food. She nodded stiffly when I smiled my thanks, unpacked the tray and left as quickly and quietly as she came in.

“What did you find, Doc?”

“The shipping manifests and order forms are long and detailed, and will take time to go through properly. Since you didn’t give me enough time, I only scanned a few folders and glanced at the shipping manifests. There I saw something interesting.” I asked Francine to bring Hawk’s laptop and opened the folder with the offending files.

Manny stopped stirring his tea. “Please tell me you found a smoking gun.”

“No, there are no guns listed anywhere on the shipping manifests, but Hawk did keep impeccable records. The shipping manifests were catalogued with reference to all other documents individual items appeared on.” I turned Hawk’s laptop for the others to see.

“This is all very interesting, Doc. But do you have something useful?”

“Two months ago, a large shipment of unnamed electronic devices was delivered to the warehouse. The products were never entered into Hawk’s inventory, but there is a note referencing it to a list of names and addresses. This is anomalous. All other shipments have reference notes to orders, but never to an address list.”

“Did you find something interesting on that list?”

“I haven’t had enough time to look at it carefully. One of the names listed is Freddy Gagliardi.” This interesting finding had solidified my suspicion that Tall Freddy was directly connected to our case.

“Tall Freddy?” Colin tensed. “Vin, do you know of any connection between Hawk and Tall Freddy?”

“No, dude. All I can think of is they both deal in guns. Maybe Hawk supplied Tall Freddy.”

Manny was leaning over the table, studying the laptop monitor. From his expression I deduced he was seeing something I hadn’t. The more he read, the wider his eyes grew.

“Holy hell. This is a who’s who list of criminals in Europe.” He pulled the laptop across the table and pushed it in front of Vinnie. “There are names I don’t recognise, but most of these names have crossed my desk at some point. How many of them are your pals?”

“Never pals, old man.” Vinnie sat up and looked at the open file. “Hmm, I know a few of these guys. Some are small-time crooks, some real badasses.”

“I searched the rest of Hawk’s computer for references to Freddy Gagliardi or even Tall Freddy and found one more document for him.” I wanted to show them the document, but Vinnie was engrossed in the list. “Five months ago, Hawk shipped five 3D printers to Tall Freddy.”

“What the hell for?” Manny asked. A connection feeling like a low-level buzzing in the back of my mind loomed, ready to click into place and help me make sense of this oddity.

“Those printers have a wide variety of applications,” Francine said. “I had this designer print me a pair of killer sandals to fit the exact scan of my feet. Even NASA is printing engine parts for their rockets.”

Manny looked at her in astounded silence. When she pursed her lips and winked at him, he grunted and looked at Vinnie. “I’m sure Tall Freddy isn’t printing bloody shoes with it. Can you find out what he’s doing with those printers?”

“I can try.”

“Guns!” The word came out much louder than I had intended. I took a calming breath before I continued. “I’ve read a few articles recently about the threat of printed guns.”

“Holy hell.” Manny leaned back in his chair. “Interpol sent us a memo a few months ago about this. A lot of words, but not much information. Basically it said that 3D printers are now able to print all the parts of a handgun, except for a nail which serves as the firing pin. And the bullets.”

“Oh, but there is so much more to this.” Francine tapped on the table with her nails. “Those guns can be a real threat, but most of the printed guns are useless. They explode with the first use.”

There was silence around the table. Streams of data were flowing through my mind, picking up bits of information discovered over the last week, connecting them.

“Okay, one thing at a time. We can get back to this 3D crap later.” Manny sat up. “Doc, email me this document with this address list of criminals. Bloody hell, I don’t know if Interpol even have all these addresses. If these are correct, it will be quite the career catch.”

I wasn’t seeing career advancement benefits in the list. Only more questions. ‘Why would Hawk have this list?”

“To sell his guns to them? Like a client list.” Manny shook his head. “No, that is too strange.”

I agreed with Manny. This theory did not fit the limited profile I had created of Hawk. He didn’t seem to be the type of person to send newsletters advertising discounts on various products and introducing new ones. I had once made the mistake of giving a service provider my personal email address. After the second monthly email, I had promptly unsubscribed. It had cluttered my inbox.

My inane train of thought triggered another issue. I interrupted Manny asking Francine to find out everything she could on the listed names.

“Where’s Monique? You said you would find her.”

“I did. She was on holiday with a friend and her family in Miami. The US authorities are helping her get ready to come here.”

“Is she well?” I had promised Hawk to ensure she was well.

“As far as I know, yes.” Manny picked up a few sheets of paper. “I got a report from the warehouse. The place is huge and they told me that this is by far not a complete report, but we have something. The important things they have found are mountains of weapons from the basement and traces of C4.”

“That’s no surprise,” Vinnie said. “Guns and explosives were Hawk’s business.”

“I assume C4 is an explosive,” I said.

“Yup.” Vinnie nodded. “One of the most stable explosives there are.”

“It’s not finding the C4 that is interesting,” Manny said. “It is where it was found.”

I didn’t know how I knew the answer before Manny spoke, but I did.

“There were traces found in the basement, no surprise there. But they also found traces by the woodwork equipment.” Manny’s
zygomaticus
muscles lifted his mouth into a rare genuine smile when no one said anything. “I have stumped you lot. Don’t worry. I’m also stumped. I’ve contacted Edward to go have a look at the warehouse. Maybe he’ll see something that could shed a light on this.”

I had met Edward six months ago when he had disabled a bomb I had stepped on. Since then I had learned he was one of the most respected explosive ordnance disposal technicians in Western Europe. Adding explosives to our case was strengthening the suspicion of Kubanov being behind this. Art, murder, crime and explosives were in all his past cases. If only I could find a solid link between all these elements and the Russian philanthropist.