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“You know,” he started, “last year a moon rock went missing.”
“I didn’t know.”
I’d heard a rumor, but nothing definite, and the moon rocks were a constant source of conjecture—everything from how many Neil Armstrong might have hidden in his socks and taken home, to if they were even really from the moon.
“Since all the alarms will be disabled during the inventory, the exit is our weak point. We’re going to use an extra sensitive x-ray scanner, one of those airport types. It’ll be manned by two guards from OPS, and I want you to oversee it.”
I nodded.
“If either of them so much as coughs and looks away, I want you to demand a rescan. Everybody goes through the metal detectors, and everything, no matter how small, goes through x-ray. No exceptions. Understood?”
“Crystal clear.”
I walked out of his office light on my feet. I was being entrusted with what he considered the most important of our tasks tomorrow. The rest of the team would be watching people check items off lists all day long.
But then I had a thought… After reaching my desk, I checked the Ukrainian email account again. I was relieved to find nothing had shown up. Being told to orchestrate something while hanging out all day with a bunch of guards would have been insanely difficult.
* * *
Adam
After the meetingwith Parsons and Benson, Dempsey had decided I should take the afternoon watch on the trafficking case. Luckily, Harper had gotten approval for the rental of a unit across and two houses down from the suspects’ location that had just become available, so we were out of our cars now.
The view of the street wasn’t as clear, but my vantage point from the chair was more comfortable. The previous tenants had apparently not trained their pets well, and I’d already emptied the last of the air freshener spray.
Tomorrow I’d consider a nose clip instead.
A tipster had reported a tan cube van on its way here from San Diego, but the last tip on a vehicle headed here had come up empty. This house was consuming so many man-hours the ASAC was considering paring back the surveillance from physical to electronic only.
My phone rang, and I checked the street quickly before pulling it out. The screen held a Boston area code and a number I didn’t recognize.
“Cartwright,” I answered.
“Adam, Ashley Benson here. I wanted to follow up on your meeting with Dennis Benson.”
Apparently the Bensons had already been communicating. “What about it?”
“He and Liz Parsons don’t know anything about the SMK case and the protection you’re providing for his sister.”
“Okay?” It was good news that she hadn’t told them.
“Have you told Kelly about her cousin?”
“I wasn’t planning to. She doesn’t need more on her plate right now.”
“Good. Do you have a moment to discuss the kidnapping aspect?”
She didn’t seem to get that it was irrelevant to the bank robberies.
“I guess. I’m cooling my heels on surveillance now.”
“That sucks. Me too, but it’s the job, isn’t it? I’m sitting on a sex trafficking waypoint out here, and I have a few minutes, if you’ve got time to chat.”
I was surprised to hear that with her exalted status she still pulled the same shitty surveillance duty as I did. “Same here, for the run-up to this year’s Operation Cross Country.”
Operation Cross Country was a coordinated nationwide sweep we’d started conducting annually in 2008 to get human traffickers rounded up. “So what’s up?”
“I’d hate for this case to cause your family any more grief.” That hit a nerve, but I didn’t understand what she was getting at.
