Chapter Eight: In the Pursuit
Augusto's cell phone vibrated in his pocket, informing its owner he had just received a text message. Augusto smoothly turned away from his trading routes research for the organization/company and pulled out his phone, sparing a glance to make sure the only other person in the room, a gossip named Pasquale who's only real use was undefined at best, was busy. Deciding that picking his nails was occupying Pasquale as well as he could hope, Augusto read the message.
Gustavo's Pizzeria! Call now to receive your free breadsticks!
Augusto checked his watch, trying to decide if it was too early to get lunch. It wasn't, he concluded. "Hey, I'm gong to lunch. You want anything?"
"No, I'm good." His office-partner shrugged and continued with his primping.
~OOOOOOO~
Augusto made his way to an out-of-the-way deli he'd scouted for just this occasion, and ordered a meatball grinder to solidify his alibi if anyone saw him. As he waited for his sandwich at a table far enough away from the street and the bar for privacy, he pulled out his phone again.
"Yeah, Wiseguy. Customer two-one-five-eight. Have you got my records?"
"It's secure. Hey Anderson. I've been instructed to transfer you to the DPD office as soon as you called in." Brad, the DEA techie who'd picked up, didn't wait for Auggie to ask why he'd been contacted.
Auggie heard a click and then a short silence before, "Anderson? That you?"
"Sì," Auggie replied as the waitress brought him his fresh sandwich. He waited until she'd ducked back into the kitchen before continuing, this time in English. "Simpson, right? Anyone with you?"
"You remembered me? I'm flattered. I thought all you guys couldn't be bothered by us techies." Despite his words, there was definite amusement in Scott's tone. His good nature brought a little smile to Auggie's expression, but before Auggie could comment, someone broke in.
"Anderson, this is Joan Campbell. I'm the head of the Domestic Protection Division." Auggie was surprised; he'd thought Ron something-or-other headed the DPD. Then he remembered Scott's announcement that things were changing at the Agency.
"It's Auggie, ma'm," Auggie replied.
"Then it's Joan."
"And now we've got the pleasantries out of the way, let's get down to business." Auggie recognized the voice of his direct superior, Arthur Campbell and, now that he thought about it, Joan's husband. "Auggie," Auggie could tell the nickname was awkward for Arthur, and he was kind of flattered that Arthur would use it anyway, "we thought you should be read in. The DPD will be coordinating with us on this one. We have received the plans you sent—"
"Good 'cription, man! It took us almost two hours to decrypt and we had the basic code!" Scott interrupted. Auggie had little doubt that he'd just been on the receiving end of one of Arthur's stares when Scott abruptly shut his mouth.
"And Joan and I concur with your plan," Arthur continued as if he hadn't been interrupted.
Joan spoke up next. "I've authorized a small surveillance team. They will meet the ship when it arrives and track the material to its buyer. There they have a green light for interrogation."
"And if they don't give us what we want?" Auggie didn't allow himself to be squeamish, even if the thought of what could happen in a CIA interrogation was bile-worthy. "If we are going with my plan, they'll need to be capable of testifying."
"Hopefully it won't come to that. But if they don't want to testify, I'm sure you can find others," Joan replied.
"And implicating Celso? He might do a lot of the business himself, but he knows how to keep his nose clean."
"That's why you're there," Arthur broke in. "From what we can tell from your and others reports, Celso De Luca is a paranoid totalitarian. He had to have put his seal of a approval somewhere—find it."
Auggie wanted desperately to put his head in his hands, and had he been anyone else, maybe he would have, but Auggie was nothing if not a trooper. "I'll do my best, sir."
"Good."
"When did you say the shipment will reach California?" Joan asked.
"ETA is sometime in the early morning of the nineteenth."
"That leaves you less than five days to find irrefutable proof, Lieutenant." Arthur seemed not to realize that he'd called Auggie by his military rank, but if he had, he didn't mention it and Auggie didn't want to risk correcting him.
"Right, sir, I know. I'll have found something by then." Auggie prayed he hadn't just lied to his boss. "Goodbye sir, Joan, Scott." Auggie was about to hang up, but Arthur stopped him.
"Anderson."
"Sir?"
"Nice work."
Auggie couldn't hold back the smile that pulled his cheeks up toward his ears. It took all his energy to control his voice as he said, "Thank you, sir." Then he heard the line disconnect.
~OOOOOOO~
One thing Augusto would not miss when he returned home was the stench of garlic that seemed to follow him around everywhere now. On his way to his room two nights later, he made a detour to the bathroom to brush his teeth in an attempt to get the day's garlic-soaked meal off his tongue.
Five minutes and a couple of sticks of peppermint gum later, Augusto opened his laptop. He plugged in the hard-drive he'd copied all the documents from Celso's computer to while the man and his entourage were out yesterday. He'd nearly been caught when one of Celso's assistants had burst into the office looking for something for the Don, but thankfully the guy had been too frantic to notice Augusto crammed beneath the desk.
It was only a matter of a few minutes for Augusto to crack the documents' encryption. Like Scott had noticed, encryptions and decryptions were his specialty. The documents, however, didn't yield as many results as he'd hoped. There were a few drafts of contacts, some accounting records—Augusto had spent a good while looking for number discrepancies, but it appeared that those were the good books, not the bad—and for some reason, a rather badly half-written romance novel that Augusto hadn't at all expected to see on Celso De Luca's personal computer.
Just as Augusto had feared, Celso wasn't old-fashioned only in the areas of equality, but also when it came to technology. Celso was one of the types of people like the Dean of Admissions Auggie had worked for during a semester of college, the sort of person who didn't trust a computer as far as they could spit them.
"Damn," Augusto growled. He'd have to break into Celso's personal files. Unfortunately, Arthur had been right when he said Celso was paranoid. Augusto would stake good money that not only did he have a top-of-the-line safe, but that he kept all documents relating to a current shipment, legal or otherwise, in said safe until the transaction was carried out.
But first thing's first: find out what type of safe Celso had. That mission turned out to be easier than Augusto thought it would be. All he'd needed to do was hack into Celso's banking records. He'd paid a large amount of money for a 2006 stainless steel safe with both right and left fingerprint biometric pads and five digit number access.
Augusto breathed a sigh of relief—biometric fingerprint readers—he could work with that. But first, he resolved when his next inhale turned into a yawn, he would sleep.
~OOOOOOO~
Every trainee is taught the basics of safe cracking at the Farm, but the safe in front of Augusto was no ordinary safe. This safe was high-tech with risky repercussions if the cracker was caught. Fortunately, the agent in front of the safe was no ordinary trainee.
Celso was clever, there was no doubt about it. It had taken Augusto precious minutes to find the safe. He'd been expecting the same safe he'd researched, not the old combination vault. As a result, he'd thought the old model that looked like it had been used and loved in the seventies was decoration. It was only after he'd scoured the whole office suit, and was starting to believe his first determination that Celso would keep everything in the office was wrong, that it hit him that the old safe was a decoy.
He'd taken a huge chance picking the combination lock without even a stethoscope, but it had paid off, and thanks to being the youngest in a house of five boys among other things, it hadn't taken long and his hands weren't any sweatier from the delay.
Inside the old safe was the new, stainless steel model of security. It was quite a looker, its sides sleek, its two thumb-readers like gapping eyes, with the keypad glowing and the screen like a mouth.
Augusto surveyed the setup again, reviewing his plan. It was nearly three o'clock. There would be a guard change in a little less than thirty minutes—he had plenty of time. He leaned in closer to observe the thumb pads, pleased at what he saw.
The most difficult thing about the safe was that all the inputs had to be read within a three second interval. He'd have a very short window to get everything in.
He took a deep breath and got to work on removing the metal plate just beneath the digital screen at the bottom. According to his research, the number one flaw of this particular model was that it didn't have an alarm over its number impute wires. In other words, Augusto was safe to remove the panel and tie in his modified/MacGyvered code sequencer. It had originally been a hard-drive containing Auggie's personal decryption program, but due to the short timeframe and not being able to access CIA resources, Augusto had turned it into a spy's (and thief's) best friend. It was agonizingly slower than a CIA-issued cracker, but soon it was on the last digit.
Augusto lined his latex-gloved thumbs up with their respective pads, and the moment the last digit appeared on the screen, Augusto put his fingers down on to the pads and prayed to whomever that the last fingerprints had been as clear as they appeared before.
Something caplunked, and Augusto breathed for the first time in a lifetime.
~OOOOOO~
"Have you been here all night again, Mr. Aspesi?" Paulo, the night guard asked when he caught sight of Augusto exiting the office building twenty minutes later.
Augusto smiled, the adrenaline comedown adding even more weight to his story. "I didn't mean to. I must have fallen asleep doing some more research for the Boss. You know how it is—nautical maps, and all."
"Can't say I do, but you look beat."
Augusto nodded slightly and smiled faintly again. "Yeah, going to bed now."
Augusto waited until he'd cleared the building's vicinity to congratulate himself on his plan and exit strategy. He'd never been gladder that he'd often had to pull all-nighters lately and his presence at work at four o'clock in the morning wasn't suspicious.
