Chapter 31
31
Rio tried to make me eat something by getting chips and guacamole which is typically a weakness for all of us. I know he did it to get me to eat. We’ve not been raised to be verbally open all the time, but saying no to food and him coming back with my favorite says he’s worried about me.
My brother is on a conference call with the two employees we trust enough to come in after hours and work on this job. Everyone at GhostEye has signed an NDA, but with all these hacks, no one is in the clear.
We’ve had to give other staff members insight into the previous hacks, too, and that sends both me and my brother into a state of emergency even without the sting on the horizon. We haven’t told our employees we knew about them previously, but if we’re to find the source of the stolen cell numbers, it’s important to see if it connects to the previous hacks.
I’ll risk everything to solve this tonight. I can’t choose GhostEye’s future over the one I could have with Ava.
“Run web crawls to look for signs of any trafficking in Oregon,” Rio reminds them through his cell.“At the same time we need to reverse hack the cell phone breach…”
Gary and Chelsea chatter back.
Rio sighs. “I get it. I know it’s a lot for two people, but you’re the ones we trust for now. It could be an inside job. Just… do your best.”
I still have my doubts that this father of hers is involved in trafficking. Ava thought he was a cartel member. Trafficking usually involves different methods of acquiring people. Was Ava kidnapped? Persuaded to enter the fold with the promise of some reward? Not according to her story. Was she abused physically or forced to do anything for criminal purposes? It seems not. All she told me about her time in Oregon, before college, was that she had to be homeschooled, never left the property on which she lived, and she had the impression getting good at hacking, coding, and anything and everything to do with computers seemed of importance to her father.
She was being used for sure. But not for the typical activities that come under trafficking.
Rio gives his last order. “More than anything, I gave you Ava Scott’s location. If it changes, it’s a code red. Call me immediately, no texts. I’ll check back in an hour.”
Rio ends the call and grabs a chip from the bag, dipping it in the pot of green guac, and stands over my hunched body.
“Bro, come on, you need to eat something if you want to keep your energy up.”
I don’t answer, just keep reading the most recent results of my first GhostEye crawl. Tonight, I’m using a new tool we’ve never used before. It’s still in beta version, developed only months ago, it uses face recognition and image match. I can enter Ava’s college ID photo. God, I hope it comes up with a result. Maybe there will be a match image of her and Anton in Southern California somewhere. A photo of her and her mother on the internet. Anything.
I should have taken this more seriously when I heard Ava’s story in the first place. Why didn’t I look for her father sooner? I should have been searching since that night at the fair when she told me about him.
I fell so hard I turned a blind eye to reality.
Rio sits in front of his computer. “We’ll keep her safe. We have a good record with these things. Plus Callum was SWAT in Boston. He’s already called up FBI to stand in for the sting. We’re covered. Anything we find out tonight is a preventative measure.”
“Exactly that, Rio. You think I want Ava to be bait?”
“Course you don’t.”
“Damn right I don’t. I know it’s a necessary evil in a lot of sting operations, but this time…” My chin drops, my head heavy with a list of reasons this is my fault. How I should have done better.
I scratch my stubble which has grown since this morning. It’s hard to believe that only hours ago I was swelling with the greatest joy.
I know he’s trying to reassure me, but to top off the feeling we’re not on the right track searching for trafficking operations, I waited at Pen’s for Ava’s text before driving away and the one she sent was brief. Two words—here safe. It just didn’t seem like something she’d text.
Maybe I’m paranoid but I can’t shake it.
There’s no use hiding anything from a twin.
“Zo, if you’re worried about Ava just check up on her.”
Still wanting to make sure Ava feels I’m not trying to keep her on a leash, she asked me for freedom, I don’t want to blast her. She’s trying to have a moment to breathe, but still, my mind is reeling with her out of sight. I’ve seen a lot of things in my time and that makes me sometimes believe worst-case scenarios when everything is fine.
He’s right, though. I can hardly focus.
ME
Hey Scottie, just checking everything is okay. If you need a ride home, happy to pick you up.
I want to write that I love her. I miss her. I’m worried fucking sick and want to start this freedom bullshit after we get Anton in custody.
It takes a few minutes, but a held breath flows out of me when her response comes through.
AVA
All good here.
I’m glad to read it, but for some reason her text doesn’t offer the relief I was expecting.
Still, I work, because the best thing that could happen between now and the operation is figuring out who Ava’s father is. Where Anton is and close in on him without using Ava as bait. Our search for any Anton in Oregon or the surrounding states have been futile. He’s either not a criminal or never been caught.
Just then, Rio’s cell rings.
“What you got?” he asks.
The murmur of Chelsea’s voice comes through, but I can’t make out what she’s saying.
Rio exhales a deep, sharp, “Fuck.”
My gaze darts up from my work to see Rio’s eyebrows knitted together tightly.
“Thanks, Chels. Gotta go.” He puts down his phone and doesn’t leave me guessing. “Ava’s location was just turned off.”
Blood drains from my being.
I stand, and my chair scrapes on the wooden floor. I grab my keys. I’m not figuring this out from behind a desk. Just then, I get a text.
CALLUM
Pen just called. Someone broke in and knocked her out with what seems like ketamine. Confirm Ava is with you.
The entire world falls away beneath my feet. I stare at the floor, and my words are hardly loud enough for Rio to hear.
“Penelope was drugged tonight.”
Nausea rushes through me, and my ears ring. Millions of thoughts flurry through my mind like warp speed code flashing across a screen too quickly to understand any of this.
But there’s no time to process any of it.We need action.
I text Callum back to say Ava has been taken, and typing the words is a knife to the heart. I let her down. I let this happen. I pace the room like a caged animal, wild with rage. Guilt rains down on me with fury.
I glance at my phone. How and why did she text me only minutes ago?
My brother stands. “We need help. Maybe we can get people spreading out, scouring the area. I’ll get Gary and Chelsea focused on the cell tower signals to see if we can triangulate and find out where Ava’s phone was when the text was sent.”
I nod, staring hard at the floor even though nothing comes into view.
Just then, I get another text.
CALLUM
I’m with Pen. She activated the telephone tree. Meet at Trailblazer.
Echo Valley’s telephone tree has only ever been activated twice since we moved here years ago. Once when the wildfires hit near Echo Valley and another time when a child went missing to find she fell down a well. It is an emergency-only situation, and Penelope hearing Ava is gone and sending the town a code red shows what a friend she truly is. We need more hands. More eyes. More ears. Maybe someone in town saw a stranger. Maybe people can fan out and find clues.
Time is of the essence when someone goes missing, and Ava already beat the odds once. At this point, I dropped her off at Penelope’s about an hour ago, and now, about thirty people who had the ability to leave their homes and come to help, stand around waiting for instruction.
Nobody knows what exactly is wrong, only that it’s a category five hurricane because they wouldn’t have been called from their homes if it wasn’t. Callum and other police and firefighters bring the crackle of radios. Indistinct voices form a low hum. Julia leans against a doorjamb in her bathrobe, my dad next to her, creases lining his face. Arthur is sitting at a table with his hands folded, paint under his fingernails. Cell phones continue to ring and buzz. It’s filling my head and making my stomach roil. I swallow often to push down the bile that constantly threatens to burn my throat and scream to me this is my fault.
I didn’t realize Santi was behind me, and he comes to clap me on the back. “You gonna pass out?”
“I’m fine.” The words are heavy and hardly make their way out.
“Bullshit. You aren’t fine. And you won’t be fine until we get your girl, so you need to pull it together. You don’t have a minute to waste on feeling sorry for yourself or that massive ego of yours that tells you everything is your fault. These people need a leader now.”
It’s tough love but exactly what I need. I can torture myself over this later. Right now, Ava is the priority, not how I should have done better.
His hand clamps down on my shoulder. “We’re going to find her. You start fucking believing that right now. And tell all these folks what to do.”
We share a solemn moment. He takes a seat and points at me as if to get started.
I clear my throat. “Thanks for coming, everyone. Time is of the essence, and you all coming here straight away could save a life. Two things you all need to know. Penelope’s apartment was broken into, and she was drugged tonight with what looks like a ketamine shot.”
The static hum if the crowd crescendos, and a couple of people approach Pen to give her a hug. I glance over to Penelope who still looks low energy after coming to. If she’s rattled, which most people would be, she’s not showing it, focused only on her missing friend.
Worry is settled between her eyebrows. “Guys… please, I’m going to be just fine. I’m not the problem. Listen to Enzo.”
The hum dies down, only for my next words to ramp it up again.
“Ava Scott has been abducted.”
I raise my voice above the din. “She’s been gone an hour. What we need from you is any observations of strange cars, people… anything in town that’s been unusual.” My eyes search the crowd and pick out Penelope’s landlord. “Geeta, can you and Raj get us the CCTV footage for the last few hours around the apartment complex?”
She nods. “Right away.”
She and her husband leave immediately.
“The cell tower signal from Ava’s last message showed her on the west side of town, so we should sweep down San Antonio Valley Road, too. Anyone with contacts along that road, let’s make phone calls.”
Santi raises his hand. “We have a drone with night vision at the stables.”
“We have one at the station as well.” Callum turns to Luke. “Get that going now. Keep it below four hundred feet.”
The whole town is operating as one. Callum and I work as a team to assign tasks, making sure everyone has the correct reporting mechanism so we get information fast.
But as the room clears out apart from me, Rio, Callum, and Penelope, I know in my gut we need a lot more than just police procedural.
In the sudden collapse of energy, I can’t help but think… I’ve missed something.
I sit at my laptop. Rio and I still work with our people using our tools in GhostEye headquarters, feeding anything and everything that could help us find out who Anton or Ava’s father are. I rub my temples hard with my thumbs, head down, eyes on my laptop screen.
If I’m going to find Ava alive, I need more than drones and CCTV.
What’s the missing piece?
Why did her father keep her in captivity?
Why does he want her back now?
The details I’ve learned about Ava over the past few weeks swirl in my mind. She was kept until she was twenty-five. All those years with no apparent use apart from encouraging her computer science abilities. Then, suddenly, they send her to college. And she wins our hacking contest…
It sounds too easy when laid out like that. Almost like he let her go to college. To come to GhostEye…
My eyes dart up to my brother’s blue-lit face across from me.
“Rio. What if Ava was always meant to escape captivity?”
Penelope is on her computer, next to me with her ham radio and some other gadgets around her. When I mention Ava, her gaze flashes to mine. A sadness weighs on the corners of her eyes. Callum briefed her quickly on their ten-minute drive to Trailblazer after she was drugged. This has been one hell of a night for her. Finding out her new friend was kept against her will for fourteen years.
I wish we had time to comfort her. But we don’t.
“What if her father wanted her to come to us?”
Rio smooths a finger along his upper lip. “I’m listening.”
“Think about it. Ava is locked up for over a decade. She’s sent to college shortly after we open our contest, wins, comes here with no option but for us to give her a job… what if that was the plan for her? What if she was groomed… for GhostEye?”
Rio shakes his head. “I don’t know, Zo… it feels like a coincidence. We had a hack before opening the contest.”
“Ava told me she had so-called teachers who always set her on tasks. Maybe her code led helped them perform the attacks. Maybe they used her work and code as a clue how to get through the back door. They must have been trying to penetrate GhostEye before we opened the contest.”
Our company has been a target for black-hat hackers since it started. There’s nothing unusual about that.
“What if her father’s organization has been trying to take down GhostEye for a while. If they used her code for the first hack, they’d know she could win the contest when we opened it. Maybe they sent her here to get inside information that would allow a full take down? She has that information now…” A hot, sharp ache coils inside me.
Her father wants her back to finish the job and he sent Anton to fetch her.
“But she was kept in captivity for years,” Rio refutes. “Her father couldn’t have known we were going to open that contest when she was eleven.”
“No, he couldn’t.” I have to admit. “That part I can’t understand. Maybe she was kidnapped. Maybe her mother and father are both criminals. That much is still unclear. ”
“That doesn’t make anything else you said less plausible.”
“All I can say is that Ava is so talented, that promise would have been growing exponentially since she was younger. She’s so talented, it made me keep her here, too, despite all our suspicion. She’s that good. She’s too good not to keep. Any person with a use for a hacker would hang on to Ava forever, let alone fourteen years.”
How did she end up in that man’s clutches? Did her mom know about her talent? Or was Ava just an unlucky child with a crime lord as a father? My knees go weak thinking of her as a vulnerable eleven-year-old, innocent… being used and kept as a tool.
I don’t know what the connection is, that, we need to find out, but it’s just… there has to be a greater long-term use for a captive like Ava. It seems plausible that use would be criminal, that perhaps the use for her changed and morphed over time as her skill did. The more I let this theory take hold of me, the more strongly I feel we’re wasting precious time looking for human trafficking.
My brother’s gaze is stony, like his blood has run cold.
A metallic vibration courses through my veins.
We have to get Ava back before she’s dragged back to her father’s compound. She won’t cooperate easily in turning against GhostEye and she does know enough to succeed in obliterating this business. I work hard not to let my mind wander to what they’ll do to her to force her hand. My stomach roils with a pain so deep I have to close my eyes to gain composure.
I hope like hell I’m not grasping at loose straws. Something about this feels like I’m on the right track.
Rio asks, “Do you want me to keep Chelsea and Gary on the hacks? ”
I start running our software and glance up at my brother who has deep concern etched all over his face.
“Get them looking for any connection between Mexico and Oregon. FBI will already be triangulating signals so we can get a location on Ava. But knowing who is behind all of this… if her father or Anton take her back to their compound, we need to find it. We can make a search area if we do. Map out the routes.”
“So about the hacks. Should the search be Mexico? Or Ensenada?” he says carefully, knowing this is opening a tightly packed box of trauma for me.
We’ve known since GhostEye’s inception it would be a target for takedown. But Ensenada? It makes the hacks personal pointing to the place that formed my every ambition.
My thoughts turn darker considering the target the hackers have drawn.
I need to get Ava back. “Yes. To Ensenada.” I swallow thickly. “And to me. Tell them to search my name, too.”
Chelsea and Gary will find the story about Diego. This private, painful part of me will be out for everyone to know. If it gets Ava back, my privacy is a small price to pay.
Rio stands and heads to a corner to make the call more discreetly. Penelope and Callum have probably already overheard enough. They’re smart and might put it all together, but right now, I don’t give a shit. If we lose our investment, even our reputation, but we save Ava? So be it.
I run our tools on the web, and I have no choice but to revisit Ensenada in the results that blare at me like a relentless midday sun. Stories about the cartel terrorizing my parent’s hometown over twenty years ago emerge. I trawl deeper and deeper, sifting through years of data, searching for a photo of a man I’ve been wanting to find for ages. I’ve never been able to use our software to find him. He was nothing but a nameless person. I can try now, if only I can find a photo of Diego’s killer.
Do the hacks around Ensenada have anything to do with my past? I’ll do anything to find a reason why someone might want me, or GhostEye. I’ll flay myself endlessly right down to my bloody bones if it means keeping her safe.
Ava is truly innocent. She’s done nothing to deserve this life she’s been given, and when I get her back, I’ll be the one to give her what she deserves. I’ll give her anything and everything she asks for.
Newspaper articles emerge on my screen, and our software breaks through some of the first digital communication of the cartels in Mexico. I read of synthetic drugs and people trafficking and heinous crimes against humanity. Diego’s killer was never caught, there wasn’t anything but my witness sketch to go on to find him, and the police down there weren’t motivated, thanks to the many bribes handed out by the Baja Cartel. I come across the sketch I dictated all those years ago, and cold fire burns through my veins.
I searched for this man many times before. Could he have been looking for me, too? But why?
All I need to do is find some connection. Maybe there isn’t one, but I upload the sketch of Diego’s killer into our new tool and run the search with the image. I need this image to match with another, somewhere, anywhere on the internet…
I need to zero in on something.
Finally, the tool finds a match somewhere behind the crimson X of a site that’s been encrypted.
I use GhostEye to decrypt, and there is the Baja Cartel’s Wanted Dead or Alive board from nearly decades ago. Five minutes of reading through bounties and seeing the disgusting pictures of heads and hands and successful retrievals, I find what I need.
A photo of Diego’s killer, and the bounty offered for his head.
DEAD OR ALIVE—$10,000. ENSENADA ENFORCER. JUAN SáNCHEZ. SUSPECTED TO HAVE CROSSED USA BORDER. LAST REPORTED IN MIAMI. POSSIBLY GOING BY THE ALIAS FATHER.