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Boyadjian said, “One good thing about that.”
“What’s that?”
Boyadjian laughed. “It’s your problem, Step, not mine. I’ll send you a bill for tonight. You’ll get the frequent-flier discount.”
Step took one more call,a few minutes later, five minutes out of Long Beach. He didn’t recognize the number, but given the ongoing hassle, he decided to answer it.
“Yeah?”
“Mr. Step? This is George Hewitt.”
“Where the hell are you?” Step asked.
“On my way out of town. I’m going back to Montana,” Hewitt said. “I figure when you find out what happened tonight, you’d cut my nuts off.”
“Count on it,” Step said.
“How about if I tell you exactly what happened? Maybe you wouldn’t do that, if we ever meet up again.”
After some quiet consideration, to let Hewitt sweat, Step said,“All right. If it’s any value to me and you’re not to blame, I’ll let it go. You got my word. On my honor.”
Hewitt told him exactly what happened, with only one distinct lie. Two women, young, good-looking, both armed, faked him out when he went to his truck for a pack of cigarettes. They were not armored up, like law enforcement might be.
“They were professionals, Mr. Step,” he said. “One of them wanted to kill me, but the other one wouldn’t let her. The first one scared the shit out of me. They taped me all up with that packaging tape you had there and took some boxes. Twelve, I think. I could hear them talking and they decided to take twelve so they’d know if it was all one chip, or if there were different chips. I’m so sorry... I figured it’d be healthier for me to get out of town, but I still wanted to fill you in.”
“You did the right thing, George,” Step said, then telling his own distinct lie. “You’re good with us. I’d still hire you, if you decided to come back. We can use guys like you.”
“Well, I thank you very much, but, I think I’ll keep going,” Hewitt said. “Oh, and I don’t know if this would help, but they were talking about a guy named Paul, like maybe he was their boss.”
“A guy named Paul.”
“Yeah, Paul. That’s all I got. I’m gonna hang up now and throw this phone out the window.”
He was gone. He’d keep going, Step thought, as he clicked his phone off, but not to Montana. He almost certainly was headed back to Oklahoma, where he came from. Though Step was pissed, he’d let it go, unless Hewitt was actually stupid enough to come back to Long Beach.
So: two women. Actually, sounded like they might be GRU. The GRU would have the resources to wipe the cloud if they wanted to. While the FBI certainly had women agents, they didn’t send out two women, without backup, to steal computer chips. The GRU might...
Was Moscow involved? Or was it the train nerds? But where would the train nerds get two female hitters? That wouldn’t be a problem for the GRU.
A puzzle that needed to be solved. After he made sure the remaining chips were secure, he’d get back home and talk it over with Victoria.
At the warehouse,he found Al, Richard, and Yvgeny loading the chip boxes into a large box truck, with a smaller box truck sitting off to one side. Inside the building, he took a look at the 3M tape that had been used to tape up Hewitt; Al pointed out what looked like arm hair in a ring of tape. Hewitt had apparently been telling the truth.
Step helped carry boxes himself and when they were all loaded in the second truck, took a look at the alarm console, which operated the cameras. It had been broken open. He thought about it for a moment, then told Yvgeny to call the security company to report the break-in, but to tell them that nothing had been taken because the warehouse had been empty. Probably, he was to say, street people looking for anything they could steal—no point involving the police, because they wouldn’t do anything about a theft-free break-in with no damage and no obvious clues. That should also keep the security service shut up.
On the way back to Beverly Hills, he called Boyadjian, the man who’d checked for surveillance at the warehouse and had foundthe container site with bread crumbs. Boyadjian came up on the second ring: “Yeah?”
“Another job for you. We took that Delph guy, and the couple, but we never did do anything about the crazy guy. Sovern? The sailboat guy? We need to find him and nail his feet to a floor and ask him some serious questions.”
“Tonight? You want us to find him tonight?”
“Yeah, tonight. Right now. We took a two-million-dollar hit tonight,” Step said. “You told me he might be up in Oxnard, somewhere. How many sailboats can there be in Oxnard?”
“Lots. Hundreds. Gotta be a dozen marinas up there, maybe more.”
“Get off your computer and do some walking around,” Step said. “Knock on doors. You’re looking for a crazy nerd computer genius who lives on a sailboat. How many can there be?”
“Many. And we can do that, but it’ll cost you,” Boyadjian said. “Three thousand a day. No guarantees with a three thousand minimum, pay me later. I’ll send my best team.”
