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Gate
Gate leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, the music and laughter from the common room muffled by the walls of his office but still taking Gate back to happier times.
A pounding on his door interrupted his thoughts, and Gate sat up before calling, “Come in.”
Deuce opened the door and prowled to the other side of the office while Stash and Rooster followed.
“You get Freemont?” Gate asked, sliding his chair back to make room.
Stash and Rooster executed a quick takeover of his desk, Macs open and keyboards flashing.
“We got him,” Stash said.
“Show me,” Gate said, leaning in. “You seen this?” Gate asked, glancing up at Deuce and then back to the computer screen.
“Nope. Got called in just now,” Deuce said.
Stash stroked a key, and one computer screen went live with video footage while another scrolled with code and deep web interface.
Rooster set up an iPad loaded with social media platforms, real estate listings, and a stock market ticker.
“Tell me what I’m looking at,” Gate said.
Stash started in, pointing at the live video feed, “This is Freemont right now.”
The gold dome of the building Freemont exited was a dead giveaway. “That’s the capitol,” Gate said.
“Yeah, he’s leaving a senator’s office,” Stash agreed.
“Fuck me,” Gate gritted out.
“It gets better,” Rooster chimed in.
“What’ve you got?” Gate asked, turning his way.
Rooster pointed toward the first iPad, “These are archived social media posts for one of Freemont’s shell corporations.”
“I’m nearly fifty,” Gate said. “Use old man words.”
Stash stepped over and scrolled through the images. “Social media, you know, like Facebook and Instagram?”
“Heard of them,” Gate nodded.
“Well, Freemont was using certain words like a code to let his buyers know what he had and where it would be,” Stash explained.
“But then about three months ago, the posts stopped,” Rooster chimed in. “Like, he went totally dark.”
“That was about the time we started having trouble with the girls,” Gate said, rubbing a hand across the scruff of his jaw.
“Right,” Stash picked up. “But he didn’t really go dark. He just changed platforms.”
“He deleted the old account,” Rooster said while swiping from Facebook to Insta, “went to a new one and changed the code words.”
“That worked for the next month or so,” Stash said.
“Then what happened?” Gate asked.
