*
“Shit!” John did a thorough once over datamining for anything on Moreau’s laptop with every word triggering accounts, banks, terrorists and shady deals he could think of before doing an in depth line code check. “Muerto! You and Payaso need to see this.”
While John worked the laptop, and other tablet they found, Nick and Gus meticulously inspected every square inch of the Boston condo Felix had been staying at. The two partners found a couple of weapon treasures. Moreau traveled heavily armed in a way Nick never figured an assassin of his caliber would do. That meant to Nick he had a personal caddy to his jobs, meaning an employer who had a personal jet. Moreau was not a lone shooter. He was a shooter with high end support. The Unholy Trio were suitably impressed with Moreau’s residence on Atlantic Street, the building manager said rented for seventeen thousand dollars. The place was under 24/7 monitoring now with updates sent to Paul at least once a day.
“The bastard has a damn Stinger missile,” Gus exclaimed. “It’s the kind you can fire more than once too. I don’t know if you can top that Kabong.”
“Come and see. You two will not believe this thread I found. Most importantly, I know this link is to the man who ordered the kidnapping.”
Nick put the very cutting edge TrackingPoint digital smart rifle he’d found in its case again. He joined Gus and John. Omar Fontaine, the billionaire who wanted Cala, stared out at them from the personal security file Moreau encrypted. John broke the code in three minutes.
“Fontaine hired Moreau in 2013 exclusively. What Fontaine didn’t know was Felix is not a trusting soul. Every chance he got to spy on Fontaine, he gathered information into the file we’re looking at on screen. It contained secret accounts Moreau had to have found inside Fontaine’s own computer system. I need to take this stuff for further analyzation. You can already see Moreau hacked Fontaine’s innermost accounts… not financially, but where payouts were directed and where they came from. No question he hired Moreau for the Hutchen kidnapping. The reasoning behind it could be really convoluted.”
“I’m seeing where you’re going with this. Fontaine wanted me out of the game. He has enough money to know I pay my debts in death. Figuring to aim me in a different direction, Fontaine hired Felix to kidnap April Hutchen’s Granddaughter, knowing April was on the arm of one CIA Director Paul Gilbrech. It was a simple win/win situation. An astronomical money payout in addition to Gilbrech taking me down hard either permanently or in prison. I believe Paul would quit before he did that. He’s a psycho like me. We just leave a situation like that.”
Nick sat on the edge of the bed. “It means Felix didn’t know me from Adam until on the boat when he sent out my picture. Fontaine compartmentalized this operation to make sure it couldn’t be traced back to him. All this because I was interfering with his enslavement of Cala from the cave dwelling Kaders? I’ve had some strange events fall into place for me through partly dumb luck and partly being in the right place at the right time. This happening is the harmonic convergence of coincidental dumb luck.”
“You know the old saying, ‘it’s better to be lucky than good’,” Gus said. “Your game today, sharpening your instincts simply hit at the right moment. We’ll need a plan now, brother.”
“Oh… I have a plan,” Nick said with certainty. “If the lead pans out with Fontaine being behind this, I’m betting there’s more to having Moreau kidnap the Hutchen girl than putting me in my place. If I was the only incidental target Fontaine was after, why not have Felix go after me directly? I think we’re on to who the man behind the curtain is, but we need to dig deeper for the full breadth of his plan.”
“I don’t like the sound of that,” Gus said.
“You’re right, Muerto,” John agreed. “With time I will piece this together. It has to be more complicated with multiple targets Fontaine hoped to disrupt or distract from something besides weddings and your matchmaking. Should we keep the weapons too?”
“Absolutely,” Nick answered. “I admit I’ve only heard of the TrackingPoint smart rifle. That Moreau has one doing private sector hits is a bit extraordinary. It’s probably a toy in his tool cabinet like the Stinger, paid for by Fontaine, but for what purpose? I’m getting a bad feeling about this. In your scan did you run across any other locations Felix had for future dates?”
“Not yet,” John answered. “I have only scratched the surface though. Do you think Fontaine was tied in with the Queen Mary II and Boston Harbor targeting?”
“The grander scale fits better than weddings and matchmaking. Fontaine would have power and money enough to work the strings from backstage thinking never to be caught.”