“Adult male Caucasian,” somebody said.
More Bu-cars—Bureau cars—and San Diego County Sheriff’s Department vehicles arrived. Our evidence recovery team did their initial survey as I searched upslope for an answer to why the driver banged off boulders and dug the wheels deep into sand trying to get higher. Several silvered timbers covering an old mineshaft had been pulled away, and looking down into the darkness of the mineshaft I guessed this was the goal. Dump the body down the shaft, maybe even the car. There was never a plan to get the Honda back out of the canyon. Another thought occurred: it wasn’t Hurin who had shot him and there must be other vehicle tracks, though there weren’t any in the canyon.
Radio responses from a San Diego County Sheriff’s Department unmarked carried into the canyon. I could hear as a dispatcher reported the Honda Civic was registered to a twenty-seven-year-old San Diego male named John Carl Delbo. In San Diego, police officers were already knocking on Delbo’s apartment door. Ten minutes later we heard Delbo’s account. He’d sold the car to a man named John Marco six weeks ago. Marco hadn’t haggled over the price, paid cash, and promised to register the car right away. Delbo had just assumed the buyer had followed through on the registration and hadn’t bothered to fill out the form DMV requires of the seller.
None of that was particularly surprising, but we needed the seller, Delbo, to look at photos, as soon as possible. Did Hurin buy the car? Was he operating independently with a contract to produce the bombs but on his own to find a place? It was possible. We knew his predilection was to work alone.
An hour and a half later, ERT was ready to move the body. It was quite hot now in the narrow canyon. The bomb dog was panting when they brought her back one more time. Then ERT moved the body. The smell was awful as more fluids leaked out. One of the bullets had exited the right eye on an upward slant and taken out a good-sized piece of bone at the brow, but there was no doubt.
“I know him,” I said. I’d already figured out it was him and was debating how he got here and why. “His name is Denny Mondari. He’s from Vegas. He’s worked as a CI for us for a decade.”
“What’s he doing here?”
“Don’t know yet.”
It was a sad ending for anyone, but honestly, I didn’t feel as much for Mondari. Somehow he’d earned his way here. An hour and a half later I caught a ride back from Nogales and called Venuti as we reached an area with better cell reception. A plane left Vegas soon after to retrieve me. Nogales drove me to the Borrego Valley Airport. We shook hands and he left. I was on the phone with Venuti and the ASAC when the FBI plane landed.
“Make your best guess,” Thorpe told me.
“Mondari didn’t know he was delivering explosives. He thought he was trading his way out of his computer-hacking problem by delivering drugs, and the cartel wanted a disposable deliveryman to bring in the C-4, so they used him. They probably trailed him to keep an eye on the delivery then executed him after. After his cyberthieves broke into their manager’s computer and they got tracked down and kidnapped, you can bet they gave up Mondari’s name. Mondari was walking dead. They just put him to work first. That’s what fits for me.”
“And Garod Hurin?”
“He built the next bomb or bombs, got warned or picked up on us, and then closed down the shop and left.”
“Meaning he guessed we’d find it.”
“Sure. We were already in his neighborhood.”
“Call as soon as you land,” Thorpe said. “Stay with your bomb maker. He knows you’re coming for him. Figure him out. You just found where he worked. As the media gets this he’ll know you’re right behind him. Stay with him. Where would he go now, Grale?”
47
From the plane, the Anza-Borrego looked sere, stark, and cathedral. It was beautiful country in its own way. Sometimes I couldn’t help thinking about the beauty on earth in contrast to the life’s work I’d chosen. But I wasn’t going there today.
What could motivate a freelancer like Hurin to work for Al Qaeda or ISIS? The answer could only be the old one. Money. He wouldn’t care about their religious zeal or vain certainty their interpretations were the only true ones. Those would be abstracts to him. Maybe there was a thrill in striking at the country whose law enforcement had hunted him for a decade, but most likely it was a big payoff that brought him here. Hurin, if we could find him, would have a lot of information we needed. We definitely wanted him alive.