Now that he was alone—for how long, he didn’t know—Sean booted up his computer and started digging through everything Jaye at RCK had found on Carson Spade, his law firm, and his connections to the Flores cartel. Jaye was good—very methodical. Sean worked more intuitively, and had several questions, namely, Why now? What happened to bring Spade to Mexico now?
Laundering money was both easy and complex. The hard part was setting up the process—layers of bank accounts, shell corporations, moving money from legitimate businesses into shady accounts and finally into the hands of the bad guys. Cartels employed some of the best accountants and lawyers in the business—those with a serious lack of morals—to build the network. Once established, a good network would run seamlessly.
It seemed that Carson Spade had been the lawyer who set up the entire network for the Flores cartel several years ago—based on the dates of the corporations Jaye had identified. His bank and travel records showed only one trip to Mexico a year—likely required by Flores to ensure that Spade was still in his back pocket. Perhaps to handle new business or incorporate a new illegal activity. But this was Spade’s third trip to Mexico this year—definitely out of character.
A message from Jaye popped up on his computer.
Jaye: You there?
Sean: Yep.
Jaye: Something weird just happened.
Sean: You’re up at dawn?
Jaye: Ha ha. I sent a worm out to gather real-time info on each of the identified corps and three were shut down at the end of business yesterday.
Sean: Shut down how? Money transferred?
Jaye: No money transfers, all shell corps. Closed. The info was posted at midnight ET.
Sean: Influx of cash to Spade?
Jaye: None yet. I’m going to expand the worm, but I suspect they’re all being axed. Just closed.
Sean: Why? Did it happen yesterday?
Jaye: No idea why, and they could have been shut down anytime in the last few days. Not more than a week. They get posted pretty quick. I’ll send you what I learn.
Sean: You’re an angel.
Sean logged off and wondered what had happened to cause Spade to shut down his shell corps. The most logical reason would be money. These were hollow companies, though—they could let the companies ride and, if they were compromised, just start new ones. On and on. The only way to shut them down would be to completely sever them from the new enterprise. Or maybe there was something there that they wanted to hide.
Sean understood money laundering and finance, but nowhere near as well as he understood computer security and hacking. And he didn’t really care what Spade was doing at this point. Associating with Dominick Flores was sufficient for Sean to want his son away from here. After he got Jesse to safety, he would dig into Carson Spade with a magnifying glass and destroy him.
He looked at his watch. Damn, Kane had only been gone for an hour. He said it could take him all morning to set up his plan. A plan he didn’t fully explain to Sean. All Sean knew was that it depended on Gabriella getting a note to Jesse. Sean’s note. And if that didn’t happen, then they were back to square one.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Siobhan stepped out of the hotel and almost immediately the security chief approached her. “May I summon your driver?”
“I’m just walking to Starbucks. It’s only a few blocks.”
“It’s not a problem.”
Before she could argue with him, he was on his radio. Less than a minute later the driver pulled up. Did they have him sitting in his car waiting?
Still, Sean and Lucy had been more than generous in setting her up in this hotel, and she was pretty certain Kane had something to do with the security precautions.
When the driver dropped her off, she said, “I’m meeting a friend—you don’t have to stay.”
“It’s not a problem,” the driver said. Apparently, that was the motto of this security team.
“Thanks.” What else could she say?
She went inside the Starbucks. She was meeting Eric Barrow, her reporter friend. They’d been friends forever—since high school. He had some problems and could be a complete ass sometimes, but he was all about the truth. He was cynical and would believe the worst about anyone. When he got an idea in his head he would move heaven and earth to prove it, but so far, she’d never caught him printing a lie, and he’d never stabbed her in the back.
The same couldn’t be said of other people in Eric’s life, which was why Siobhan was probably one of Eric’s few friends.
Starbucks was on the corner of one of the most populated business areas of Laredo. Laredo was an old town, depressed; a third of the residents lived below the poverty level. But they still had a Starbucks, Siobhan thought wryly.