Chapter 936: Initial clues
In addition to reinforced concrete high-rise buildings, the most common type of building in New York is brownstone. The so-called brownstone is actually red brick, also known as brick or 85 brick in China, which is a must-have artifact for home travel and murder.
Later, with the development of the economy, red bricks became blue bricks, and later, for environmental protection, they became cement bricks made of fly ash and coal slag. Red bricks and blue bricks that need to be fired with clay have become rare.
If you build a house and don't want to plaster the wall, leaving the red brick wall exposed, it will become a brownstone-style building that has swept the world with the industrial revolution in modern times, and has become a high-end architectural art that can move countless petty bourgeoisie to tears.
For some well-known reasons, these red brick houses left over from the last century or even the century before have become the most comfortable houses to live in around New York, except for those skyscrapers.
"It seems that this Swan has a pretty good income." Jack didn't knock on the door, but just stopped at the door and listened for a while, then shrugged his nose and took out the lock picking tools directly, "There is a body inside."
Reacher and Negley looked at each other in confusion. They didn't smell anything.
However, the big guy habitually chose to trust Jack, stood beside him and blocked him tightly to avoid passers-by noticing and causing misunderstandings, and put his hand on the Glock 20 behind his waist.
With two "clicks" in succession, the upper and lower door locks were opened respectively. Jack pushed the door lightly, and a strong stench of corpse came out.
Reacher and Negley standing behind him tacitly took out their pistols and walked sideways into the house. After a search, they found a golden retriever's body in the bathroom.
"The name on the collar is 'Mais'. It should have died of thirst. It drank all the water in the toilet." Jack briefly checked the dog's body and turned to look at the big guy.
Negley on the side looked reluctant, "This way of dying is too painful."
"Swan will never let his dog die of thirst. If he doesn't go home, then there is only one possibility, he is dead." Reacher said with a sullen face.
His words were obviously emotional, and neither Jack nor Negley would take it seriously, but it is undeniable that this is a possibility, and based on what is known so far, this possibility is quite high.
Jack did not try to comfort or analyze, but looked around, "I checked the doors and windows leading to the backyard, and there were no signs of intrusion. Judging from the placement of items in the room, Swan has no plans to go far away. I will notify the CSI people to come and confirm it."
After Jack finished the call, the three did not leave immediately, but waited in the driveway in front of Swan's house, because Stella said on the phone just now that their people found important clues from the ruins in Franz's office.
"This is impossible. We have checked it. It is impossible to miss any important clues." Reacher felt that his dignity as a special investigator was challenged.
"CSI is the top crime lab in the country. I have worked with them many times. From the perspective of criminal investigation science, they are the real experts."
In Jack's previous life, CSI crime lab only existed in movies and TV series, but its prototype or part of its prototype actually originated from the FBI crime lab, so it would not be a boost to others' morale if he boasted about it at this moment.
"Thank you for your affirmation." Stella, who had just got off the car, obviously heard Jack's praise, and her expression was inevitably a little complacent, but she couldn't help but be stunned when she saw his square chin when he turned his head.
"It's just for convenience. Let's talk in the car." Jack blinked at her, gave an explanation that was not an explanation, and then pointed to the Land Rover they drove.
Behind Stella, several technicians in protective clothing had already walked into Swan's house with tool boxes.
"Do you know anything about fax machines?" Stella's first question when she got on the car made everyone stunned.
Negley smiled, "Are you talking about the magical little box that spits out an A4 paper after a noise whenever a call comes in?"
"I like your humor." Stella smiled back at her, "The fax machine also has a built-in memory, and the newly added fax content will overwrite the previous files in a loop.
Although the printer in Franz's office was smashed, the internal flash memory was not damaged. Our technicians restored several fax tasks and found this."
After that, she took out a printout, which was an official letter, or more precisely, a reply letter from the DHS (Department of Homeland Security).
The official letter did not contain much content, and it roughly described an arms broker named Azari Mahmoud who was suspected of providing arms and weapons to terrorist organizations.
"Does this name look familiar?" Jack handed the printout to Reacher, who nodded slightly, "The abbreviation is also 'AM'."
"What does it mean?" Seeing that the two were playing dumb, Stella and Negley said in unison.
Jack briefly explained the two files in Franz's USB drive. The abbreviations in one of the files were all pseudonyms for "AM". Now the first mystery was finally solved.
Then Reacher read out the two handwritten messages at the bottom of the file, "Mahamed may be the person we are looking for. He is like a ghost and there is no photo of him.
The signature is. 'Sanchez'!"
Nigley suddenly realized, but then he had a new question, "So Sanchez and Orozco are helping Franz investigate this guy, but what does this have to do with Swan?"
"I don't know, but we will find out." Reacher frowned and answered murderously.
"OK, the rest is up to you, Jack, I'll go to the house." Stella patted Jack's shoulder before getting out of the car and sighed sincerely.
"Wow, terrorists, international arms dealers, why do you always run into such big cases, Jack."
Jack sighed helplessly, "I don't know, maybe it has something to do with the fact that I know too many friends and they are too powerful." After he said that, he took out his mobile phone and took a photo of the document to Jubal.
"What should we do next?" Negley started the car, looked at Reacher in the passenger seat, and then looked at Jack sitting in the back, "Are you FBI ready to intervene?"
"We have been intervening." Jack rubbed his temples with a headache, and quickly went over the information he had in his mind.
If we draw a timeline, Franz, who died first, was a private detective serving Wall Street people, and Sanchez and Orozco lived in New Jersey next door. They were involved in this matter just to help their friends, but they were also killed in the same tragic way.
Given that they were investigating a mysterious arms dealer who served a terrorist organization, at least this line made sense for now. So what about Swan's death or disappearance? Did Franz ask him for help?
At this time, Jack's phone rang. It was Jiejie who said that there were suspicious people near Franz's house again, suspected of tracking and monitoring.
He first called Clay and Aubrey who had been on standby at the Federal Building and asked them to investigate Swan's whereabouts with Danny, and then spoke.
"Someone will contact DHS about Azari Mahmoud's identity, and someone has been arranged to secretly investigate Swan's whereabouts. As for the two of you, are you interested in fishing with me?"