Chapter 936: Early signs
In addition to high-rise buildings made of reinforced concrete, the most common type of buildings in New York are brownstones. The so-called brownstones are actually red bricks, also known as slab bricks or eighty-five bricks in China. It is a must-have artifact for killing people and selling goods when traveling at home.
Later, with the economic development, red bricks turned into green bricks, and later, for environmental protection, they turned into cement bricks made of fly ash and cinder. Red bricks need to be fired with clay and Instead, blue bricks became rare.
If you build a house and are reluctant to put plaster on the walls and leave the red brick walls exposed, it will become the brownstone style architecture that became popular around the world with the industrial revolution in modern times and become a building that can impress countless people. High-end architectural art that moved petty bourgeoisie to tears.
For some well-known reasons, these red brick houses left over from the last century or even the last century have become the most comfortable houses to live in around New York except for those skyscrapers.
"It seems that this Swann's income is quite good." Jack did not knock on the door, but just stopped and listened at the door for a while, shrugged his nose, and took out the lockpick tool directly, "There is a body inside."
Reacher and Nigli looked at each other in confusion. They smelled nothing.
However, the big man chose to trust Jack out of habit. He stood next to him and blocked him tightly to prevent people passing by from noticing and causing misunderstanding. He also put his hand on the Glock 20 behind his waist. .
With two soft "clicks", the upper and lower door locks were opened respectively. Jack pushed the door lightly, and the strong smell of corpses came out.
Leacheer and Niggly, who were standing behind him, took out their pistols and entered the house sideways in tacit agreement. After a search, they found the body of a golden retriever in the bathroom.
"The name on the collar is 'Max'. He must have died of thirst. He drank all the water in the toilet." Jack briefly inspected the dog corpse and turned to look at the big man.
Niggly on the side looked unbearable, "This way of death 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," Lei Che said with a livid face.
His words are obviously emotional. Neither Jack nor Nigley will take them seriously, but it is undeniable that this is a possibility, and as far as what is known so far, this The 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. There were no signs of intrusion. Judging from the placement of items in the room, Swann did not have any I will inform the CSI people to come over and confirm my plans for a long trip.”
When Jack finished the call, the three of them did not leave immediately, but waited in the driveway in front of the Swan house, because Stella said on the phone just now that their people had found important things from the ruins of Franz's office. clue.
"This is impossible. We have checked and it is impossible to miss any important clues." Reacher felt that his dignity as a special investigator had been challenged.
"CSI is the top criminal experiment in the country. I have cooperated with them many times. From the perspective of criminal investigation science, they are the real experts."
In Jack's previous life, The CSI Crime Laboratory only exists in movies and TV shows, but its prototype or part of its prototype actually originated from the FBI's Crime Laboratory, so bragging about it at the moment doesn't really boost others' ambitions.
"Thank you for your affirmation." Stella, who had just gotten out of the car, obviously heard Jack's praise, and her expression was somewhat complacent, but she couldn't help but be stunned when she saw the square chin exposed when he turned his head.
"It's just for convenience, let's go and talk in the car." Jack winked at her, gave her an explanation that was not an explanation, and then pointed to the Land Rover they drove.
Behind Stella, several technicians wearing protective clothing had already walked into Swan's house with tool boxes.
"Do you know anything about fax machines?" Stella's first question after getting in the car made everyone stunned.
Nigley smiled, "Are you talking about that magical little box that will spit out an A4 paper after a period of noise as long as there is a phone call?" "I I like your humor." Stella smiled back at her, "The fax machine also has built-in memory, and the new fax content will loop over the previous files.
The printer in Franz's office was smashed, but the flash memory inside was not damaged, and our technicians recovered several fax jobs before discovering this. ”
After that, she took out a printout, which was an official letter. To be precise, it was a reply letter from DHS (Department of Homeland Security).
The official letter did not contain much content. It roughly describes an arms broker who is suspected of providing arms and weapons to terrorist organizations, named Azari Mahmoud.
"Does this name look familiar? "Jack handed the printout to Rachel, who nodded slightly, "The abbreviation is also 'AM'. "
"What do you mean? "Seeing the two of them playing riddles, Stella and Nigli said in unison.
Jack briefly explained the two files on Franz's USB flash drive. The string of abbreviations in one of the files were all pseudonyms for "AM". Now the first mystery was finally revealed.
Following that, Reacher also read out the two lines of handwritten messages at the bottom of the document, "Mahamed may be the person we are looking for. He is like a ghost and we cannot find any photos of him. .
The signature is 'Sanchez'!"
Nigli 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 Swann?"
"I don't know, but we will find out," Reacher frowned and replied murderously.
"OK, I'll leave the rest to you Jack, I'll go and have a look at the house." Stella patted Jack's shoulder before getting out of the car and let out a heartfelt sigh.
"Wow, terrorists, international arms dealers, Jack, why do you always get into such big cases."
Jack sighed helplessly, "I don't know, maybe with I know too many friends and they are too powerful." After saying this, he took out his mobile phone and took a photo of the document to Jubal.
"What should we do next?" Niggly started the car, looked at Reacher in the passenger seat, and then at Jack sitting in the back, "Are you the FBI ready to intervene?"
"We have been intervening." Jack rubbed his temples with a headache and quickly went through the information he currently had in his mind.
If we draw a timeline, Franz, who died first, was a private detective serving Wall Street people, while Sanchez and Orozco lived in New Jersey next door. They should have been involved in this matter just to help their friends. He was busy, but the result was the same misfortune.
Given that they are investigating a mysterious arms dealer who serves a terrorist organization, at least this line makes sense for now. So what is the situation of Swann's death or disappearance? Did Franz also ask him for help?
At this time, Jack's cell phone rang. It was from Jiejie. She said that another suspicious person appeared near Franz's house and was suspected of being followed and monitored.
He first called Clay and Aubrey, who had been on standby at the Federal Building, and asked them to investigate Swann's whereabouts with Danny, and then he spoke.
"As for the identity of Azari Mahmoud, someone will contact DHS, and people will be arranged to secretly investigate Swann's whereabouts. As for you two, are you interested in fishing with me? ?”
(End of this chapter)