Livewire

Chapter 37

The sun had barely risen by the time they were on their flight back to Veracruz. The morning was still fresh when they landed and the heat of the day was just setting in when they reached Emilio's boat shed. The other would be arriving soon and giving over their collected intel from the day before.

Leon was the first to arrive, in what looked like a television broadcasting van. Marta was with him. He stepped out of the driver's door and opened the sliding door on the side. Inside Kyle could see an array of electronic devices.

"That's some impressive kit."

"Ha, yeah. I can do most of what I need with just a computer, the rest of that means I can do it anywhere in the world. Plus some spare stuff for those really obscure jobs on old or rare systems."

Jorge arrived next in a pickup truck, with Felipe sitting in the front seats next to him.

He waved to them. "Hola Jorge, Felipe. Now that we're all here, let's head inside."

He led them down the side of the boat shed and through the double doors. No one said a word about the police tape, they each just ducked under it one by one.

Kyle grabbed a box from the side, with the map from the previous heist, then spread the map out, placing on top of the box.

"Let's start with Aguila Logistica. What did you find out?"

Marta pointed to the map. "We watched the main compound for most of the day. A lot of coming and going of trucks, with no real indication of what is what. Leon managed to get into the system and could trace the contents. The gold arrived in the morning and is being shipped to the refinery tomorrow. There is another truck due to head out and pick it up in two days time."

"Thanks Marta. What about the refinery then?"

Felipe stepped up to the map next. "The refinery is guarded constantly by twelve cartel men, armed with submachine guns. They change shifts three times a day. We saw the truck arrive. It was driven into a building and unloaded inside. We couldn't get any view of it happening, but the truck left not long after, unladen. The refinery is state owned and smelts more than gold. From what we could tell it's just sitting there waiting for it's turn."

"That ties up with what you said, Marta. So we somehow need to intercept it when it leaves the refinery. Any ideas?"

"Si," said Jorge. "We need to get ourselves a truck, mark it up in the Aguila Logistica colours, pick up the gold from the refinery and drive out. They don't check the truck."

"It won't be that easy," said Leon. "Those trucks have trackers. They will know it's the right truck."

Kyle leaned in over the map. "Ok, building on Jorge's idea. If we can infiltrate Aguila Logistica, drive the official truck in and out, then offload onto a second truck. The container still gets to the port and Connor won't know anything until it arrives back in the US. By that time, we'll have sold off all the gold. Any thoughts?"

Jorge scratched his chin. "There's a lot of gold to shift. I can imagine it'll be loaded onto pallets in the container. That's no small effort to shift from one truck to the next. If the truck is tracked, it's gonna look very suspicious if it stops for that long."

Kyle rubbed the back of his head. "That will make it harder. The quickest way would be to lift the container, like we did with the train."

"Yeah but, we'd need to get an identical container. And who's to say there isn't a tracker in the container. It's high value cargo."

"So our only option is to stop and unload. How long would we have before it looks suspicious?"

"Not long enough I'd wager."

Leon cleared his throat. "You're overlooking something quite simple."

All eyes turned to him.

"These trackers aren't like airplane GPS. It's a little transmitter that sends out a ping, which gets picked up by a receiver and recognises the code. We can easily jam the signal on the truck, then spoof it on another moving vehicle. Then you've got as long as you need to unload the truck. As soon as we're done, catch up to the other vehicle and we simply switch off the spoof ping and stop jamming the truck."

Could it really be that simple? Leon knew what he was doing with tech, so Kyle had to trust his judgement.

"That could work. Marta, you can ride my Harley with the spoof signal."

Her mouth gaped. "Are you sure?"

He nodded with pursed lips. "I think I can trust you with her."

"I promise to take good care of her."

"Right then, we're gonna need some kit to pull this off. Jorge, can you secure a truck to load the gold into? And Felipe, we'll need a forklift."

They both nodded.

"Marta, we'll need a hand gun each, again only as a precaution. Can you get hold of some?"

"Si. I have a contact."

"There isn't much time before the gold leaves, so we'll strike tomorrow night. Leon, you'll need to get Me and Jorge on the system to drive the truck from the Aguila Logistica compound." His finger traced over the map. "This will be our route from the refinery to the port. Felipe and Jorge, find a good spot to make the transfer and get the truck and forklift parked up."

He waited for their nods. "Step one, Jorge and I will get on the Aguila truck and drive to the refinery. Once the gold is loaded we'll get on the road and stop next to the waiting truck. Leon will spoof the signal and Marta will drive off down the road. Jorge will man the forklift and the rest of us will assist on each truck. As soon as the switch is complete, Felipe will drive one truck to make the swap with the buyer. Jorge and I will take the other and make the drop at the port and return the truck to the compound. Any issues?"

Everyone seemed content. "Great. Once the payment has gone through, Leon will erase all traces of Mayfly metals and we go our separate ways. Let's get the equipment and meet back here at 2100 tomorrow."

More nods all round then they all filed out of the boat shed, back under the police tape. It was just Kyle and Trudie left behind.

She smiled and gazed into his eyes. "You never cease to impress me."

"Thanks, but we're not done yet. We've got our escape to plan yet."

She leaned against him, wrapping her arms tight around his waist. "I'm sure you've got that up in your head too."

She wasn't wrong, but there was a lot he needed in place to make sure they pulled it off too. That was almost as important as the heist.