Michelle smiled. “That one was free of charge.”
An hour later Sean and Michelle were sitting in front of a bank of computer screens.
“Which airport first?” said Michelle.
“Let’s dial up Dulles. It’s closest. And Reagan doesn’t handle international flights from the places Wingo would be coming from.”
Six hours and three cups of coffee each later they sat back looking defeated.
Michelle said, “Without facial recognition software this is going to take forever. There are just too many faces to do manually.”
Sean nodded in agreement, thinking hard.
“Let’s focus on cargo. Even with his new look I don’t think Wingo would chance flying commercial.”
They dialed up that segment of the footage.
They started watching when Sean realized something. “This footage is probably too recent. Wingo was probably already back in the country by then.”
Michelle grabbed his arm. “Wait. Check out the car.”
Sean sat back and focused on a car that was parked outside one of the cargo terminals. “That’s Wingo,” exclaimed Sean.
“And it looks like he’s watching someone. Can you adjust the angle?”
Sean hit some keys and the screen changed to show Wingo’s sight lines. A man was coming out of a building. He got into a car and drove off. Sean hit some more keys and they watched as Wingo pulled onto the road and started following the other man’s car.
“He’s tailing the guy,” observed Sean.
Michelle was typing in something in her phone. “License plate of both cars,” she explained.
Sean nodded while he again changed the footage angle. “Heron Air Service,” he said, reading the sign on the side of the building from where the man had come.
Michelle saw this and hit some more keys on her phone. “You think that’s the folks he rode back in on? I just Googled them. Among other things they run an international cargo service.”
“But if he’d gotten a ride with them, why tail them?”
“That’s true.”
“Maybe he was running down a lead on the money,” said Sean. “Maybe Heron had something to do with transporting the billion euros.”
“We need to run down the same lead then. How do you want to go about it?”
“Deceit and lies, the usual template,” replied Sean.
“I could go on bended knee to Edgar and see if he can run these plates for us.”
“Good idea. And I’ll find out all I can on Heron Air Service.”
“And the Feds?” asked Michelle.
“We tell them we found nothing on the footage and we eat our humble pie.”
“Not in a trusting mood?”
“I haven’t been in a trusting mood for twenty-five years.” He leaned back in his chair. “But we have to keep in mind that those guys followed us to Wingo, Michelle. They’re still gunning for us. Which means we have to take evasive action.”
“Tough to do while we’re investigating this,” she noted.