Recker arrived at the apartment complex, not even bothering to head back to the office first. Jones did a basic search on their new suspect, but got nothing out of it. They determined the man was using an alias, as they couldn’t pin down any information on him. They couldn’t figure out his work history, and his name didn’t get any hits.
Malloy was already in the parking lot with two of his men by the time Recker got there. They met up at an adjacent building. These apartments had the shared hallways, so it wasn’t possible to have eyes on that specific apartment, unless someone was standing in the hallway, or just outside the door.
“What are we looking at?” Recker asked.
“Should still be in there,” Malloy replied. He then pointed to a nearby car. “His car is right over there. My guys say he hasn’t been out so far today. What’d Jones come up with?”
“Nothing. Pretty sure the name’s a fake. David was able to get into the records from the office and looked at his application. He did some digging. Didn’t seem to match up.”
“So the guy’s hiding something.”
“Seems like it,” Recker said. “Question is whether it’s the stuff we’re looking for or something else?”
“Let’s go see.”
The group of four went over to the building the man was staying in, and walked in. Recker and Malloy chose the stairs, while the other two took the elevator, just to make sure they had all their bases covered and the man didn’t duck out on them. The apartment they were looking for was on the third floor.
By the time Recker and Malloy reached the floor, the elevator doors opened, and the four men walked over to apartment 404. Malloy took the lead and knocked on the door, rather forcefully.
“Maintenance.”
There was no response at first. That didn’t dissuade them. Malloy knocked on the door again, a little harder this time.
“Maintenance! We’ve gotta check the vents. Heater’s acting up again.”
They finally heard someone coming. Heavy footsteps. Probably annoyed at having to answer the door. They heard the chain come off the door, then the door unlocked. When it finally opened, a man stood there, looking perturbed.
“What’s this about?”
Malloy didn’t waste any time, or mince words. He barged right in and gave the man a shove on his chest to back him up. Recker and the two other men followed Malloy inside.
“What’s going on?! You can’t just do this?!”
“We can, and we did,” Malloy replied.
“Get out of here!”
“Can’t do that, bub.”
Malloy motioned for his men to stay with the guy while he started checking out the rest of the apartment. He first started with the bedroom.
“Hey, you can’t go in there!”
The man started going towards Malloy, but the two other men prevented him from getting too far. Recker joined Malloy as he walked into the bedroom. It was only a one-bedroom apartment, so there wasn’t too much to check out.
They walked into the bedroom and immediately saw the massive amount of computer equipment. There were eight laptops, two desktops, and two monitors. They went over to them, as all of the computers were still on, to see what was on them. But they didn’t get far. All of them needed a password or touch ID with a fingerprint to get in. Recker and Malloy walked right back out of the bedroom to question the man.
“What’s all that about in there?” Recker asked.
“I’m not saying anything without my lawyer.”
“We’re not cops. You don’t get a lawyer.”
“Who are you guys, then?”
“We’re just concerned citizens acting on a tip.”
“I’m not saying anything.”
Malloy motioned for his men to grab each of the man’s arms. Once they did, the man immediately started squirming, trying to free himself. It was no use, though. He wasn’t getting anywhere. Malloy slowly walked over to the man in an intimidating fashion, and an angry scowl on his face. Malloy grabbed the man’s face, holding both sides of his jaw.
“Do I look like the type of guy who plays games?”
The man couldn’t speak with his jaw being held, but shook his head.
“Good,” Malloy said. “You’re not a complete idiot. Tell me what you’re doing here.”
The man shook his head again. That wasn’t what Malloy wanted to see. He instantly reached for his gun, and put it right in front of the man’s face to show him he had it.
“See this? I don’t mind using it. In fact, I rather like using it. I’ll go one further. I’ll probably even like using it on you.”
Recker stood back and watched the proceedings. Malloy usually was a little rougher than he preferred, but he couldn’t argue with the results the man usually got. And with what they were dealing with, the severity of it, Recker wasn’t about to get in the way.
Malloy took his hand off the man’s jaw. “Now, would you like to tell me what’s going on here?”
Even though the man could open his mouth again, he still didn’t say anything. He simply shook his head again. That was enough to enrage Malloy. He grabbed the man’s jaw again, opening his mouth, then he shoved his gun in it.
“What do you think is happening here?!” Malloy screamed. “You’re not in a position to bargain. And you’re not leaving here in one piece unless you tell us what you’re doing here. So you’ve got two options. One, you tell us who you are and what you’re doing here. Two, you remain silent. In that case, I’m gonna blow a hole through the back of your throat in about five seconds.”
Recker wasn’t sure whether Malloy was actually going to go through with it, but he didn’t find Malloy to be a man who bluffed very often. Whenever he said something, he usually meant it. And he usually did it. He didn’t say things just to say them.
Malloy started counting. He got to four before the man seemed like he finally wanted to talk. Though it was tough for him to move with the barrel of a gun in his mouth, the man mumbled, and appeared to be nodding his head like he wanted to say something. Malloy slowly removed the gun from the man’s mouth.
“Something you wanna tell us?” Malloy said.
“OK, I’ll talk.
“Who are you?” Recker asked. “And you better tell us the right name. We know it’s not what you put on your application.”
“It’s Bill. Bill Majero.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I don’t really know.”
“What?”
“I don’t really know what I’m doing.”
Malloy didn’t like the answer and put the gun back in the man’s face. He was close to putting it back in Majero’s mouth.
“No, no, wait,” Majero said. “I’m not lying. It’s…” He turned his head to prevent the gun from being placed in his mouth again.
“Jimmy,” Recker said, moving closer, and putting his hand on Malloy’s arm to stop him from doing his thing again. “What’s with all the computers in there?”
“It’s just busy work.”
“Come again?”
“Look, some guy hired me about a month ago. Asked if I wanted to make some easy money. He said all I had to do was come here, work on these computers, and keep my mouth shut.”
“Who was this guy?”
“I don’t know. He had on a hat, and glasses, and a big coat. Met him at a cafe.”
“How much money are you getting?” Recker asked.
“Twenty-thousand.”
“For just sitting here?” Malloy asked. “Those computers are just collecting dust?”
“No. Every day, he’d send over an email with a bunch of attachments. They were instructions for what he wanted me to work on that day. It was a few hours’ worth of work, but pretty easy.”
“What kind of work?”
“Just looking up information on people. Then I’d find out what he wanted, and send the information back to him.”
“Who’s this guy?” Recker asked.
“Said his name was Fred.”
Recker gave him a look, knowing full well that it wasn’t the guy’s name.
“OK, so I didn’t believe that was his name either,” Majero said. “But he gave me five thousand up front, so who was I to ask questions?”
“Didn’t care if it was illegal or not?”
“Look, man, before this, I hadn’t worked in nine months. Money’s money right now. You know?”
“Yeah. I know.”
“Show us the information you were looking up,” Malloy said. He motioned to his men to let go of Majero’s arms. “Do anything dumb or stupid, and you’re gonna wind up just as dead as if I put this gun back in your mouth.”
“I understand.”
Malloy led the man back into the bedroom, while Recker and the other two men followed them. Malloy put his arm out.
“Show us.”
Majero went over to the table and sat down in front of one of the computers. He used the touch ID. He started typing, but it became clear very quickly that something was wrong. His face gave it away.
“What’s the matter?” Recker asked.
“I don’t know. Nothing’s coming up.”
“What do you mean? Why not?”
Majero vociferously shook his head, like he was starting to panic. “I don’t know. Nothing’s there.”
“Where’d it go?!” Malloy asked, anger in his voice.
“It should be here! It was just here before you got here!” Majero moved to another computer, but it was the same story. “I don’t understand.”
“Do you have some kind of remote connection to these computers from somewhere else?” Recker asked.
“I don’t think so.”
Recker started looking around. He thought he knew what was happening. Somehow, the brains behind this outfit knew they were there. Right now. He either had a camera planted inside the apartment, or someone watching on the outside, or maybe another listening device, but somehow, this person knew they were there.
“He knows we’re here,” Recker said. “He’s erasing the stuff on the computers remotely.”
“How would he know we’re here?” Malloy asked.
Recker shrugged. “He’s got eyes somewhere.”
“You have a camera planted in here?”
“No,” Majero replied.
“He’s watching,” Recker said. “He’s gotta be. He knew we were here, and he knew this guy was about to show us what was on those computers. He’s erasing the evidence.”
Malloy looked over at Majero. “Well we still got him.”
Recker stared at Majero for a moment. He thought back to the last guy that was used in this plot. Isengard didn’t make it out alive. Recker’s eyes then glanced at the window. Majero was right near it. Recker was suddenly alarmed as a little red dot formed on Majero’s forehead.
“Get down!” Recker screamed. He started to make a beeline for the man to get him out of the line of fire.
Majero turned his head to look and see what Recker was referring to. Moments later, the window shattered, and a bullet went right through the side of Majero’s head. He instantly fell off his chair. Recker stopped midstream and dropped to the floor, as Malloy and the others did, as well.
“There’s a damn sniper out there,” Malloy said.
Recker looked over at Majero’s lifeless body. “Yeah.”
“We were being watched.”
“The guy erased the computers, then he erased Majero. He didn’t want us finding out anything.”
“Let’s get out of here,” Malloy said.
They were about to start crawling on the floor to get to the living room. Once there, they thought they could get out of the apartment safely. Just as they began to crawl, a phone started ringing. Recker and Malloy each looked at each other.
“It’s not mine,” Malloy said.
Recker checked his. “Not mine either.”
The phone continued to ring. They looked around the room and saw that Majero’s phone was partly showing, halfway out of the pocket of his pants.
“That can’t be good,” Malloy said.
“Doesn’t seem like it.”
“It’s just like the movies. Whenever something like this happens, and then the phone rings, something bad happens.”
“I think something bad already happened,” Recker said.
“Yeah. But I have a feeling this is about to go from bad to worse.”
Recker sighed as he looked at the phone. He couldn’t disagree. Things were about to get a lot worse.