As Ron Webster drove out through the business park’s entrance, he wasn’t the least bit happy with himself. As far as he’d been able to tell, there had been no video surveillance inside the building. That had been a huge relief. The folks at High Noon probably assumed that the metal shutters that turned the place into a fortress at night were sufficient protection against penetration from the outside. They were wrong there, of course.
He had worked quickly and efficiently, carefully wiping every surface he touched—including wiping off the visitor log as he signed out. That cleanup process had slowed him down a little, but he would have been fine if he hadn’t encountered a problem with one of his bugs.
The centerpiece of his surveillance system was the video camera he had planned to install in a light switch next to the main bank of computers in the lab area. The video-only camera would have offered an unobstructed view of everything going on in the lab with sound supplied by audio-only bugs installed there and in the other sections of the building.
Except, once he had the camera installed and wired in, the damned thing wouldn’t come online. Okay, so he was dealing with second-tier equipment here. He’d been a late-pay when it came to the last set of electronics he’d ordered, and the supplier he’d worked with before refused to extend credit. That meant he’d had to go shopping elsewhere. The new supplier claimed his equipment was just as good as the other guy’s, but if it wouldn’t work fresh out of the box, what the hell kind of quality control was that?
It ended up that he’d spent so much time fiddling trying to get the damned camera to work that he’d cut himself short when it came to installing the audio components. The job had only been about half done when the woman had marched into the lab and thrown him out. He’d been holding a screwdriver at the time. It would have been easy to take her out with the blade of that screwdriver, but that wouldn’t have been very subtle. Since the whole idea had been to get in and out without being noticed, leaving a dead body behind wasn’t an option.
So no, the video feed still wasn’t operational. He had managed to install working audio feeds in the newly remodeled space, in the computer lab, and in the main room of the studio apartment at the back. Unfortunately, the break room, the reception area, and the two offices down the hall remained completely bug-free.
Had Ron Webster been an honorable man, he might have seen fit to let the client know that he’d only done part of the job. The truth is, he was not an honorable man, and he figured what the client didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. When they called to complain, as they inevitably would, he’d tell them it was working fine when he left. Probably some kind of infant mortality issue. Those kinds of things happened with electronics all the time. Besides, by the time they figured it out, he’d have his money and they’d be out of luck.
Halfway through town he pulled over in the parking lot of a dead restaurant long enough to switch off the stolen plates and put the real ones back on his van. Then he shoved the other ones under the front passenger seat and continued on his way.
In case someone did examine the security footage, they’d know they needed to go looking for a white older-model Ford Transit Cargo Van, but they’d have no idea which Transit Van and there’d be no way to trace it back to him. Before he pulled back into traffic for the return trip to his home outside Marana, he sent Robby a short text.
Done. Dodged the exterior surveillance. None inside. What do you have for me next?