Geek Mafia by Rick Dakan (beach read txt) 📖

watching the storage locker,” Paul pointed out. “If it’s just the three or four of them working together, they couldn’t have the manpower.”

“If they didn’t before, they certainly do now. Since we beat up on Kurt he’ll have helped Raff win the whole crew over. And even if he didn’t bring them in, they’ve had plenty of time to get over there while we were dealing with Greg. No, there’s definitely somebody watching the building now.”

“So we just go in there and pretend to get the money? Again? We’re going to use the same plan twice?”

“No,” said Chloe, “This time it’s different. This time we don’t have any backup with baseball bats.”

“Oh, well, then everything should work out peachy.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve got a plan,” she turned and winked at him and grinned.

That wink had drawn him to her the day they met. It had pulled him into her world and trapped him there. It had a dozen different shades of meaning, from flirtation to warning. He’d seen every variation a hundred times since that first morning, but this was a new look. And suddenly he realized he knew her well enough to read its meaning without ever having seen it before.

“No you don’t,” Paul asserted.

The smile disappeared and she turned her head sharply back to the road. After a long while she said, “No. I don’t.”

The money’s actual hiding place was in the two storey Store-Rite building that had been built just four years earlier. It was a bitter orange and deep brown, with brightly lit picture windows breaking up the façade every twenty feet or so on the second floor. From the road you could see the steel doors of the storage lockers inside, illuminated under fluorescent lighting that left no room for shadows.

The main entrance faced a parking lot that abutted the road. Anyone with a locker had twenty-four hour access. All they had to do was use their key and six digit pass code to open the front door, sign in with the security guard on duty behind the desk, and then proceed to the locker and use the same key and pass code again to open the door, all while being recorded on the internal security cameras. Paul had given Greg his key and code, so they had no way of even getting inside, much less into the actual locker.

Chloe drove by the building twice in a five-minute period, scarcely slowing down on either occasion. There had been no cars in the parking lot or even parked within view of the building on either occasion. If Raff and his crew were watching, they weren’t out in the open. 

“They’ve got to have a hidden camera set up,” Chloe said. “They’ll be watching from somewhere out of sight but nearby, waiting for us to come in and make a move.”

“If they’re smart, they wouldn’t want to show themselves until after we went inside, or even until after we came out with the money, right?” Paul said.

“Exactly,” she said.  “Which means we have to find the camera and knock it out. Then they’ll be blind for a moment and they’ll have to show their hand in order to figure out what’s happening.”

The area around the target building had hundreds of places to hide a camera. Trees, doorways, roofs, windows, storm drains. If they started searching them all, they’d tip off whoever was watching. 

Chloe drove by the location one last time and then parked in an office building’s lot two blocks away. She reached into the back of the car and pulled out her laptop and fired it up. She then drew out a black box the size of a pager and plugged it into one of the ports. “The one advantage of being betrayed by your friends is that you still all use the same equipment,” she said.

“What’s that?”

“The camera, wherever it is, is almost definitely one of Bee’s. That means it’s got its own power source and it transmits whatever it’s recording wirelessly to a receiver. This,” she said, indicating the small black box, “Is one of Bee’s homemade receivers that I keep with my laptop. It’s also good for eavesdropping on cell phone calls, so it’s nice to have handy. I just have to find the right frequency and hope we’re close enough to pick up the signal.”

They both sat in silence and watched as Chloe tweaked with the display on her laptop. It automatically searched through the available frequencies and, after a few minutes, the screen lit up with a green-tinted night vision image of the storage facility front door.

“Sweet,” said Paul.

“Super sweet,” Chloe agreed. The image was from across the street and from a very low angle. “That’s got to be hidden in the storm drain there. Either that or on the underside of a car or something, but there weren’t any on the street.” They kept looking for another five minutes, but their scan didn’t pick up any more cameras that were broadcasting. 

“Just one?” Paul asked. 

“Looks like it,” Chloe replied. “They’re stretched thin as is and they’re in just as much of a rush as we are. Which is good, because it’s an easy approach to block that camera. We might just be able to pull this off.”

“Ok,” said Paul, “Greg will be here soon. Shall we?”

“Definitely. First, I need to get something from 7-11.” Chloe threw the car into gear and headed back towards the street and the waiting camera. 

CHAPTER 39

The car screeched to a halt at the side of the road, its right front tire directly in front of the storm drain. Paul leaned out the passenger side window and told Chloe to inch a foot forward just to be sure. He then looked down at the laptop screen and confirmed that the camera was completely blocked.

“Take the wheel and be ready,” Chloe said as she swung the door open and raced across the deserted street, her shoulder bag bouncing at her side. Paul moved into the driver’s seat and adjusted the mirrors so he could keep on eye out for the company they were expecting any minute. Chloe had guessed that whoever was watching would wait a minute or two and see if the obstruction cleared before sending someone to check it out in person. 

He watched as Chloe reached the front door and started pounding on the glass. A quick scan around the street showed no one else. So far, so good. Unfortunately, Chloe seemed to be having a hard time convincing the guard to let her in. On the other side of the glass door, he was motioning her to clear off and had even moved his hand to his belt, just a few inches from his gun. Chloe gestured with a sweeping arm back towards the road and then brandished her cell phone. She was claiming an emergency of some sort.

They kept talking through the glass but the guard refused to open the door. The conversation carried on for an infuriating two minutes and Paul started to shake his right leg in impatience. A pair of headlights appeared in the rearview mirror – a car pulling out from a side street about a block away. Paul tapped the horn lightly.

The security guard had given up and moved back to his desk where he picked up the phone. Ignoring him and the horn, Chloe tore open her shoulder bag and whipped out two large, brown paper shopping bags which they’d gotten at the 7-11 twenty minutes earlier. She opened these up and stood them on the ground in front of the door. The guard looked at her curiously, his hand actually seizing the handle of his gun. Chloe then took out a newspaper and started tearing out pages and crumpling them into balls.

Paul watched as the car behind him crept down the street at well under the speed limit. It wasn’t the Cadillac from earlier that evening, but that didn’t mean anything. With the headlights shining directly into his rear window, it was impossible for Paul to make out who was behind the wheel, or even how many people were in the vehicle. 

Back across the road, the security guard was yelling at Chloe from inside, while she finished stuffing balled up pieces of newspaper into the shopping bags. Both bags now looked full. Possibly even full of money if you didn’t know better. She slung her messenger bag over her shoulder again and took a shopping bag in each hand. She did a great job mimicking a weight that wasn’t there.

The car now pulled even with Paul, less than a foot to his left. He couldn’t help but look over. There were two people in the car, a man and a woman, neither of whom Paul recognized. From the passenger seat, the woman gave Paul a quick glance and a smile. The driver had his eyes fixed on Chloe across the street. He slowed his vehicle down even more, so that it was just barely cruising along at under 5 MPH. 

Across the street Chloe stopped in her tracks and stared at the new arrivals. She and the driver locked eyes briefly and then he hit the accelerator, moving down the street and turning right at the first cross street. Chloe sprinted forward. 

“Let’s go!” she shouted. Paul was already prepared to do just that. As soon as Chloe clambered into the back seat, he took his foot off the brake and pulled into the street, making a wide U-Turn and heading back down the road in the opposite direction from where the mystery car had gone.

“Who was that?” Paul asked as he headed for the nearest freeway entrance, less than a quarter mile away.

“I’m not sure, friend’s of Raff’s, maybe? Passersby? I didn’t recognize them.”

Paul saw a pair of headlights appear in his rearview mirror, then another one. “Two cars back there,” he said. 

“Just get to the highway and we’ll shake them,” she said.

“Looks like it worked,” Paul said. Both cars were pulling closer to them. “They think we’ve got the money. Why didn’t they try and grab you when you came out?”

“They probably didn’t think I’d be able to get in and out with the cash as fast as I did. Whoever those two were, they weren’t prepared to make a grab. Probably not muscle, just another set of eyes.”

“How many people do you think Raff’s brought in on this damn thing?”

“I guess it’s his mentor and his mentor’s crew. Raff may have scared my old crew off entirely, just to clear the field and cut off my support.” She was speaking fast and it took her a second to realize the full implications of what she’d just said. “Which means he might have been playing all of us from the beginning – not just you.”

“Well,” said Paul, “It’s nice to have company.”

They pulled onto highway 880 headed north and poured on the speed. Both the cars followed suit. Paul merged into the right hand lane. So did their new friends. They didn’t appear too concerned about hiding their presence. One of them moved into the middle lane and started to accelerate, trying to come even next to Paul.

As they picked up speed, Paul suddenly jerked his wheel to the right. They cut across a patch of striped asphalt, narrowly missing a concrete barrier. He hit the brakes as they went into a tight, banked curve, exiting the highway as quickly as they’d gotten on. 

Neither car reacted to the sudden change in time. The car in the middle lane shot north along the highway. The car still behind them hit its brakes hard, but