Hack nodded. “Yes.” He continued typing, bringing up different pages and images to illustrate his point. “Look, this is a two-floor building. The bottom floor is currently in operation, used as a manufacturing facility. The second floor is used for offices.”
“So?” Franks said. “What business is gonna let a guy like that come in and set up shop there?”
“One that he owns.”
“Say what now?”
“Mallette owns this building.”
“Come again? I thought we already figured out everything that was connected to him. We’ve already been down this road. We established there was nothing else out there associated with him.”
“That we knew of at the time,” Hack said. “Yes, it’s true, we’ve run these searches before, but I’ve diverged a little bit, played a couple hunches, and now I’m telling you this place belongs to him.”
“How are you coming to this assumption?” Jacobs asked.
“It’s not an assumption. I’m telling you, he’s there.”
“OK, let’s just say you’re right. How did you get to this?”
“Well, we’ve known all along that Mallette has had—and still has—aliases for various business purposes and other reasons.”
“Yeah?”
“And we ran down all of those that we knew of, which didn’t lead us anywhere. So I started playing a few hunches and started looking into businesses that were formed or incorporated in the year or two before he was sent to prison, figuring that maybe he was stashing things away for a rainy day. That way when he got out, if things didn’t go so well, he wasn’t left pinching for pennies.”
Jacobs waved his hand around in a circular motion. “We got all that. Get to the good part.”
Hack took a deep breath. “OK. I’ll spare you the long boring details of how I got there, but I uncovered a few names and businesses that I was able to definitely pinpoint back to Mallette.”
“How?” Franks asked.
Jacobs put his hand up, not really wanting to hear the details. At that point, he just wanted to know it was accurate. “Forget how. You’re positive?”
“Absolutely,” Hack replied. “A name that I can trace back to Mallette bought this business two years before he was sent to prison.”
“But how do you know he’s there now?” Franks said. “That’s what I want to know.”
“I’ve analyzed a lot of information about that building. Phone records, electricity records, computer IP information, and more, and I’m telling you, there is a lot of activity coming from that building long after the place closes.”
“But how do you know that’s just not normal operating activities?”
“The place closes at five. There is power consumption, IP activity, well after midnight on most occasions. And those occasions didn’t start until after Mallette was released.”
Jacobs cleared his throat. “So this activity you’re talking about… it wasn’t present before Mallette was released?”
“Right.”
“And now it’s like a hotbed?”
“Correct. I’m telling you, he is there.”
Jacobs nodded as he looked at Hack. He couldn’t remember Hack ever steering him wrong before. There were times when Hack may not have been sure about something, but whenever he guaranteed something, he was right on the money. Jacobs wasn’t about to doubt him now.
“I believe you.”
“Well, if he’s there, then what’s the plan?” Thrower asked.
“The only plan I’ve got at this point. Just finish it.”
Jacobs, Thrower, and Gunner were outside the manufacturing plant that they believed Mallette was using as a headquarters. They were kneeling near some bushes, figuring out their plan. They had each walked a portion of the perimeter and met back up. There were two security cameras mounted at the top of the fence in the corner, one pointed to their left, and the other pointed to their right. There were also several strands of barbed wire at the top of the fence. For now, they were safely out of range from the cameras.
“I think we’ve got the right place,” Thrower said. “There’s a ton of cameras around. Never seen so many on a regular business.”
Jacobs agreed. “Yeah, it does seem like a lot.”
“Two on every corner, plus the front and back gates, then who knows how many on the inside.”
“The middle of the fence is a blind spot, though. The fence is too long for each camera to see all the way down.”
“Unless they got another one pointed at the middle, out of sight.”
“Maybe. I think it’s worth chancing.”
“Fine with me. Lead the way.”
They went over to the middle of the fence, making sure they stayed out of the way of the cameras. They brought wire clippers with them to cut through the fence. They had no interest in climbing over the barbed wire. Plus, if they had to make a hot escape, it would be easier to go back through the hole than to climb back over. And Gunner didn’t enjoy climbing fences.
They quickly got through the fence, staying low to the ground. They didn’t see any guards around, though that didn’t mean there weren’t any. Especially with those cameras, they had to assume someone was watching.
They ran to the main building, seeing there were more cameras plastered on the corners of that building as well.
“I don’t see that many cars around,” Thrower said.
“Yeah, I noticed. Let’s keep going.”
They were near a window toward the middle of the building, and they figured that was as good a place to enter as any. Most people—and they assumed this was the case here—reinforced the doors and forgot about the windows. Thrower started smashing the window as Jacobs kept his eyes peeled for signs of trouble coming. Once Thrower had finished, he and Jacobs hoisted Gunner up through the window first. With Gunner inside, Jacobs and Thrower followed him in.
After taking a quick look around, they could see they were in the main part of the manufacturing business. They really had no interest in that and didn’t care to look around much at it. They were more concerned with finding Mallette, or at least where he set up shop.
“Gotta be the second floor,” Jacobs said.
They found the stairs, then slowly
