Luckily, the direction the manager had chosen was one of the better options Taylor and Whitaker had mapped out that morning. In between the wide-based office buildings, there was a wide-open section holding a bank with a drive-through and small parking lot. It was an hour after the bank would have opened, but not at lunchtime yet, so the bank parking lot wasn’t very busy. Most of the cars in the lot were parked away from the entrance, which probably meant it belonged to employees and not customers who could come out at any moment.
Taylor sped up his pace, passing the two pedestrians he’d arranged for cover, pasting a smile on his face as he caught up to the manager.
“Hey, long time no see,” Taylor said, still in a speaking voice but pitched up enough so the people around them could hear it.
Taylor matched the man's steps and threw his left arm over the manager's left shoulder in a one-armed hug. The man’s steps faltered as he tried to stop in surprise from the contact, only to be forced forward by Taylor, who continued walking, pulling the manager with him.
“Was…”
“I have a gun in my pocket. Keep walking, or I’ll leave your body here on the sidewalk,” Taylor said, much softer this time.
“Was wilst du?” the man said, starting to walk more regularly as his eyes filled with fear.
Taylor pulled the man into a turn as they crossed in front of the bank, directing the man into the parking lot. Pulling his arm off the manager's shoulder, he stopped in front of one of the parked cars and spun the manager around to face him.
“I know you speak English.”
“What do you want?” he asked in a heavy German accent.
“Your building has video cameras set up for security. Do you have access to the recordings from them?”
“What?”
“Focus,” Taylor said, grabbing the man’s shirt and pulling him slightly but forcefully. “You’re in more danger right now than you have been in your entire life. You need to answer my questions if you want to live.”
This wasn’t a hardened criminal or soldier. This guy had a job catering to the whims of wealthy residence and keep the high-end building running as best he could for the owners. He hired workman for any physical labor, spending most days sitting on his ass in a padded office chair. He wasn’t used to this kind of approach, and Taylor could feel the fear rolling off him.
Eyes widening, the manager said, “Yes.”
“Yes, you have access to the video recordings?”
“Yes,” he said, his voice trembling.
“Are they on physical media back at your building?”
“No, we upload them to the cloud.”
“Can you access them anywhere?”
“Yes.”
Taylor had already been reasonably sure that was going to be the answer. He already knew the files were digital, based on the quality. It seemed less likely a high-end building like this would have rows of hard drives storing a few days’ recordings and getting reused. The availability of cloud storage for security videos, its reasonable price, and the good track record for the technology made that the most likely option for the building's security setup. Especially when Taylor added in the fact that the building owners were not on-site and the technology would have allowed them to check up on their property without having to travel out to physically see it.
While he also had a contingency plan for getting the video from the manager’s office, he’d always considered that one of the less likely scenarios.
“There’s a small cyber cafe down the street. You and I are going to calmly walk over there and go inside. I’m not alone. If you run from me, I might not be the one to shoot you, but rest assured, you will not get far. Do you understand me?”
“Yes. Why....”
“No,” Taylor said, interrupting the man’s questions. “Look, I don’t want to hurt you. If you do everything I ask, this will be an exciting story you can tell your friends at dinner one day. I will, however, hurt you to get what I need. Make the right choices, cooperate, do what you’re told, and everyone will walk away from this.”
The man just nodded, beads of sweat breaking free.
Taylor put his left arm through the man’s right elbow and steered him out of the bank parking lot towards the cyber cafe he and Whitaker had scouted out previously. As he crossed the street, Whitaker pulled the bike up in front of the building, pulling off her helmet.
It wasn’t ideal for them to take off their helmets since their pictures had already shown up on a few morning news programs, but two customers still wearing their motorcycle helmets would draw too much attention once they went inside.
“You,” the manager said as they caught up to Whitaker, recognizing her.
While she might not have had a lot of dealings with the man, he would know who the woman accused of murdering one of his tenants was.
“Now you know how serious we are,” Taylor said. “Do what we ask, and you’ll be fine.”
The man paled visibly but nodded, his eyes fixed on Whitaker. Taylor steered the man by the elbow, smiling at the person who greeted them when they went in. Whitaker intercepted the greeter while Taylor maneuvered the manager a few steps
