Family Ties (John Taylor #5) - Chapter 9

The next morning Taylor and Whitaker both seemed to subconsciously need to constantly touch each other. Passing each other in the small motel room, they repeatedly reached to make physical contact. A slight caress of the back or brief hand hold seemed to reinforce they were really together again, even if their underlying problems hadn’t been solved.

Since both of them only had the things they’d been carrying when they went on the run, it didn’t actually take all that much time to get ready. Neither had a lot of cash on them and they couldn’t use credit cards since Graf would almost certainly have flagged those by now. Taylor had already pulled the battery out of his cell phone, but thankfully Whitaker had a burner she’d picked up. Overall, their supply situation was severely lacking.

“Where’d the bike come from?” Taylor said as he worked through the things that, if used, could come back and haunt them.

“It was Grace’s. Actually, it was an old boyfriend of hers who left it behind when they broke up. She’d just kept it in case he ever came back for it.”

“So, it’s in his name?”

“Yea. Unless Graf is really thorough, I don’t think he’ll be able to trace it.”

“Graf seems pretty thorough. He might figure it out and put a BOLO out for it.”

“So, we need to dump it?”

“Maybe not. Let's go see my friend, he might be able to help us out.”

She gave Taylor a peck on the cheek before sliding on the bike helmet. Taylor thought briefly that he needed to get one too. Not just to make sure his brain stayed in his skull if they wrecked, but also because it was an excellent way to keep himself anonymous as they drove around town.

Any APB on them would include their descriptions and the fact that it was a man and a woman last seen on a motorcycle. The last part wouldn’t mean much if he was wearing a helmet, since there were a fair number of motorcycles in the city, and many of them had a male and female rider.

Although the trip to Bryant’s shop didn’t take long it was nerve-wracking as they looked for any sign of police. Whitaker let Taylor drive since he had more experience on a motorcycle, but she was still the one wearing a helmet since it didn’t fit Taylor.

It was still early when they arrived at the shop, just a few minutes till it was supposed to open. Thankfully, Bryant was there and the only one inside when Taylor and Whitaker walked in.

“You really turned everything to shit, didn’t you?” Bryant said as soon as he saw Taylor.

“Things went sideways, yeah.”

“What happened?”

“The cop I was working with turned out to be dirty. He told me those guys you checked on were just basic street thugs, and they were just looking to rob us. He got the drop on me as soon as I got off the phone with you. Thankfully, that was the moment Whitaker decided to show up.”

Taylor tilted his head in Whitaker’s direction to indicate her.

“So, you’re the lady behind all the trouble?”

“Something like that,” she said as she looked around the repair shop.

“We could use some help,” Taylor said.

“No, kidding. What, you need to get out of town?”

“No, we’re going to find out who killed her aunt and get the evidence to prove we’re innocent.”

“You realize there are warrants for the attempted murder of a police officer out for the both of you, right? Any cop that finds you isn’t going to be gentle and will probably err on the side of lethal force if you give them the chance.”

“We realize that, but we can’t just run. Even if we convince the US authorities that we’re innocent and not to extradite us, Whitaker’s career would be finished.”

“Let’s not forget the minor detail of making sure the person who actually killed Frieda gets brought to Justice,” Whitaker said, picking up a broken radio and looking it over.

“That too, I guess,” Taylor said.

“Okay. Well, you’re here. What do you need from me?”

“Partially, we’ve already gotten it. I assumed Graf would do something like this, but I wanted to make sure.”

“I can do some more checking if you give me a few minutes.”

They waited, poking around the shop as Bryant did his digging, logging into different databases he apparently had access to. Most were in German, which made sense, so Taylor didn’t know what he was actually doing. 

Eventually, Bryant pushed away from his computer and said, “Aside from the warrant, they’ve put out notices to the airports, ports, bus and train stations. You’ve both been called ‘armed and dangerous.’ I give it until tonight till your faces start popping up on news broadcasts.”

“Shit, that’ll make everything harder.”

“I imagine. She’s got the right idea,” Bryant said, pointing at the helmet in Whitaker’s hand.

“Yeah, but we only have the one.”

“I have one that should fit you, plus a riding jacket. Keep it on as much as you can, and you should be okay. It’s not that uncommon to see people walking around with their helmets on if they’re not too far from their bike.”

“Thanks, I owe you.”

“You sure as hell do,” Bryant said as he headed to retrieve the helmet and jacket.

Taylor and Whitaker didn’t stick around long. They both wanted to be in a position to grab the building manager as soon as possible. The longer they were out in public, the more dangerous it got. Especially if Bryant was right and their faces would soon show up on people's TVs. Considering they were wanted for trying to kill Graf, the news getting interested seemed to be a no brainer.

There was a small park across from Frieda’s apartment building with a handful of benches. They parked on the other side of the park from the building just so they weren’t sitting directly in front of it, starring and sat on a bench with the most unobstructed view.

The key to a stakeout is one person is always focused on the target. This sounds easy enough for most people, but the act of just staying at one space for long periods is both tedious and exhausting. Things can happen fast, so the person watching the target can’t look away to read or do something else, intermittently watching. It requires the watchers' complete attention. The real hard part, though, is keeping your mind from wandering. Taylor knew some law enforcement listened to music or audiobooks while on a stakeout, but he’d found that it made his mind wandering worse.

The focus and monotony is why it’s usually best to have two people on a stakeout. Besides being available to give the other person a chance to use the restroom, the watchers could switch out frequently, resting their eyes and resting for the next go.

Even with a partner, though, Taylor hated it. More so now that he was with Whitaker. There was a tension that still hung in the air between them, despite their reconciliation the night before. They’d forgiven each other and even bent to try and see the other side, but the issue wasn’t resolved. He still believed he’d done the right thing, and she still believed he hadn’t. That wasn’t something that was going to change, but it was something they were going to need to deal with.

Ever since they’d started working together, it had been a problem looming in the background, waiting to rear its head. Taylor was pretty sure that, if they didn’t deal with it, then they wouldn’t last. The hard part was, he wasn’t sure what the compromise was. While he and Whitaker got along well, this would always be an area they completely disagreed on, and one they both thought was critical.

He knew Whitaker could feel the tension too, but he also knew that she was too professional to let something like that interfere with what they needed to do. So for now, it would just be sitting there, hanging above their heads, waiting.

It turned out they didn’t have to wait too long for the manager to show, at least as far as stakeouts go. After three hours of sitting on the hard park bench, Whitaker spotted the man leaving the front door of the building, walking away from it to the west.

Taylor hadn’t met him, but Whitaker had, and her description turned out to be really accurate. He was middle-aged, probably in his late forties, rotund with thinning black hair. Large glasses sat somewhat crookedly on his face as he walked down the sidewalk away from them.

Taylor and Whitaker got up at the same time, moving in opposite directions. This part they had discussed extensively the night before and again this morning. The hardest part of this would be actually making the snatch. If they had a car, it wouldn’t have been so bad. They could have just pulled alongside him and pushed him into the back seat. Taylor had been involved in a few snatches over the years when he was in the service, and it was always surprising how fast it could happen.

On a motorcycle, though, they didn’t have that choice. The area wasn’t particularly busy, but it also wasn’t empty. It was broad daylight, which meant that no matter what they did, they’d be visible. They’d eventually settled on the plan that Taylor would follow him on foot, and Whitaker would follow further behind on the motorcycle, ready to swoop in and retrieve Taylor if things went sideways.

Taylor fell in step behind the man, about twenty or so feet back. This section of Berlin wasn’t like Manhattan, with its near-constant wall of people, but it wasn’t empty either. There were maybe a dozen people on their side of the street that Taylor could see. He’d timed it so that there were two other pedestrians between them, making it less obvious that Taylor was following the man.

The hardest part in tailing someone is watching them while not being obvious about it. You didn’t want to be caught staring at your target for long stretches or running into objects because you were too focused on who you were following.

On the flip side, you didn’t want to be obviously not looking at your target either. Furtive movements looking this way, and that would also make the tail stand out. The key was looking bored. Most people do not enjoy trudging along the sidewalk on a warm summer morning, seeing it at best as a tedious activity required to get from point A to point B.

Taylor was doing more than observing his target, though. He was looking for a place where he and the manager could have a quiet conversation. The volume of people wasn’t the only way this section of Berlin differed from Manhattan. There wasn’t long rows of buildings with the occasional alley. There were gaps between the buildings, but the gaps were larger and more obvious than the dark alley’s someone might imagine with picturing an urban metropolis. These areas were too open to be secluded, but narrow enough to make it strange that two pedestrians would turn and walk down one.

The habits Taylor once formed in the service helped him once again. The Special Forces made it a point that planning was the single most important part of any operation. They were trained to game out every situation and make a plan for as many contingencies as they could find, leaving as little to chance as possible. Taylor and Whitaker had scouted out the area before stopping to watch the apartment building, finding spots where they could grab the manager in all directions he might go. They’d also discussed options if he’d left the apartment complex by car, along with what they were going to do once they had him detained.

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 away.

The hope was that Whitaker could be charming enough to distract the man long enough so he wouldn’t notice how nervous the manager was. Luckily for them, her charms worked, and a handful of minutes later, the trio were seated around a single computer, with the manager in the middle, in front of the keyboard.

“We need you to log into the system where the security videos are stored. We want a copy of the video for that entire day.”

“Which day.”

Taylor just looked at the man, whose brain finally kicked in.

“Ohh, that day.”

The manager logged into a website and started to navigate around. There was a hundred or so videos stored. From the dates, it seemed like they held only videos for thirty days, which meant a few more weeks, and the evidence would have been destroyed. Of course, Graf could say he preserved the video, since he had just the section of the video that Whitaker was on. Still, Taylor was confident something had been at least trimmed if not edited outright from the video.

“How do you want to get it?”

Taylor opened his mouth and then closed it. He couldn’t just email it to himself. One, the file was relatively large, and two, they needed a better way to transport the file.

“Luddite,” Whitaker said to Taylor over the manager’s head before reaching into a pocket and pulling out a small flash drive.

Taylor kicked himself for not considering this ahead of time. That was the way things went, for everything you planned ahead of time, there were always a few things you’d miss. This, however, was a fairly critical part of the plan that existed in nearly every scenario, and Taylor hadn’t considered the need to actually have something to save the files to.

He also took a moment to wonder why Whitaker just happened to have that on her, but let it pass as the manager took it and inserted it into the computer. It took a few minutes to download and save the file to the drive. Even with high-speed internet, the file was large and took time to download.

It took every ounce of willpower in Taylor’s body to keep from looking around to see if anyone had recognized them, since that was a sure fire way to get people to start paying attention to him if they hadn’t already. Instead, he just focused on the small loading bar indicating if the file had been fully downloaded to the flash drive.

Finally, it finished, and Whitaker pulled it out, capping the flash drive and sliding it into her pocket.

“Just sit here and keep facing the computer. Don’t look around or do anything to indicate there’s a problem. Once we’re gone, you can go back to your life like none of this happened. Just check your email or something and be calm,” Taylor said as he stood up and leaned over the manager’s shoulder.

Although he didn’t turn his head, Taylor could see the man’s eyes darting around as he nodded.

Whitaker and Taylor backed away from the workstation and headed for the front door. Taylor was just starting to reach for the door handle when it pulled open. On the other side of the door stood a police officer. His face went from mild surprise, the kind most people feel when they open a door and there’s a person just on the other side blocking their path, to recognition.

Behind them, Taylor heard the manager shout in German. Taylor didn’t have to guess what he was saying. The officer’s hand started to go for his belt when Taylor began moving. He’d been holding the motorcycle helmet in his left hand when he’d gone for the door, and he’d also started to move it up as soon as he’d seen the officer.

Placing his right hand on the opposite side of the bottom rim of the helmet, to ensure he had a secure grip, he smashed it into the officer’s chest, lunging forward as he did. The officer was wearing a vest which blunted some of the impact, but the force and the fact that the officer wasn't prepared - were enough to send the man sprawling onto the cement, hard.

Taylor and Whitaker vaulted over the stunned man’s body and dashed for the bike. As soon as he felt Whitaker's arms snake around his middle, Taylor twisted the throttle, causing the bike to jump away from the curb.

Even though his helmet, he heard the crack of a gunshot. The rear window of a parked car they were weaving around exploded. Taylor and Whitaker tore down the street, away from the cyber cafe. In the distance, he could hear a police siren come to life.

Taylor could only hope the sound was just a coincidence.