Chapter 5

“So how do we do this? Once the money shows up, everyone’s eyes are going to be on it and the general will have guards all over it. We can’t just wave our badges and walk in with the money. That’s the same as if we just told everyone it’s a trap.”

“I know. We need to game out how to secure it ahead of time and get everything we need in place before the money shows up. They won’t be paying attention to us moving in and out of empty warehouses and if we cover our tracks, they won’t put a money transshipment together with the warehouse we were touring.”

“They’d have to be dumb not to.”

“Yeah, but if we tour every warehouse on the base, even the ones too small for the shipment, and spend the same amount of time, roughly, at each, it’ll fall in with everything else they’ll convince themselves is a coincidence.”

“So we’re going to get tours of warehouses?”

“No, we’re going to inspect places where they’ve stolen supplies from before, and compare those with other warehouses, to try and find how they’re getting in and out. We’re also going to ask lots of questions about that to anyone who might be around the warehouse. Loudly ask questions.”

“I’m still not sold on this. It’s sketchy as hell. I wouldn’t in a million years convince myself that the Army just happened to need to ship their cash through this out-of-the-way fort because this was the only unit headed out this week.”

“No, but you’re also not a criminal who been stealing a few thousand in supplies here and a few thousand there, all with the risk of getting a decade in Leavenworth if you get caught. I promise you that they think of that every time they steal something, and doubly after the Army started sending waves of investigators at them. On top of that, they now have potential murder raps hanging over them, too. Now there’s a chance at one job that could get them out for good? No, they’ll take any explanation and convince themselves it’s worth chancing it. The ‘one last job’ stereotype in the movies, is a stereotype for a reason.”

“Maybe. Let’s just make sure if this doesn’t work, we at least get all that money back out again, or this’ll be our last job.”

The phone interrupted Whitaker from saying anything else. Taylor had actually expected the call sooner, but it might have taken time for the orders to bounce down the chain before it got to them

“The general wants to see us,” she said, hanging up.

The general was standing behind his desk, looking out at the base when they came inside. He waited to speak, however, until they were seated and his aide left, shutting the door behind himself.

“I just received the strangest orders,” The general said.

“You know the Army,” Taylor replied, “always keeping you on your toes.”

“True, although this time I think these orders might have more to do with the two of you and not the Army. It seems we are having a transshipment coming through here that we must send with the unit shipping out for Baghdad three days from now. I’ve been ordered to secure it and ensure it leaves for its destination on time, and that I will receive additional instructions from the FBI investigators currently on my base. So here I am, the commander of Fort Chilton, waiting for you to tell me what I need to do.”

To his credit, the general didn’t seem angry or annoyed. If anything, he seemed curious and possibly a little bit amused, which made sense to Taylor. Units coming through places like this might get new experiences designed to challenge them, but the staff that maintained and administered those challenges would start to see them as routine fairly quickly. Even the base commander would be happy for some new experiences, as long as it didn’t cause him to lose control of his base, that is.

“Sorry about going around you General, we needed to see if we could convince the Pentagon of our plan before we talked to you, and we needed to make sure this plan stayed between just the brass signing the orders and us. I think it’s possible that the previous investigations have been somehow compromised, since that’s the only thing that explains how easily they’ve managed to elude all five investigations. Especially the reappearing material, which doesn’t make sense at all unless they knew exactly what the investigators were looking for.”

“While I’m pretty sure the person you convinced was on Pennsylvania Avenue and not the Pentagon, I do appreciate the vote of confidence that I am not the source of the leak.”

“I think you’re safe, but if you are the leak, this will make it easy to work it out, since there are only seven people that know about this plan, including the president and us. It’s not that hard to track down where the leak is once we limit it down enough.”

“So this is set up to either be a trap for the thieves or a trap for the leak? Efficient.”

“I was proud of the idea. What we need from you is to follow the rules to the letter, except we need to know what warehouse it’s in. We’ll take it from there.”

“Can you tell me what you’re going to do to catch them in the act without losing any of this money? Because I’ll tell you now, if they do manage to get this money, I will not be the one on the chopping block.”

“Secretary Yohe already made it clear it was our asses on the line for this, but I’ll make sure you aren’t in the blast radius, sir.”

“See that you do. We currently have warehouse four open and it should be large enough for this.”

“Has anything else disappeared from warehouse four?”

“Something has disappeared from almost every warehouse on this base, sergeant, but yes, warehouse four has had items disappear from it.”

“Good, that’s what I needed to know. Don’t worry about us from here on out. Make sure it’s secured and do whatever it is you’d normally do in situations like this.”

“Situations like this aren’t ever normal here.”

“Well, what you might do in situations like this then. Your concern is just to get it in and out of the base safe and sound. We’ll take care of the rest.”

“Just see that you do, sergeant.”

Taylor gave a relaxed salute and got up from the chair, leading Whitaker back out to continue their plan.

Since warehouse four was one of the ones that had had break-ins, Taylor decided they didn’t need to visit every warehouse on base. Instead, they conducted thorough investigations of every warehouse where items had gone missing, looking at all the security features of those warehouses and talking to the men working in and around them about what they saw or heard on the days’ items went missing.

Taylor didn’t expect to learn anything new, since most of the other investigations had done the same thing, but he treated it seriously all the same. Partly, because even a small chance of getting new information from these guys was still something, and the one thing they were lowest on at the moment, was information. Mostly however, he wanted to be seen asking questions while going through these warehouses. He needed to give the black marketeers a plausible reason for writing off he and Whitaker’s poking around the warehouses. It might seem far-fetched for people who knew what they were actually up to, but Taylor thought it might be enough for them to convince themselves it was still okay to make a play at the money.

Taylor also made sure they spend the same amount of time in each warehouse, cleared of service personal for the sake of their ‘investigation’, so no one could see what they were actually doing. For most of those times, they just stood around chatting, mostly about the wedding, which Whitaker was starting to feel some pressure about. Taylor was sure that, no matter what, they’d at least end up with a preacher and enough witnesses to make it legal, and that was all that mattered to him. He understood the desire to make it the perfect memory, he just didn’t worry too much if it was or not.

The only warehouse where they didn’t do this was the one they knew the general was putting the money in. Forewarned, it gave them a chance to set up surveillance inside the warehouse. In this case, surveillance was dozens of very small cameras no larger than the palm of his hand that Taylor had had shipped over the evening before from Quantico. That was also why they’d left the real warehouse to third to last. It gave them enough time for the cameras to arrive, while still not standing out as unique from any of the others.

They placed the cameras all high up, tilted down, so that people working their normal shift or moving the money in wouldn’t notice the devices and remove them or, worse, start talking about them. There were some downsides to the positioning. For one, it put everything at a fairly steep angle. If the criminals were wearing caps, which was usually guaranteed for someone in uniform, that and the angle would obscure their view. Of course, the cover was supposed to be removed indoors, but Taylor assumed they’d keep the caps on specifically to help hide their identification.

The other issue was that the lighting this high up wasn’t good, since there was so much contrast between where it was and the rest of the room. Even if the lights were off and they switched to night vision on the cameras, there were going to be a lot of dark spaces where they couldn’t see. They also didn’t have a huge amount of time to place and test the positioning, since they needed to make the tour of the warehouse seem to be just a walk through inspection of the crime scene, and they were doing it in daylight, which would have different lighting than after the sun went down.

Both were worked into their plan, however. They weren’t trying to use the cameras to identify the thieves or as later evidence. Taylor assumed that, even watching the building from the outside, these people had a way in that didn’t stand out. That was the only thing that made sense. There were cameras scattered across the base and there had been a lot of warehouses hit, even after the base was on alert and every soldier was told to report suspicious behavior.

The lack of any meaningful reports meant that, however they were getting into the warehouses, they were doing it in a way that made them not stand out.

Instead, Taylor was planning on using the devices as a form of early warning, letting them know someone was inside the warehouse. They would then move on the buildings and try to apprehend the suspects. As plans go, it still left a lot to chance, but he was fairly certain that one of the biggest reasons none of the other investigations had worked was because of a leak somewhere. Probably not an intentional one, since the staff picked by CID at the very least would have been well vetted, but still a leak. Investigations like theirs tended to be large with a small army of MPs at their backs. They weren’t quiet, and the black marketeers had probably worked out what the investigation was up to, and skipped any shipments they thought might be bait.

Taylor’s main goal was to keep them from deciding to skip this one too. Other than the murders and missing supplies, there had been no evidence at all, out of all five previous investigations. Taylor needed intel and he needed to, at the very least, get some understanding of how these people worked. Although catching them in the act was the main goal, Taylor was happy to settle for not identifying any of the criminals, as long as he got a look at their operation.

As promised the money, which was actually on multiple pallets, arrived early the next day from wherever Washington squirreled away millions in cash. Taylor couldn’t help but watch it getting unloaded. He’d never seen this much cash in his life, let alone in one place, and probably never would again. Considering half the base had gotten word of the unusual shipment and felt the same, Taylor didn’t stand out that much. He was just one more face in the crowd gawking at the stacks of hundred dollar bills shrink-wrapped to the wooden pallet. As the forklifts drove them away to the warehouse where they’d stay for the next two days, Taylor returned to he and Whitaker’s small shed, where she already had the cameras up on the monitors they’d set up and tested the day before.

The angle was just as sharp as he feared but they still had a good view of the money being moved in and set down in a row in the center of the large building. There wasn’t much else in that warehouse at the time, which left a lot of open ground between the cash and something to hide next to. If anyone came for it, they’d be able to see them.

Now they waited. They took turns watching the monitors while the other rested, got food, or took care of whatever other needs they needed to address.

“At this point, it’s just rude how long they’re making us wait,” Taylor said after more than a day of waiting.

“Stake-outs are a marathon, not a sprint. This is why we normally do this with rotating teams, to keep anyone from getting fatigued and missing something. Only one of us watching the cameras at a time is really bad procedure.”

“We don’t have the luxury of a team. Bringing in FBI agents would tip our hands and make the setup too obvious for even the greediest thieves to go after, and I’m still convinced these people have managed leaks from all the other investigations. No, we’re the only ones I trust to do this.”

“Well, then I guess there’s not much use in complaining then.”

“Complaining is the universal way people relieve stress. In the Army...”

“In the army what?” Whitaker asked from across the room when Taylor stopped abruptly.

“Come here, I think we have something.”

It was late and there were no lights on in the warehouse, which made it hard to see clearly, just as he’d predicted. Even with the cameras in night vision mode there were shadows everywhere.

“I don’t see anything,” she said, staring over his shoulder.

“Just wait. There was movement, over there. They’re hanging back near the stuff on the outer perimeter of the wall. Probably looking for the trap.”

“How’d they get in,” Whitaker asked to no one in particular.

The warehouse itself had a key code entry. Which theoretically meant they’d have some kind of notion of whose code was used to get in, but he’d seen the other investigation reports. In every instance, they’d accessed the warehouse without anyone’s code being registered in the computer system, showing who entered the warehouse. Taylor assumed this would be the same thing.

Harder was the MPs stationed around the building, watching the available entrances. That was something previous setups hadn’t had, because it would have been too obvious. This time, however, it was a procedure for protecting the cash. It would have stood out if the guards hadn’t been assigned to every entrance. What Taylor didn’t understand was how they’d gotten around the guards.