Chapter 38

Trenchard approached the Sparkles club at 4 a.m. An hour after closing, everyone was gone except the lone security guard. Stealthily, he approached a back window. Using magnets and a few other tools, he neutralized the alarm wires and squeezed through the opening into a back room.

Once inside, he made his way to Leon’s office and searched for the safe. To his surprise, it was a floor safe. He cracked the combination, cleaned out the contents, and quickly searched for USB drives or other electronic media as instructed by Vandenburg. With a full sack, he made a quick exit.

The next morning, the balloon went up.

“We’ve been robbed, man.”

Mark looked at his cousin.

“With all these new employees, it might be expected for some of them to have sticky fingers.”

“That’s not it. Someone broke in here last night and cleaned out the safe.”

“Where was Adrian? He is supposed to be on duty patrolling the place.”

“He was. Claims he didn’t see or hear anything.”

“Incompetent bastard.”

“You get what you pay for. A minimum wage guard gives that amount of effort. He probably slept half the night at his station.”

“You think he was in on it?”

“No, I found some residue outside one of the windows. Looks like the alarm trigger on that opening was disabled/neutralized for the robber to break in.”

“What about our new BLM folks? Think one of them tipped the guy that we had cash on hand?”

“Maybe. It would be almost impossible to prove, though.”

“Did you call the police?”

“And list the contents of my safe for them to see? Not a chance.”

“So we absorb the loss.”

“For the moment. We can make it up with the next few VIP music acts bringing in revenue. But I’ll tell you one thing. We are going to increase the security at this place so it never happens again.”

***

A few days later, Sam handed the package of goods to Vandenburg.

“Any problems?”

“No. There was only one guard, and the safe was easy to crack.”

“I see you remembered the electronics. My colleagues will be happy to analyze the contents.”

“Do you have a new assignment?”

“Not yet. I will be in touch.”

Arthur watched the thief leave. The new hire had now done three jobs with no issues. Maybe he would turn out even better than Matt Stevens. He turned in his chair and examined the package. The usual haul of cash and jewels. There were also several USB thumb drives. Vandenburg’s one disappointment with Trenchard had been the lack of embarrassing information in the Ken Brownling robbery. Perhaps that would now be rectified, thought Arthur as he inserted the first drive into the computer for review.