Chapter 20
At 1120 Pine Street in Santa Ana, after finding no car in the numbered spot for apartment number twenty-three, Dan peeked into the apartment window with night vision goggles.
The place was void of furniture, apparently abandoned.
He decided to enter with his second in command, Rick Cavanaugh, before the rest of the unit arrived.
The bullet proof vest, the large, white FBI letters on his back, the black boots, khaki pants, night-vision goggles, heavy utility belt with holstered gun, flashlight, knife, and mace made Dan feel exposed and out of place in this calm residential neighborhood.
Because he had the identification and badge for a normal FBI agent, at least if contact was made, the general public would never know he was part of a secret segment within the FBI.
The low battery indicator on his night-vision goggles had been lit since he turned them on at the van. Someone must have forgotten to charge them back at the agency. Incompetence makes no discrimination where it strikes. The goggles were already beginning to fade out. “Dammit.” He discarded them. “Let’s go in the old fashioned way.”
“Right. No one’s here anyways.” Rick pulled off his goggles as well, causing his two-inch spiky blond hair to be depressed during the process. His chiseled, tan face looked almost joyous. He was protected by 220 pounds of rock-hard muscles, whereas Dan was older and softer.
They both drew their guns and flashlights from their belts.
Being without the team’s lock-pick device, Dan kicked open a window beside the door and reached in to unlock the door. Working as one, without a pause, Rick opened the door and entered. Dan followed.
It stunk like moldy cheese inside. Breaking into people’s personal space wasn’t the best feeling for him, but it was his job.
“What the hell?” complained Rick. “What died in here?”
He flicked the switch to the ceiling light, but the bulbs must have been burned out. “Keep your eyes open.”
“They are open. Why do we have to break into stinky places?”
Dan ignored him, throwing his flashlight beam around the room.
Old newspapers, magazines, food, and computers littered the floor of the small living room.
“A computer nerd’s place,” Rick stated. “Is he a hacker?”
“Technology’s part of it.” After clearing the single bedroom apartment of threats, he headed to a laptop on the floor beside a bowl of white, pink, and blue mold. The screen was smashed in, cracked. The hard disk might still be intact, however. He walked around to a desktop computer by the kitchen surrounded by green potato chips that must have once been yellow. The side of the mainframe had been bashed in, but, again, the hard disk might still be salvageable. The other laptop in the room was in two pieces. “Have the boys check these for any useful data.”
Rick had holstered his gun. Pinching his nose, he picked up old newspapers. “Nothing circled, no notes, nothing torn out.”
A black book was in the middle of the room. Dan gingerly picked it up. It was the latest hardcover thriller.
“So a messy, literate, computer nerd doing what exactly?”
Dan shook his head. It troubled him to imagine the sick potential of this person after having seen so many psychopaths the past fifteen years working within the FBI. “Get the boys to go over this place, now. Hairs, prints, dead skin—anything we can use.”