Extinction Machine

Chapter Sixty-five

Hadley and Meyers Real Estate

Baltimore, Maryland

Sunday, October 20, 10:59 a.m.

Tull pulled to the curb outside of a real estate office that had a small parking lot. The windows were dark and the lot was empty. The lot was partly sheltered from the street by the exterior wall of a Dunkin’ Donuts, so Tull pulled into the Dunkin’ lot and killed the engine. Tull and Aldo got out, opened the back, stripped the cover off the false tire and removed several items from the safe. They packed everything into a pair of nylon gym bags, closed the car, and walked around to the back of the real estate office.

The place had an expensive security system. Aldo smirked at it. They were inside less than two minutes later.

The middle room had no windows, which allowed them to turn on lights without drawing attention. They cleared everything off a big worktable, and Aldo began emptying the bags while Tull set up the Ghost Box. Once it was booted, the system hacked the Wi-Fi, bypassing all security as easily as knife through wet tissue.

“Okay,” said Tull, “I’m recalling the pigeon drones. Open the window in the back room.”

“We’re going to be deaf for a while. Can we risk that?”

Tull shrugged. “Not going to matter much if we move fast.”