Chapter 105: The True Robber

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“Henry Mitchell, the owner of Golden Light Pictures,” Mona said. “According to the records, Golden Light’s finances were terrible two months ago—money was coming in late and leaving fast. It was only a matter of time before it collapsed.”

After leaving the interrogation room with Roan Greenwood and returning to her station, Mona tapped at her laptop and explained,
“But last month Golden Light suddenly received a large capital injection. Instead of going under, the company has not only survived—it has already started preparing a new film.”

Roan frowned. “Who put in that money? Can we track it?”

“You know how it is,” Mona said. “Over on the Hollywood side, shell companies, offshore firms, and bad debt—there’s too much chaos. With our Task Force Five alone, it’s impossible to pin down the origin of this injection.”

Mona nodded. “Hollywood has always been chaos from top to bottom. Outside insiders, even people on Wall Street get played by those books.”

“So you mean…” Roan said, eyebrows lifting as he remembered the photo on her screen. “The man sitting across from Henry drinking coffee—there’s something wrong with him?”

“Exactly.”

Mona shot Roan a look that clearly said, “Good reflex,” and after a few keyboard strokes pulled up his identity.

“The man across from Henry Mitchell is named Isaac Mitchell. He’s thirty-seven, Henry’s half-brother. He served in the military overseas for more than ten years and came back to the Federation earlier this year after retirement. His finances are modest—middle-class at best.”

She smirked slightly, typed a bit more, and a ticket purchase record appeared on screen.

“Because of his service record, I only meant to check whether he’d been in New York lately.
I didn’t expect this: just one week before the first bank robbery, he actually flew to New York.
And more than that—on the third day after the fourth robbery, Isaac left New York in a newly purchased pickup.”

When Mona finished, Roan’s eyes lit up.

“Fly to New York just to buy a pickup?”

He stood up at once, clapped his hands to get the team’s attention, and said loudly,
“Everyone! We’ve identified a new suspect!”

After briefly describing Isaac’s background, Roan continued,
“Next, we need to map out everything Isaac did in New York. I want to know where he went after landing, where he stayed, what he bought, and everything else. I have a feeling we’re not far from catching this crew.”

“Got it.”
“We’ll do it.”

The team instantly nodded. The sound of keyboards exploded through the Task Force Five office.

Satisfied, Roan turned toward Augustus’s office.

Knock. Knock.

After a few knocks, Roan heard Augustus’s voice and came to the door.

As soon as he stepped in, Roan could tell Augustus looked bad.

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A phone lay on the desk, clearly just set down after a call, and Augustus’s dark face had gone ashen with anger.

“Sorry, chief.”

Roan frowned and asked quietly,
“Should I come back later?”

“No.”

Augustus took a breath, steadied himself, and asked Roan straight on,
“Did you find anything important?”

“Yes.”

Roan nodded and summarized Golden Light’s situation, then added,
“I now suspect the injection into Golden Light was very likely from that Isaac.
But Hollywood’s companies and ledgers are something no ordinary person can unravel, and no one in Task Force Five is fluent in that game, so…”

Roan Greenwood had studied accounting, but by now he felt he had forgotten most of it.
Counting on him to trace this would mean he’d need to go back to school first.

“Okay.”

Augustus nodded as soon as he understood.
“You go after Isaac and the source of Golden Light’s funding. I’ll handle the financial side.”

“Understood, chief.”

Hearing Augustus answer without hesitation, Roan’s brow rose.

Did he have contacts at the IRS?

An hour later, thanks to everyone’s effort in Task Force Five, they pieced together nearly all of Isaac’s movements in New York.

“From airport footage, we can see that after deplaning Isaac took a car straight to Brooklyn,” William said, peering at the monitor.

“Based on that footage I found the taxi driver,” he continued. “He remembered the destination: a small community in upper Brooklyn.”

The driver couldn’t say which house Isaac entered after getting off.

That community has cameras only at its gates; the inside is pitch dark.

Mona continued right on William’s update:
“While checking resident records, I found a former comrade who had fought with Isaac overseas.”

“It was Holkey Garcia—white, thirty-nine, and he returned to the Federation a year before Isaac. No family, heavy drinking, addicted to gambling, and in very rough financial shape.”

“Good.”

Isaac and Holkey are both white, both with military backgrounds, and both match the descriptions from the first four robberies, Roan nodded before asking,
“Any more information?”

William answered,
“During all four robberies, no footage showed the two entering or leaving the community.”

Roan’s expression didn’t change. Men who survived a battlefield could walk past surveillance like ghosts.

“And one more thing.”

Mona tapped the keyboard once more, then looked up:
“That community lies to the east of the robberies. Also, the mother of a female clerk from the first robbery lives in that very community.”

Roan’s eyelids flicked. He tilted his head.
“Where is this Holkey now?”

“Already out of New York.”

Mona shrugged and pointed to the data,
“Same pattern as Isaac: three days after the fourth robbery, Holkey also bought a new small pickup and left New York. The latest spending records place him in California, on a yacht, sunbathing.”

“The one bad part is,” she added with a dry smile, “there doesn’t seem to be any woman on that yacht.”

“Damn!”

“Fu—k!”
“You cursed dog!”

When they left Augustus’s office and began discussing it with the team, he stood with a hand on his chin, brow knotted.

“With what we have now, we can reasonably conclude Isaac and Holkey are the real burglars in the first four robberies,” he said. “But Golden Light’s books won’t clear quickly, and what you have is all indirect. We still need direct evidence.”

“That—”

At once, everyone in the technical unit frowned.

“We could check the houses he rented recently and the warehouse he used.”

Roan grinned, catching everyone’s attention. He pointed at the file,
“Neither place is currently rented out. We can search them. We may turn up something useful.”

Leid and Lexi were still on their way back, so after a brief chat, Roan and the team loaded Mona and headed to the armory.

On the ride, Mona sat in the front passenger seat, still checking the surveillance clips from the days before the robberies. She looked at Roan with suspicion: this was one of those unnaturally smooth drives, steady and careful, in a plain SUV.

What had happened to Roan today?

“We’re here.”

The black SUV came to a slow stop on the road opposite the community.

This inspection of Holkey’s place was done with caution. There was no telling if someone might warn him afterward.

So this time, to avoid raising alarm, Roan and Mona took only FBI gear in the vehicle and didn’t wear anything tactical.
They were dressed in ordinary clothes, posing as an ordinary couple looking for a place to rent.

Still, a firearm had to be carried.

After checking both Glock 18s and their extended magazines carefully and finding everything in order, Roan gave a faint smile and finally opened the car door.

End of the chapter.