Ah, it really was a lovely day. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, there was hardly a cloud in sight… And America’s next most wanted were sitting in an apartment in the Bronx, a TV mutely playing that classic of heist films, Heat. The ‘most important,’ men, if you will, were currently in very different roles. One was calmly propped up against the wall, inwardly debating if now was the time to pick up a cigarette, and the other was sitting down on a couch, eyes focused on the screen, at least for the time being.
When the latter man was done appreciating the classics, he paused the film and stood up, brushing imaginary dust off of his collar and clearing his throat, earning him the attention of the rest of the men and women inside the safehouse. “Lads, lasses, gents and gentlewoman, friends, foes, and cobbers.” He brushed off the corner of his coat. “As you know, I am the man who brought us of many talents together, and now I’m going to tell you our first job.” He spoke with a heavy Australian accent, a grin playing across his face.
He indicated to an envelope on the cracked coffee table in front of them, before picking it up and pulling out the contents. Three pictures, blueprints, a set of keys and a black box with an LED light were inside of it, and the man tossed the pictures, and the blueprints, to the various crooks, before slipping the box in his breast pocket, twirling the keys around on the end of his finger.
“Now. As much as I hate doing petty crime, I’m afraid we must start on the small jobs. Being a group as large as we are however, ‘petty crime’ takes a slightly different meaning. We’re hitting this place.” He took back one of the photos and tapped it, the picture showing a jewellery store, like many in the city, rain clouds gathering over chrome signs. “As soon as this opened, I, or at least Circuit, knew that it was a good place to hit. It’s a pretty large joint. There are cameras across the entire joint, but we’ve got this.” He patted his breast pocket.
“If you’ve ever jacked a car in the past decade, you’ll know what it is. It homes in on the correct frequency to do a certain task, then does said task. This one, however, works a little more like a swipe card, which is helpful when the only way into the camera office is through the swipe card. We make sure the security guard in the office isn’t going to call the cops, then we move around the back. There’s a fire escape here.” He pointed to a door on the blueprints.
“We go up there, and that’s where the keys come in. They can silently without triggering the fire alarm, open the door, and then we can go up into the employee-only area. This looks out onto the entire office, so do not, I repeat, DO NOT go near the window unless you absolutely have to. We don’t need someone spotting masked guys and calling the cops before we’re ready to rock and roll, because that is how this little gang gets rumbled before it starts. Apart from you Fox, although when we get up there, you probably shouldn’t be in a staff only area…” He hummed a little bit.
“Right, once we have the top area secured, we then need to control the bottom floor, which is, obviously, where all of the loot is. Might be some petty cash, few thousand maybe, on the top floor, but there should be a few hundred thousand dollars’ worth of jewellery in the bottom floor. We make sure the civvies aren’t calling the police, and there are four guards on the premises.” He put four fingers down on the table. “One will be monitoring the camera. One’ll be upstairs, or outside if he’s on his break, and the other two will be making sure nobody with sticky fingers get their hands on a box of rings and legs it.
“Two then, will be easy. The other two… If you have no other choice, shoot them, but I’d prefer to just talk them down. We don’t need to start a gang off in blood. Really, really don’t need to start this gang off in blood. Since there are quite a few of us, the cut won’t be as big as I’d like it to be, but it is our first job, so-“
Circuit cleared his throat, before talking over the Australian. “Actually, Smokes and I won’t be taking a cut. There’s something I want in the manager’s office, bust open her safe, and there should be a brown box and an envelope. I want both of those. If there’s cash, take it, scatter it across the floor, use it to snort blow… I don’t care.”
“Alright, fine, and Smokes?”
“Well, since Smokes isn’t officially part of the group, he shouldn’t be getting any of the payout, should he?”
The Jewish-American looked angry, and started to talk, but Circuit held his hand up. “You want me to spread it.”
“Fuck you Circuit.”
“Love you too man.”
“Well, that simplifies matters.” Adrian rolled his eyes, before scribbling a few numbers down on a page and working something out in his head. “There’s six of us. If we get around 400,000 from the jewellery,” he paused to let the group settle down, a grin on his face, before tapping the page. “Maybe five thousand from cash on hand… If we nick from our guests, then that’s probably another couple of grand… Minus the amount from the fence… We could be looking at about 65K for us all in a day.”
He looked up, a wry smile on his face. “That’s half of my army service career in a day. Now, that revolves around one thing. Don’t take anything for yourself. You do, you’re stealing cash from not just them, but also every single one of us.” He picked his revolver up and pulled the hammer back, before looking at them. “I don’t like people stealing from me very much, and I doubt the rest of us will either.” He looked around seriously.
“Now, onto organisation. Guns, where are you… Alright, so you need to go onto the main floor first off. You’ll come in handy later, but not right now. Carbomb, Hazzy, you need to go to the fire exit. If the guard’s there, then get him to stand down. I’ll give you the key to open it up. Fox and I will head to the back door to the security room. I want that guard taken care of myself.”
“When he’s subdued and we don’t have to worry about cameras, Hazzy and Carbomb can enter the building, take control of the top floor. This place isn’t snazzy enough for each guard to have a pager, so don’t worry about that. If they do, stick a gun to the guard’s head, make him answer it.”
“When that’s done, Fox and I will move to the front. You’ll be playing good cop to my bad cop.” He pointed to the German. “Guns, take care of one of the guards. No killing. Just… Give him a haymaker or something. From there, the rest should be easy peasy, lemon fuckin’ squeezy.” He spread his arms wide. “Any questions?”
