"Everybody cool, this is a robbery!" Elser shouted around his AK74, which he kept tucked up to his face. His accent was drenched in Irish, if speech could be drenched. He stepped onto a desk and raised himself an additional four feet. The main room was laid out like a square bull's-eye, with a square desk in the center with sealed teller's desks along the north and west walls. The east wall was the entrance, a long stretch of heavy glass windows reinforced by steel columns, decorated enough to maintain elegance but still close together and tough enough to stop a speeding vehicle. It had actually been a problem for the Crew; they liked driving stuff through the front door.
Moser stepped up to the thick Plexiglas protecting the tellers at their desks and jabbed the muzzle of his weapon against it.
"Get back! Step back!" he shouted. When he wasn't convinced they were threatened, he fired a shot into the barrier. The heavy-grain 5.45mm bullet tore through the tough flaky layers and exploded out the other side, sending small shards of glass flying into the frightened employees. They listened, and pressed themselves against the back wall. "Open the door!" Moser demanded.
"I said be cool!" Elser aimed his weapon at the chest of one of the red-suited security guards. "Get your hands on your head and get on the floor!" Doonigan came from the doorway and clubbed the man to the ground with the butt of his shotgun. "Thank you, number five," Elser said, tilting an invisible hat. The raccoon slowly turned on the desk, being sure to point his rifle at each person in the bank as he did so. "Good morning! My name is number One, and this here is number Two and all the way to Five. If you cooperate, we can be on our way and nobody will get hurt. If you don't, we will kill you. It's simple, really. Now, number Three!"
"Aye?" was the answer from a dark brown rat to Moser's left. O'Hanlan looked over his shoulder quickly, to make sure it was Elser who was calling his name.
"We quiet?" O'Hanlan lowered his weapon and reached into his vest pouch. He found what looked like a walkie-talkie and turned it on. There was a steady low tone.
"Quiet as a fart," he announced. The silent alarm had not been tripped. The team would have the minimum five minutes they wanted.
"Phase two!" Elser shouted. Doonigan and Sterling reacted instantly and dragged two heavy black bags to the elevators. In the meantime, O'Hanlan caught up with Moser behind the tellers' desks and disappeared into the back rooms.
He rounded a corner and found himself looking at a wall of polished steel.
"Perfect," he sighed to himself. He stepped up to it and ran a gloved hand over the vault door's face. "Easton Securities Hollington Seven-eighty model. Only seventeen have ever been installed. Six-ton pin-balance doors with four ten-inch latch bolts." O'Hanlan laughed to himself quietly. "Worth precisely one pound of steaming turd." He reached into a satchel and procured four foot-long sticks of what appeared to be brown clay. Each had a cord running from one end of it to the next piece, with the last on the chain connected to an extra long wire. "One-thirty, four-thirty, seven-thirty and ten-thirty." He used the adhesive on each stick to attach the explosive to the rounded doorway, placing them where, on a clock, the hours he recalled from memory would be.
"Four minutes!" Moser shouted from the main room. O'Hanlan held up a hand in acknowledgement, and then returned to preparing the breach. He double-checked the connections and ran the line back out into the lobby.
"Sticks stuck!" Neal shouted, waving his arms. "Grab your balls and get ready to duck!" he took cover behind a corner and plugged the closer ear with a finger. In his other hand, he held the end of the cord and a small plunger. The tip of the button read: Bang. He kept one eye cracked and focused on Moser, who was staring at his wrist. There was a long hiatus, with only the sound of heavy breathing echoing off the marble walls.
"Now!" Moser hollered, making a downward swipe with his other arm. It sounded like someone dropped a very large cardboard box on the floor. In reality, the four wads of explosives had cut through the expansion bolt that extended into the concrete wall around the door. The door shuddered, but remained closed. At that same instant, an alarm, not directly connected to the Parisian police, turned on. Sixty miles away at an Easton Securities operator station, a computer screen flickered to life, displaying the location and the type of emergency.
Moser was waiting for the call by the blue and white Easton telephone.
"Bonjour! Sixth National Bank of France, Paris. How may I help you?" he greeted in his most friendly, managerial voice.
"Hello, sir, this is Easton Securities. We've detected a breach in your safe's security system. Is everything normal? Shall I summon the police to your location?" Moser smiled as he answered.
"No, no, everything is just fine. I can see the safe from here. We have it under control." The operator checked the display. The manager of the bank had been told to tell Easton Securities that he could 'see the vault' and to use the specific term 'have it under control'. Only high-ranking Easton Security employees and the bank manager himself knew that, as well as the 'Red-Alert' phrase of 'We are doing fine;' used in the event that the manager is forced to answer the phone and pretend there isn't a robbery. The Crew knew better than to let that happen. The operator and the "manager" exchanged a few more words, each time the operator checked the screen and the Red-Alert phrase to see if it popped up. When it didn't, he quickly closed the alert message and added "glitch" to the comment section. Damn these new internet systems, she thought.
Elser dropped the phone back onto the receiver. "Good to go!" he said with a thumbs-up. Not more than two seconds after, Sterling appeared from the elevator shaft, the doors jammed open with some kind of extendable tool. The elevator had been lowered below the first floor, and a strange platform had been connected to the cables.
"All set!" Sterling announced. Elser nodded quickly, grinning uncontrollably. It was going easier than he ever imagined it would.
"Alright! Phase three!" Moser stepped down and walked towards the vault. He lifted his weapon into the air and fired into the ceiling. "Get out!" he shouted over the screaming and gunfire. "Everybody get the hell out of my bank! Go away!" he kicked someone in the rear to hasten their efforts to get off the floor and leave. The four other men rushed into the vault and began throwing bundles of cash and bonds into a pile in the center of the room. O'Hanlan began sorting the cash into two piles, constantly waving another interesting device over the money as he separated. There was a high-pitched tone, and he tossed the money to his left. No tone, to the right. Moser stopped hurling Francs and looked at his watch. It was about time to grab the money and get out. He reached down to pick up a bundle from O'Hanlan's left.
"No!" O'Hanlan warned, reaching out a hand to stop Sean. "They're tagged. Take these," he instructed, pointing to his right. The ink bombs placed randomly into the bundles would explode once they were out of proximity of the bank, staining any cash in the vehicle a bright blue and useless. It would only take one ink bomb to ruin the entire haul.
Sixteen bags were lined up with one minute to spare. O'Hanlan ran the scanner over each bag as they were carried out of the vault by the other team members. They were all clean. The four carriers made two trips between the elevator and the vault. They threw the bags onto the platform rigged up by Sterling and Doonigan. Sterling used a small circular saw to cut through a specific cable. As expected, the elevator began rising. The rest of the team hurried up a corkscrew stairwell to the roof. Sirens from still-far-off police cars echoed through the dense mid-morning air.
Doonigan approached a large metal box labeled Axe D'Ascenseur, and began cutting along one side. After a few moments, he had a one-meter U-shaped cut made in the three-meter-tall box. He punched the flap inwards and stuck his head in. His shoulder followed, and he grabbed hold of something. He came back out just enough to throw the bag of cash onto the gravel rooftop. He repeated this fifteen more times, and then used both arms to grab Sterling and pull the bear through the hole.
The sirens were getting closer. John imagined their frustration when they would find no criminals in the building.
The transport came in from the east, as planned. Vickers used a feather touch on the control stick to bring the aging Sikorsky S76 to hover just centimeters above the roof of the bank. He compensated on the throttle when the additional weight of five men plus sixteen bags of cash were added to his payload.
"All set?" He shouted over his shoulder into the cabin. Elser gave a thumbs-up.
"Phase four!" The doors were pulled shut and the helicopter lifted into the air. It tilted forward and floated away over the city.
Sylvester Cooper could hear the footsteps getting closer. He could feel the heat from the sun warming his back as he lay in the tall grass, blending in as best he could. His breathing was slow and controlled, to make himself as silent as possible. He even resisted the urge to cringe when a millipede crept over his hand. The jungles of Laos weren't grown for civilized habitation, or so it would seem that day. It took a stretch of the imagination to believe that it was once the center of an ancient civilization that was, only then, being discovered.
That was the reason he was there. Sort of. There had been a massive immigration of archaeologists and other scientific communities to dig up and examine the artifacts, but, at the same time, there was a dark side to the largest historical discovery in nearly two centuries: all that digging and research cost money. A lot of money. The only ones with enough insight to the value of such a discovery were the organized criminals of the Asian ring. They saw this as a great opportunity to line their pockets with the illegal sale of ancient artifacts. After all, they were the ones funding the expeditions; therefore, all that wonderful stuff is theirs to begin with Screw the betterment of mankind; my mistress wants a second car.
Bentley, for some strange reptilian reason, couldn't bear the thought of it. So, there Cooper was. Lying in the grass, in some damned itchy camouflage getup, his cane polished a dark brown so it wouldn't reflect light and that stupid tranquilizer gun digging into his thigh. When did that turtle decide what Sly did? Since when did he have authority over—Oh, damn.
The sentry who thought he saw something stopped just inches from standing on the cane. He curled his lip and furrowed his brow to keep out the sun and scanned the large clearing. Of all the acres of space, why did Sly have to stop and hide six feet from the end of the trail? There was a squawk on the guard's shoulder-radio. They were calling him back. Thank God! All Sly would have to do is not… make… any… noise…
That millipede was crawling up Cooper's right sleeve. The sensation of it traveling over his fur was similar to that of cool water being dripped onto his skin. It was headed for his face! NO!
Sly slapped at the creature through his striped-pattern shirt. The bug stopped moving, but the sudden movement had caught the attention of the guard, who looked down. It didn't take very long for him to recognize the silhouette of a Raccoon lying in the grass.
"Hey, what the--" Sly leapt up onto his feet and planned to punch the guy in his face. The guard was a little too quick and used his Chinese machine pistol to deflect the fist. Cooper grabbed the guard by his wrist and pulled back, placing the panda off balance. Sly put his left arm across the guard's chest and threw him to the ground over his knee, then placed his foot on the guard's shoulder and pulled hard on the pistol. With a snap, his arm was dislocated and the weapon came out of his hand with ease. Before he could scream, the guard had a two-inch dart sticking out of the side of his neck. The powerful drugs rushed into his brain and shut down shop for the day.
Cooper looked himself over, still holding the guard's wrist. The action of removing the converted GLOCK, aiming it, and firing came quite naturally to him. It was scary, really. He didn't like the idea of being too good with guns; Cooper hated the idea of killing. He let go of the arm and held the pistol in front of his chest. The slide had to be pulled back after each shot, to ready the next dart. The integrated silencer extended weapon to a length of about twenty-five centimeters long from the far back of the grip to the far forward of the barrel. The suppressor had worked perfectly, turning the dish-rattling report into a quiet whock. The sound of him readying the next shot was louder than the actual discharge itself.
Cooper slid the weapon back into its holster and regained his bearings by looking around. Hill 112 was over to his right, and the morning sun was to his left, so the fastest way to the dig site would be… right over the hill. Even with the heavy plant growth on the mound, it would just be safest to circumnavigate the whole thing and avoid any possible sentry station at the top. Cooper glanced down to his former pursuer.
"Don't get sunburned," he warned before disappearing back into the jungle.
The trail led right back to where he had first tipped off the sentry. There was a Y-shaped junction in a tire-scarred road, and the footpath stopped there. The guard had been sleeping against a tree, out of sight. Sly thought it was safe to stop and take a drink from his canteen. The sound of the metal container being opened and water sloshing around had alerted the man and got him to investigate.
That time around, Sly kept the road as far away as he could without losing sight of it. He traveled along the west fork in the road, staying low and moving quietly. Two kilometers later, the sounds of industry could be heard. Generator motors hummed away as trucks carried away the tons of earth that once concealed the ancient ruins.
James was an expert at ancient civilizations. He thought he could further his career and make a name for himself if he signed up with the Lao Che Archaeological Company. The callow British tabby couldn't have been more wrong.
"No! Be careful! Don't move the---" there was a crash, marking the destruction of another priceless piece of history. Some tablet somewhere had been crushed under the tires of a backhoe as it moved into position. "You morons!" James shouted, pulling the hair out from the top of his head. It had been nothing but rush, rush, rush since the digging started. It seemed as if he was the only one there who cared about recovering an important piece of history rather than just getting out anything that seemed remotely shiny and expensive. It choked him up to think of the magnificent golden bird he recovered with red jems in its eyes being carried away by one of Lao Che's personal assistants. These barbarians have no concept of anything but greed, James thought to himself. He fingered through the destroyed remains of the tablet and sighed a mixture of frustration and defeat. He resigned himself to failure and his tent, where a bottle of Famous Grouse waited for him, unless someone stole that, too.
He left the deep pit and began up the sloping side of the quarry-like dig site, made his way around the barracks set up for the workers and guards, and entered the small fenced-in area with the archaeologist's tents. It was the first word of English he'd heard all day.
"How'd it go?" Edwards asked from his chair under the mess tarp, his speech slightly slurred from the liquor he had gotten into. The badger scratched behind his ear, under his frayed New York Yankees cap.
"I don't even know why I came out here," James groaned, taking a seat not far from the American.
"Ready to join the club?" Edwards asked, holding up a bottle. He'd given up on trying nearly three days earlier, and been keeping himself well-inebriated since. James looked at the bottle with sad eyes and sighed deeply.
"Yes," he stood and turned his back to Edwards, "but not with that crap. I've got my own." He'd been planning on giving up from about the same time Edwards did. He stepped up to his drab-brown tent and was about to step inside when he noticed the guard that was always outside wasn't there. James pulled back the flap and stepped inside. The padlock on his mini-fridge was still in place. The bottle would be chilled. Good. He needed something cool to counter the forty-eight degree heat. He broke the tax seal and took a sip straight from the bottle. The cooling sensation was mixed with the relaxing effects of alcohol, and made James feel more like the old self again.
"Freeze!"A voice growled from behind. "Get your hands up!" James thought it was one of the guards playing another prank.
"You know, if you wanted a drink, you could have just ask--" the tabby's eyes widened when he turned around and realized it wasn't one of the guards. In fact, the usual guard was unconscious on the floor. A raccoon with a gun stood with the weapon aimed at James's face.
"Oh, bloody hell."
A/N: I didn't abandon you, people! I just opened a deviantART account and have been busy there. I used my pen-name there, too. Go ahead and check it out. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to put URLs here, so I won't. But it's in deviantART. Ian-Bradley. Go, check it out.
Now, as far as the story's conscerned, you've probably noticed this whole new series of events. Yeah, I know. If you're thinking "Wait, isn't that from...?" I can assure you, "Yes, it is."
