Chapter Twelve

Part Two

Execution

"Give me two minutes," Lily instructed, looking to the men in the back of the van with her. Danny, Yen, Linus, Livingston, Virgil and Turk in the front seats, and Rusty.

She had had the pleasure of sitting next to him all the way to the bank, his hand drumming against the seat next to her thigh. She couldn't take her hands off her lap, mostly because she couldn't help but want him to move his fingers against her skin. That's all she needed, just a simple brushing of his knuckles against the outside of her thigh to confirm that all that had happened the other night had not gone to waste.

When the van pulled into the back parking lot, however, he had not even looked at her. Not a single word to her.

She leaned back against the seat as she squeezed her eyes shut, taking a deep breath as she felt her heart start to race. This was the biggest operation she had ever pulled, and she was getting a flash of stage fright.

Danny wrenched his neck around to look back at her. "You okay, Lil? It's a little late to be…"

"Fine, Daddy."

It concerned Danny that Lily had called him "daddy". "Lily, I want you to know that…"

Lily's eyes shot open. "Virgil, Turk, you're up."

Virgil and Turk, who had been silently bickering in the front seat, took two hats out from their respective sides of the van and fastened them on their heads. Lily spotted the logo on the front of the hats, their jumpsuits matching the khaki color. "Security System Monitors? Who would fall for…"

But before she could finish her sentence, Virgil and Turk were obnoxiously knocking on the class doors next to the security station. Two guards sat at the oval desk, feet up. Virgil picked a fight with Turk - although it wasn't necessarily acting - and the two guards stirred from their lounging positions. Alerted, one walked over towards the door as the screaming commenced, Lily's smile growing wider as she fought back the urge to laugh.

Her stage fright was turning into a giggle-fit.

She managed to suppress it.

Turk pushed Virgil, yelling about nothing really. One of the guards opened the door, as the other stood by. Rusty slipped out of the van from beside Lily, gently rolling a grenade full of knockout gas towards the bickering brothers and the guards. Turk pulled out his handkerchief first, covering his mouth as he watched his brother do the same. Smoke clouded all four of them for a moment, the 'thudding' sounds of the two guards dropping to the ground. Moments later, the smoke cleared. Virgil was the only one standing, looking down at his passed out brother at his feet.

Lily slid from her seat, Danny and Linus at her sides. "What happened?" Danny asked, not to concerned.

"Guess he didn't hold it over his mouth and nose tight enough," Virgil inspected, kicking his brother in the side.

Lily looked to Linus. "I didn't hear him fall…"

"Look at him, he's practically a midget. He's close to the ground already," Virgil laughed.

Lily, Danny, and Rusty simultaneously rolled their eyes.

Danny turned to Lily as Rusty instructed Linus to help him tie up the guards. "You're up, Lil. You got this?"

"Piece of cake," Lily nodded, giving him the thumbs-up.

Livingston, clutching his laptop to his chest as he sweat profusely, walked forward and held the door open for everyone. Lily reached out and gave him a reassuring touch on the shoulder.

Lily took the lead as they quickly walked past the security and down the wide hall towards the main lobby. Lily could see the lasers in her sights, and she eagerly welcomed the challenged as her heart began pounding again.

Rusty watched her intensely, almost sure that she was going to jump right in between the lasers. "Lily!" He reached forward and grabbed her, wrenching her around backwards and into his chest.

She had stopped short before the first laser, and when Rusty had pulled her away she had lost her balance. Hitting his chest with her fists, she knocked herself backwards. Falling, Rusty stabled himself and caught her as the end of her braid seconds away from ruining the entire job. She let him help her back upright, then pushed him away as hard as she could. "What the fuck?"

"Sorry, I thought that…"

"Well, don't think next time," Lily barked. She instantly regretted it, never wanting to fight with him again after the other night.

Danny recognized her inner distress, pulling Rusty away from her. "Do your thing, Lil."

Lily nodded, a frown set on her face. She stepped up to where she had left off, just before the first laser. Pulling a pin from her pocket, she wound her braid around the back of her head to keep her hair from ruining everything. She would not lose her concentration. She would keep her mind set on the task at hand. She could see the security alarm set in a small white box on the wall, and she kept her eye on the target.

Watching the first few lasers sweep in front of her, Lily lifted her legs up and stepped into the field.

One by one, inch by inch, she made her way through the first six. The first six, as she had observed in the replication Livingston had created for her, were position close enough to each other that no radical or sporadic movements were necessary. Delicately, she ducked her head as the sixth laser passed by her ear and she stepped into the rest of the field.

A quick lunge forward followed by a handspring backwards. Lily took the fastest nanosecond to position herself correctly as she dove through several lasers in the middle. She tumbled onto the ground, rolling away from those lasers behind her. She had to stop herself, throwing her entire body onto the floor as she struggled to catch her breath. She had miscalculated, a huge error of a mistake on her part. Around laser number sixteen - she could only imagine - she had pushed herself too far forward and had inadvertently gotten herself a little too close to a green beam of light.

She stiffened, waiting as the laser passed just over the top of her head. She closed her eyes - squeezing them shut hard - as she prayed that it would pass over it. Seconds later, she peeked at her situation and was in the clear. Springing to her feet, she dashed through the next set of lasers. Planting her hands firmly on the floor, Lily raised her feet above her head and guided her legs through the last sets of lasers until her entire body was on the opposite side.

Folding herself in half, Lily rested her hands on her knees as she realized she had been holding her breath the entire time.

Shaking her head to get back her focus, she headed over to the alarm on the wall. She inspected the blank white box for merely a second, taking a small screwdriver from the belt at her waist. Before touching anything, she also took out a black box from her pocket and pulled a wire from the top. The screen on her device read that it was ready to perform its specific task: imputing the correct code into the alarm system to shut off the lasers. With a steady hand, Lily slowly pried open the face of the alarm system's box and inserted the other end of her device's wire into the circuit board on the inside. Twenty-five grueling seconds later, the screen on the black box turned green as the laser field shut itself down. Why couldn't you have buttons, she chided silently.

Lily, feeling a bead of sweat dripping down the side of her face, pushed herself against the wall and slid down until she was in the sitting position.

Rusty held his hand out to her. "You okay?"

Although all her muscles were violently shaking in an effort to refuse moving on, she accepted his hand and let him lift her to her feet. "I'm fine. Really."

"Lily, I…"

Lily shook her head, seeing her father walking towards them. "Maybe now's not the best time."

"But…"

"I know, Rusty. I know," she comforted, still holding his hand.

"Let's move it, guys," Linus instructed all too eagerly.

Lily laughed at his enthusiasm. Rusty's fingers enlaced in hers, they joined the rest of the group in front of the elevator doors. Linus helped Danny take a crowbar out from the sack he was carrying, together prying the doors open. Lily entered first, Danny giving her a leg up as she pushed open the grate in the elevator's ceiling that allowed her to enter into the elevator shaft.

Without waiting for the rest of the group, Lily searched around in the darkness for the cable to her one of the wire lifts. Livingston - with a slight fear of the darkness - cracked an emergency glow stick and dropped it on top of the elevator. Illuminated in a green light, the rest of them found their respective lifts and attached them to the hooks on their belts.

"How'd you…?" Linus started to ask.

"I got here really early this morning. Inexplicably,the elevators were stuck on the top floor while I was inside," Lily explained with a casual shrug, making sure her lift was fastened properly before tugging on the cord. Before Linus could ask another question, Lily was being propelled upwards into the darkened elevator shaft.

Rusty laughed, looking up after her. "One by one, boys. There's only so much space next to the door… Yen's next. Help Lily open the door, then it's your turn."

Yen nodded, tugging on the cord on his belt. Not before long, they heard the elevator door open above them.

"Ten bucks says he shorts it," Rusty laughed, knowing that someone was going to make a joke out of it sooner or later. Frank, Basher, and Saul were probably back at the brownstone - all crammed around the identical laptop Livingston had supplied so they could watch from a camera somewhere on Livingston's person - were probably making the same joke.

"Twenty," Danny agreed, just to make the joke end. It really was an old joke.

There was a loud crashing sound from above, making all four men jump due to the sound resonating off the walls in the elevator shaft. "Lily! What's going on?" Danny yelled, straining his eyes to look upwards even though he knew he could never see. His yell had had the same effect on sound as before, the men covering their ears from the sheer boom of Danny's voice.

"Everything's fine!" Lily said back, knowing better than to scream.

Everything really was fine. Yen had just gotten a little show-offish. From his wire lift he had crawled onto the wall, his feet narrowly able to hold onto the crown molding of the top of the half-wood paneling on the walls. From there, he had pushed off the wall into a back flip to reach the first divider.

Lily sighed loudly as she watched his thighs slap off the first office divider, falling backwards so he was hanging from his knees. She watched with clenched teeth as he pulled himself onto his feet, teetering precariously on the edge of the divider with nothing to hold onto to. With every flip forward, Lily closed her eyes and squeezed her teeth a little tighter together. She knew Yen could do it, she had seen him practice. She had helped him practice, even. Still, there was still a heavy feeling in her heart that made her stomach ache.

Finally, as Yen clung to the other wall in the same fashion as before, Lily felt a little comfort. Only a little. This alarm system made her feel a little better than before, Lily clearly able to see the keypad from across the room. "Yen, the code is 382624," she instructed, although she clearly knew that he already knew the code. That, too, she had helped him with.

The door swept open with one, fluid motion. Yen reached around the door, feeling around on the wall on the other side for the next alarm system. Once he found it, he signaled to Lily and entered the code before she could get a chance to remind him.

A moment later, a small "ding"-ing sounds filled the air and Lily shimmed herself over to the elevator door. With caution, she took the first step onto the floor.

Nothing.

The silence was bliss. Lily made the time to savor it, then titled her head back down the shaft. "Next," she cried loudly, hearing he rest of them groan for their aching eardrums.

In a minute, Rusty and Linus were at her side. "Almost there," she encouraged, feeling completely wiped. Her adrenaline was still running on high, but it was too much for her body to handle. As Danny and Livingston made their way up the shaft, Lily stumbled towards Hollings office. One wrong move and she rolled her ankle, falling on her side. Rusty were there, holding her up when she realized what had happened. "Thanks," she smiled at him.

"It's what I'm here for."

With those five, small words, Lily had received everything she needed to hear from Rusty. He was going to be there for, to catch her when she fell. He was going to be there for her… For her, and no one else…

She looked up at him, her legs feeling firm again. There was just enough adrenaline pumping through her veins - not enough to send her body into overdrive, but just enough to make her appreciate the thrall - and it was making her heart beat loud enough for everyone to hear. "I might just take you up on that."

Danny, internally praising himself, stepped up to the door to Hollings' office. "Gentlemen - and lady - shall we?" He had noticed the distraction between his daughter and Rusty, and wasn't sure whether to praise it or scold it for horrible timing.

Lily made it a point to be at her father's side. "The hard part is over is almost over," she told him.

"Almost?"

"Well, we still have to get into the vault," she followed up, walking taking the lead as she carefully opened the door to Hollings' office. It creaked, but easily gave way under Lily's hand. She crept into the darkened room, pulling a small pencil-like flashlight from her belt.

The vault was on the opposite side of the room, the widely visible to those truly looking for it. The tall, metallic archway shimmered in the moonlight, the entry pad to its left. A small, metallic box jutted out of the wall eyelevel with Lily. She took the digital recorder Linus had given her . "Let's hope this works, boys," she quietly prayed, pressing a big green button on the entry box and waiting for it to instruct her to press her thumb against the indicated place then verbally input the password. Livingston stepped up next to her, his thumb pressing gently on the keypad.

Lily could hear Danny starting to protest, but Rusty stopped him.

Lily pressed 'play' on the recorder and held her breath. The room went completely silent, except for the distorted recording of Hollings' voice patterns digitally stitched together to say "Holly Anne."

The screen of the entry box blinked for several seconds, deciding whether it bought their fake banker's voice or not, then cleared itself as the locks to the vault released themselves.

Lily closed her eyes, thanking whatever god that would hear her. Danny, however, was not as pleased.

"What the hell was that? Why would it accept Livingston's fingerprint? Do you realize that if…" he loudly expressed as he waved his arms.

Linus opened the door to the vault and led Livingston inside to set up his laptop. Rusty waited in the doorway, watching Danny and his daughter.

Lily reached out her hands to rest them on her father's shoulders. "Dad, calm down. It wasn't Livingston's fingerprint."

"It wasn't?"

"No, it was Hollings'."

"But…"

Rusty intervened, turning to the entry pad and peeling off a clear, oval adhesive from the thumb pad. "It's this stuff Livingston found out about. When Lily went to refill Hollings' coffee cup, she applied some of this stuff to where he had touched it and… instant fingerprint."

"How'd you know it was the thumb?" Danny asked, his hands on his hips as his gaze drifted to the floor.

"He always holds his cup with his thumb pressed against the top," Lily explained, unable to distinguish her father's particular expression from his many others.

Danny just nodded, turning into the vault. Lily, left confused, hurried ahead of him to see if Livingston was ready yet.

Rusty walked with him. "You okay?"

Danny nodded again, letting his hands fall to his sides. "I have to owe it to her… the girl really pulled this off."

"It's not over yet, Danny," Rusty warned, knowing not to jinx himself.

"I know."

Livingston was seated on the floor, eagerly typing away at his keyboard. His laptop was connected to several different wires, each of a different color and different shape. Linus paced the floor next to him, looking almost as nervous as Livingston. Lily just stood silently against a caged wall, her arms folded across her chest as she propped her leg up. Rusty stood next to her, copying her expression. She leaned into his side, her head falling onto her shoulder as she watched.

Danny noticed, finding it hard not to smile to himself. "Well?" Danny asked, all attention on Livingston.

"Um… now, we wait," he choked, his sweaty palms slipping against the keyboard.

Linus stopped pacing. "We wait? You kept saying that time was a factor, but we're going to wait?"

Livingston looked up to Rusty, a nervous expression set across his face. "He hasn't sent the money yet…" he uttered, shaking.

"It's fine. It's good," Rusty tried to soothe. "The money can't be sent to the bank, or else there will be a paper trail. We needed to get here fast, so he couldn't transfer the money before we got here. Once he starts, Livingston can do his thing and reroute the money, but everything is still going according to plan."

Lily reached up to the collar of her shirt, holding a small microphone to her mouth. "We're in, Virgil. How's it going out there?"

Virgil's reply came back quiet and crackled. "Fine. The guards are still out. You know, it's a pretty nice night…"

"Turk?"

Virgil laughed on the other end, but Lily couldn't recognize what he had said.

With no news to report, Lily hunkered down and sat on the floor. Rusty followed her example, and Linus followed his. Danny remained on his feet.

For now, they would wait.