Day 214 - Repeat Offenders - Chapter 7.2 - (1251 words)

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REPEAT OFFENDERS

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 7.2

 “You waive your right to an attorney?” The interviewing officer tapped his pen on the desk, and was repeating the question for a third time.


“There's not much point in getting an attorney now is there?” Ivan threw his hands in the air, it was a gesture he had caught himself doing over and over again since the start of this debacle. “I'm a leaf on the surface of the waters of time, it's the current that determines my fate, no lawyer can affect the tide now can they?” He was staring at the cop with wide eyes.


“Can I get a straight answer please. Again I want you to be clear, that you have waived your right to an attorney?”


Ivan knew what the cop was trying to do, but he had no love for the police or what they needed to do. Any chance he had to make their life more difficult was good by him. “What attorney could I have?”


“If you do not have an attorney,”


“I do not.” again throwing up his hands.
“Then one will be provided for you. Do want an attorney provided for you?” The officer sighed, he had asked this for the third time now.


“Do you have a public defender that understands even a little bit of Quantum Physics? Because I can tell you, I don't, that's what we had Brains for?” Ivan shook his head and stared wildly at the door.


“Brains?”


“Brains.” Ivan nodded.


“You mean like your own brains? Brains … in a jar?”


“No, Brains, the guy. Brains.”


“The character from Thunderbirds?”


“From what now?” Ivan did not actually understand the reference, but it was the second time he had heard it, the first being from Michael.


Ivan sat alone in the room for a long time after that and eventually they brought in a doctor to talk to him. It was about then that he really turned up the crazy dial to eleven.

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“What I don't get is why rob us at all? You have a time machine, so you could find much less risky ways of making money. You want me to believe this, but it makes less sense the more I think about it.” Harold crossed his arms and sat back, feeling much more confident in his ability to speak out, to challenge the paradigm, but not so much that he would just get up and leave.


“We don't NEED you to believe anything actually. We don't NEED you at all.” Michael was looking at his business partner with his eyebrows raised.


Brian ignored the less than subtle threat. “It's not as easy as you might think. We tried, we thought, we looked at... there were a lot of ideas before this one. This was the best.”


“The lottery.” Harold threw it out there only to have all three men laugh at him.


“Please. We thought of that, but the big prize was just won, it was taken and we know that the winning ticker was already in some one's hands. It was not that easy. So we'd have to go for a smaller prize, and we needed. Wanted. We wanted more than that. But if we won several large lottery prizes all of a sudden? And week's apart? Someone would notice. Someone would investigate and see how we are cheating, and if they decide we are not we are suddenly famously lucky.”


“Then why not just win the same lottery again and again, like the jewels you have robbed how many times now?”


“Three, I think?” Said Ivan, the question unasked was an accusation to his accomplices. Then he fielded the question. “They pay by cheque, and a duplicated cheque is no good to us. And if we banked it...”


“It would all add up? Oh wait you say that only the things you have with you so … again you can't accumulate in the bank, you have to have cash?”


Michael stepped in. “Except if we duplicated cash, even if we could get that amount in bills in one go, and I'm sure you know how hard it is to get millions in cash right? Even if we did then we would be duplicating the money we have with us.”


“Right? So ...” Harold though it through. “So then the serialised bills, they would point to forgeries, and since they are not actually forgeries … that would be a problem.” He rubbed his chin. “Stockmarket!” he leapt to his feet again, and held a finger in the air, Eureka-style but Ivan shook his head.


“Nope, too visible and the IRS would come knocking on the door of the almost clairvoyant traders who come from nowhere overnight? And to make real money we would need a smaller amount of 'real money' to make a bigger amount, otherwise it would take too long. And if we did it over and over again to hide our trails by repeating the trades, none of the gains would stick with us, they would reset. We thought about this.” Ivan threw up his hands, and then stared at them wondering why he was making such a silly gesture.


“Oh.” Harold sat again. “So you instead find out about this … arrangement and … wow.” Harold smiled and rubbed the top of his head. “Actually makes a lot of sense, untraceable and unreportable and because all the diamonds are unmarked there's no suggestion of fraud or deception. You are basically rich in a small amount of assets than are portable enough to take with you.”


Brian was not comforted by the appreciation of their unexpected guest. “Now though we have the diamonds, enough for now.”


“One more time, we have the window. Come on?” Ivan was champing at the bit.


“No, we have enough.” Michael answered for Brian this time and he put an edge in his voice, one that would set Ivan straight as to who was in charge and when to shut up.


“Take me with you this time and we can do the whole thing with me as an inside man, we can walk in with no violence required and then 'reset' as you say and no harm no foul.” Harold was looking at the other men expectantly and the two more criminally minded had already sided with him in their minds. They all looked at Brian.


“You forget one thing, you are the Bank Manager, and you are at work already.”


“Exactly, which is why I can help out here, and I can get a cut, it does not have to be an equal partnership, we can work this out, we can go again and again until we feel we have enough, it's perfect! Why wouldn't we? No one is hurt and we all make out like bandits!”


“I fucking love this guy!” Ivan was rubbing his hands together but still Brian was glowering at them.


“No you idiots, he's already at work. He can't walk in there when he's already in there can he? What the fuck do you think the other him is going to think seeing himself walk right in and go into the vault? What the hell happens to your plan then? I'm not worried about the money, I'm much more worried about the repercussion of breaking the fabric of reality!”