Day 226 - Repeat Offenders - Chapter 9.1 - (2143 words)

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REPEAT OFFENDERS

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 9.1

Harold Prime climbed out the bedroom window of the second floor of his house and edged along the extremely thin purchase he had to put his feet on and flattened himself against the outside wall of his house. If it was really his house or the other Harold's it did not really matter much at all, what mattered was not getting caught, not running into himself and not further complicating matters for the supposedly non-violent and safe version of their bank heist.


He had made his own bed, kind of his own fault when he thought about it, by coming here to spend the afternoon with his wife, a mistake he would not make again. Though he could easily do so as the circumstances would be different next time, there would not be the need for a nap. There would also be no time a nap, he remembered that the time was limited and that he would not be going back all the way next time, in fact he was running late now.


Faintly he heard the doorbell of his house, and then from inside the room where he had heard himself searching about, the sound of Harold Two heading back down the stairs. The bell rang a second time as Harold Prime climbed down the drain pipe, hoping all the way that it would not pull away from the side of the house, taking him with it. He walked around the front of the house cautiously and was just in time to hear the front door closing and Michael and Ivan standing there in suits, ties and carrying a briefcase each.


“Psst.” He hissed and the men clocked his presence, subtly with an inclination of their heads and turned round to walk back down the path at the front of the house. Harold shimmied over his neighbours fence, knowing they were away on holiday there was no chance of him being spotted or caught. They regrouped at a car, the two men waiting for him, Ivan grinning stupidly and Michael looking very unhappily at his watch.


“I'm sorry, I fell asleep and my alarm didn't go off. Maude, Maude must have turned it off so I would sleep longer, she saw me setting it when we went to bed.”


“You dirty dog!” Said Ivan before gunning the engine and driving them away.


“It's not, whatever.” Harold was felling a little guilty about falling asleep on the job, but they had plenty of time to sort the process out, there was a good ten hours window that they could stage almost any number of robberies within and still walk away with hundreds of millions of dollars worth of untraceable diamonds without hurting a single person.


They drove to the warehouse and rushed inside, Brian was not in the room waiting for them, instead the place was empty and the lights were off.


“What the fuck now?” Michael was unhappy with the lack of professionalism in the team at the present time, he needed to be more assertive and drive them to perform better to get the maximum efficiency from the scam if they were going to pull this off in one night. He knew they could go to two nights, but each day was a window of opportunity for the actual owner of the jewels to take action and begin the laundering process, they would not sit idly in the safe deposit box for more that one or two days based on their gathered intelligence on the haul.


“Where's Brian?” Harold asked, completely redundantly as that was what everyone was already thinking, no need to vocalise the issue as well.


“Hold on, I got this.” Ivan was selecting a number on his smart phone, tapping forcefully as if the harder he hit the capacitive screen the more forcefully he was making the call reach it's recipient. “It's ringing.” He held the phone up to his ear and then put it away from him, holding it as far away as possible. “Can you hear that?”


Faintly they could hear the chirping of the phone, it was coming from somewhere nearby but muffled as if it were in a pocket, a drawer or a bag.


“It's in here? He's here somewhere?” Ivan looked about but then the call went to voice mail and the speaker on Ivan's phone could be heard in a tinny tone, projecting Brian's message to 'leave a message after the tone' followed by the familiar tone itself.


“Brains! Where the FUCK are you!” Michael was already upset with the inventor for ignoring his lead, for supplanting his authority and for the delay in the plan that Harold's inattention had put on them.


“BRAINS!” Mike's face was red, raged and ready to explode when the clack of a door being unlocked and unlatched was made.


In the silence behind the screaming anger of the gang leader, the sound echoed and was much louder to the three men than it deserved to be, and the door which none of the men had really noticed before was opening in the wall, and Brian, looking more irritated than chagrined, exited the room, switching off the light on the wall as he did so, plunging the room behind into almost complete darkness.


Not before Harold could see a range of reflections in blue and red of diodes and lights on the floor and walls, there was something electronic and assumably quite complex back there.


“Stop shouting, I'm here. I have been here waiting for some time. I'm not the one running late. Not that we can really run THAT late, we do have technology on our side.” Harold avoided looking at Michael and Ivan and instead fixed his gaze on Harold, the least threatening person in the room.


“What is in there?” Michael was not letting him away with anything, he wanted control of the group again and he wanted to know everything.


“It's a cold room for the servers.” Harold dismissed the query and moved to the machine and started fiddling with the settings on the panel, picking up the bracelets, and calibrating the four of them together.


“What's in the room, why is fucking locked, and why haven't we seen it?” Michael stood in Brian's way, his nose inches from the scientist's and stared him down, close and imposing as he could be. Ivan hovered at his shoulder, spoiling for a fight and ready to reassert his own position as the muscle in the team.


Ivan was not exactly necessary any longer, but he wanted Mike to know that he had his back and would help skew the team to his side, if it came to that. He wanted to bring Brian down a peg or two, wipe that self satisfaction of his face, the one that screamed how dim Ivan looked by comparison. He wanted to stomp all over the bank manager as well, the man who appeared from nowhere, paid no dues and was now a one quarter partner in what had been a three way split. Sure he was making the haul bigger and reducing the risk of things going pear shaped, but that was also Ivan's role in the team, so he too need some come-uppance.


Brian kept his gaze on the machine not looking at the man only inches away from him and his voice wavered as he chose his words carefully, not wanting to provoke or confront his partners, not yet anyway, there was still way too much to do.


“There are racks of computers, servers and comms devices that run the calculations for the machine, it's cold and kept cold to stop them from overheating from all the data they have to crunch to calibrate the anomaly settings, if we get them wrong then we could all end up in different times when we reset, or...”


“Or what?”


“Or worse.”


“What's that mean?” Michael was taking everything the wrong way, this sounded like a threat and he was not having it.


“I mean I don't know what … or how bad it could be, but also, I'd rather not find out what happens when you screw up time travel. I'm pretty sure it's not good, so we have the room. It's just equipment. Look, put your hand on the door.”


He waved at the door and Ivan obliged by laying his palm on the panelling and shrugging his shoulders. “It is cold.” he finally conceded.


“We have those in the bank too. All our IT infrastructure is in secure cold rooms at 18 degrees. IT prevents overheating and ….”

“Shut the fuck up Banker.” Michael was still very unhappy.


“We need to go soon.” Brian suggested mildly and kept fiddling with the machine, holding out a bracelet to Michael. “As soon as you say we go, we can go.” He added, deferring to the leader of their group.


That submission was not enough though, and his anger was not abating. However it was time to go and start the first run on the bank, otherwise they would run out of time.


“Now.” He said through gritted teeth. “We are not done.” he jabbed a finger into Brian's chest getting a small yelp in response. Harold watched the two men facing each other down, one cowering before the intimidating presence of the more criminally experienced, yet hiding a back bone of steel that was waiting for the right opportunity to straighten, harden and take back the control.


“Go.” Mike's voice boomed in the space, impatient that they were not moving already to the door.


All four men were outside the bank a few minutes later, the lack of traffic at night making the trip from the warehouse to the Plaza much faster than the last couple of times that they made the trip. A security guard was checking the entryway when the four of them walked up, Ivan stiffening and reaching behind his back for the gun secreted there.


“Seth!” Harold greeted the guard in a friendly and conversational tone, not indicating that anything was out of the ordinary.


“Mr White? What are you doing here?” Seth was actually quite used to late night run ins with the management of the bank and a number of the buildings in the area, but they all made the same assumptions that working outside of hours was a bad and unusual thing, despite the occurrences being at least weekly, sometimes several days in a row.


“Late meeting with auditors from head office, Gentlemen, this is one of our very capable security guards Seth Black, he's usually on up to the dogwatch and then we have... who is on dog this week actually? Is it Ben? Is Ben still doing that thing... you know the...” Harold did not quite recall what it was that Ben was studying, but it was the subject of multiple discussions when he caught up with Seth.


He laughed and shook his head sadly, “Yes, complete waste of time if you ask me, but hey it's his life yes? And it keeps him happy doing Dog, then it's less mid-nighters for us normal, non-vampire sorts.”


“Hah! Oh well, we won't be that long Seth, we'll start up a few processes in the systems and come back and check them in the morning.”


“Oh?” Seth raised an eyebrow.


“Yes. We have to wait for the back ups to run and they should be over in … twenty minutes or so and then these gentlemen can get to work. We'll be out of your hair in an hour or so.”


Seth puffed up his chest and stuck out his chin. “I can be back in an hour if you want escorting back to your vehicles.” He stated rather than asked.


“There's no need really ...” Harold started to say, but the Michael smiled and smoothly accepted the offer.


“Actually that would be great, it's a bit darker round here than we expected, we got a little held up, and it would be good to know that we have someone watching our backs.”


“No problem sir, no one will get anywhere near you tonight!” Seth saluted and picked up his radio. “Home, this is Alpha Charlie Seven, we have a deactivation at the Plaza for ...” He looked at Harold “One hour?”


“Better make it two. To be sure.”


“Two, make that two hours, confirm.” Seth looked at the visitors and they all waited on the crackle of the radio.


“Confirmed.”



Seth nodded and walked away, waving over his shoulder as Harold unlocked the entrance for the bank and the four men went inside unmolested.