The Mission

8.50 a.m. The sun was already out and had cast a luminescent glow upon Eighth Street. There were fewer people than normal on the street, which was fortunate for the pedestrians since normally the street was brisk. Along the street, stood the Pacific Bank. It was on the ground floor of a high-rise building. It had a medium-sized revolving glass door, tiled floors and pendant lights hanging from the ceiling. Rope lines were already set up that each led to a counter booth with a teller behind the glass window . 

Harry saw the time display on his gold-plated digital watch instantaneously change. He had only been in the bank for seven minutes but to him it felt like time was moving slower than a herd of snails on peanut butter. He had bent over his back, pen in his hand, scraping calculations against the paper. 

Oddly enough, he couldn’t tell what calculations he’d been making for the past five minutes. His eyes were on the bank teller at the far left, who had checked his watch, and stood up. “What a punctual man,” Harry thought. The customer at the counter booth opened his eyes widely and glowered at the oblivious bank teller. He held a bundle of cash in his hands, possibly trying to deposit the cash. The teller had been talking to him, probably asking for his bank details and suddenly he was acting like he didn’t exist anymore. Even though there were ten counters, six of them were empty since they had no tellers. The far left counter being closest to the door had a longer queue. The customers waiting between the rope lines were also seething at their server, as they had been waiting for a long time.

The bank teller had a pensive look. He was heading to the biometric door. A deliveryman was standing by the door. He had earlier on been admitted into the bank by a security guard who had checked his documents before going past the walk through metal detector. Harry had smiled wryly at the time. The metal detector was going to be useless for the following ten minutes. When Harry walked into the bank, he had subtly placed a small device against the cold metal of the detector. The device inhibited the detector from working. He was the first of the group to go through the detectors undetected, with the cold rear of his gun touching his back. He had heaved a sigh of relief when it worked. “Talk about a sacrificial lamb,” he thought, though relieved that the plan was going their way.

The plan. The previous night, Harry lay in bed going over it. He had always been particular about details. He was the computer wizard of this band of past and future malefactors. They were going to rob the Pacific Bank vault. Hawkeye, the leader of the group, had done most of the surveying. By the time he 

floated his idea to Harry, he already knew how many guards were available during the morning shifts, how many CCTV cameras were in the bank and the street activity on various days. Hawkeye settled for Thursdays when there was reduced activity in the bank. He had noticed the delivery van that brought the banks mail everyday between 9.00 a.m and 9.10 a.m. He had noticed that there were two guards in the early morning hours and two additional guards past 10.00 a.m. The biggest hurdle was the biometric door. They needed someone to open it from the inside. This was why they needed Tariq, the bank teller.

Hawkeye had surveyed the bank tellers too, and he chose Tariq as the easiest target. Tariq lived with his wife, Melissa, along a quiet street. His wife always went on a morning run on alternate days. The plan was to kidnap her a day before the heist and use her as leverage against Tariq. Tariq would then open the biometric door and lead them to the vault. 

Apart from Hawkeye and him, there were five other members in the gang. Yoshiaki was a six foot burly man of Japanese descent. Hawkeye gave him the task of kidnapping Melissa during her morning run. He overpowered Melissa quite easily and bundled her into a camper van, which was also the gang’s meeting place. Bull was Hawkeye’s brother. He was as sharp as his brother. Mad Dog was a rotund man who was quite a mystery to Harry. Hawkeye had recruited him. Speedy was a young getaway driver. He had a reputation among criminals and he didn’t come cheap. Arie was Harry’s friend. She was a slender lady with mesmerizing eyes. She’d been in the pen before. She and Harry had history. Harry had placed listening and visual devices in the camper van hence he didn’t have to go to the van. He never liked groups anyway.

On the D-Day, the gang went over the entire plan early in the morning. Hawkeye was to drive the faux delivery van to the bank and arrive ten minutes before the normal delivery van so as not to create suspicion. Harry was going to take care of the metal detectors and the CCTV cameras in the bank. He had to complete both tasks from inside the bank. Hawkeye and Arie would go through the biometric door when Tariq opened it to receive ‘mail’ while Yoshiaki, Bull and Mad Dog would hold the customers hostage. Speedy was supposed to keep the engine running outside and man the banks’ doors. Melissa would remain sedated in the camper van’s toilet and they would give up her location to Tariq before leaving the bank. They estimated the ETA of police around ten minutes. By then, they would have switched vehicles and would be riding off into the sunset. Easy peasy.

Tariq inserted his card into the card reader by the door. That was the signal. Hawkeye looked to the farthest right where Mad Dog was positioned. He was in a black leather jacket, seated on a wooden bench for waiting customers. There were two women on the bench, and on the opposite end, sat Bull. He looked so engrossed on his phone that one wouldn’t think he was aware of his surroundings. Yoshiaki and Arie were standing at the back of the queues of the first and second counters. They had both worn sunglasses with dark lenses. Harry took his phone out just to confirm everything was okay. The banks’ CCTV cameras were down. The camera connected to the camper van had wavy horizontal lines but he could see Melissa was still seated on the toilet seat. She was probably still sedated. 

Tariq placed his finger on the scanner and instantly the door unlocked. He took out the card from the card reader and placed it back into his shirt pocket. He pulled the door open, all the while dodging Hawkeye’s eyes which were fixated on him. Arie slipped away from the line, her left hand dug in her chest. Harry knew she was going for her Smith and Wesson 9mm gun. She always had two strapped around her torso. She was supposed to go past the biometric door with Hawkeye. Mad Dog and Bull had stood up and they were all going for their firearms. Yoshiaki was quite quick. He took out his firearm and held it straight at the guard who had been standing a few feet behind him. The guard at the door saw the firearm and quickly went for his waistband holster. Speedy was right on time, coming in through the door aiming a pistol towards the guard. Civilians outside were scampering and screaming while those who wanted to enter the bank turned around speedily. The customers inside looked as if they had walked into the ending scene of a horror movie. “Checkmate,” Harry thought.

“Put your weapons down!” the guard who had a gun pointed at his head shouted pointing straight at Yoshiaki. Yoshiaki was smiling , plainly revealing the scar that ran from his chin to his nose across his lips. The guard wasn’t even armed unlike the guard at the door. Harry thought it was foolish of him to even think they’d do that. In a split second, Harry noticed something. Colour drained from his face. The guard was pointing at Yoshiaki’s chest. The red dot. There was a red dot on the left side of Yoshiaki’s chest and it probably wasn’t sauce. He saw Arie standing stock-still staring at Hawkeye, who also had a red laser directed to his head. There was a red laser also aimed at Arie. His eyes darted to the right . Lasers. Harry knew all too well what the lasers meant. There were rifles aimed at them, probably from outside. 

Suddenly, realization abruptly hit him. The camera had not been wavy. He was seeing exactly what he was supposed to see. A still image of Melissa. Melissa probably wasn’t there at all. His video feed had been manipulated. There was only one explanation he could think of at the time. Someone had found the van. Someone had found the video feed and realized it was being streamed to another device. Tariq had played them. He had probably gone to the police. The police had probably found the van and watched the video feeds and that was why their faces were easily recognized. But he wasn’t in the videos. 

He quickly turned around. No red laser on him. They didn’t identify him but they were probably looking into where the video feeds were being streamed to, which meant he probably had minutes or hours if he could get to a computer in time. With the deafening scream that a lady among the customers let out, Harry cowered, as he began counting the seconds till someone stormed through the door. 

“Mission failed,” a still small voice echoed in his mind.