CHAPTER TWO
The Plan
Rio—
Six of us crowd around the small table in the cheap motel room.
I point at the drawing I’ve sketched out illustrating the layout of the Las Cruces First National Bank. We’ve been scouting the place for a week now. Too much is riding on this plan to take any chances without knowing exactly what we’re walking into. “Behind the lobby is a room with a copy machine and some other office equipment. It’s just off the vault, and it’s where they prepare the teller cash drawers in the morning. But that’s not where the real money is.”
“We hitting the vault? Aren’t those on a timer?” Bagger asks.
“There’s another room here.” I point to a back section and tap the spot. “It’ll be easier to access and there’ll be big money there.”
The men lean closer.
“If it’s not the vault, what is it?” Mauler asks.
“It’s where they load the ATMs. They’ve got two. One is a walkup outside the entrance, and one is in the drive-up lane. They’ll be closed for Sunday and Monday for Memorial Day. This branch is high traffic, so they’re gonna have those things loaded with a ton of cash over the holiday weekend. That combined with what’s in the teller drawers and we should be able to cover our loss.”
“How the hell do you know all this stuff?” Mauler folds his arms and rocks on his heels.
Zig leans over the drawing, his palms on the table, but he cuts his head to Mauler and answers for me. “Since he used to date a bank teller, shithead.”
“We hitting them on Saturday morning?” Bagger asks.
“Yeah. We know their routine,” I continue, and Zig finishes for me.
“They arrive at eight. Saturday morning, they’ve got three tellers, a manager, a loan officer and a guard.”
“The old guy,” Mauler fills in. “Should be easy to take him out.”
“We’re not hurting anyone. We’re just after the cash.” My gaze goes around the room, meeting each of my brother’s eyes. “Is that clear?”
I get a few curt nods.
“We’re gonna need a distraction. Get the cops as far away as possible,” Zig murmurs.
“Exactly. We need them to respond to a call. Something big. Any ideas?” I look around the room.
Bagger drags a hand down his jaw. “An explosion?”
Zig straightens. “We just said we’re not out to kill anyone. Pulling off something like that… there’s no guarantee someone won’t get hurt.”
I tip my head to Bagger. “He’s an expert. Right, Bagger?”
“I’d have to scout a location, one that won’t have anyone on Saturday morning.”
“It’ll have to be timed perfectly,” I murmur.
“Even if we pull them to the other side of town, it’ll only give us a few extra minutes of time if someone sets the alarm off,” Zig says.
“I know that. Like I said, timing will have to be perfect. We’re in. We’re out.”
“I’d feel a lot better if we could find someplace to do a run through.”
“When we were leaving Santa Theresa, there was an old boarded up savings and loan on the edge of town.”
“No way.” I shake my head. “Too risky.”
“We go out in the desert and mark off the layout with some spray paint,” Zig offers.
“That could work.”
“Where are we parking the getaway cars?” Blue asks.
“Two blocks out, at least. There’s a neighborhood behind the bank. I figure we use it.”
“We’ll need to time that,” Bandit says.
“We’ve got two days to get this right, boys.” I fold my arms. “I’m not going back to Storm without that money.”
“I’d feel better about this if we could disable those cameras,” Zig says.
“Unless one of you is a tech wizard I don’t know about, we’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way, with masks.”
“I hear the FBI can do all kinds of shit with retina scanning these days, even off security cameras,” Mauler says.
“I heard of a guy who tripped that up by wearing goggles,” Bandit answers.
“Then we get some goggles,” I say.
Zig nods. “Bagger, you get the goggles. The rest of us will pick up some spray paint and meet you outside of town.”
Mauler scans his map app. “There’s a shooting range about fifteen miles west of Las Cruces. Lots of flat barren land out that way. We should be able to find someplace.”
I lift a chin to Bagger. “We’ll text you the exit. Meet us out there.”
Half an hour later, we’re standing in the middle of scrub land as far as the eye can see, marking off a crude copy of my drawing with red spray paint.
“All right,” I say. “Here’s the backdoor. The parking lot goes out this way to a line of trees and a fence. It’s chain-link and shouldn’t be a problem to scramble over. No one from the street will see us if we go over it and into the yards behind the bank. There’s no dog in the yard of the green house dead center on the other side, but if you go on either left or right of it, there’s a Pit Bull and a German Shepard. Once you’re clear, cut to the next street over. We’ll park the cars there.”
“Are we going in before they open up?” Bandit asks.
“The guard smokes a cigarette out back each morning before they open for business,” Zig says.
“They aren’t going to open the backdoor for us. Even if we’ve got a gun to the guard’s head,” Mauler says. “And if we go in the front, anyone could see us. They call 911, we’re done before we get started.”
I put my hands in my hip pockets and study the floorplan. “I’ve thought of that.”
“And?” Zig asks, squatting and tossing the spray can in a bag.
“I called Julie.”
“Your ex?” Bandit grins.
“She told me there’s one fault in the security system in most banks. The motion detectors don’t take into account the space between the ceiling tiles and the roofing.”
“What the hell are you saying?” Zig asks, his brows lifting and his knees cracking as he rises to his feet.
“I cut a hole through the roof in the early morning hours while it's still dark and drop into the rafters. I move a ceiling tile so I can see. Once the manager arrives and turns off the security system for her employees, I’ll drop through the ceiling tile, taking them by surprise.”
“You’re gonna drop ten feet? You could bust an ankle, brother. Let me do it,” Zig offers.
I need to take the risk; the blame for this screw up falls to me. I should have been more careful, plain and simple. I slap a hand to Zig’s shoulder, appreciative of his offer. “I’ll be fine. Once I’ve got them under control, I’ll let you in the backdoor.” I look to Bagger. “You’ll have to hang back and set off the explosives.”
He looks up from the map app on his phone and nods. “There’s an elementary school on the edge of town. No one will be there.”
“You sure? You have to be sure there’s no one, Bagger.”
“If there is, I’ll take care of it.”
“Sometimes kids play ball and stuff on school grounds. There may even be janitorial.”
“I’ll make sure. Trust me.”
I shake my head. “I’d feel better if you picked somewhere else.”
He checks his map app again. “The only other place way out there is a small post office. That’s not going to draw the attention you want.”
“He’s right, Rio,” Zig agrees. “That isn’t going to summon the same response as a school.”
I drag a hand down my jaw and blow out a breath. I don’t like it, but I’ve got to trust my brother doesn’t fuck this up. He’s our explosives guy. I have to trust he knows what the hell he’s doing. “Okay. But I swear to God, you hurt a kid, I’ll bury you myself.”
“Let’s run through this thing,” Zig suggests, breaking the tension. He pulls dark ski masks and goggles from his bag and tosses them at each of us.
“Hell, these things are a pain to see through,” Mauler complains, dropping the goggles over his eyes.
“Deal with it,” I bark and point to a spot fifty feet from the spray paint. “You’ll be waiting behind the dumpster. I’m over here inside the back door. When I open it, it’s going to surprise the guard. You’ll have to be ready for that. You rush him and get him inside and on the floor. Make sure he doesn’t get on that fucking radio or near an alarm button. Zig, you’ll hit the cameras with spray paint. I’ll deal with the teller in the ATM room. The rest of you watch the other employees.”
We run through it several times, trying to prepare for any scenario we can come up with until the heat of the day drives us back to the two rental cars.
As we climb inside, I realize we’re going to have to drop Bagger off early and leave him without a car until the job is done. I twist and look over the front seat. “You got somewhere near this school you can stay out of sight?”
“Yeah. No one will see me. I promise, I got this, brother.”
My head is pounding, and his words do nothing to ease the tension.