Everything went awry after four minutes and forty-two seconds. Months of planning and practicing all thrown off by one damned cop who decided to make an unexpected deposit right as the smoke cleared and we entered the vault.
"He's at the door", Paulo shouted as he watched the policeman rattle the chains and finally comprehend what was happening, "He's going back to his car".
F**k. I was still cramming stacks of dollar bills into a duffel bag while Jimmy stuck a rifle in the bank manager's fat face. "We're not going to make the getaway." Jimmy shouted, finger still wavering over the trigger. No amount of practice runs would guarantee the safety of this poor schmuck; Jimmy didn't seem like the type with a cool head and abundance of self-control.
I grabbed another stack of cash and thrust it angrily into the stack, "We're going to have to shoot our way out", I told him. "Keep that one alive." I gestured to the bank manager "We might need some valuable human shields." The bank manager looked like he was about to shit his pants, or possibly had.
Reinforcements arrived at around six minutes and thirty seconds mark. The police went all out: swat vans, squad cars, spotlights, the works. The chief himself was down here acting as a negotiator, shouting into a bullhorn about how he was ready to make a good deal with us if only we would release all the hostages. "Yeah, sure you're on our side buddy."
Paul and Alex on the second floor took turns menacing the crowd of customers and bank employees that we had corralled into a broom closet and rattling off rapid bursts of fire to keep the cps all back beyond the sidewalk. We had to show them that we meant business, and that we would waste the hostages if need be.
"We need to do something. We have to make a break for it at some point", I told Jimmy. He was sweating profusely and shoving the rifle barrel into the bank manager's fat cheeks so hard that it was leaving big red circles on his skin. Jimmy flinched visibly as gunfire echoed down the halls from Paul and Alex taking potshots at any cop who stuck their head out of cover. His fingers pulsed on the trigger with the sound of each shot, just lightly enough to not fire a shot.
"What, then?" he said. I could hear the note of panic invading his voice; Jimmy was never the one to think on his feet. I had to do something with this bank manager before he did something incredibly stupid.
"We're going to send this fat f**k out to be our negotiator. He's going to get us a helicopter and we're going to escape from the roof." I told Jimmy, gesturing to the manager now crying on the floor. "Calm down, guy. That means we're letting you out." He managed to utter "thank you" in ragged gaps between his sobs.
He walked out of the door 10 minutes later with a list of demand: a helicopter, a private plane waiting at the airport, and a safe passage out of the country. We would take four hostages with us: two too be released at the airport when we board the plane, and two when we've reached our final destination, wherever the f**k it might be. There would be no further negotiations with that dumb shit on the bullhorn; either they get us the chopper in half and hour, or we would just start executing hostages.
We watched him waddle out to the police and I gave Jimmy a congratulatory high five. "you did a good job" I told him. "I actually thought that you were going to shoot him." Jimmy laughed and slipped back into his panicked persona waving his rifle around the room with wild eyes and shaking hands. We watched through the window as the bank manager was welcomed into the fold and promptly rushed off into a large van to be debriefed. He would no doubt be telling the police all about how our plan was ruined and how we needed that helicopter to escape and how Jimmy was ready to snap. Exactly as we wanted him to think. I handed out the detonator to jimmy with an elaborate flourish, bowing like a butler." Would you like to do the honors?" he grinned and thanked me profusely.
An explosion rocked the parking lot, sending the remains of our vehicle careening through the air and landing on top of the police cruiser. "STAY BACK" Paul shouted at the cops out the window, firing wildly. The display of pyrotechnics was all for a show, though just a cover for a second explosion that had just gone off in the 2nd level of the bank basement. We slipped out of the room and scampered down the stairs to the neglected store room now chocked with rubble and dust and debris. The blast had blown a hole into the back wall and straight into the next-door parking garage of some office building. The vault itself was designed to be protected from any tunneling in, but the architect hadn't been so careful with some pointless store room. Lucky for us too.
Amanda was waiting in the getaway vehicle with a smile on her face." You boys made the news", she said as we piled out slowly into the street on the other side of the block from the crowd of flashing lights clustered around the back entrance. We drove off without even a stray glance from a cop and we laughed as we saw a helicopter approaching the bank behind us. I would have paid to see the expression on their faces when they realized we were long gone.
