'your turn, pretty face'
the girl got up and walked towards the globe. she gave it a quick spin and her finger landed on egypt. 'cairo' she said.
cairo.
one of the youngest girls ever held in a labour camp. even though she was involved in multiple fights inside the camp, she aways managed to come out of it unscathed. berlin came to her cellar one night to recruit her. with her as second in command and the advisor/brains behind the escape plan, they were all finally free of that hell hole.
'the place we will rob is, the unified korea mint'
—
cairo peaked out from the doors of the school bus and gave the officers a wave before hopping out. she aimed her riffle at the sky and started shooting. cairo then walked to the police car and stepped on it with one foot, aiming the riffle right at the officers as the other heist men pulled the officers outside of the car and disarmed them.
'alright. follow my orders from here on out' commanded berlin. cario was loyal to berlin since the day they met in the labour camp so it was not a new experience for her to be following his orders. 'if any of you take a chance, we'll only go to prison but you will all die'. it was a bit of a long drive to the bank and cario was in the back of the truck with men, she got unlucky for that part of the plan.
soon, the hinges to the truck door started rattling which meant that someone from the outside was opening it. 'everyone, positions' commanded cairo as the other heist men gathered behind her. as the door opened, she slowly creeped into the light as an older man stumbled backwards in fear. she quickly jumped out the truck while the workers were focusing on the older man and started shooting at the ceiling.
'move!' cairo shouted, pushing workers to the direction of the main lobby. she fired some more shots and started rounding up some of the people that had gone astray. 'hurry up' she shouted as people started clearing out and running towards the lobby. in this heist, cairo was supposed to be second in charge if anything were to happen to berlin. the people were split in two sides of the hall so cairo grabbed a duffel bag and started distributing blindfolds to everyone.
'put these on. if i catch you peaking, i'll blow out your eyeballs' she commanded. no one seemed to move as they were all staring at her in fear. 'now!' she shouted which made them all blindfold themselves. it was then that tokyo walked in with anne. cairo took her position on the right side of berlin. then they all lifted their masks, cairo took a deep breathe of fresh air. 'hello. i'm the one in charge.' he said, starting to walk down the middle of the lobby so cairo took his place in the center of the triangle.
'i'm afraid you comrades have become our hostages' announced berlin. a few whimpers escaped the hostage's mouths. as tokyo looked around, her eyes caught cairo's figure. she was standing straight and unfazed. her jumpsuit hugged her body perfectly and her black turtleneck covered her neck. tokyo wondered how cairo wasn't hot in that turtleneck but then remembered that she remained unfazed in almost every situation.
'everyone take out and hand over your phones, watches and id cards' cairo said sternly as her teammates started collecting the items. cairo walked around, watching over everyone. the phone suddenly started ringing, catching everyone's attention. berlin took a woman over to the telephone to answer. she must have handled the situation well because berlin had a look of satisfaction on his face.
'so we're good now, right?' asked berlin to the director who was nodding. 'alright then' he said, slapping the director's shoulder making the man whimper. cairo scoffed when seeing at the man's reaction, 'what an oaf' she mumbled to herself. 'rio, moscow' cairo called out, grabbing their attention and sharply turned her head to the right and back, signalling them to do their part of the job.
some time went by and i got the news that they had opened the lock to the vault. 'helsinki, osolo' cairo called out, and they knew immediately that they needed to go help get the money in the duffle bags. she walked up the stairs and stood next to berlin, specifically to his right, she was always to his right. the two started talking about something discreetly as tokyo and nairobi stood at the side together watching on.
'it looks like the kitten has flourished into a tiger' cooed nairobi as she watched cairo with an amused smile. 'why do you say that' asked tokyo. 'at first i thought cairo was some quiet school girl that lost her way and stumbled into a room with criminals but this is a whole new person, don't you think?'. nairobi chuckled at tokyo who looked like she was thinking hard about this. the four men came out of the vault room with bags filled with money, making cairo nod. she looked over her shoulder at nairobi and tokyo.
then, they got ready to fake their escape. cairo followed tokyo, denver, nairobi and rio to the entrance area. cairo watched as everyone got in position and then she pushed the red button that opened the doors. cairo looked at the closest clock to the enterance. as soon as the five minute countdown stopped, cairo gave the four a nod and they nervously stepped outside.
there was heavy fire outside and cairo stood by on the outside, observing to make sure everything went according to plan. cairo furrowed her eyebrows when the police started shooting back at them, that was not meant to happen. she then noticed that rio was frozen in his spot when the bullets started firing towards them. 'rio! take cover!' shouted cairo.
going completely against cairo's command, the boy started going down the stairs. and as a result was right in the eye line of the police. then, a bullet went right to his heart. cairo cussed and pulled her mask down before going outside. she fired some shots at the ground where the police officer's feet were, resulting in them running behind their car. she took this opportunity to grab a smoke bomb and unhinge it before throwing it at the open area.
'get back inside, now!' she shouted, firing at the police officers. she was covering them so that the rest can drag rio's body inside. cairo heard the doors start to slide close. 'cairo!' someone shouted from behind which caused her to slowly start back up into the bank. she didn't stop firing until the doors closed completely. cairo was breathing heavily as she turned back to the group, right in time to see tokyo walking away from rio. he was surprisingly still alive.
without a word, cairo walked by rio's body into the lobby. everyone caught their breath and gathered in the main lobby again. 'now, comrades, take off your blindfold' instructed berlin but the hostages all just stood there, not daring to move. 'quickly!' cairo raised her voice to let them know that she was not joking around. one by one, they all started taking their blindfolds off. 'its nice to talk yo you all face-to-face' smiled berlin. 'don't be scared. we are all trapped in the same building, so we have to work together, okay?'.
berlin nodded and some of us started handing out red jumpsuits. 'we didn't come here to hurt you. as long as you cooperate, you will not be harmed and will be able to return home safely' said berlin but the hostages still looked scared to death. 'i promise you' said berlin in hopes to reassure them. 'lets get along well'. and with that, berlin lead rio and oslo away.
'come on now, start changing' said denver but once again, no one moved. the director looked around and raised his quivering hand. tokyo, along with the other heist men looked up at cairo, because well, she was now incharge. she went down a couple of steps, 'speak' she said. 'i-i'm sorry but it would be ideal if we could have some privacy' he said. cairo looked around the room to see that some people looked very uncomfortable.
'very well. denver, helsinki, take all the men to the male bathroom. tokyo and nairobi, take the women to the female bathroom' instructed cairo. the group then split up and went their seperate ways. cairo slowly descended the stairs and made her way over to the male bathroom, 'everything okay in here?' she asked helsinki who was walking around. 'yes mam' he smiled, a tiny smile appeared on her face as she nodded and walked off.
her next stop was the female bathroom. there was a line outside the bathroom that nairobi was watching over. 'working hard?' asked nairobi, bumping cairo's hip with hers. cairo tiled her head, 'you know it'. she then walked in and saw that people were taking turns to go inside the stalls to get changed. 'everything okay?' cairo asked tokyo. 'everythings running smoothly' tokyo said. cairo nodded and slowly made her way towards the door when she felt someone grab her arm.
cairo turned to her left to see an older woman. 'is everything alright, mam?' she asked but the elderly woman shook her head. 'what can i do for you?' cairo asked, letting go of her gun and letting it rest on her back so that the old woman wouldn't get scared. 'i need my medicine and i'm afraid i don't have any on me' she said. cairo felt a bit bad for her because she looked scared to death. cairo nodded and held the lady's shoulders in a comforting manner. 'its okay, no need to worry. i'll get you your meds in a moment' she said, helping the woman onto a seat.
'does anyone else require mediation?' asked cairo, causing a few women to raise their hands. cairo noted down their names and the medication that they required. after that she left to go to the male bathroom. 'helsinki, go in there and ask anyone if they need medication. then note down their name and what type of medicine they need' instructed cairo, 'anything you need' he smiled before walking in. moments after he came back with a piece of paper. she nodded at him as a thank you.
cairo quickly made her way upstairs and looked through one of the duffle bags where she found a white bag. she took it out and walked over to the desk. cairo took out paper bags and a pen. looking through the list, she took out bottles of medication and packed them into the bag then labelling it with their name. after she was done, she collected all the bags and walked downstairs. 'give these to the people that have their name on it' cairo said before walking to the female bathroom.
she handed out the medicine and then turned to the older woman sitting in the corner. 'this is yours, mam' said cairo. the woman looked at cairo with a grateful expression and ushered cairo to come closer. so, cairo crouched down and the old woman held her cheek and smiled, 'thank you, dear. thank you' she said. cairo's guard dropped for a second as sadness flashed through her face. snapping back to reality, cairo smiled and got up.
—
the hostages were one again gathered in the lobby. 'everyone! its show time' berlin announced as groups of hostages started going towards different directions. cairo is already in position behind the machine gun. there were multiple number of hostages behind her, standing with fake guns. there was a small drilling noise and moments later, a small flash of light slithered inside.
it was then that denver took off the cloth that was covering the machine gun. cairo smirked inside her mask and cocked up the machine gun. a bit of time went by silently and the camera slowly slid back out the hole it came from. to cairo, that was already a sign of their victory. in this fight at least. cairo raised two fingers and pointed to the door so denver quickly ran over to the hole and patched it up.
cairo covered up the machine gun once again and faced the hostages. 'everyone, get back to the main lobby' she instructed and they obediently walked back without any problems. as her group of hostages joined the others, she took her position. she was a couple of steps below berlin and was watching over the hostages, they couldn't be trusted just yet.
'comrades. take off your masks' berlin instructed and this time, all of the hostages followed. 'thank you for your cooperation. the police have aborted their mission to subdue us' he announced as the heistmen cheered. 'i give you a heartfelt round of applause' smiled berlin as he started clapping. cairo started clapping at the same time as berlin and was pleased to see other people joining in.
a small smile formed on cairo's face. she thought it was safe to smile because no one was looking at her but a certain pair of brown eyes were watching her from a far. it was tokyo. and frankly, she was astonished as she had never seen cairo smile.