The Cube Heist (BWWM Interracial Romance and Crime) (7 page)

His resolve hardened.

“They won’t get hold of it. It’s not an option. You have my word boss. I’ll do everything in my power to ensure the success of this operation.” Anderson said.

He stood up and stretched a hand to Harris, who stood up also. They gripped hands tightly. For once they were not arguing about anything. They were on the same side, fighting the same enemy. Anderson felt glad that Harris had understood immediately the danger they now faced. The mafia was not your regular criminals. These were highly organized people with better and more sophisticated equipment than the police and the bureau put together.

If they were to succeed, they needed to work together.

“I’ll have as many men as I can guard that bank.” Harris said.

Anderson’s brow creased. “Boss, I don’t know if that’s a good idea. The more people there are, the more confusion there will be.”

“What do you suggest then?” Harris said.

“The fewer the better. The coordination will be smooth and we’ll work together easily. Just two more boys in addition to myself, Clark and Jackson.”

“OK Anderson. I’m putting all my trust in you for this one.” Harris said.

We’ve become like an old married couple, Lisa thought as she slid into Harper’s car.

“Morning” Lisa said.

“Morning” Harper mumbled back.

Lisa looked at him closely. His eyes were blood shot and he looked as if he had not had enough sleep.

“Long night?” Lisa said.

Harper navigated the car into the main road before answering her.

“You could say that.” He finally said.

Lisa swallowed her irritation. She hated this habit of Harper’s. He treated every piece of information like it was a state top secret. What did it matter if you volunteered personal information?

Then to her surprise, he went on to explain.

“I’ve been having a rough time accessing the bank’s servers. For seven days now, I’ve been at it and nothing. Our mission’s success depends on it.”

“Were you able to?” Lisa asked, holding her breathe.

Harper turned to her with a huge grin. “Yes. This morning I finally got through. You see, most banks have a two factor authentication system, which is very difficult to access. Our Bank is no different. However, I got a break through because one of their servers had a one way verification system and I was able to hack into it.”

Lisa was not very good at IT stuff and she was struggling to understand what Harper was talking about.

“So what does all that mean?”

“It means that I can see their security, I can see the bank layout, and I have access to their security cameras.” Harper said. “I’ll show you when we get to my apartment. By the way, that’s where we’re working today.”

“Oh, OK.” Lisa said.

Harper’s apartment was neat and tidy, the curtains and window open to let in clean smelling air.

“Want some coffee?” Harper said.

“Sure.” Lisa said and followed him into the kitchen.

Like his living room, the kitchen was clean, with everything stashed away where it should be.

“You’re very neat.” Lisa said in awe.

“Yap, I hate living in a messy environment. It interferes with my thinking.” Harper said, putting water in a pot to boil.

When the coffee was ready, Harper carried both mugs towards the living room, and into the hallway. Lisa followed him passed his bedroom. She paused to take a quick peek at his room. It held a double bed, of course neatly made, and a small bedside table with a lamp and a couple of books on it. She caught up with Harper as he entered another bedroom.

Stepping in, Lisa saw that it was not a bedroom at all. It had at least three computers and the window was sealed so that the only light came from a bulb hanging from the ceiling. There were other equipment that Lisa had never seen, as well as a projector and a screen. It felt like stepping into another world. The lack of proper lighting made it eerie, and Lisa felt a bolt of excitement run through her, similar to how she felt when she was on a job.

Harper put the coffee on a long office desk which held the computers and invited Lisa to sit down.

“This is interesting.” Lisa said.

“It’s my office. It has everything I need.” Harper said, pushing Lisa’s coffee towards her.

The coffee was hot and sweet in her mouth, and she wrapped her hands round it for warmth. It was chilly in the room. On one corner she noticed a fan, quietly circulating cold air.

“Are you cold?” Harper said.

“No, I’m fine.” Lisa said, although she could feel goose pimples on her skin.

Harper got up and when he returned he had a brown suede jacket with him. He walked round Lisa’s chair and placed the jacket on her bare arms. His fingers touched her bare skin. Lisa gasped. She closed her eyes and willed her heart to slow down. Slowly Harper ran his fingertips up and down the nape f her neck. Lisa’s legs grew weak. Blood raced through her body like greyhounds. She gave no sign of it, instead concentrating on remaining still.

She could hear Harper’s heavy breathing. All she had to do was turn. Before she could, he tightened the jacket around her shoulders. He sighed and stepped away from her.

Why had he not tried to kiss her, Lisa wondered in frustration. What was holding Harper back? She picked up her mug of hot coffee and concentrated on the taste of the coffee. They didn’t speak for a while. Harper turned off one of the computers. Lisa marveled at the silence in the room. The building was right off a main road, yet you couldn’t hear hoots or any noises coming from outside.

“Come round I want to show you something.” Harper said, his voice sounding like a stranger’s.

It was hoarse, as if in the last few minutes he had contracted a throat infection.

Lisa went round with her mug of coffee and stood behind Harper. He smelt strongly of clean soap and light cologne. She looked at the screen and immediately forgot the demands of her body.

“That’s how the bank looks inside.” Harper said.

On the monitor was a live shot of the banking hall. Lisa could see customers in the queue and others at the counter. Harper pressed a key and the camera switched to a back room.

“This is the vault room. See how secure the door is. The vault room was empty until the door swung open and a man, a bank employee, walked in. Lisa held her breath, as if the man could sense that they were watching him.

He wore a name tag but the camera was too far to see his name. He went to the vault door and entered a combination and then stepped back.

“I have it. I have the vault door combination.” Harper said.

His voice was loud to Lisa’s ears and she almost shushed him. The vault door was a heavy door, metallic grey and circular in shape. It swung to one side to reveal another metal door which resembled a prison cell. The bank employee disappeared inside. They could only see his figure but not what he was doing.

“I couldn’t access the camera inside the vault.” Harper said. He’s probably getting a safety deposit box for a customer.”

Harper was right. A few minutes later the man left, taking care to close the metal door and the huge vault door. When the door to the room closed behind him, Lisa felt her muscles relax and her heart beat slowing down.

Harper turned and looked at her face. He laughed.

“Are you OK?” he asked remnants of laughter in his voice.

Lisa grinned. “I think so. My hands are sweaty; it was almost like being on a job.”

“It feels odd the first couple of times, watching people who don’t know you’re watching them. Let me show you something else.” Harper said turning back to his computer.

He punched some keys and the view changed to what seemed like a control room. Two men in security uniform sat on a desk watching TV monitors, on the desk. Mesmerized, Lisa watched as they sipped coffee and talked. They couldn’t hear what they were saying. One man yawned and in doing so stretched his neck backwards and for a moment he seemed to be looking at them. Lisa flinched.

“He knows there’s a camera recording happenings at the control room, but he doesn’t know it’s been watched.” Harper said.

“This is the bank’s security control room?” Lisa asked.

“Yeah.” Harper said. “They monitor the cameras during the day but not at night. At night, the cameras record and if there’s an incident, they can just go back and see the previous recordings.”

“Wow!” Lisa said. “If you can do this, does it mean you can access the bank’s financial transactions.”

“I can. It’s something I’ll pursue later but not now. Even right now, I can transfer people’s money from their accounts to mine, however, the problem with that is not getting the money. That’s easy. Transferring it to a medium you can use and not get caught is the problem.”

“You mean they can trace the money?” Lisa said.

“That’s exactly what I mean. If you want to get away with it and to protect yourself, first of all you need to be out of this country. Go to a country where they don’t have an extradition agreement with the United States. Steal the money, transfer it to a dozen accounts in different countries, hopefully they’ll lose track.”

“Or maybe not” Lisa said.

“True maybe not. Even if they can trace it, your trump card will be where you’re living. Many European countries do not have clear extradition agreements with America, or even countries in South America.”

“Why haven’t you gone before this?” Lisa said.

“It’s not that easy.” Harper said. “First of all, my parents are still alive and if I left that would mean I’d never see them again unless they came to visit me.”

“What would stop them?” Lisa said.

“They’re a bit old and not that adventurous. I don’t know.” Harper said, shrugging.

Lisa thought of her own existence and felt a pang of loneliness. She had grown up in foster homes, shuttled from one to another until she turned eighteen, by which time she was a professional shoplifter. She had no relatives and no close friends. She envied Harper for having parents whom he cared about. She now understood his reluctance to leave the States and start life elsewhere.

“What about your plan to leave the business?” Lisa asked.

“Oh, that’s different.” Harper said. “I’m not leaving the country, just the state. Nobody, except you now, knows anything about me. My parents don’t live in Chicago and I’m glad I kept my mouth shut over the years. Nobody knows I have parents or even where they live. When I go visit, I use different names and I change flights like four times.”

Lisa whistled.

“You always knew one day you’d leave?” she asked.

“Not really, but I like to live my options open.” Harpers said.

Harper tapped a few more keys and the view changed again. This time they could see the street and the view of the bank entrance.

“Why the hell were we staking it out then?” Lisa asked in exasperation.

“Nothing beats being physically present at a location. Cameras miss a lot of stuff and you only get a certain angle. Besides, I was only able to have this, this morning.”

“There’s that fed guy.” Lisa said, pointing at a man walking past the bank trying to blend in.

“Anderson, yeah that’s him. See the two men walking just behind; those are his cronies at the bureau.” Harper said.

They observed the live recording for a while and then Lisa pulled a seat and sat down.

“Now to the bad news” Harper said. “I can do all these, but I can’t do much about the laser beams surrounding the vault. When that bank employee went in, he disabled the beams before he entered the room. For us, the hole we want to drill from the deli goes into here.” Harper pointed to a spot in the vault room, on a front corner. “The lasers will be active which means you have to manually skip over them.”

“OK, I can do that.” Lisa said.

“I’ll have some goggles for you so that you can see the way the laser beams criss-cross around the vault and you can step over them. Don’t worry; we’ll practice that in a few minutes.” Harper said. “Let me set it up for you.”

Opening a drawer, Harper got some normal looking goggles and handed them to Lisa. She slipped them on and waited. Harper then switched off the lights and the room went into total darkness. Using a torch, he went over to a work top covered with a cloth. Impatiently, he jerked the table cloth to reveal a board with multi colored wires and exposed electric connections. He switched it on and immediately the front of room was flooded with red beams of light running along and across each other.

Lisa removed her shoes and the suede jacket. She walked over to the edge, where the red lines began. Bracing herself, she lifted one leg, careful not to touch the light. Her leg touched the ground and she braced herself to shift the other. Her thighs were shaking from the strain of holding her legs still. On the third jump, it happened. She touched the beam with a foot and a screeching alarm went off.

Harper quickly switched it off. He then turned on the light. Lisa was surprised to find her black tank top dripping with sweat.

“It looks easy right?” Harper said.

“It does, and it will be.” Lisa said determination etched on her face. “There’s less than five days left.”

With that thought, she asked Harper to switch off the lights and started again. The trick to jumping the beams successfully, Lisa realized, was to stand on her toes. That way, she would give herself ample space to turn round to give her other leg the best position.

“Let me show you.” Harper said, on Lisa’s fourth try. First he got another pair of goggles.

Watching him going over the beams was like watching a dancer, gracefully executing his moves. Every movement seemed choreographed and well thought out, not like her own clumsy movements. Lisa noticed that every time he brought the second leg over the light, before moving again, he would shift his body, taking a ninety degree turn. Then he would lift one leg, when it hit the floor, pause to regain his balance and finally lift the other leg.

Harper was now on the last beam. Looking at her watch, Lisa saw that he had taken almost six minutes to get over the beams. The trick was to take her time. The more she rushed, the higher the chances were of accidentally brushing against the beams.

She practiced over and over again. Harper returned to his computer and engrossed himself in it. Occasionally, he looked up and gave her thumbs up when she managed to go over the beams without triggering the alarm.