“We are not killing anyone,” Saint maintains, his eyes steely and his jaw stubbornly set.
He and Mercier engage in a staring contest, but then Mercier finally shrugs. “I don’t care what you do. Not my job to plan it anyway—only to provide the backing. Just tell me what you’ll need.”
“A fast-acting injectable drug,” I say. “Will need to knock them out for several hours as it will take me a while to crack the combos.”
William nods. “Done.”
Mercier turns his back on us, returning to his desk. He sits and leans back, steepling his hands before his face in contemplation as he stares at the screen again.
Finally, he says, “The vault is still our biggest concern. A conservative estimate says there is over four million euros worth of jewels inside it. I’m willing to invest money into making sure we can pull this off. If I were to get you access to the same make and model of vault, could you practice on removing that plate?”
I smile, not sure whether to be impressed or repulsed by the lengths he’s willing to go to pull this off. “You don’t need to buy the whole vault. With the specs and the right tools, we can construct something to practice on. It would be a lot more efficient.”
Efficiency is a must. While we’ll need to carefully plan this, I don’t want to waste time. What I want is for this to be over.
Saint goes back to his chair, and I do the same. Casually taking his seat, he crosses one leg over the other before asking the most obvious and important question. “You said it’s worth over four hundred million… so what’s our cut?”
“Ten percent of anything you’re able to haul out. And let me be clear… I expect you to get most of it.”
“Fifty,” Saint counters, eyebrow raised in affront. “We’re taking all the risk.”
“Twenty,” Mercier replies smoothly.
“Thirty-five.” Saint’s smile is in no way pleasant when he softly adds, “And that’s our final offer. Take it or leave it.”
“Deal,” Mercier replies, flashing his teeth in what could be considered a grin. But I see something in his bared teeth and deep within his eyes that spells our certain deaths. He has no intention of giving us even one percent.
CHAPTER 23
Saint
We hold our final strategy session at Sin’s apartment. It’s been two weeks since our meeting at Mercier’s estate, and we’ve been working nonstop to get ready.
William’s been heavily involved, of course. His focus has been gaining entry into the building. Despite the fact he doesn’t actively work jobs anymore, he did a dry run of the building jump late one night to test the ease by which we could access the vent system. I was actually impressed at his initiative. At least it saved me a trip there.
Sin has been relentlessly practicing how to remove the magnet plate quickly but correctly from a small setup we constructed. We’d used a thick metal frame with two pieces of steel hinged on the outside to simulate the door opening where the magnet plate is located.
Mercier spared no expense in outfitting us for this heist. He got the most expensive, top-of-the-line scope. It’s operated by two handheld triggers from outside the vault, and it’s equipped with a screw bit and metal pincher for Sin to use to take off the plate. The skill needed to accomplish this task is immense, and she’s been practicing day and night. She has to unscrew four mounts while making sure they don’t come out all the way, so she can then exchange the bit for the pincher to pry the plate away without letting the magnets separate. Watching as she does this is amazing. She focuses with such keen concentration she seems to be in a different universe sometimes.
I’m actually proud of her dedication to this, because she knows our chance at being a normal couple going forward depends on the successfulness of this heist and taking down Mercier. Here we are getting ready to steal a fortune of the likes no one has ever before attempted, yet that’s not our driving force.
What is? How much we want to be together and what we have to get through in order to make it so we can be.
While William and Sin both had their areas to focus on, I worked on how to keep us invisible once we were inside while still ensuring we wouldn’t be seen once we left. Bebe came through with a shipment full of out-of-this-world gear, some of which I shared with William. The rest I kept secret in case we ended up needing it to save ourselves—heist be damned.
William marveled over the rubberized spray Dozer had created—although I hadn’t named the maker, of course, merely stating I never reveal my sources. The spray effectively renders motion sensors useless. There are jammers to take out the security cameras, along with a scanner that will locate any type of GPS chips some of the larger items might have embedded for tracking purposes.
William spent a lot of time drilling Julian’s expectations into us. We were to sweep the loot for chips right there in the vault as we loaded it into bags. The last thing Mercier wants is a GPS device to lead the police directly to him.
Now, while I’ve played along with William on this part and had Bebe send me the top-of-the-line scanner, I have no intention of removing all the GPS chips. I’m going to leave at least a couple in place so there is a clear trail for the police to follow—right from the stolen loot to Mercier. It’s the only way to take him down and complete my mission. He has to be found with the jewels in hand.
One of the items Bebe sent that I kept secret from William is a reverse jammer, or, as Bebe calls it, a bubble protector. Just as much as I don’t trust Mercier, I’m sure he’s going to feel the same way and not just take my word that I’ve given him only clean jewels. He’s going to have some type of jamming equipment at his estate meant to block GPS signals until he’s able to thoroughly go through each piece to make sure it’s clean. That will take a few days, and he needs some type of protection in the interim.
Hence, he’ll have a jammer.
However, I’ll have the reverse with Bebe’s bubble protector. It will lock onto any GPS-emitted signal and lock a bubble around it so it can still transmit. Where Bebe is deviously genius is that the device will also fool Mercier’s jammer into believing it’s doing its job, so he’ll be none the wiser.
So, in theory, all we have to do is show up, break in, hand the jewels over, trust in Bebe’s gadgets to leave the GPS signal intact, and slip away without Mercier killing us before the police arrive.
Simple, right? Sure…
“Let’s go over everything one more time,” William says from his perch on the couch. He’s been here since breakfast, insisting we walk through everything in detail several more times. Most people would be annoyed by the dull repetition, but Sin and I both know preparedness is the key to a successful heist. As such, we’ve gladly gone through the plan over and over again.
Where William has been invaluable is in throwing out potential kinks that could screw up our plans, then having us brainstorm quick ways around the issues. We’ve role-played until it seems like we’re stuck in a time loop, but at the end of the day, it ensures we’ll be ready to handle any hiccups.
“We’ll hit the roof around one,” I say, having recited this at least twenty times already just today. It’s right after one of the two night guards will have finished his half-hour break.