by Blake Crouch
No one saw her.
She slipped out of sight behind the bar, made herself take three deep breaths, flooding her lungs with oxygen.
She tried to stand but her legs were still numb. Frantically, she squeezed her calves. The tingling burn of sensation roared back.
Up onto her feet.
Got her elbows on the granite bar.
For what seemed ages, nothing happened.
She couldn't see the guard by the entrance, but the six men in the living room carried on just as before.
She opened her mouth.
The words fell out.
"What a sausage fest. Could I get any of you gentlemen a drink?"
The air went out of the room.
Six heads turning.
The seventh guard stepping out from the entranceway with an expression of pure disbelief spreading across his face.
Three men were already on their feet, reaching for weapons, the others rising.
Someone said, "How the hell—"
Letty said, "I sort of come with the room."
The tallest, oldest of the bunch stepped forward and trained his Glock on the center of her chest.
Thank God—he was blocking the camera from seeing her.
He said, "How did you get into this room?"
"Did you not just hear me?"
"You have no idea the world of shit you have just brought down on yourself."
Letty smiled through the mask, making sure to keep her hands visible and still.
"Worlds of shit are all I know, dude."
She couldn't be sure, but she thought she heard the faintest sound coming through the wall—something sliding across the bathroom floor.
In her ear, Isaiah whispered through a strained voice, "Keep him talking, we're almost in."
She said, "Are you sure you don't want that drink? Gotta be honest. You all seem a little tense."
The man glanced at the wide-load who had been on the door.
"You were first in, asshole. Where'd she come from?"
"I checked everywhere."
"Really." He came another step forward, Letty growing increasingly uneasy with that black hole of death staring her down. Wasn't the first time, but you never got used to it. The difference between you being here and not—just the smallest movement of a finger.
Isaiah said, "Letty, get down."
She dropped.
By the time she hit the carpet, the lights had gone out.
Instinct drove her to cover her head with her arms.
She heard confused shouting.
Footfalls on carpet.
Bursts of suppressed sub-machinegun fire, rounds chewing through the drywall.
Then the sound of snapping filled the room, interspersed with the shuck-shuck of shotguns pumping, more snapping, men screaming.
Isaiah's voice, "Go, go, go."
Jerrod: "Hit him again."
Men groaning, struggling against the electrical current.
Stu said, "Lights back in ten. Disable the camera."
Jerrod: "It's toast."
Letty sat up, grabbed hold of the edge of the bar, and hauled herself back onto her feet.
Isaiah said, "Everyone secure?"
"Yep."
"Yes."
Stu said, "Five seconds. Remove goggles."
"Done."
"Done."
"Three, two, one."
The lights returned.
What a difference thirty seconds had made.
Letty said, "Color me impressed."
Six of the seven guards lay on their stomachs, hog-tied with Zip Ties, twitching with the remnants of Taser shock. The barbed electrodes were still embedded in their chests, the propulsion cartridges dangling by wires.
Stu and Jerrod straddled two of the men, tightening ball-gags around the backs of their heads. Isaiah sat on the chest of the seventh who wasn't gagged. He held a radio in one hand, a Fairbairn Sykes in the other, the knifepoint digging under the man's right eye.
Letty's crew looked more like mercs than thieves. Outfitted in close-fitting night camo. Night vision goggles hanging from their necks. Super 90's strapped to their backs. All wearing neoprene face masks screen-printed with demonic-looking clowns.
Isaiah said to the guard pinned under his weight, "Tell them the camera shorted out, and to send someone up with a spare. I double-dog dare you to try a goddamn thing."
The man nodded.
Isaiah clicked TALK.
"Hey, it's Matt, over?"
"Copy, we lost visual, over."
Letty walked out from behind the bar into the living room.
"Yeah, the camera crapped out. Send up a new one."
"Copy that. En route."
Isaiah set the radio down on the carpet. "Very good. Very good, Matt."
"You'll never make it out," Matt said. "Not in a million years."
"Well, if it was easy, any old goon could do it. Maybe even you."
Stu had moved over to the cages.
"What do you see, my man?" Isaiah asked.
"Four-jaw independent chuck, top reversible D-4 cam-lock."
"Same on each cage?"
"Yep."
"This happy news or bad news?"
Stu said, "It's just news. Nothing I didn't plan for." He reached into his pocket and tossed Isaiah a chunk of grey metal the size of a chalkboard eraser.
"Stick that magnet under the doorknob."
Stu hurried off toward the bedroom.
Jerrod followed.
The guards lay still on the floor all around them, just panting now. With the red ball-gags in their mouths, they reminded Letty of roasting pigs. She glanced back at the wall behind the bar. A spray pattern—two dozen holes—arced up toward the ceiling.
Isaiah gagged his man and stood.
He headed to the entrance, glanced through the peephole.
Stu and Jerrod returned, Jerrod toting the empty duffel bags under one arm, Stu carrying a small, beefy drill.
He hit the first cage, had the lock drilled out and off in less than forty-five seconds.
Jerrod glanced at Letty, said, "Shall we?"
He pulled open the door to the first cage. Letty reached in. Both hands grabbing crisp stacks of hundreds bound with black wrappers. On each wrapper, "10,000" had been printed in gold. The cube of money was twenty stacks high, twenty-five packets per story.
$5,000,000 per cart.
Six carts.
$30,000,000.
Give or take.
Something so satisfying about dropping them into the duffel, the smell of ink and paper filling the room.
Letty could feel the eyes of the guards on her as she worked. Stu was already through the third lock, and she and Jerrod had nearly filled the second duffel.
"Report," Isaiah called from the door.
"Cruising, brother," Stu said. "What's our time in?"
"Two minutes, fifty-five seconds."
Jerrod zipped the first two duffles, pushed them aside.
They started in on the third cage.
Aside from the whine of the drill, they worked with a quiet intensity. The minutes whirred past with a staggering paradox of speed and timelessness.
So much adrenaline raging through Letty's system it felt like they'd been in this room for hours.
Stu drilled out the last lock. Then he lifted something that resembled a TSA wand and started moving it slowly over the duffle bags.
"We got company," Isaiah said. "One guy."
"Need an assist?" Jerrod asked.
"What are you implying, brother?"
"Armed?"
"Just stay on task. I got this."
There was a knock at the door.
Letty looked up. Would've missed the entire thing if she'd blinked.
Isaiah opened the door, dragged a good-looking Latino into the suite, and turned his lights out with an elbow strike.
Ten seconds later, the man was bound and gagged with the rest of them.
Isaiah jogged
over as Stu was wanding the last cage.
"We happy?"
"Yeah, none of the cash is chipped."
"What does that mean?" Letty asked.
"It means they can't track it."
Letty packed the last armful of stacks into a duffel and zipped it up. Isaiah, Stu, and Jerrod had already carried most of the bags into the bathroom. Letty tried to lift one, but it didn't weigh much less than she did. It was all she could do to drag it across the carpet.
Halfway to the bedroom, she heard the guard's radio.
A man's voice. Deep, raspy.
"Matt, did your camera show up, over?"
Letty dropped the duffel, rushed back. She turned Matt over, unfastened his ball-gag, and grabbed the radio. The closest weapon was a MAC-10 lying on the coffee table.
She grabbed it, held it under the man's chin.
"Matt, do you copy, over?"
She said, "Tell him he just showed up and that you'll be back online momentarily. Say just those exact words."
"Letty, what's up?" Isaiah from the bedroom.
She held up her finger.
Stared straight into Matt's eyes, saw plenty of steel there, but some fear too.
Hopefully enough.
As she held the radio to his mouth, it suddenly occurred to her what she was doing. That she was threatening a man with his life. Of course she wouldn't pull the trigger if he sold them out, but still—a line had appeared and she'd crossed it.
Without hesitation.
Pure reaction.
Her first armed robbery.
You have no choice. You have to get out of this hotel right now.
Matt spoke into the radio, "He just showed up. We're installing it now. Be back online momentarily. Over?"
"Copy that."
She took the radio and bolted back into the bedroom.
The duffels were gone and Jerrod was just lowering himself down through the crawlspace.
She stopped at the edge of the gaping hole and got down onto her knees. Isaiah gave her a hand over the lip of the marble. She found her footing in the crawlspace, the urge to be out of this mess, out of this hotel, this city, overpowering.
A sense of panic, of time running out enveloping her.
Then she was climbing down the ladder into room 968, listening to the marble slab slide back into place. The soles of Isaiah's BDUs descended toward her as he maneuvered through the ductwork.
18
It took Letty four tries to get her left leg through the harness.
Isaiah watching her from the window.
He said, "You gotta lock that shit down."
"Lock what down?"
"Your panic."
Stu had rappelled out the window four minutes ago. Jerrod right on his heels. Now Ize had the last three duffle bags on belay, smoothly lowering two hundred and fifty pounds of cash—$12,000,000—to the convention center roof.
The radio crackled again.
A rod of tension shot through Letty's entire body.
Isaiah unclipped his locking carabiner from his harness and moved over to the bed.
"Matt, we still have no visual, over?"
Isaiah lifted the radio, pulled off a passable impersonation.
"This one doesn't work either, over."
"Are you messing with me? Over."
"Nope. Over."
"I'm bringing one up personally. Over."
"Copy that."
"See you in five."
Isaiah said, "Now you can panic." He grabbed her harness, gave it a hard tug. "Ever rappelled before?"
"No." She could feel a wave of nausea coming on.
"Easiest thing in the world."
"I'm sure."
As they approached the gaping hole in the window, Letty felt the night-heat of Vegas and the smell of the Strip and the desert ripping through. Sage and car and restaurant exhaust.
Isaiah had rigged a sophisticated anchor system out of webbing to the bed frame.
"I don't want to die," Letty said.
A black rope had been halved and thrown out the window.
"Go ahead, look," Isaiah said. "You need to see where you're going."
She edged up to the glass, poked her head through.
"Oh Jesus Christ."
Stomach swirling. Body in full revolt against this.
Stu and Jerrod the size of Lego men far below.
The curve of the building a dizzying mindfuck.
"We should've gone over this before," Letty said.
Isaiah grabbed her belay device, threaded the rope through, then locked everything into the carabiner on her harness.
"I'm scared," she said.
"I hear that. But personally...I'd rather fall and die than be in this room when hotel security busts through. You feel me?"
She nodded.
He grabbed her hands, put her left on the rope near the belay device, her right on the rope further back.
"This belay device is your friend, your brake. When the rope is back here," he touched her right hand to her hip, "you won't move. When you raise it up, it'll allow the rope to feed through. You'll drop."
Her heart was going like mad.
"Two things. Do not let your left hand get too close to the belay device. It'll chew it up. You'll let go and die."
The radio crackled. "On my way, Matt. Say, did you ever send Mario down? He never showed, isn't responding, over."
Isaiah said, "Look in my eyes." She did. "You go down in a sitting position. Control your speed."
"I can't do this."
"You have to do this." He helped her up onto the lip of the glass.
"I can't," she said.
"You been through worse than this. Put your right hand in the brake position." She clutched it, held it to her hip. "You ain't gotta squeeze so hard. Relax. Now lean back."
"I can't."
"Stop saying that."
"Matt, do you copy, over?"
"Lean. Back."
She hung her ass out over the gaping darkness, her stomach turning itself inside out.
"Now raise your right hand slowly, until you feel the rope begin to glide through the belay device."
"I—"
"Do it!"
"Matt, do you copy, over?"
She raised the rope off her hip.
Isaiah smiled at her from inside the room, said, "There you go, now let it slide through your grasp, but not too fast."
She opened her fingers, felt the rope move through.
She dropped a foot.
"Keep it going," Isaiah said, "and I hate to rush you, but I do need you to hurry the fuck up."
She descended in erratic bursts.
The sensation of plummeting to her death never out of her mind.
Twenty feet below their window, she lowered past a room where the curtains had not been drawn. Glimpsed a couple watching television in bed less than ten feet away, their faced awash in high-def glow.
She ventured a glimpse down, surprised to see that she was already halfway to the ground. Lifting her right hand as far off her hip as she'd yet dared, she felt the rope streaming through her loosened grasp. The balls of her feet bounced off the windows. For a fraction of a second, it was almost fun.
She touched solid ground, her legs buckling, relief blazing through her veins.
Jerrod caught her before she fell.
They stood at the edge of a field of commercial AC units that were noisy as turboprops. He unscrewed her locking carabiner, ripped the rest of the rope through her belay device, and said, "She's down, Ize. Let's blow."
Letty looked around—too dark to see much of anything beyond the fact that Stu and all but two of the bags were gone.
She was about to ask where he was when Isaiah hit the ground beside her.
She said, "Wow, you've done that a few times."
"Once or twice."
The men shouldered the last two duffels.
Jerrod led the way, threading between the roaring AC vents.
"How
much time do we have?" Letty asked as they ran.
"They know something's up. But we magnetized the lock in the suite. No keycard will get them through. Yelling for someone to let them in won't get them through. They'll have to break it down."
"And then?"
She was having to shout to be heard.
"I don't know," he said. "The guards saw us go through the bedroom and disappear. I moved the marble quietly, but I'm guessing they'll connect the dots in a hurry. Or else someone will spot us on this rooftop."
"Cameras up here?"
"Possibly. Whether or not they catch us at this point will depend on how quickly they can lock down all exits from the property. And if they've conceived of a theft like this."
They climbed over a four-foot wall.
Jerrod said, "Almost there."
Letty spotted the shadow of Stu up ahead.
They reached him.
Isaiah and Jerrod let the bags slough off their shoulders. She peered over the ledge. The wall dropped six feet to the top level of a parking deck. A white Suburban idled below, the rear cargo doors thrown open.
The parking deck was well-lit, inhabited by a smattering of vehicles, but otherwise still and quiet.
"Your boy showed," Isaiah said. He looked at Jerrod and Stu, said, "Homestretch. There will be cameras. Move like the wind, gentlemen."
He hoisted a bag, swung it over the ledge, let it fall to the concrete on the other side.
The remaining bags followed.
Then the men.
Then Letty, climbing over last, letting her feet hang for a beat before dropping.
The Suburban's rear seating had been removed.
Stu loaded the final duffel as Letty hurried around the back and climbed up into the front passenger seat.
She pulled off her mask and smiled at Christian.
"Good to see you again," he said.
Ize and his crew piled in, doors slamming.
Isaiah said, "Christian, glad you could make it."
Christian shifted into gear. "Where to?"
"Ninety-five north."
Christian drove down the ramp into the parking garage.
A tense silence descending over the car.
After the second overly hard turn, Isaiah said, "Just drive cool, my man. This ain't the movies. No one's chasing us yet."
Letty checked her iPhone—2:23.
Hard to believe that only twenty-three minutes had elapsed since the guards had walked into that suite. She'd worried enough in that time span for three lifetimes.
