It was opening time and the vault’s time lock disengaged as they approached. Inside were tables and high speed machines to count the money. On the way, the bank president gathered four people to help. Each cousin had a bag in front of him and watched one of the counters. They kept careful track of each stack with pen and paper. Zeb kept an eagle eye on everything. With the help of the machines, they were ready to go in less than 45 minutes. Bags packed, Hey and Real picked up their bags and walked out of the vault with Zeb close behind. He had to admit he was impressed. Neither of them seemed to be straining or to even notice the combined weight.
An idea had come to Zeb while he was watching the counting process. He took the arm of the bank president and said, “I have one more transaction to make; let us step into your office.”
“Of course sir, whatever the Banco can do for you will be my utmost pleasure.”
In the president’s office, Zeb filled out a wire transfer to an account halfway around the world. He left one dollar in this account. True, he would probably never be able to access the account the wire transfer was sending money to, as it would be much too dangerous. At least he would have the pleasure of taking it from the criminals. He wasn’t naïve, he knew that was nothing to such men in the grand scheme of things, but still, he got a chuckle out of it.
The government official was the very picture of efficiency; the limo was waiting and he ushered them to it with a grand flourish. The trunk of the limo was able to accommodate the bags, but the vehicle was sagging slightly from the weight. Ivan was riding up front with the driver, while the others were in back. The streets were filled with workday traffic; cars and the ever present motor scooters were mixed in with motor bikes, filling the streets with their noise. Several were pulled up to the curb about 120 feet in front of the limo. There was nothing obvious about anyone in sight. But as soon as he came out of the bank, Ivan knew something was wrong. The hair on Ivan’s neck was standing up. After climbing in Ivan turned to say something to those in the back seat, only to see Madd already had his case open and was handing Real an MP5. Ivan did the same, handing Hey one of the H&Ks from his case. Zeb was hurrying to extract his from the carrying case. As the limo pulled away, the riders up the street casually put on helmets with dark visors.
Making sure that they all were on the same page, Ivan said loudly, “Guys, something is about to go down.”
He kept his eyes on the motor bikes as the limo passed them. Pointing with his chin, he made sure everyone was aware of them. Madd had grown up with Ivan, felt what he felt, and knew what he knew. Ivan was right, things were about to get very interesting. He didn’t question him, he merely handed 6 magazines with the double clamp system that kept two thirty round magazines together for faster reloads to Real. Two grenades were handed around to each cousin.
Speaking to the government official Madd said, “Any chance there might be a rip off attempt?”
The man was clearly nervous and sweat was running down his face. All he could say was, “It’s a very real possibility. If those cases are full of what I think they are, then someone in the bank could easily have tipped off a gang to grab them.”
“Ivan, you have the front. You make the call about anything coming at us,” said Madd.
Turning to the driver, Ivan casually let the muzzle of his weapon point at the man’s midsection.
“You do exactly what I say and you might live to see your wife and kids,” Ivan told him.
The driver just gave a grim nod, gripped the wheel hard and concentrated on the road ahead.
“Real, you are out the right side, I am out the left side when it goes down. Hey, you are behind me helping Real, but if things start to spread out you stay close to the car and the bags. If thing go south you and Zeb get that money back home, no matter what!”
“You got it Madd,” came from everyone involved.
“Keep in mind guys we only have 240 rounds each for the MP5s, so no long gun battles. Hurt them, hurt them fast, and let’s boogie.”
They had covered about 6 or 7 of the 9 miles back to the airport.
Ivan was watching ahead, when from the back Real said, “The motor bikes are closing in, it must be happening soon.”
Up ahead an intersection with buildings crowding all the corners was coming up. Ivan could see a kid with his head stuck around the corner, watching. As soon as the kid saw the limo he ducked out of sight.
“Hit the brakes,” Ivan told the driver.
The driver had good reflexes and was jacked up on adrenaline; he reacted quickly and the limo came to a screeching halt just before the intersection. A dump truck came screaming out of the side street through the intersection; had the limo not braked hard the dump truck would have T boned it with crushing force. With tires hopping off the ground, the truck came to a halt. Eight men and a teenager started to boil out of the side street, while four jumped from the back of the truck. The bikes that had been trailing caught up about that time and the four riders quickly dismounted, pulling hand guns, except for one man who had a shotgun of some type.
They were all too slow. The cousins had already left the limo and taken up positions to each side, Madd and Ivan facing front, Real facing the rear. Hey was peeking around the side of the limo from inside. Before the first man from the side street could slow down and take aim or the first rider from the motor bikes could unlimber his pistol, the cousins were firing. With three round controlled bursts, Madd was decimating the men from the side street. On his side, Ivan was zeroed in on the men jumping from the back of the dump truck. They were clearing the top of the bed as fast as they could, but it wasn’t fast enough. While still in the air, three were killed before they could touch the ground. The bandits were falling to the pavement like broken toys. The last of the four from the back of the truck barely had time to stand up straight before Ivan gave him a double tap to the head. He tracked his weapon to the men Madd was engaging.
Eleven seconds into the fight, Ivan shouted, “Frag out.”
Both he and Madd pressed themselves as close to the sides of the limo as they could. Blood and brains poured down on the intersection like bloody rain.
Six seconds after the detonation, Madd followed Ivan’s example and yelled, “Frag out.”
Pumping their triggers, Madd and Ivan cleared the intersection.
Both Madd and Ivan were conscious of the firing behind them, but gave all their attention to the fight in front of them. They had no worries; Real and Hey had their backs.
Behind them they heard a grenade go off and more three round bursts, then Real shouted, “Clear!”
Just as it seemed the fight to the front was over, the driver of the truck jumped from the cab and grabbed for a pistol. Shaking his head, Madd gave him a three round zip to the chest and throat. Ivan was giving the rest of the fallen enemy a quick double tap to the head, just in case.
Where the motor bikes had been the street was an inferno. The gas in their tanks caused the fire to burn at a furious rate. A heavy smell of blood, feces, and burning tires hung in the air like a fog. Laying over that smell like a blanket was the smell of death, raw, violent and pointless.
“Let’s go,” shouted Madd
The cousins slammed into the limo, before the doors even shut the driver had it in motion and was maneuvering around the dump truck headed to the airport as fast as traffic would allow. The front of the limo had taken a few rounds, but seemed to still be capable of transporting them. Something had impacted the windshield enough to spider web a six inch round smashed in area.
“Anyone hurt?” Madd asked.
“I took a pistol round pretty close to my heart, but as advertised the suit didn’t let it penetrate. Think I got a hell of a bruise though,” Real informed them.
In the backseat Zeb was calm, cool and collected. From his very expensive suit he had produced a brush finished 44 caliber Charter Arms Bulldog. He held it casually against the ribs of the government official while he discussed the unfortunate state of violen
ce in the world today. The official was sweating even more now.
“By the way my friend, I am sure that there will be no unpleasantness or any attempt to hold us in your beautiful country when we arrive at the airport, will there?”
“Not at all, it was a clear case of self-defense,” the official assured him.
“Very good. I would consider it a personal favor if you called ahead and made arrangements for us to take off immediately. If you could escort us right to our plane and wait in clear view while we button up and take off, I would be most appreciative. I will make sure our employers are made aware of your services. I can guarantee a significant reward for your efforts,” said Zeb with a pleasant smile.
At the airport the way was cleared for them. The limo drove right up to their plane and unloaded without incident. Arm in arm, Zeb and his great good friend the government official strolled right up to the Gulfstream. The man was doing his best to ignore the fact he couldn’t see Zeb’s hand, although he could feel the short barrel of the Bulldog quite clearly. He was quite certain the nasty looking pistol was aimed right at his heart.
Ten hours later they were on approach to Central Texas Airport at midnight. As they lined up with their runway and were starting their descent, the tower received a call from one of the hangers. Someone identifying himself as a mechanic reported he saw some debris on the runway the Gulfstream G550 was about to land on. The supposed mechanic was close to the feed for the radar and listening in on the frequency the tower was using to call the pilot. He waited patiently for the agreed on time then interrupted the feed to the radar for a few seconds, repeatedly, making it appear as if the radar was malfunctioning. Traffic was light this time of night and the signal wasn’t interrupted enough to cause problems. Just enough to make the flight controllers distracted.
Quickly, the tower called the Gulfstream off and told them to go around while the runway was checked. The Gulfstream quickly accelerated to keep from crashing on the runway; the plane was pretty low as it overflew the airport. At 400 miles an hour they were quickly 20 miles out. A lonely stretch of state highway was just ahead. As a combat pilot, the man at the controls had done hundreds of touch and goes in every type of light and weather condition imaginable. Just as he was about to touch down, the man at the radar lead started intermittently disrupting the feed again, as a distraction. Touching down, he reversed engines while standing on the brakes. As the plane slowed past 25 miles an hour, Ivan threw the door open and the bags were heaved out; the 5 men jumped and rolled to the pavement. Before the last one was out of the plane, the pilot jammed the throttles to the furthest position while his copilot secured the door. It took less than 2 minutes to appear at the bottom of the perfectly working radar, making their circle to come at the airport again.
Since they had been very low when called off the landing, no one thought anything about the fact they were in and out of the radar field. Touching down, they went through customs and had their fake identities checked again, just as they did when taking off. The credentials were perfect, and both pilots walked out to their plane and watched while it was refueled. After refueling they headed north to drop the plane off at the private airport they had borrowed it from the day before. It gave them a good laugh when they walked out of the airport and were picked up by family. They had used the company plane of one of the backers of the intended overthrow to steal their money. That is to say, reapportion their money.
Chapter 7
Eight months had passed since the Brazilian adventure and once again the cousins found themselves in the new conference room going over their readiness. But before they could get to that, they had to have a meeting to talk about finances. It was enough to make the cousins groan. Itsy’s crew had grown by leaps and bounds. The original 12 workstations had grown to 18; the conference room workstations had grown from 8 to 16. What had appeared as a huge work space had shrunk to the point they had to be careful not to bump into each other. By this time the council had grown from five to ten, all key men as far as the original members were concerned.
The End
The story of Madd, the cousins and Al continues in book three of the “So, you want to live past next Tuesday?” saga. Book three “I can't wait for Tuesday to end!” will be published in the very near future.
What Do You Mean Its Still Tuesday Page 14
