Ardagh’s report listed the intruder alarm as the branch’s number-one security weakness. It noted that seventy-three employees had been given codes for the alarm in the nine years since it had been installed. Some employees admitted sharing codes with others. Codes hadn’t been deleted from the system when employees quit, and staff had been allowed to pick stupidly easy numbers like 1234, or 6666.
Robin tapped 1369 – the four corners of the numeric pad – followed by the enter key. The buzzing stopped, and the amber display panel flashed ‘SYSTEM OPEN’.
He was momentarily jolted by flashing blue lights, but the cop car was rolling out of Hipsta Donut next door, not coming after him.
Robin felt pleased as he ran back to grab a little bag with his laptop and hacking gear out of the hiding spot. Four wailing cop cars shot down the High Street and customers were stepping out of Hipsta Donut, curious about the sudden chaos.
The two ATMs stood next to each other. One facing into the store and one with the control panel facing out into the car park.
Ardagh’s report said the ATMs were fourteen-year-old Higgs QT-3.14s. Their armour-plated cashboxes had a maximum capacity of two hundred thousand pounds and both lived behind neon-orange Captain-Cash-branded vanity panels.
Major banks had phased out the QT-3.14 because of the very thing Robin was about to do. But thousands of the aged machines still spat out money in convenience stores, service stations and more than eighty Captain Cash branches.
The T-shaped bar Robin printed at Alan’s house slotted into a hole at the base of the indoor machine. When he turned the handle, a clasp popped and the wobbly plastic panel around three sides sprang loose, exposing the machine’s innards.
‘So far, so good …’ Robin told himself as he dragged the panel clear and knelt down to start work.
52. THE GEEKS SHALL PROSPER
Every cash machine has three sections. The keypad and screen module at the top and an armoured cashbox in the base. The brain linking these two parts is a regular Windows computer, which can be hacked. Especially if it’s an elderly ATM running out-of-date software.
Robin rested his laptop on the carpet and ran a long lead into the network port on the rear of the ATM. He was no ace hacker, but experienced enough to download software and follow instructions.
The network and USB ports on the QT-3.14’s computer were disabled, but one network socket had to stay live, connecting to the outside world to check customer account balances before delivering cash.
Hackers had found a way to overwrite the QT-3.14’s software using this open port. Robin started a remote software update program he’d pre-installed on his dad’s laptop, clicking yes when it asked if he wanted to Install BIOS on remote terminal.
The BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) is a tiny program that runs when you first switch a computer on, doing stuff like detecting the keyboard and switching on cooling fans. Critically for Robin’s hack, the BIOS also chooses which drive the operating system boots from.
The update took fifty anxious seconds, before asking:
Reboot terminal with new BIOS? Y/N
Robin plugged a USB stick into a port at the back of the computer. If the hacked BIOS had installed correctly, it would reactivate the computer’s USB socket and run hacked software from this USB stick, rather than the hard drive inside the machine.
Robin was comforted by a flickering light on the USB drive, as he rose onto one knee and studied the ATM screen. It had two blinking >> cursors and a Please Wait message. Occasionally the screen flashed, or some green text scrolled by, too fast to read.
He was utterly focused, and startled when a hand rapped on the window close by.
‘Let me in,’ Marion growled. ‘I’ve been thumping on the back door.’
‘Sorry,’ Robin gasped.
He scooted off the carpet and crashed the bar across a fire door at the rear.
‘What’s it like out there?’ he asked.
‘They drove Black Bess into Central Court and blew it up.’
‘Wow!’ Robin grinned.
‘Now they’re fighting cops, running wild through City Hall and trashing Gisborne’s private offices.’
‘Should know if my hack has worked any second now,’ Robin said. ‘And put your gloves on before you start touching stuff.’
The ATM had finished booting and apparently the anonymous hacker who rewrote the QT-3.14 operating software had a sense of humour. The machine’s usual options to check balance or withdraw money were now replaced with a green smiley face and:
FREE MONEY!
<<< Yes No >>>
Robin returned the machine’s smile as he tapped yes.
There was a beep, then a noise like a seatbelt coming undone as the armoured door of the cashbox popped. Hinges squealed as Robin swung it open, then he stuck his head inside and saw four slots, each with a grey plastic cartridge like the ones that go into a photocopier.
But instead of white paper, Robin eased the top one out and eyed a tray stacked with hundred-pound notes. A guide along one side showed roughly how much cash was left.
‘Nineteen thousand in this tray,’ Robin said, as Marion leaned in for a peek.
‘Robin,’ she said, laughing in triumph. ‘that looks even more beautiful than you in your pearlescent unicorn hoodie.’
53. ALL ITEMS 100% OFF
The second tray was empty, but the third had £11,000 in twenties, and the fourth was a jackpot.
‘Full tray, fifty thousand squids!’ Robin beamed.
‘How are we gonna carry all this?’ Marion asked.
Robin laughed. ‘I guess there are worse problems to have. Go look for a bag while I do the other machine.’
Marion nodded. ‘There’s four dirt bikes over there. The keys might be behind the counter somewhere.’
‘Good thinking,’ Robin said, as he looked outside, making sure nobody was using the other machine.
A young man and woman in muddy forest boots were running across the front lot, holding hands. They were glancing back like someone was chasing them, so there was no way they’d be stopping for cash.
Once he’d popped the second vanity panel, Robin swung it around and pushed it up against the plate glass, so nobody could see him from outside. This machine looked identical, except it had a back-up screen inside the case, so that an engineer didn’t have to keep walking outside.
As Robin plugged in the laptop and repeated the hack, Marion slid over the service counter and began searching drawers and cupboards.
‘There’s a safe back here,’ Marion said. ‘It must be where they keep watches, and wedding rings.’
‘I don’t have any safe-cracking skills,’ Robin said. ‘How are yours?’
‘Non-existent,’ Marion admitted, then her tone changed as she opened a drawer. ‘Oooh, hello!’
Back on the customer side of the counter, Marion threw a big nylon equipment bag at Robin’s feet then moved towards the bikes holding a pouch full of numbered keys.
‘The good news is I’ve found the key to the white dirt bike you liked on the website,’ Marion said. ‘But the tank’s empty, so you’re getting the blue one.’
As the back-up screen on the second ATM popped up with the Free Money option, the store ripped with the sound of a motorbike engine. Marion drove it cautiously off a low plinth and almost clipped a fish tank as she rode down a narrow aisle towards Robin.
‘How does it look?’ she asked.
‘Suits you,’ Robin grinned, as he proudly showed her the first cartridge from the second machine, with £31,000 in fifties. ‘Can you start bagging up?’
A cop car rolled to a stop on the other side of the high street as Marion packed the money in the equipment bag. It set them both on edge, but there was no sign of the two officers taking an interest in Captain Cash.
As Robin opened the final tray, his on-the-fly calculation was that they’d taken £120,000 from the two machines.
‘I need something to tie this bag onto the bike,’
Marion said, glancing around.
Once he’d bagged his laptop, leads and USB drive, Robin dived onto the counter and looked at the cashier terminals and wastepaper baskets underneath. He spotted a small black box at the far end, slid over on his belly and pulled all the cables out of the back.
‘CCTV,’ Robin explained, as he tossed the box into the big bag with the money. ‘Under the counter, not even secured by a locking bracket …’
Marion smiled, but the cop car across the street was making her uncomfortable and she moved closer to the window and peeked.
‘I think they’re searching for someone,’ she said. ‘One officer got out and shone her torch around. Now they’re back in the car, talking on the radio. Shall we wait here until they’re gone?’
Robin shook his head. ‘They won’t see if we ride out the back door.’
‘Two of us, two bags and your bow,’ Marion said. ‘We’ll be laden before we grab the stuff we dumped in the back lot.’
As she eyed a reel of heavy line in Captain Cash’s fishing section, Robin dashed out the back door and crossed to the lot behind, where they’d left their forest clothes and the stuff he’d brought from home.
By the time he’d scrambled over the bushes, grabbed the two bags and jogged back onto the Captain Cash lot, Marion had secured the money bag and pushed the bike up to the rear fire door.
‘Ready to roll?’ she asked as Robin got close.
With ten things on their minds and a constant backdrop of police sirens, neither of them had noticed one siren getting seriously loud. But they knew it when a big police SUV turned onto the Captain Cash lot, blazing its rooftop searchlight through the front of the store.
54. SOMETHING TO PROTEST ABOUT
Robin dived for cover, scraping his palms as he hit the tarmac.
A cop from the car parked across the street was running towards Hipsta Donut with her gun drawn, while the SUV with the searchlight stopped at the end of a short alleyway between the donut store and Captain Cash, its dazzling beam lighting up air vents and wheelie bins.
As a second cop jumped out of the searchlight car, Robin realised the officer from across the street was circling around the side of Hipsta to block the alleyway from the other end. But his position at the rear of the two buildings gave no view down the alleyway.
‘I don’t know who they’re after, but it’s not us,’ Robin said, as he reached Marion in the doorway and stood up, wiping shards of grit off his gloved hands.
‘But they’ll see us if we ride off,’ she said. ‘Let’s go back inside and wait.’
‘You have no way out,’ a cop shouted to whoever was in the alleyway. ‘Step out from between the trash cans with your hands raised.’
The cops with the searchlight had pulled onto the lot after spotting a young couple squatting in the alleyway – the same pair Robin had seen running before he started work on the second ATM.
The cops assumed the couple were now trapped in the alleyway with officers blocking both ends. But they’d managed to climb on one of the bins and pull themselves onto Captain Cash’s flat roof.
Robin and Marion heard footsteps on the metal roof above as they were about to go back inside, then they froze in shock as two bodies leaped off the roof, from directly above them.
The forest couple rolled expertly as they landed on the parking lot. But they’d been spotted crossing the roof by the officer who’d stayed with the car across the street, and he radioed his colleagues as he started his engine and shot across the four-lane high street to intercept.
As Robin and Marion dived inside and slammed the fire door, the cop who’d been blocking the rear of the alleyway sprinted towards the young couple with her gun ready.
‘Do not give me an excuse to shoot you,’ she yelled.
Inside the fire door, Marion looked anxiously at Robin. ‘Did that cop see us?’
‘No idea,’ Robin said, thinking about sneaking out the front exit on foot, but remembering there was a locked metal shutter.
‘If she saw us, we’re done for,’ Marion said.
Robin grabbed his bow off the back of the bike. ‘They might not have seen, but we can’t take the chance.’
Outside, one cop fired a warning shot over the couple’s heads as her colleague jumped out of his car.
‘First and final warning,’ the officer shouted. ‘Hands behind heads!’
With two cops pointing guns from less than fifteen metres, the forest couple had to surrender.
‘You wanna protest about Locksley Police?’ the big guy said, pulling his baton as he strode in. ‘I’ll give you something to protest about.’
‘They’re cops with guns,’ Marion blurted, as Robin slotted an arrow and slid two more between his fingers for rapid reloading. ‘You can’t take them on with that.’
‘You might get push-ups at boot camp, but they’ll hand me straight to Gisborne,’ Robin said. ‘Get on the bike and start the engine when I kick the door.’
Outside, the forest man groaned as the big cop smashed him with his baton.
‘Forest scum,’ the cop taunted, as he got ready to swing again. ‘Got plenty more in store for –’
The back door flew open.
The big cop wore thick body armour over his torso, so Robin waited until the baton was raised high and shot him through the wrist. Before the man hit the ground, Robin had swung left and downed the female officer with an arrow through the top of her boot. She had enough fight to roll over and aim her gun, but Robin rushed out of the doorway and swung his bow to knock it out of her hand.
As Robin glanced warily, knowing there were more cops in the area, the forest woman grabbed the female officer’s gun, then ordered the groaning male officer to hand over his car keys.
‘You’re Robin Hood,’ her partner said disbelievingly, mouth bloody and dazed from his beating. ‘That was unbelievable.’
‘Can you walk?’ the woman asked her boyfriend, as she kept the gun aimed at the groaning officers.
‘Dead leg,’ the guy answered.
‘Piggyback,’ the woman told him, going down on one knee, then looking at Robin. ‘Do you need a ride?’
Robin shook his head before she waddled to the cop car with her boyfriend on her back.
Marion had already ridden the bike out of Captain Cash and Robin hopped on. She weaved around the wheezing cop with the arrow stuck through his wrist then accelerated hard.
The bow only left Robin with one hand to grab Marion, but the money bag bulging over the rear wheel saved him from tilting off the back.
‘Careful!’ he yelled, as the bike blasted away.
55. THE GOOD GUY ALWAYS HAS ONE SHOT LEFT
The driver of the hijacked police car gave Robin a thumbs up as she pulled onto Locksley High Street. Marion took a different path, aiming for the giant weeds up back, then cutting onto the overgrown plot behind.
Robin ducked as a bullet went off, but had no idea who was shooting or if he was the target. As they pulled onto one of the town centre’s many barren side streets, the searchlight beam lit them up and the police SUV set off down the alleyway between Hipsta Donut and Captain Cash.
They had a three-hundred-metre start, but dirt bikes are designed for rough ground rather than speed, and they’re slower still with two riders and luggage.
‘Can’t hold that monster off,’ Marion said, looking for a narrow alleyway or some rough terrain as the SUV’s chrome bull bars got bigger in her mirrors.
Robin glanced behind as the cop car closed to ten metres. He had the last of his three arrows in hand, but his family wasn’t rich enough for ATVs, quad bikes or horses, so he had zero experience of shooting on the move.
He twisted around, clamped his legs as hard as he could to the bike and felt properly scared when he let go of Marion’s waist. He figured two things. First, the police driver could easily make an evasive swerve if he took too long to aim. Second, the only way to disable a car with a single arrow was to shoot out a tyre.
‘Veer
into the opposite lane,’ Robin shouted. ‘I need an angle to shoot the front wheel.’
‘There’s got to be an alleyway around here,’ Marion yelled back. ‘Or a canal bank. Even a damned swing park …’
There was probably some regulation saying police officers weren’t allowed to smash two twelve-year-olds with no helmets off a bike doing fifty miles an hour. But the driver didn’t seem to care, flooring the accelerator as they hit a straight section of road in front of an abandoned cement works.
The front of the cop car was less than five metres behind when Marion swerved. Robin wasn’t sure if she’d done it to help him shoot, or because the car was about to destroy them. Either way, he raised the bow and took aim.
The bike hit a pothole, delaying the shot. From less than five metres, the arrow went exactly where Robin wanted it. But it only nicked the SUV’s spinning tyre before flipping up and getting sucked into the wheel arch.
‘I don’t think it punctured,’ Robin yelled.
Marion knew they’d never win a straight race and took a sharp right turn. The heavy cop car had to slam the brakes to follow. But as the driver turned the wheel at speed, the sideways load turned the small hole Robin’s arrow had made in the sidewall into a tear that split the entire tyre from its metal rim.
With the tyre flapping, all deceleration got thrown to the passenger side. The nose of the SUV dipped, tearing off its front fender and showering sparks. In panic the driver braked harder, but this locked the rear wheels and made the turn into a pirouette.
The SUV flipped when the nose hit a kerb. The flashing top lights got ripped away and the roof scraped along the sidewalk until a trash can smashed through the windscreen. It finally stopped after buckling a streetlamp and bouncing on the cement works’ chain-link fence.
‘We got lucky,’ Marion said, as she felt Robin’s hand slide back around her waist.
‘Luck?’ Robin laughed. ‘That’s exactly what I was going for.’
Robin Hood Page 15
