Ten Years Ago (Part 3)

The plan worked flawlessly, just as he and Manty had planned it. They hid in lost-and-found until eleven which was three hours after the convention center closed. They kept their heads down, away from the cameras, and punched in the code to enter the security suite. Howie Boy found the lights and flicked them on.

In front of them sat a desk ringed with monitors, all of them dark.

Howie Boy sighed in relief. "Everything is turned off. We didn't have to worry about keeping our heads down."

Manty quickly walked over to a computer tower. "That's not so. The monitors are turned off, but the cameras are still recording." He pointed to a console having so many tentacle-like cables attached, it looked like a mutant octopus. The cooling fans in the console hummed. "Each one of these cables is attached to a camera somewhere in the facility."

That dismayed Howie Boy. "It'll take us all night to disconnect them all."

Tracing a cable from the rear of the console, Manty followed it into a conduit that ran up the wall, across the ceiling, and into a breaker box. He opened the box, studied it for a moment and pulled a switch. The humming stopped. "Now, it's turned off. All cameras are deactivated."

"Way to go, Manty." Howie Boy looked around for the vault.

From his backpack, Manty pulled a toolkit. He opened it and removed a screwdriver. Next, he started taking apart the computer case.

"What are you doing?"

"I need to remove the drives from the computer to destroy the recordings."

"Can you tell if the recordings are being backed up?"

Manty continued to work on the computer case without looking up. "The computer tower is attached to the Internet so it's possible, but I doubt it. This system isn't as sophisticated as I thought it would be."

"Lucky for us."

A few minutes later, Manty had all the drives removed and stuffed into his backpack. He smiled. "And now for the main event."

The vault was built-in to a block wall with a steel door about eight feet tall by four feet wide. The locking mechanism looked like a six-inch diameter, disk shaped key pad.

"Oh, baby, baby." Manty pulled the laptop from his case and powered it on. After it booted up, he attached a cable to the interface on the bottom of the lock. He looked at Howie Boy. "Here goes."

Howie Boy clenched and unclenched his fists in nervous anticipation as Manty worked the keyboard. When Manty frowned, he thought it wasn't going to work. He kept at it. Five minutes passed, then ten. "What's the hold up?"

"Shut up. I'm almost there and need to concentrate."

He didn't like being told to shut up, especially by a twerp like Manty. He decided to overlook the slight this time. Another five minutes passed and Howie Boy started getting nervous. "We've been here a long time."

"I know that," Manty snapped. "Let me work." His fingers danced across the keyboard until he abruptly stopped, his finger poised over the enter key.

"Well?" Howie Boy had lost his patience.

Manty pressed the enter key. "Voila." A sound like thunk  came from the vault door. He pumped his fist in the air. "Yes!"

Howie Boy didn't take the time to celebrate, he grabbed the handle and pulled the door open. He heard Manty gasp.

He peered into the vault and was stunned at the sight of row upon row of bundled cash. "Whoa."

Manty cheered. "The exploit exists. I proved it."

Sitting near the vault was a trunk. Howie Boy figured it would be perfect. He opened the top and found it loaded with video equipment. He upended the trunk and dumped the equipment.

"What are you doing?" Manty asked.

"We're going to stuff this trunk with as much cash as it can hold."

Manty stood in front of the entrance to the vault. "Hold on. We just did this for the thrill of it and to see if my code would work. Stealing money wasn't part of the plan."

Howie Boy shoved Manty out of the way and entered the vault dragging the trunk behind him. "The plan has changed."

"You're nuts. We can't do this."

Howie Boy laughed maniacally. "Management of this place are a bunch of fools. I figured they would've taken all this to the bank after closing. I thought we might find a thousand or two at most." He grabbed a stack of bills and tossed it into the air. "Look at it fly! Their mistake is our gain."

Manty stood, back straight, arms folded across his chest. "I can't let you do this."

"Do you think you're man enough to stop me?" He outweighed the nerd by fifty pounds, all of it muscle from weightlifting and getting into shape for football season.

Manty persisted. "Think it through. Taking this cash would be the same as declaring war. The cops will never stop looking for us."

The combination of adrenaline rush, excitement, and joy surpassed anything Howie Boy ever experienced before. It was better than sex! It was as if he had come to life for the first time. He pulled Manty into the vault with him. "Start stuffing this trunk."

With a defeated look on his face, Manty said nothing else and did what he was told. The two of them shoveled piles of cash into the trunk until it overflowed. Howie Boy closed the top and secured the latches, but the latch on the left side wouldn't stay closed.

"It's bulging," Manty said. "We have to take out some of the cash to get it to latch."

"Bullshit, we're taking it as it is."

Manty fussed over relocking the vault and closing and locking the door to the security suite. "They'll find out soon enough they've been robbed, but let's not make it so obvious for them to find out right away."

With a man on each end of the trunk, they carried it to the balcony elevator. On the ride down, Manty said, "We need to be careful about the parking lot in case there's a guard lurking around out there somewhere."

They managed to get the trunk out and into Manty's sedan without being detected. They had decided on using Manty's vehicle, because his older sedan was non-descript and blended in. Howie Boy's SUV was big, flashy, and more memorable. Howie Boy had second thoughts about it now, wishing he were the one behind the wheel. "Get us out of here. Take it nice and slow."

The next step in the plan was to drive to his dad's hunting lodge in Perry County. From there, they'd split the cash. "Turn left at the signal light when you exit the parking lot. We'll take the interstate and head west."

While they waited for the light to turn green, a state police prowl car pulled up to the light and slowed when it turned yellow.

"Oh shit," Manty mumbled.

"Stay calm. He has no reason to suspect anything."

The light turned green and Manty made his turn onto the thoroughfare leading to the interstate highway. He kept glancing in the rearview mirror.

"Relax," Howie Boy said.

"The cop has a green light now. He's right behind us."

"Relax," Howie Boy said again.

"What'll we do if he pulls us over?"

"He has no reason to. Just keep to the speed limit."

"There's a trunk full of cash in the back seat. What if he asks us what's in the trunk?"

Manty's whining annoyed Howie Boy. "Get a grip. A cop car following us is a coincidence. The entrance ramp to the interstate is just ahead. The cop will likely get on there. Change of plan. We'll avoid the interstate and keep to this road and cross the river upstream. Then we'll exit at Millerstown. I know an alternate route."

The prowl car did not take the ramp onto the interstate and remained behind them.

"What do we do now?" Manty was so nervous his voice sounded high like a little girl.

Although he wouldn't admit it, Howie Boy experienced a pang of nervousness too. "Just keep going. We're just tooling along, minding our own business. That cop has no probable cause."

As soon as Howie Boy finished his sentence, the prowl car pulled closer behind them, lights flashing.

Neil Mantener is beginning to unravel. What do you think will happen?