Chapter 4 Second Job

Nick (Pov)

3 weeks later

"Ok Kira, I have everything and more planned to perfection. The bank closes at 7 pm and there are two security guards, David a male raccoon, and Lindsey a female ferret. David mainly stands guard at the reception and cash drawers while Lindsey stays near the vault.

Now if you break in through the main entrance it will only take a second for you to reach the vault before David notices anything is amiss. However, there is also an air duct 20ft up on the east side of the bank that would lead you right to the vault. Both come with there own risks, I favor going through the entrance but you're the one doing it so it's up to you.

Once you reach the vault you just knock out Lindsey and then we're clear for a solid 5 minutes. Instead of going through the hassle of using the vault door you should be able to just break through the concrete outlining and a thin layer of steel. After you're through, just start filling the bags with cash and get out. I'll be on the lookout and monitoring all the police channels from a radio I 'acquired' a couple of days ago.

The whole thing should take less than 15 minutes. So, what do you think?" He said slightly out of breath. I have to admit he had thought this through, I couldn't think of anything else that we might need and our escape routes were always the sewers. We wouldn't be doing anything near our home or the last job so it seemed pretty safe to me.

"Ok, it looks like you have put a lot of thought into this. We will set up an obstacle course to practice both entrance ideas and then I'll see which one I prefer. We will train for a week and then do it Saturday night unless something changes."

"YES! Ok, you start training with concrete blocks and fast speed runs, I'll keep canvassing the area to make sure I didn't miss anything."

Kira (Pov)

It's been a week, and Nick and I have been working hard to get everything prepped and ready, well I've been working hard Nick has just been hanging around the bank. Tonight was the night though. I had chosen to go with option B the air duct on the side of the building.

There were two main reasons, one being that that side of the wall was in an alleyway and not on the main street. The other is that however small a chance there is David still might have spotted me and radioed it in before I knew it. Now I'll just have to carefully knock out a ferret.

I'll be honest I was a bit worried I might use too much strength and accidentally kill her. That's why two days prior to this Nick and I researched the anatomy of raccoons and ferrets to see where and how much pressure should be put on a mammal to cause a blackout.

Nick than insisted that I practice on him, even though he is slightly larger than a ferret and we had to study on foxes too. It would still give me a sense of how much pressure to use.

"Tails, are you ready?"

"Yeah Red I'm good, just going through the plan again." As decided on the previous job, we decided to use nicknames, just in case. Unfortunately, I lost the coin toss and he got to pick mine.

"Ok Red, I'm going up. Don't radio me unless its an emergency, I'll do the same."

"Copy, good luck."

'Well here goes nothing' I thought as I jumped as high as I could towards the grate. Just like we had practiced I stabbed my paw into the bricks to make a foothold, having only been able to jump 15ft up. Once I made it up the air duct I reached for the vent. It was mainly set into place with a few strips of metal around the edges to keep it stationary.

After removing the metal it fell into my paws. I then took out a long nail and punched it into the bricks so I could hang the vent on it while I was in the duct. Eyeing the duct I shook my head. Whoever had designed the bank had hired extremely cheap laborers which happened to fall into my favor.

As I was sliding through the air shaft I saw light up ahead. That should be the vent above the vault. Perring down I saw a small white ferret sitting at a desk reading a newspaper. Ok, here it goes.

Slowly I pushed down on the grate releasing it from its hold before bringing it back up to the air shaft and setting it down. I then adjusted myself so that my feet would go out first lowering myself gently onto the ground right behind the ferret not making a sound as I let myself drop. Silently I raised my paw to Lindsey's neck and gave it a light pinch.

"Wha…" she couldn't even finish her sentence before she keeled over onto the table. I smiled underneath my mask at the adorableness as her tongue just barely poked out of her mouth as she slept. Well, time to get to work. Turning around I walked up to the vault door gave it a look like it was a real person and smirked at it.

Sidestepping to the concrete wall just next to it I punched the wall as hard as I could and heard a satisfying crumble as the concrete cracked. Ten minutes later I walked through a small hole in the wall gazing at the piles of money in front of me. Damn, that's a pretty sight. Reaching for my backpack I started stacking money into it; not forgetting to check the stacks for ink sacks, smell powder* or trackers.

Just as I was about to jump back into the air duct I had a thought. Reaching back into my backpack I grabbed a $100 bill. When I was young I used to make origami flowers in the sewer to liven up the place and Nick had told me that all great thieves have calling cards so why shouldn't I?

Walking back into the vault I put the $100 bill in the shape of a rose on the floor and then made my escape. Once I had nailed the vent back into the wall I fell back onto the ground and walked to the sewer grate heading home.

"Red, all clear. Meet me at section B." Section B was one of our hideouts in case of an emergency.

"Roger." Came a cheerful voice.