William points the remote at the screen as he walks toward it. The front of the warehouse disappears, replaced with schematics of the building.
“The warehouse is simply laid out,” William explains. “Two floors. The bottom floor is completely open. It houses the vault and a handful of management offices. On the second floor, there is rental space for buyers, wholesalers, and jewelers along the perimeter. There are armed guards on the interior as well as an individual guard in front of the vault. Motion sensors are spaced out in intervals along the interior. Cameras, too. There is no effective way in and out of the building via the doors or windows as they’re all equipped with glass-break sensors, tripwires, and motion detectors.”
“What does roof access look like?” Saint asks.
William’s smile is greedy. “That’s exactly where you’ll go in.”
He clicks again, bringing up several photographs of the roof. “Access to the air vents is easily attainable. You can reach the roof from the building next to it with an easy jump.”
“Thank God,” Saint mutters. “Thought you might have us parachuting in or something.”
It breaks the tension a bit. We all laugh, but yeah… glad we’re not doing that.
Mercier rises from the leather chair behind his desk. He moves to stand by William, crossing his arms as he stares at the screen. “Getting you in the building should be easy. Saint… it’s your job to deal with the interior sensors and cameras.”
“Not a problem,” he replies, and it won’t be. He has access to a tech genius at Jameson who can create any type of gadget required. Plus, Jameson has big-time government sources. He can get whatever we need.
Mercier nods at the screen, and William clicks the remote again. A picture of the vault comes up—taken at a distance from within the warehouse—and it’s massive. At least two-thousand square feet if I had to estimate, constructed from thick steel.
“How do you have so much intel?” I ask Mercier, because this is not information found on Google. “If we’re going to rob this place, we need to know what we’re being shown is trustworthy.”
Mercier’s appreciation of such a blunt request is clear. “I’ve had an inside man renting space and posing as a jeweler for the past year. He’s been in the vault several times because he rents a lockbox. This is accurate and up-to-date information.”
Accepting his explanation with a nod, I study the vault, noting it has a series of three combo dials. Not impossible but certainly not something I’m going to be able to crack quickly. William pulls up a different picture, this time taken from inside the vault. “Once you take care of the guards and Sin cracks the multiple combos, each interior lockbox can be popped with a lock-pick gun.”
This doesn’t surprise me. People often focus on the safe or vault as the primary means of security. They’re so confident the outer shell is unbreachable that they don’t bother with anything more than simple locks on the boxes, believing no one could make it that far.
But then I notice something else.
Hurrying to the screen, I point to the interior hinge on the vault door. “This is a magnet-plate alarm. When the door closes, the magnets connect, which activates the alarm. The door opens, the magnets break connection, and the alarm sounds. They’re usually set in conjunction with business hours. For example, a bank would have them engaged during non-business hours as an added layer of protection against nighttime thieves.”
“Even if you crack the combo, the vault door is designed to stay closed during non-business hours?” William asks.
“We’d have to rob it during the day?” Saint warily asks.
“That’s impossible,” I state with a shake of my head. “No, we’ll have to do it at night. But I’ll have to drill… right here. Scope it and remove the entire magnet plate. See how it’s screwed in? If I can remove the whole plate without the magnets breaking contact, the alarm won’t be tripped. It would be an incredibly delicate procedure. Risky, but it’s the only possibility I see.”
Mercier chuckles as he squints at the magnet. “I knew you would be invaluable to this team, Sin.”
I ignore the compliment. This job, which had already seemed impossible, just became exponentially more stressful.
Saint rises from his chair to get a closer look. After he examines what I’d indicated, he asks about the guards.
“Shoot them for all I care,” Mercier says with a nonchalant shrug.
“Yeah,” Saint drawls, crossing his arms. “Thought we had already established that we don’t murder people during our robberies. Too risky.”
“But this isn’t just any robbery,” Mercier counters. “This is the heist of all heists. There aren’t any more after this. You’ll be so rich you’ll be able to buy your own private island and never have another worry in your life. Hell, you’ll have enough money to buy a new conscience.”