“Acknowledged. Accessing power grid.”
Once she and Carter armed themselves, they made their way toward the building.
“There’s an alarm, Carla,” Rain said.
“Does it have a keypad?”
“Yes.”
“Can you remove the cover?” Carla asked, and Rain looked at Carter. He took out his knife.
“I got a knife, Carla and I’m gonna try to get it off.”
“Gently. You don’t want to set it off.”
“Right,” Carter said and went to work. It took a minute or two, but, “I got it.”
“Take the cover off and send me a picture of what you’re looking at,” Carla requested, and Rain complied.
“Don’t tell me … you want me to cut the red wire, right?” Carter said.
“No, if you cut the red wire, it will trigger a silent alarm.”
“Because it’s not getting power, the system will assume that it’s being compromised,” Rain said.
“Exactly,” Carla said and both she and Carter were impressed.
“What? I pay attention when Monika talks,” Rain said. “So what do we need to do?”
“I’ll cut the power, it’ll reset the keyboard, so you’ll have a minute to disable the lock and get in undetected.”
“Acknowledged,” Rain said, and Carter did as Carla instructed and then Rain picked the lock and they were in. They bypassed the elevator and quietly made their way upstairs to the third floor.
When they got to the third floor and Carter opened the door, Rain stepped in and quickly found out that the original architect’s drawings were outdated. Where there were once offices, the entire third floor was now one open storage space.
When Rain saw three men standing around a table with her money, she pulled out her gun. When they saw Rain and Carter, the three grabbed their guns.
“Look out!” Rain dove for the ground and the three men began firing at them. When Rain and Carter returned their fire, the men scattered as Rain kept firing until the clip was empty and she was able to get to her feet. The men took cover to regroup, leaving the money on the table. They returned fire as Carter grabbed her by the hand and they ran away from the door to cover. Carter and Rain both came up blasting as the men came toward them firing. One of them was now armed with an AK47. As he blanketed the room with bullets, the other two men marched, firing their weapons toward the money on the table.
Carter fired several shots, one of the bullets found its mark and killed one of the men. Rain rose up, fired twice and hit one of the men in the arm, but he kept firing and they made it to the back door. Carter and Rain fired at the men as they ran down the stairs. Once they were outside, they separated and ran in different directions.
Rain went after one. “I’m going after the money,” she shouted, leaving the one with the AK to Carter.
“Right.”
She ran down the street firing along the way. When she emptied her clip, Rain reloaded on the run and continued firing. The man kept firing as he ran until he had just about made it to a car.
When he got to the car, he fumbled with his key and it gave Rain the time she needed to catch up. He fired at her, got in a Passat, and drove straight at Rain. She planted her feet, gripped her nine with both hands and kept firing at the windshield. Rain dove for the ground and lay motionless until the car drove on. Rain got to her feet and kept firing as the car drove away fast.
Meanwhile, the other man had Carter pinned behind a car and taking heavy fire. Carter got to his feet, exchanged gunfire with him, and dropped back for cover. That was when he saw the Passat coming and Rain running behind it blasting.
When the driver brought the Passat to a screeching stop in front of his partner, Carter rose up and shot him before he could get in the door. Before the driver could drive off and leave his dead partner, Rain caught up and fired repeatedly through the window until he was dead. Carter went around to the driver’s side door, jerked the dead man out of the way and picked up the bag with their money.
“Everybody all right?” Carla asked now that the shooting had stopped.
“Yeah, Carla, we’re good,” Carter said as he and Rain walked away from the scene.
Chapter Five