Broken Souls (Broken Realms, #2)

CHAPTER 15-2

In the BMW, Prado watched on his smartphone as Merv walked into the bank lobby. Ahead of him, a security guard nodded and said, “Mighty quick lunch, Mr. Bartolucci.”

Prado could hear Merv reply in an unfamiliar voice, “I remembered a couple things I needed to do before I took a break.”

Merv, the cloned bank manager, headed toward the row of tellers along the back wall. As he approached the door leading to the rear portion of the bank, someone buzzed him in. Prado had watched this process several times, and he wasn’t sure if one of tellers or someone watching on a security camera was allowing the bank manager access to the secured portions of the bank. Whatever the method, Merv seemed to pass muster.

After clearing the door, Merv turned left and entered a short hall that led to an office on the right and what appeared to be an employee break room on the left. He entered the largely sterile small office and sat down at the desk upon which were a name plate engraved Christopher Bartolucci, Branch Manager, alongside a phone and a computer. There were no papers, family pictures or other personal items, but he did notice a briefcase—exactly like the one he held in his lap—sitting on the floor, leaning against the side of the desk.

A woman on her way to the break room stopped in front of the office door and said, “Oh, Chris, I thought you were out to lunch.”

“I forgot to make a phone call before I left.”

“What, you don’t have a cell phone?” She smiled and rolled her eyes.

“Didn’t want to talk with the lunch crowd in the background.”

“Makes sense.” She turned and went into the break room.

Merv stood up, walked out of the office and back down the hall. He made sure not to leave his briefcase behind. Instead of opening the door to the lobby and exiting, he continued past the tellers and took another left where he saw a large metal door left slightly ajar. On the wall next to it was an electronic keypad. The vault. He grabbed the heavy door with two fingers and pulled it open wide enough to see inside. He paused for a moment to look around to see if anyone noticed him. Everyone ignored him. After all, he belonged here. He turned back to the vault.

On a table in the center of the small room lay three large canvas bags that had been dropped off by an armored car service fifteen minutes ago. Apparently they had not been emptied yet. The walls of the vault were comprised of a series of shelves and drawers, presumably to hold the cash. Merv stepped into the vault, walked around the table but did not touch the bags. After a minute, he exited the vault and then left the bank.

Outside, he sort of half jogged over to the BMW and got in.

“Why are you running?” Prado asked.

“I’m making sure I don’t run into myself. That bank manager might come back from lunch unexpectedly and get a big surprise.”

“How did it seem to you?”

“Piece of cake. I think this will be easy to pull off. Too bad we can only take as much as will fit in this briefcase. We’re leaving a lot of money on the table, literally,” Merv said.

“It looked like things went smooth on the video feed. I think in two days we’ll be ready to do the job. Let’s come by tomorrow and watch things one more time to make sure the bank manager’s habits persist and that the cash delivery follows the expected schedule.”

Merv grabbed the rearview mirror and looked at his recently acquired face. “Not a bad-looking guy, a little old, but not bad. I can live with this for a couple days.”