The Heist

The Heist

“Just stick to the script,” Jeremy scolded into my earpiece. “No adlibbing. This is the Jewel of Ajab, not some small-town bank vault.” He was right, of course. I’d spent too much time flirting with the beautiful brunette at the bar when I should have been finding my mark. So I excused myself, finished my drink, and moved into the crowd. There were hundreds of attendees at the Gala, all of them anxious to see the Jewel, a flawless blue diamond that was the prize of the Najaf Collection.

I found the mark I needed in a casual security guard, dressed in a blue suit that was too cheap for an event like this, though he did his best to blend in. My target scanned the crowd like an amateur for potential threats, confirming my suspicion that he was a rent-a-thug and not full time security. We both passed through the crowd and he never even spotted me as I managed to follow him through one of the security doors. Within moments there was one less security guard and I’d acquired a necessary passkey.

The unveiling would come from below, a secured podium rising to meet the crowd and the passkey was enough to get me past the next door. “I’m almost there,” I noted. “Just one more checkpoint.”

“Gotcha. I’m deactivating the motion sensors. You’ll have ninety seconds before the system resets,” my partner advised.

The last card-reader flashed green and I cracked the door, finding the podium in the center of the room, its plastic casing dislodged. Atop the platform a single card read, ‘Thanks for being a necessary decoy, see you in twenty years or so.’ It was signed by Jeremy and disintegrated as soon as I lifted it. Then, the alarm sounded. That sonofabitch.


300 words