Dave Zeltserman - Outsourced

The scene didn’t seem real to him as they descended on the bank, guns drawn. Customers and bank employees looked on with confused and shocked expressions. An older woman started screaming. Joel smacked her on the back of the head with the rifle barrel. That shut her up as she sat on the floor holding the area where she’d been hit. As Dan looked around he could see the light going on in some of their eyes as they realized what was happening. Two of the tellers had their hands below the counter. He knew they were pressing the alarm signal. One of them showed a thin smile, as if he had some joke over them that they didn’t know about. Of course, the alarms were disabled, but they didn’t know that. Joel and Hoffer were rounding them up, making them lie on their stomachs while Gordon wrapped their wrists and ankles with duct tape. Dan ran to the bank manager’s office. The manager looked up at Dan, scared, and told him the silent alarm had been pressed.

“You might as well leave now while you still can,” he said. “Before someone gets hurt.”

This was the same manager who had made the decision to farm the software development to India instead of letting Dan build it. Dan signaled with his gun for him to stand up. As he got out of his chair and started for the door, Dan pushed him hard from behind. The manager tripped and fell to his knees before stumbling back to his feet. Joel spotted him, ran over and dragged him to the others.

Dan caught Shrini’s eyes. The two of them made a beeline towards the room where the safety deposit boxes were kept. That was what they were after. The robbery plan had come together once Dan hacked into the bank’s customer database and saw that one of the customers owned eight safety deposit boxes. After researching who this customer was and realizing he was a renowned Russian mobster it had all clicked. This man, Viktor Petrenko, wouldn’t be able to go to the police about what was stolen, and without that, how could the police catch them? And why would they ever suspect a bunch of geeky software engineers of pulling this off – especially if they had physical evidence linking the robbery to a reputed Mafia member?

There were electric outlets in the hallway. Dan and Shrini both opened their duffel bags and took out extension cords, plugging them into the outlets. The door to the room containing the safety deposit boxes was unlocked. If the alarm had been working, the door would’ve been bolted shut.

Inside, the two of them took high-performance power drills out of their duffel bags, plugged them into the extension cords and went to work. Dan had bought the same make of safety deposit box over the Internet. They were paid for with money orders and delivered to an address in Revere, a block from Raymond Lombardo’s home; he had been able to pick them up without anyone knowing about it. He and Shrini had practiced on those boxes and learned how to open them. There were three bolts that needed to be drilled through and then the boxes slid out easily. It still seemed like a dream as he drilled open the boxes belonging to Petrenko and dumped the contents into his duffel bag. There seemed to be a lot of money in the boxes, mostly packets of hundred-dollar bills held together by elastic bands.

Both of them were finishing up when they heard a gunshot. It was louder than Dan would’ve ever imagined and just seemed to echo on forever. They both shut off their drills.

“Is that what I think it is?” Shrini whispered.

Dan held up a palm for him to be quiet as he tried to listen to what was going on. He heard a woman yelling and then another shot.

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” he told Shrini.

“Wait a second.” Shrini turned his drill back on and finished cutting through the last bolt. Dan stood and watched, feeling like his heart was going to explode. After Shrini dumped the contents into his duffel bag and zipped it shut, the two of them grabbed their bags and headed back to the lobby.

What was going on there didn’t make any sense to Dan. There were no cops, no reason for any shooting, just Joel and Hoffer standing with their rifles while Gordon stood over two women, his body rigid, his arm fully extended as he pointed his gun at them. A large red puddle was leaking outward from one of the women. She couldn’t have been much older than twenty. Her shirt looked like it was drenched in blood. Her eyes were closed. Her skin bloodless. There was no question she was dead. The other woman, maybe in her forties, moaned loudly as she squirmed on the floor. She had been shot in the stomach. Gordon asked her several times if she had anything else she’d like to say to him.

Dan looked over at Gordon and then at Joel, trying to figure out what had happened. Joel shook his head angrily and headed quickly towards the lobby door, Hoffer joining him. Dan followed, his head buzzing, trying to understand how those two women got shot. As he was running, Shrini grabbed him and gestured towards his ski mask. Still in a daze, Dan took his mask off near one of the hidden security cameras. That was a big part of the plan since he knew the location of all the hidden security cameras. He paused for a moment and then kept going. When he got to the Chevy, Joel was waiting for him, livid.

“I told you not to bring him,” he spat out through clenched teeth.

“What the hell happened in there?”

“Ask your loon buddy.”

Gordon was pushing through the shrubs, breathing hard.

“Gordon, what the hell…?”

“Dan, you should’ve heard what those two said to me.”

“We have to get out of here,” Joel said, taking the ski mask from Shrini and collecting his gun. Dan blindly handed Joel both his gun and mask.

“Gordon, do you realize what you did to us?”

“Come on, Dan, I didn’t do anything to us. What difference does it make if I shot those two?”

“What difference…?”

Joel interrupted Gordon, slapping him on the arm. “Hey, loony, give me your mask.”

Annoyed, Gordon threw his mask at Joel before turning back to Dan. “Anyway, what did you expect?” he asked. “You invited me along and gave me a gun. Jeez, you should’ve known I’d do something like that.”

All Dan could do was stare at him. Joel moved forward, his hand out in front of Gordon’s eyes as he snapped his fingers. “Your gun, now!” he barked. Gordon turned to him, his face red. “What is your problem!” he yelled back, shoving the gun, barrel first, into Joel’s outstretched hand.

Joel without any hesitation flipped the gun in his hand and shot Gordon in the middle of his forehead. Gordon rocked back and forth on his heels and then fell straight back as if he were a piece of timber that had been cut.

Joel pointed the gun at Dan. From the corner of his eye, Dan could see Hoffer aiming his rifle at Shrini, his plastic grin now a hard sneer. “Take his overalls off,” Joel said softly. “Both of you.”

“Joel, what are you doing?”

“You got twenty seconds,” Joel said, his face white, his eyes glassy. “I’m counting now. Otherwise, I’m leaving you and your Indian buddy here with this loon.”

He started counting. Shrini moved first, kneeling by Gordon’s dead body and unzipping the overalls. Dan joined him, his hands shaking. He could hear Hoffer standing behind him laughing softly. Somehow they got the overalls off before Joel finished counting. Underneath, Gordon had on a Grateful Dead T-shirt and a pair of shorts. Hoffer balled the overalls up and threw them into the Chevy’s trunk, along with the duffel bags.

“Take his car keys,” Joel ordered.

Dan went through Gordon’s pockets and pulled out both his wallet and keys.

Joel waved his gun at Dan. “We’re getting out of here now. Dan, you drive, Gunga Din here can sit in the back with Eric.”