38.

'It's the wrong car' one says to the other.

'Are you sure?'

'Yes ... the money isn't here?'

'Bugger ... we were in that place for three months, maybe the money was taken.'

'No. I threatened him enough and besides he said he wasn't interested in money. Sure, he got the cars back for us after those other two left us for dead. He said he just wanted to fix us, and he has done that. The result, he said, would make him all the money he'd ever want.'

'Then if it's not in this car and hasn't been taken, then it must be in the other car.'

'There is only one person who could have taken the other car.'

'Where is he?'

'How the hell do I know? I'm not telepathic.'

'I'll kill him, I swear it, I'm gonna kill him.'

'Put the gun away, will you? I don't want to risk being pulled over, not now. We'll get him and the money and if we don't then ...'

'Then what? I'm not doing another job, especially with how the last one went.'

'I know and we won't have to ...'

***

Who robs banks these days? It can be done electronically, and from accounts rather than from premises, if the right plan is put in place and the right people put into place then a route can be set but no, they had to go for an actual physical robbery, especially with how likely capture is. Modern day security is so souped up, yeah maybe in that they won't expect it. Get in, get as much as possible and get out as quick as possible. They definitely won't be expecting it, they won't see it coming.

A group of four with a plan worked out down to the most minor of details prepare to go into action. The bank of choice scoped on numerous occasions. Visits, accounts opened and closed under false aliases. They knew every guard, every post, every change of shift. Twin brothers, indeed, between them had every detail sorted. A third team member stands guard at the main entrance as two identical cars are parked close-by, one with the driver at the ready.

It began on schedule and to point. Two guards were distracted by the change in shift. The watcher stays at the door ready to go and open doors to the second. Twins calmly walk in, one ahead of the other and a gun is pointed at one cahier.

'Cash points now, all four and quickly, no one needs to be hurt.'

Money from four cash points is handed over through each individual hatch and then is stuffed into a duffel bag and the twins begin to move. The first two security doors are open and right as it is reached, a shot is fired. Security have shot one of the twins in the back of the calf of the left leg. His brother catches him and drags him past that first door. The first door closes and the threesome wait for the second door to release. It is all which stands between then and the great outdoors.

Time is against them for they know if an alarm has not already sounded then it soon will, which in turn will prevent that other door from opening. Buttons are pressed with no time to spare, and that second door is opened. With the sight of the gun and what has happened, the mayhem from inside the bank stretches outside.

Other members of bank security now happen to be outside. The driver of the main getaway car panics and is gone. Second twin is shot, also in the leg and watchman panics, making his way to the second car and pretty soon he is gone too though only after the money has been thrown into the back. The twins are left to the mercy of their surroundings. An alleyway between buildings is where they barely are able to take momentary refuse. A dumpster gives them temporary cover.

Seconds pass hurriedly, so the twins in their panic, can in no way gather their thoughts in an attempt to formulate any kind of plan, not that they can formulate a plan with how severe their injuries are, and it is all too quick by the time security begin to approach and they do approach cautiously.

With an almost expectation that the hurt on the would be bank robbers would be too great for them to put up much of a fight, there is still that air of caution, though when the far side of the dumpster is reached, there is no one there, no robbers, no twins and no bag of cash, nothing but the run of the mill rubbish one would find in an alleyway of this kind.

There is a trace of blood though that would be expected for both twins are indeed injured and there is no question about that. An alleyway like this one being so close to such a big-time bank should say a lot about the bank itself and that maybe a moment like this was always on the cards. There is a near-by door chained and padlocked just a matter of feet away from the dumpster. An escape could hardly have been made through there but there is nowhere else.

In a building a good fifteen to twenty minutes' drive away, there is some commotion. Two men have been brought into a small operating room; one is unconscious upon arrival and the other moments away from unconsciousness. The unconscious man is attended to first. A saline drip is attached into his left arm as an injection is being prepped for his right arm.

'What are you doing?' asks the conscious man. When no answer comes his voice loudens. 'Tell me, answer me, what are you doing to my brother?'

A syringe is emptied into that right arm of the unconscious man. Almost right away something can be seen moving, gathering under the skin. There is movement right up along the arm and across the chest, movement that resembles fish swimming upstream and before long consciousness is lost in the second man.

This had not been on the cards, not part of any plan though as far as at least one man is concerned, it is a matter of right time, right place, with the main criteria matched too. It fell on his lap, and he is just fine with that.

Twenty-four hours pass before the twin brothers wake within five minutes of one another and they wake within a long rectangular room which houses eight singular begs. Seven of those eight beds have now become occupied. Their injuries are bandaged up and as they will soon discover the injuries are also light years further along the healing process than what they would be under any normal kind of circumstance.

Through bank security cameras someone had watched, someone was ahead of the game, someone made a prediction with accuracy, someone had added two more subjects to a group one member away from being complete. So right time, right place goes so far, and it is less a fall on the lap, more of a matter of extraction.

***

There are two local police detectives who already have had reason to visit room 211 of The Mulberry Hotel. They have received a new tip. As a trip to a certain building has been made, and with an investigation initiated and with William keeping himself hidden within the confines of room 211 and being kept company by Maggie, Red and Blue are out wandering. Just as they come to make an investigation of their own, an investigation of a local bakery, an arrest is made.

Red and Blue are arrested for a robbery which occurred approximately three months prior and with circumstances being what they are, neither Blue nor Red have any idea of any such robbery. If they did have such knowledge and knew it was them who perpetrated such a crime, then they certainly would not have freely been out and about wandering around so openly and calmly.

From inside the Open House Coffee House, Mandy sees this arrest occur. Her place of employment is not so far away from the bakery. She is not on duty as she has been granted temporary leave though she does happen to be here in this moment, checking in with that place of employment. Things indeed are getting more interesting by the minute.