I opened the door and immediately began counting down from sixty in my head. The alarm would trip sixty seconds after that door opened if I didn’t disable it first. The access panel was in the corridor. I found it and quickly opened the screws on the cover with a screwdriver. Then I rewired the circuit board for the alarm system, based on schematics I’d downloaded from the alarm company’s own website. It wasn’t easy to do with my gloves on and I prayed the circuit worked.
With ten seconds to go, I took a step back and waited, counting down silently in my head. At zero, the alarm tripped, but the circuit didn’t engage, and the rest of the system had no idea there was a break in it. If I’d screwed up that part, I’d have had four minutes to get out before the loan company’s private security contractor showed up. But everything seemed okay. I listened for the secondary alarm and it didn’t trip either. I was good.
I went down the corridor, past the guards’ post, and into the safe room. I could have picked the safe, but not in the fourteen minutes I had available to me. Instead, I attached more plastic explosive to the bolt engagement mechanism, wired them to a detonator, set the timer for forty seconds, and went back into the guard post, shutting the door behind me.
The explosion this time was louder. The building shook. If anyone had been there, they’d have realized what was going on. But the guards were still blissfully unaware, munching on their frosted donuts and sweet coffee.
I went back into the safe room. The door was intact but I was able to retract the bolts manually and it swung open. Inside were hundreds of personal checks. This was the way people paid for the loans, with post-dated checks. I gathered them all up, put them in a steel bin, poured fuel on them, and lit them on fire. All those people could keep their paychecks this month. It might give them a chance to get out of the cycle of debt they were in.
Then I took out the loan ledgers, with the details of the people who’d taken out small loans during the past few days, and added them to the fire. It was as simple as that. They were poor people, unfortunate, but tonight they were catching a break. They were all off the hook for the money they’d borrowed.
Then I loaded wads of cash into my backpack. This was the money the company loaned out, and it was in neat, ten-thousand dollar stacks, delivered freshly by the bank. I counted sixty of them, six-hundred-grand. Not bad for a night’s work.
There was a computer on the desk by the safe and I opened the login terminal. I had the username and password from my surveillance and I ran a search for Rob Crawford. I shook my head when I saw the search results. The prick owed the loan sharks two and a half million dollars. He’d never be able to pay that back. He’d bankrupt himself, and Lacey, trying to buy off the debt collectors. Even his plastic surgery business wouldn’t be enough to get him out of that hole. I wondered what it was that got him into such a mess. A gambling addiction? A hooker addiction? Drugs? I shook my head. I printed out the record so that the loan sharks wouldn’t lose it. Then I wiped their records, immediately erasing the debts of all the people who’d ever taken a payday loan from the company. They were all free. All of them except Rob. I didn’t feel like extending him the same courtesy. Besides, the loan sharks weren’t about to forget a loan that big, even if I had deleted the record.
I counted out six thousand dollars in hundred dollar bills and left it on the security guard’s seats. They were going to lose their jobs over this. Six grand would be enough to get them and their families through until they were able to find new jobs. Then I left the building, got on my bike, and burned rubber out of there.
I didn’t go home. Instead I went straight to Rob’s overpriced, luxury condo. I admired the architecture of the place, and the perfect landscaping, as I knocked on his front door. I had to admit, he did have taste. His only problem was that he couldn’t afford it. He was paying for it all with borrowed money.
Rob answered in his underwear. I’d left my bag and helmet with my bike. I was probably the only guy in the entire city who had the nerve to leave that much cash unguarded, but I was too afraid I’d be tempted to use the gun on Rob if I brought it with me. When Rob saw me he tried to slam the door in my face, but I kicked it in. He fell backwards as the door slammed into him.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” he said, rising to his feet.
“Honey,” a woman’s voice said from upstairs, “who is it?”
“Who’s that?” I said to Rob, a look of complete disgust on my face. “Your secretary?”
Rob nodded sheepishly.
“You scumbag,” I said.
“I don’t have any money here,” Rob said, as if I could possibly be there to rob him. I laughed at the thought. I had more money in my checking account than his entire life was worth. And I’d never rob someone in their home, no matter who they were. That went against my code. I only stole from corporations.
“You’re cheating on Lacey with your secretary?” I asked.
“It’s not like that,” he said.
“You’re damn right it’s not like that. Because I’m not going to allow it to be like that.”