Escapades of the Common Thief

Escapades of the Common Thief

The shroud of darkness covered the city with the perfect cover for a job. Hard to believe a bustling city could be quiet on a Wednesday night. Another gunshot fired into the air, “Freeze damn it!” The shouting was just getting annoying now, another jump above a dark alley and it would be golden. The drop spot was just up ahead. With a quick glance to the right and left an expletive was mumbled as the drop wasn’t here yet, and here came the fun.

“Finally, he we are.” A pistol could be seen in the hand of a police officer, “Come on, it’s over, put your hands up and I’ll take you in.”

“But good enforcer of the law, do you really think it is over?” The man slowly raised his left hand, tipped his cap with his right with a smile. “You really think I would give up this easily?” The man stepped back right off the edge of the building. The officer stood dumbfounded for a moment then smiled stupidly while looking over the edge to see a pair of tail lights into the distance.

The hay in the back of the truck didn’t make much of a soft landing. Theyer sat up and knocked on the window, which the driver pulled open at the sound.

“You really couldn’t find something softer?”

“It’s not important. Did you get it?”

“You really think I would risk falling off a building if I hadn’t gotten it? You know damn well I never give up on a job of this magnitude.”

Theyerd smiled and pulled a golden chain out of the inside pocket in his coat. Its shine itself was a thing of beauty, but what was on the end of it was the real prize, a locket, with a key inside.

“What’s the key for Theyerd?”

“You’ll see, you’ll see.”

The truck stopped at a small roadside gas station, Theyerd jumped out of the back and walked behind the station. He smacked a nearby trashcan three times, and a door opened in the station, leading into a small tunnel.

"Ah, home sweet home, here I come."

The tunnel led to a brick wall covered in dust, Theyerd took a rag from his pocket and wiped off the signs of age before examining the wall once more. He tapped a few bricks in sequence, third from the top on the right, second from the bottom on the left, third one in from the left fifth one down, and then the top center. The passageway revealed itself to Theyerd clear as day.

Theyerd followed the passage for another ten yards until it finally opened up into a brick covered basement area. “Anybody home?” Theyerd yelled into the room. The chairs were all neatly pushed in, and the papers stacked, someone must have finally decided to clean. Theyerd flipped the hat off of his head and onto the nearby rack on the wall. The lights were all on, but, nobody was in the room. “Come on now ladies and gentlemen, we got some serious planning to do.”

A few different doors swung open, almost as if in sequence, each different member of the group stepped into the room and headed towards the table, rubbing their eyes. “There we are wimps, come on, it’s only 3 a.m. And you people call yourselves thieves.”

Theyerd looked around the room, there was Cay, planner, some would describe her position as the brains of the operation, she was the youngest, but had been with Theyerd the longest. We had James to her right, the resident actor, con man, wasn't much difference, either way, it got the job done. To the right of him we had Solamon, or Sole as she preferred, she had always been good with reconnaissance work, sneaky one she was, but incredibly smart. The crew was all gathered, Theyerd did notice one person was missing, but it wasn't a big deal right now. It was time to get started.

“Well, we are one short, but we can fill him in later. Boys and Girls, we got a special operation here to start our new year. We are going to break into the police station.” Theyerd’s face went from his normal cocky grin to one of pure seriousness. Anyone who knew him would know that this job was more important than any they had done in a while, not to mention they have been a little short on jobs anyway. “So, ladies and gents, any questions, comments, remarks?”

“Come on now ladies and gentlemen, we got some serious planning to do.”

No, girls, he thought. No, don't leave! This is just a minor setback! Oh...you both have to be up early to shoot a scene...I see...Fuck... He waved away the voice quickly and nuzzled his face into the hard wood of his desk, trying his best to find that dream once more. After all, it wasn't every day that Cameron Diaz and Ellen Page decided to use you as their own personal lollipop, now was it?

Still, his eyes popped open with a disgruntled sigh in tow. He sat back in his chair slowly and ran a hand through the reddish-blonde hair that crowned his head, silently cursing Theyerd from rousing him from his wonderful slumber. He looked over at his laptop and sighed, still not seeing a single reply from his "source" on the whereabouts of those identification papers he'd asked for.

So much for being in the CIA, he thought, finally rising to his feet. I can be an FBI Agent, a police officer, a fireman and a fucking ice cream vendor, for fucks sake, but it's too much to ask for the CIA paperwork? What's this world coming to when a government worker can't even be bribed into handing over false papers?

He pulled a cigarette from the pack on the table and produced a lighter from his pocket. He'd been trying to quit recently, hadn't he? Such was the life of a thief, he supposed, turning back quickly to wipe the puddle of drool off of the desk before making his way to the door and opening it slowly.

"You owe me one sexy dream, Theyerd," he said, his voice muffled slightly from the cigarette that hung loosely between his lips. "Preferably one that involves Cameron Diaz and a kiddie pool full of chocolate pudding, but I'll take a gallon of ice cream in case the pool isn't available."

He listened quietly as the man spoke of their next job, a sly smirk gracing his face ever so slowly. "That'll give me a chance to bring the FBI badge out of retirement, which is entirely alright with me. Question is, are we going my route or Ryu's route this time, because I'll just take my leave to the nearest strip joint if it's the latter."

If there was one world Sole was hard to reach when she resided in it, it had to be the world of the literature (and if she was honest: also all of the most horrible books ever written, as long as it was a book). The worlds of the written words were the ones she used to hide in whenever she couldn't take the reality no more and though she was grown up now and was able to face almost any fear, she still liked to get lost between the soothing words of a world that was not hers.

It was no surprise then that she was reading when Theyerd returned. She didn't hear him enter, nor did she pay attention to any of the others. To her, this was a lazy day because she didn't have to do anything and if she didn't have to do anything, her hands would soon grab the nearest book. This time it was The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón and it hadn't take her long to be captured by the beautiful sentences Zafón seemed to be able to pull out of pen without any obvious effort.

Though her subconcious registered his presence and the words he was speaking, she didn't really hear him until he said: '...questions, comments, remarks?' She looked up, closed the book while holding a finger at the page she was reading and said with her hoarse and kind of low voice: 'Oh hey Theyerd.' Then the rest of what he said entered her gray cells. The police station huh? What was that good for?

"You owe me one sexy dream, Theyerd," she heard Pascoe saying. Sole rolled her eyes. Charming as always. She stood up from the place she was sitting and said: 'So, who do we need to break out? Because I don't see any other reason for breaking into the police station, you know.'

Cay had found a nice quiet spot in one of the back rooms to finally read in. She'd picked up her favourite book of all time - Bill Bryson's 'A Short History of Nearly Everything' and was about to re-read it's pages for the billionth time. It was the only real thing that Cayden carried on her that she made sure she kept. Of course, like most of her belongings, it had been stolen, but it was a bloody good book.

Her pleasure was short lived though, not even past the first paragraph in fact as she heard the boss call for them. He was back and ready to move. Been the planner of the group meant that she had some serious work to get to. After all, she wasn't a planner for no reason. She had the brains, but then again she'd been taught by some of the best in her area as a kid, on how to plan things just right, and from every angle so you weren't caught. She was the best for a reason.

Moving out to the basement's main room, she looked up at Theyerd and looked at the others that had also entered the room before her, the same time as her or a little later. The whole gang was there and ready for action. Cayden wasn't one to ask questions, she was one to listen and then take action and that was what she was going to do this time. She listened to what James and then Sole had to say.

James looked slightly grumpy to her, and looked like he'd just woken up. All she could do was smile at that, especially as he mentioned that Theyerd owed him one sexy dream. Boys and their sexy dreams, she thought. Though, even Cay couldn't deny that she'd not had dreams of hot guys before. She'd never admit it though. Cay wasn't the type of girl that got herself interested in men often. She had her crushes, but rarely did they develop into more than that and it was often that she'd received teasing from people about potential crushes and her lack of interest in guys. She knew it was friendly and tried not to take much notice in it but whenever someone made the comment she'd always end up blushing.

Theyerd looked excited at the prospect of telling them about their new challenge that Cayden would be planning out for them. She couldn't wait to get them started and had already got a mental image in her head of the police station. She was good like that. Give her a place and if it was somewhere she knew she'd have the image up in her head in seconds and visualised as the boss talked. And that was what she was currently doing - visualising the police station and waiting to see what Theyerd instructed them to do. Cay could easily form a plan or a number of plans as he spoke and then list them when he wanted her to.

Listening to Sole's question, Cay waited for Theyerd to speak up.

"The ol' gas station, eh?"

Ryu glanced up at the small, familiar building. His thin lips formed into a devilish smile. With a snicker, he brandished a chain with a lock from his jacket's pocket. He stooped down low, next to the front wheel of his bike. Ryu reached forward with the restraint.

He stood up and kicked his bicycle. It rolled across the ground, skidding to a halt a few feet away. Ryu held the chain in his mouth with his teeth, biting down with every last bit of strength he could. Ryu slammed himself into the gas station's brick wall, then punched a few bricks in random order. He waited for a few minutes, breathing heavily, for the secret passage to appear.

"Open sesame!" Ryu shouted, causing the chain in his mouth to fall. Nothing happened. He kicked the brick wall to no avail. An exasperated sigh escaped his lips, and he sat down on the nearest trash can. He crouched down, picking up the chain, then sat back down on the trash can. He heard the building shake slightly, and the wall opened up to reveal the secret passage. Ryu flashed his teeth again, now stained with his bleeding gums from the chain biting, and took a step in.

He gripped the chain tightly in his right hand. He buried his left hand into the messenger bag bouncing at his side, withdrawing a hand grenade. Duct tape had been applied to it, covering a hole where Ryu had tampered with it. His devilish smile returned, complimented by a glob of blood dripping lazily from his upper lip. Ryu quickened his pace, but made sure to keep his footsteps silent.

Ryu ran straight into a brick wall. He fell backwards, landing on his back. Grunting, Ryu rose to his feet, staring at the wall in confusion. "Was that here before?" Ryu tapped one of the bricks. It sunk further into the wall, then returned to its previous spot. Ryu tilted his head to the side, humming his confusion.

He ruffled through his messenger bag. Snickering, Ryu found his goal. He pulled out a square batch of C-4. He placed it at the bottom of the wall, already rifling through his bag to find the correct wires and detonator. With experienced hands, he inserted the cords into the plastic explosive, then wired it into a hand-held detonator. Ryu placed his hand over his mouth as he tried his best to stifle the laughter building up in his throat.

"Honey, I'm hooome!"

He pressed the detonator, smiling.

Theyerd looked at Pascoe, smiling a bit and letting out a quiet chuckle, "Well, I'll work on that. Sorry if your wet dreams aren't on the top of my priority list." Pulling out the chair at the end of the table and plopping himself into it with a thud.

Turning his attention to Sole, Theyerd let his face turn to a cocky grin, "Well Solamon, we aren't breaking anyone out to my knowledge. Just need a few things out of the captain's office. Shouldn't be too difficult. I mean, after all, we are the best." Theyerd winked, at that same moment, a thud camefrom beyond the brick, passageway door.

"That stupid fucking..." Theyerd leaped out of his chair and walked over to the secret door, pulling a single lever on the wall, revealing the same passageway he had walked through. "Next time Ryu, if you can't remember how to get in, knock. Big Jimmy is going to be pissed if he comes back to a caved in gas station."

Theyerd turned back to Cayden. "Well, Cay dear, anytime you are ready, tell them the plan and let's get this shit started." Theyerd sat back down in his chair and relaxed, feet up on the edge of the table.

"Well Solamon, we aren't breaking anyone out to my knowledge. Just need a few things out of the captain's office. Shouldn't be too difficult. I mean, after all, we are the best."

Sole sighed. If that was all, then there wasn't any excitement in it, for her anyway. Yeah, we're the best and we seem to be waisting our talents on something as stupid as this.
'I suppose these things you need acquire the assistance of all of us... Anyway, I suggest you should let me scout the environment first so that we can get familiair with their routine and stuff.'

Then she turned around to get a seat herself, but before she could do so her attention was drawn to the secret passage away Theyerd had entered through. "That stupid fucking...", she heard Theyerd say as he made his way to the door again. It was no surprise to see Ryu on the other side of it and Sole had to giggle a bit. If you needed someone with a way of entering spectacular, you just had to call Ryu. 'You're an ass, Ryu!,' she then said, but in a playful tone, because she didn't mean it.

Then she finally sat down and looked up to Cayden, as she was apparently the one who was going to inform them about the plan.

Once everything died down and everyone was ready to listen Cay stood up. She'd always been a nervous speaker, even after years of doing it; when she first stood up she always looked like she was about to faint and pass out from the pure fear of speaking in public. It was mainly due to the fact that she always worried over what would be thought of her plans. She hated the thought of people judging her plans or saying that they were wrong or shouldn't be done. It was rare that that happened though. In fact Cay couldn't remember the last time it had happened. Some point in the past they had a guy that always challenged her and whatever she said, constantly trying to find her flaws but he had long since gone. Cayden was still here though, and still the planner so something had to be right.

"Okay... So break in at the police station. I had a few ideas but this one seems the most appropriate to getting in and out without any problems." She started. She took a bit of a deep breath and nodded to herself running the plan in her head one more time to make sure it sounded correct and okay to relay to the others. Once she'd confirmed it was okay in her head, she started to think again. "Ryu is the first person we need. He can take out the power to the place. Theyerd uses that to sneak in. The power should come back on within a couple of minutes. James; I was thinking you could pose as someone like an agent or something. Get the main officers that are in there out the way, there should only be two or three. Make up a case and watch out for Theyerd. Sole and I can enter as two girls involved in a mugging. I can easily pull off the shakes and the tears to make it believable. We'll need some sort of sign from the guys when they are ready to leave for the next part of the plan. For Theyerd to get out there needs to be another distraction with the police at the front desk. There will probably be a drunken guy there under arrest or something; you could start something with him Sole. Worse comes to worse just start on me. And while they are trying to stop you the others leave. So we can escape without arrest, Ryu comes in again. This time he's outside and strapped a block of c4 to one of the car. He blows it up and they'll come running leaving Sole and I to walk free."

Cayden took a breath and looked at everyone there. "What do you think then? Sound like a good enough plan?"

James listened intently as Cay spoke, nodding softly: It was amazing how in depth she always went with her plans. The girl was a genius when it came to things of this nature, but it was always a bit discomforting to watch the way she twitched about when she got in front of the lot of them. Perhaps it was just the actor or the law degree talking, but public speaking had never really been a terribly hard thing for him to do in all his life. He smiled and bent down slowly, grinding the cigarette into the concrete beneath his feet until the embers were extinguished.

"Those fire doors are usually locked from the inside," he stated, "so that lock is going to hold whether the power is out or not." He turned to look at Ryu, his eyes now serious. He took his job very seriously, whether it was illegal or not. "Ryu, make sure you don't cut the power till I give you the signal. I'll set those local yokel cops on a wild goose chase looking for the coldest case file they've got in their precinct, so it shouldn't be a very hard deal to get straightened out. Then I'll get bossman over there inside and keep them off of him till he's got what he needs."

He focused his attention on Theyerd next, his eyes still serious. "Problem is that the generators they've got take about three minutes to warm up, so we've got to be quicker than we've had to be in a while. I'm sure you of all people know that, Theyerd, but it needed to be said."

Theyerd had stepped away from the table for a bit, just to let Cay have her chance to shine, She was always best in this situation, even if it didn't seem it. Her plans were always good, she would sit in her room for hours and look over blueprints and would ask Theyerd for help with some situations, but would rarely ever actually need it..

Her planning sessions were legendary, she once didn't come out of her room for three days. She only asked Theyerd to drop her off some food every once in a while. Of course, this was before everyone else came around, the plans were always more complicated then. The skills of everyone in the group now makes the planning easier with all the special perks.

James caught Theyerd's attention when he spoke his name, "Well, Come on James, I'm the best, three minutes is like three years to me." Theyerd smiled and walked back over, "Nice plan Cay dear, I think we can pull it off pretty simply. Everyone just needs to know their place. Come on boys and girls, it's back to bed if you have no more questions, we leave for town tomorrow at 10 P.M."

Ryu removed his burnt jacket, blackened with soot from the explosion. He rubbed his dust filled eyes free of the debris. Ryu stumbled over the chair he intended to sit on; he flailed wildly for a few seconds as he let out a yelp. After a few seconds, Ryu could see clearly now. He made the chair sit upright then planted his behind on the object, leaning into it. Ryu nodded during Cay's explanation of the plan, hoping that the others would realize that his frequent nodding meant that he understood it all. In actuality, he didn't. When he heard his name, he grinned. When James turned his attention to him, his smile turned into a frown.

" 'kay, Jamie!" Ryu said, snickering. "I perfectly understood everything you said, and will carry out the aforementioned orders effectively and efficiently." He smiled to reinforce his lie. I'll figure it out later, Ryu thought. My brain's fried from the boom-shpik-shploo plastic, and I'm hungry...

"I have a question, Turd! I mean, Ted, err, Theyork, uhm." Ryu crossed his eyes. "Theyerd. Yeah, there we go!" He grinned, bouncing in his chair. "Now, what was my question - let's see. Oh, yeah; Theyerd, man, person. Can we..." They all stared at him and he knew that they yearned to go back to resting. Their stares were unnerving. Ryu bit his lower lip and wiped a bead of sweat rolling down his forehead. The pressure was too much. He felt his pulse racing throughout his entire body, his heart trying to jump out of his chest and choke him so that he wouldn't have to suffer through the intense air. "Uh..." He mumbled incoherently over a span of ten minutes as he tried to grasp his previous train of thought.

Ryu's eyes lit up with realization, and he caught the relieved expressions from the others. "Can we go to bed?" He said with a grin. Theyerd slapped his palm against his forehead, but Ryu still kept smiling. "What?" he asked, innocently.

Sole stayed quiet as she listened to Cay unfolding her plan. It was as solid as Salomon had expected it to be, coming from the master mind that Cay was. With Sole's ability of scouting she and Cay would form a great team as, according to the information they both gathered, they were always on top of things.

'There will probably be a drunken guy there under arrest or something; you could start something with him Sole', said Cay. Sole nodded. 'Oh sure thing! I can make that work out. After all, I'm a very loveable girl, am I not?' She smiled.

Well, in the end it didn't sound all too difficult. It was surely something that could work, but there could be one problem. The police men themselves. And so she said: 'We still should be aware of the fact that a police station can be very busy at times you're not expecting it to be busy. I mean, God knows that those dudes walk in and out on each other as they please, so we should be really careful about that. The fact that at the time we're going inside aren't many police officers at the station doesn't mean that they can't multiply in split seconds.'

She shut her mouth again and listened to what the others had to say.

"Nice plan Cay dear, I think we can pull it off pretty simply. Everyone just needs to know their place. Come on boys and girls, it's back to bed if you have no more questions, we leave for town tomorrow at 10 P.M.," Theyerd said. Well, she had no more questions so she was ready to retreat herself and get back to her book again before she'd get some sleep. But then Ryu spoke, or better put: tried to speak.

'Ryu, dude, those bombs will make your head explode one day,' Sole said before she went back to her book.

Theyerd sighed at Ryu as he slid his hand off his face, slowly taking off his coat and throwing it on the rack as he walked to his room. "Good Night boys and girls." He opened the door and entered the solitary room in the corner of the basement.

Theyerd's hand reached up and down the wall before flicking the light switch up, brightening the room with it's electric aura. There were papers covering shelves, bureaus, and even the nightstand, all various documents from old jobs and old profiles, including ones of himself. The most recent being from Chicago, before the group went underground in this small city of Cerden, Pennsylvania.

The most interesting part of the profile was the number of charges on it, thirty-four. Theyerd smiled as he read that number, thirty-four was the number that the Chicago Police Department had suspected he was a part of, they weren't even sure it was that much. Theyerd however, counted one hundred and eighty-two jobs in Chicago, probably the high end of his career, next to Paris of course.

Now they were just scrapping for jobs, hopefully this station job amounted to the next one like the client said it did. Doing small break in was the work of a petty house thief. Benjamin Theyerd was no house thief, one of the most notorious thieves of the past decade reduced to stealing things such as forty dollar vases to make a buck was pathetic.

The Best... Theyerd thought to himself as he put the profile down, laying in his twin sized mattress in it's broken down frame, the wood squeaked as he moved himself around to get comfortable. It was a big day today, and it hopefully wouldn't be the last. He closed his eyes and lay on the bed, drifting slowly to sleep.

Beep...Beep...Beep... Theyerd awoke to his alarm clock buzzing loud and his head pounding. Another night of rough sleep, the clock read 9:30 as he punched the alarm off. slowly lifting himself off his bed, and out into the kitchen. He smelled someone making breakfast, slowly rubbing his eyes to adjust to the light to see who it was.

Cayden let the others talk while she just retired to her bed once everyone had seemed to address her and nothing more was asked. She was pretty tired herself and liked to get her sleep. It was something that she needed - plenty of sleep otherwise she'd be all grouchy and she hated that side of her. As long as she got plenty of sleep though things would be fine. She just had a short fuse with lack of sleep, thats all.

The next morning Cayden was up bright and early. She was never one to sleep in late. If she went to bed late she'd still be up at the crack of dawn reading or doing something. She liked to be up at the start of the day and most nights seemed to get 5 hours sleep if lucky. That was enough for her though, strangely enough. She'd trained her body to deal with around 5 hours a night. Of course, if she got less than that for a while she'd eventually crash, but she could deal with around 5 hours a night. Now though, she was in the kitchen cooking herself breakfast. She was waiting for some toast to do while she had some sausages and eggs keeping warm in the oven. While she was waiting she had her head in a book of hers, one that she'd read many times before, but she enjoyed reading and every time she could get her hand on a new book she would, until then she'd reread her old ones.

Her attention was brought away from the book when Theyerd entered the room. "Hey there." She smiled lightly. "Want some breakfast? I made sausages and eggs for people who want them and I can put in some more bread and make some toast for you if you want as well." She told him, folding the corner of her page and putting her book down just as the first lot of toast popped up.

With the sound of Theyerd closing his door, Sole made her way to her own bedroom and crawled underneath the blankets, while she played some Daniel Mehlhart on the background and read some more pages of her book. The clock was ticking away the minutes as she was drawn into the story just as easy as a few hours before, when Theyerd had called them together. But eventually she put down the book and turned off the light, still listening to the music as she closed her eyes and slowly fell asleep.

Morning came all too soon. She woke up as she heard someone talking and she yawned, stretched her arms and then sat up, with her back against the head board of her bed. Old blankets were strangled at her feet and she kicked them out of the grip of the fabric that was holding them, finally getting out of bed. As she made her way to her door, still wearing her pyjamas, she took a quick look at herself in the mirror. Messy hair, still thick eyes from the sleep and a puffy face, but to hell with it.

After she closed the door, the smell of breakfast lured her into the kitchen where she saw Theyerd and Cay. ''Morning guys,' she said, while she poured herself a cup of black coffee and sat down in the nearest chair. 'Guess we have a big day ahead of us, huh?'

She took a sip of the hot coffee and welcomed the warm fluid in her body. Yeah, coffee was one of the good things mornings brought her, especially since she didn't particulary like them. She was more a night person, more active at night, and she really had to gather some energy to be any good in the morning. After another sip, she put the cup down on the table and asked: 'So, what's for breakfast today?'