North Star

Chapter One

This was too easy.

Blake Bolt observed the most prestigious and richest jewelry store in Florence, Tuscany just a few feet away from him. Thirty million Euros waiting to be... to be liberated. He smiled to himself, realizing how soon he would no longer have to barely get by or scratch the surface of survival. He wouldn't have to worry where his next meal would come from or where he'll be staying, he would finally make it. Bolt was expecting to be able to steal around eighteen million Euros, any more than that he would have to acquire a second person, and he didn't want to share his spoils. Along the way when he decided to do the heist, a contact of his was able to secure an apartment in Paris, France that was completely off the grid. Blake liked that.

He watched the store and started to analyze all the things he studied about this jewelry store. The layout was pretty easy to follow. It was an all gold jewelry store, along with some diamond trinkets. The most expensive pieces of jewelry were located in the center of the store, while the cheapest were located at the front. Further down the store split into two wings, the right wing for golden necklaces and the left wing for earrings and rings. At any given time during open hours at least three employees were in the store, trying to sell the most expensive, the most beautiful, and the most unnecessary piece of jewelry possible. In the center of the store, eight cabinets made a square in the middle of the store, a Remington shotgun sat underneath the counter.

Ten security cameras monitored the jeweler, one in each corner and then one above the middle counter while the tenth one was outside. Four armed security guards stood inside the store. Two by the front entrance, one always making rounds in the store, and then the fourth in a back room watching the security cameras. All of them were equipped with G18's and the guard who was in the back had a SPAS-12 along with an MP5K. Lethal force was sanctioned to protect Tuscany's finest jewels. Along with this, all camera feeds were relayed to the firm where the guards were hired from, so that way if the security was somehow incapacitated, the alarm could still be raised. The windows that look into the store are two and a half inches of reinforced bullet proof glass, while the countertops were only an inch. Which would be easy enough to smash with the butt of a gun. Even with that police response time was around twenty-nine seconds. Fifty-four seconds later police roadblocks will be set up on either side of the road. He was still expecting police even though it would be too late for them to do anything. Blake would lead them on a merry chase, then disappear before their eyes.

Police never scared him. He was, well is, untouchable.

The plan was simple though.

If any criminal in this city actually sat down and thought about a crime they were about to commit instead of running in guns blazing, they might actually be able to pull this off. However, he was expecting the unknown variable. This plan couldn't work perfectly, it never works like that. Some element would be thrown at him which he would have to be able to adapt to.

Right now in Florence it is July, one of their hottest months which means that everyone was blasting their AC as high as they could. Blake had placed knockout gas in the ventilation, waiting for the moment for him to break in. He now removed his smartphone and watched the feed of the cameras he hacked, customers milling around looking for something to buy for either themselves or their significant other. Down near the bottom of his phone a button that read 'record' was ready to pressed, which Bolt did. He waited for the one minute and thirty second mark before pressing 'stop'. Watching what he just recorded he felt confident that no one at the firm would be able to detect anything strange, and by the time they did, it would be too late.