A Friendship Through Hardship

Chapter 1

Present day...

The day has finally arrived. After so many restless nights studying the legendary plan, it was go-time.

Everything went as expected at the beginning. We threatened the policemen and the truck drivers and everything, we put the necessary materials into the truck, and then the other two girls, Nairobi and Tokyo, got into a car with me to get to the Mint, so that we can enter head first.

Nairobi is awesome. She's incredibly kind to me, yet she still has this tough persona that makes her really cool. She's a master at forgery, and she's the one who'll be checking the quality of the cash during our heist.

Tokyo is... interesting. Her short temper isn't the greatest, and she's very impulsive, but I like how she manages to stand up for herself (and sometimes others, but rarely unless it's her precious Rio, another member of the group). I don't think she fully likes me, but she's fine.

As we were driving down the highway as quickly as possible, without drawing attention to ourselves, I thought back on how insane this is. How the hell did Sergio and Andrés talk me into this? His excuse about how "You have a very wide range of skills, most of which are useful to the plan" makes sense, but I'm more bothered about how my cooking skills aren't useful. Trust me, I can make a mean banana bread.

We stopped a few kilometeres from the Mint, and the plan was for me to go in looking like a tourist and pretend to be a hostage for a small amount of time, until the Professor (Sergio's name for the heist. Honestly, if he wasn't a criminal mastermind and a ghost, he'd be a teacher) told me otherwise.

I got to the front of the Mint, and used all those Drama classes from school to put on my best impression of a clueless tourist. I wore some denim shorts, and had a souvenir shirt which said "Hola!" with a photo of the Museo del Prado on it. I also had a smartphone which could only take pictures, send an SOS to the gang in case something goes haywire, and it also had an option to make it seem like it's battery ran out, so that if other hostages make me try calling someone, I *wink wink* wouldn't be able to.

As I entered, I got searched by the security, and went off to do my first task:

Make sure the little lamb was there.

Alison Parker was a key in the plan, since with her status of the British ambassador's daughter, she could be used in many ways.

I walked through the museum bit of the establishment, and was actually kind of interested in the history of the place. Maybe I would visit it again one day...

"Zürich, are you in position?" I hear the Professor from my earpiece. We made codewords for basic sentences in relation to the heist, and making some of them was really fun. I walked into a corner where there wasn't a lot of people, just so I couldn't be heard that well.

"Wow, this place is so nice!" I say, actually signifying that everything was fine.

"Have you seen her yet?" He asks again.

"I wish my nephew could see this... He would love it!" Meant that I haven't seen Alison yet. "I wonder how him and his family are doing..." Stood for 'How's it going with the others?'

"Good. The panic will start in a few minutes, so try and find her quickly." I wanted to ask him how Berlin was doing, but I had more important things to focus on right now.

I saw a very specific uniform from the corner of my eye, and notice how it's Alison's school. So the info was right, good sign. Now to find her... I subtly walk closer to the group of students, continuing to act as if I'm mesmerized by the old coins and artifacts, which are interesting, sure, but not my priority. I overhear their teacher talking about the "fantastic marble stairs" and I mean, come on, it's stairs. Then I hear a more topical conversation right behind me, which is being said purposefully loud enough for other students to hear.