The Robbery

The Ruthless

"Get on your knees or I'll blow your brains out. I swear I'm not joking. Do I look like I'm playing?"

"I'm sorry sir" Solomon replied knowing fully well what robbers are capable of doing.

Solomon could feel the cold muzzle of the double barrel on his neck as his left hand trembled uncontrollably from fear of the outcome. He could hardly believe just 2 hours ago, he was in Area 1. He thought to himself that had he agreed to wait for Mr Salisu to collect some documents, he wouldn't have been caught up in this robbery. "Why did I even try to intervene when he was clearly not talking to me?"

"2colour, The Boss wants to speak with you" One of the armed robbers who came in from the safe room tells 2colour...

"Count yourself lucky, you would've served as a perfect example. Bastard"
2colour angrily moves the double barrel gun away from Solomon's head.
Footsteps receded behind the hostages then all of a sudden, footsteps approached fast towards Solomon then with a loud bang 2colour hit Solomon on his head with the end of his double barrel gun.

"Ahhhhh, my head" Solomon screamed as other hostages followed suite like a mass choir to lament while others trembled in fear of what might befall them if they don't comply with the rules the robbers had set.

Blood gushed out rapidly from the injury Solomon sustained and while some hostages tried to stop the bleeding, Solomon who went blank for a while thought he was was dead for a second, he was in a state of total shock.

2colour shouting at the top of his raspy thick voice
"If all of una no shut up ehhhhh, one person go end for cemetery...try me and see"

"2colour, stop it man. Na this thing make oga no wan dey leave you with hostages during operation.
Don't forget, we can't afford any bodies, it often leads to lengthy investigations and we don't want that"
Last card, the last recruit in the gang
intervenes urging the big guy to calm his nerves.

2colour is the type of guy you don't wanna mess with, was the second in command, the most ruthless, hot tempered, 6 ft 4 and well built.

"Boss, you sent for me. I was attending to some issues with the hostages, some of them were misbehaving. I had to discipline them into submission"
2 colour tells the boss who was with the manager of the bank the were robbing when he got to the office.

"How is breaking someone's head discipline? Remember the plan. I don't want any of our actions to jeopardize this mission" The boss reponded.

After a brief moment of silence, he continued
"Anyway, that's not why I called you, the manager here is the tough nut type. He's been adamant that the bank is not in possession of the documents we were sent to retrieve"

"Make I put some groundnut inside him leg Boss"
2 colour angrily reacted as he cocked his guns and pressed the muzzle hard against the managers thighs then continued after lifting the managers face and asking him to maintain his gaze.
"Are you trying to say our sources are wrong? Ehhhh manager? Something dey do you for head abi. Shey you think say na money carry us come here? It's like you want your kids to have a decapitated father"

The manager trembled as he struggled to convince the robbers the bank wasn't in possession of the document they came for...
"I swear on my grandmother's grave, the document is not here. You have checked every inch of the bank, believe me if it was here, you would've found it"

"Shut up"
2 colours landed a lethal blow on the managers right jaw, his glasses dropping to the floor as he held his jaw and gritted in pain.
"Listen, you're not making this easier for any of us, trust me we share something in common"

"What's that?" The manager asked knowing fully well that choosing to ignore will land him in trouble.

"Good, that's a really good question" 2colour remarks as he spun his combat knife in the managers face then continued
"We're both business men, just that my line of work requires a little killing here and there.
I think we can help each other. In our deal both parties will get what they want like you keeping your life and us getting what we came for"

2colour kept quiet for a while then abruptly stabs the combat knife in the painting hanging on his left then in a sinister calm voice asked
"What do you think Mr Manager?"

The manager, fully aware a provacative response would trigger an undesirable outcome thought of ways to convince them further that the bank wasn't in possession of the document. Time was going and he needed to reply soon as he watched the robbers grow increasingly impatient.
The panic button was just right below his desk but any sudden movements will raise suspicions, and any wrong move now can cost the life of a hostage but what choice did he have? the odds were stacked against him.

"2 colour? That's what they call you right?"
He got the attention of the three robbers in the room who admired the level of nerve he had to ask questions.

"Your sources gave you wrong Intel, I've opened every safe in this Bank, look.." heading towards his desk on his knees in a dire attempt to get close to the table so he can somehow find a way to push the panic button.

"Stop there or you'll leave this place in a body bag" 2colour who was getting more agitated threatened.

"Leave him, he knows this place better than us. If he doesn't come up with something that'll help us retrieve the document, he's going to have blood on his hands" The boss threatened in a menacingly joking manner.

Approaching the desk, the manager, fully aware of the danger of making any suspicious moves would land him in tried to maintain slight composure but his heart raced like Formula 1 drivers.
On getting to his desk, he knew he had to create some sort of distraction to buy him some time to push the panic buttons that were directly below his table on the left.
Carefully pulling some documents from the drawer on the right as the robbers watched, he spreads them on the table.
Pretending to have mistakenly pushed some documents on the ground while spreading, the manager made his move slowly pushing the button under the table with his hands shaking simultaneously.

"Here, all the records for this week are in there " pointing on a bulky file

"Slim, check those documents" The boss ordered.