EMOTIONAL HEIST     - P.Krishnamoorthy

Jeferson’s square was busy on that morning with the rushing speed of the people for their routine daily tasks.  The sun was also moderately warm, helping them in their endeavors.  John Mathew, the Manager of the local People’s Bank parked his car in the parking area of the building and reached his office. Before entering his cabin, as is customary, he wished his staff a very good morning before going through the official messages.  The bank’s usual clients were at various counters of the bank, and the staff were busy complying with their requirements. That day’s clients include people from various walks of life.  Some of them had come with their young ones.  Being the first day of the week, everybody was busy attending to their tasks. After the initial set of people, the inflow continued with the new arrivals and the exits comprised of people who had finished their work in the bank. 

In the new arrivals, there was one John Smith, a well-built man of average height.  After he passed through the security guard, strangely, he had put a skull mask on his face. With a Glock 17 handgun he was walking into the bank.  Just to indicate his mission indirectly to the assembled people, he fired a shot at the roof. As he anticipated, the people were taken by the shock of a gunshot. By his warning shot he also ordered them to surrender their personal cell phones and they all acceded to the gunman’s order.  As the counters were located a few yards from the entrance, a glass door separated the hall   from the entrance.  Following Smith, Albert, the second in command of the heist, entered the premises. After passing through security, he took out a skull mask from his jacket and placed it on his face.  He was also in possession of a Glock 17 handgun pointing at the hostages.  They were perplexed, looking at each other with fear in their faces. Their hands were also tied up with ropes. Some were with their young children who were worried about their young one’s reactions to the frightening masks of both the guys. Then Albert took them to an adjoining room.  As the staff members were also in the hostages’ group, Albert was keen to find out from them about the cash vault of the bank.

While these developments were brewing in the hall, John Mathew, the Manager casually came out to the hall from his cabin. He was stunned to know about the heist and their skull masked ‘architects’ organizing to rob the entire cash reserve from the bank. He was totally helpless to solve the plight of their loyal clients who were held as hostages.  After a brief argument with Smith, John Mathew made up his mind to use his emergency code to tell the police from his cabin.  When he was about to go to his cabin, Smith sensed his plan and immediately tied his hands. He was kept separately from the clients’ group. Smith ordered Albert to expedite the collection of all the cash from the vault, as time was running out and anytime the police would have got a complaint from any outside source about the heist. The cashier was asked to go with Albert to open the vault. While the collection of currencies in millions was being taken from the vault into the bag, there was a sharp argument between John Mathew and Smith about the heist and its consequences. John Mathew even forewarned Smith and threatened that the police would be arriving anytime from a signal sent by him through an invisible code.  This statement of John irritated him. Presuming that he had already sent a signal, he was upset with him. He pointed his gun towards John and shot him in the chest and caused John’s instant death. After the shooting without any remorse on his face, Smith was very keen to expedite the progress of taking the cash reserve from the vault.  With the shooting of John, the other hostages were frozen with fear, and no one was dare enough to raise any noise over the event. 

By the time the cops had the information about the heist through the security guard and arrived at the scene headed by John Peters, a senior police officer with necessary force. Well prepared Peters had the body armor to protect from any shooting. He wanted to assess the situation and found the first casualty was the manager,.  He understood the other hostages were at a distance from where John Mathew was shot. This time their faces were expressing a sense of satisfaction with Peter’s presence.  At the sight of Peters, Smith felt that he should not take chances with the presence of a cop. He took his gun from the holster and pointed at him.  Being a policeman Peters had a premonition of  Smith  targeting  him next. When Smith pointed at Peters, the latter was too quick and shot Smith point blank in the face. Peters wanted to find out who was Smith in real life. He got the mask removed from his face.   When Peters observed the tattoo mark on his right arm, he was moved emotionally with tears in his eyes as Smith was his own brother, separated in their early years from the family.  He also checked his own right arm for a similar tattoo mark.When he checked his jacket, he found a credit card with his name John Smith. Peters also wanted to know who the other person was shot earlier by Smith, and he found in his business card with the name ‘John Mathew Chief Manager of the People’s Bank’.  When he checked his right arm, surprisingly he found the same type of tattoo mark as Smith’s.  Peters got their relationship confirmed as brothers separated many years before. As many years had elapsed, their resemblance might have varied but their first name was the same for all the three.  Now Peters had the satisfaction of meeting them alive before their coincidental death.  Again, Peters was taken back when he realized that John Smith his elder brother killed his own younger one, John Mathew. All three brothers, John Smith, John Mathew, and himself were all separated from the family due to a natural calamity that happened years ago. 

It was a severe winter. Their small hometown had first a mild tremor followed by a massive earthquake.  Many multi-storied and other buildings were raised to the ground. Many died in the debris of the buildings.   Some of them were unable to come out from the heavy rubble... Casualties were in thousands. Both their parents died in the wreckage of the earthquake. No information was available about their brothers, whether they were alive or dead even after a long time. 

As he finished recollecting the memories, suddenly he saw Albert trying to escape with the bag full of currencies from the vault.  Peters tried to stop him. To protect the heist fortune for himself, Albert reacted with a gun shot at Peters and he died instantly. Albert escaped with the money.  With all jubilant happiness, Albert came out from the bank with the bag of millions. But his happiness was short-lived. Suddenly he met with a road accident by a truck and died very near to the bank. The heist money was returned to the bank.

The irony of the heist scenario was meant primarily to rob money from a bank.  But by coincidence, all three, who were earlier separated brothers – John Smith, John Mathew, and John Peters met as strangers in that heist without any knowledge of relationship.  They met in the heist in different roles with different motives - The two to save the bank from a heist and the one to take the cash reserves. Unfortunately, the rendezvous for all three in the heist was destined only to meet without any knowledge of relationship and die in each other's hands during their performance and the heist was a total failure and the entire money was returned to the bank.  The coordinating testimony for their relationship was a common tattoo mark in their right arms.