“Grab the bags,” OD said.
“And the machines,” Strike added. “We’re taking it all.”
We formed a human chain to pass the bags to the windows then started handing them out to Flir and Drifter to shove into the SUVs.
“Fucking jackpot!”
I glanced over my shoulder toward the shout from one of the back rooms. Relay wasn’t in here with us. That had definitely been his voice.
“Go see what he found,” OD told me. “We’ll finish this up.”
I trotted back to one of the back rooms and a grin stretched over my face when I saw what my brother had found. There were guns fucking everywhere. I picked up a three-oh-eight that was leaning against the wall. Serial number was scratched off. I considered calling dibs, but there was a whole stack of them. These fuckers had been well equipped to protect their money, they just weren’t as well trained as we were and hadn’t stood a chance. Their loss was our gain.
“Here.” Relay tossed me a couple bags. We quickly loaded everything into them and carried them out to the others.
“Our lucky day,” I told OD with a grin.
“Why doesn’t it surprise me that you two are more geeked over some guns than all that cash?” Merc asked with a wry smile.
“Whatever. You’re going to cream your pants seeing some of this shit,” Relay told OD. “You’re not selling them in your fucking shop though. These are ours. Fair and square.”
“Serial numbers are scratched off anyway,” I told them.
“Let’s get out of here,” OD said.
We all paused as we started to hear sirens. The fact that we’d already been here as long as we had and the cops hadn’t shown yet was a minor miracle. It meant that the people who’d been forced out of their apartments hadn’t called the cops right away. Either they had their own skeletons in the closet and didn’t want law enforcement here, or they’d been too scared and didn’t know what to do.
It was amazing how long a crowd of people would stay inactive when there was an emergency. If someone took action and started directing the others, they’d all pitch in to help. Butif no one took that leadership role? They’d just stand there. It was called the Bystander Effect and we’d seen more than our fair share of it play out in real time.
We’d gotten lucky that there wasn’t a single hero in the bunch out there. Or a fucking Karen. They were the worst and caused the most trouble.
“Yup,” Strike said with a nod. “That’s our cue to get the fuck out of here.”
“What about all the bodies?” Relay asked.
“We have to leave them. There’s so many fuckers here it’s going to take the cops time to shift through and figure out who they are,” OD replied.
“And all they’re going to find is that these assholes were a bunch of criminals,” I added. We were smart enough to not only have our masks on, but gloves as well. We weren’t leaving shit behind for the cops to find. We’d taken the SUVs’ and motorcycles’ plates off when we’d gotten here. We’d put them back on a few miles up the road so we didn’t get pulled over for some stupid ass traffic violation.
“Let’s go,” OD called, vaulting back through the window with the same enthusiasm as he came through it.
“We’re going to have to ride double,” Merc muttered. “Those SUVs are packed to the top.”
There’d been at least two hundred duffel bags, but we couldn’t fit that many. We managed to get around seventy-five jammed in the SUVs and that was utilizing every space available except the driver’s seat. We’d cut down the load out time by grabbing a couple at a time, but it’d still taken us at least twenty minutes to get everything stuffed into the cages.
“What do we do with the rest?” I asked, nodding toward the remaining bags. There were probably more than one hundred duffels left. I didn’t want to leave a fucking dollar bill behind for The Collective.
“We can’t burn it,” OD added. “Too many civilians are living here. I’m not destroying their homes and possessions for this.”
“Grab all those jugs,” Flir said, pointing into the corner of the main room.
Frowning, we did as he said and brought them over to where the stacked duffels were. I looked down at the labels. “What is this shit?”
“Bleaching agents, solvents, and ink,” Flir said. He pointed at the other guys. “Knock the bags down so they’re not stacked so high. Then start dumping all this over them. Make sure you cover each bag with something. It’ll destroy the remaining bills we have to leave behind.”
It didn’t take us too long to destroy an amount of money that made my damn head spin. Didn’t matter that it was likely counterfeit. It looked real enough. Merc shook his head in disappointment as he opened up the last bag, poured ink inside, zipped it back up, then shook it around to distribute the liquid.
We’d finally gotten a break. It wasn’t the end of this, but this was a hard blow for the two factions of The Collective that were after us. We had a big stash of their money and guns and had destroyed the rest. Not to mention we took the machines they probably used to print more.
