and mass confusion.
But for the first time ever, with the exception of her siblings and their mentor and co-conspirator Smitty, did Rain allow an outsider apart of her scheme. They simply were too much of a risk. The least amount of people the better, but under the present circumstance, she had no other alternative. In fact, she was to the point that she welcomed it, due to high risk, dire calamity, and a sure probable death, she recruited the help of an old friend – Miss Jackie.
If it wasn’t for the war wounds of her dope fiend days, scar ridden arms and worn face, Miss Jackie would have looked like your typical grandmother or retiree. But beneath the surface she was one, if not thee, most connected person in the underworld of Baltimore. That had been her hustle for nearly twenty years, and she never failed to deliver. Her rules were simple – If she don’t know you, she won’t fuck with you.
Miss Jackie kept her eyes forward at all times in the streets, but she heard and saw everything. She rarely, if not ever, dealt with anyone new, because the rules of the game changed drastically over the years, but she had more than her share of connects. Her old school gangsta and clientele that still had one foot in and one foot out of the criminal world that made them wealthy. So if she knew you, and you had the money, she pretty much could deliver.
Coupled by the fact that she was her mother’s closest and dearest friend since they were younger, Rain knew that she needed Ms. Jackie more than ever and asked her to not only provide her with a number of favors, but to also put her life on the line to break her siblings out— she did. Three days prior, on Friday, 7 o’clock on the dot, Rain was in Baltimore, at a local church to meet with her longtime friend, Miss Jackie. Miss Jackie attended Bingo every Monday, Wednesday and Friday evening and called in a favor.
She made the hours’ drive back to the church’s bingo hall in forty-five minutes, took the stairs down in the basement and strode into the bingo hall in search of her friend.
The 100 x 100 foot open space was lit with bright florescent overhead tubing, making it perfect for thinning vision senior citizens to read their numbers on the bingo cards. It was then did she spot her old reliable friend.
Handing her sixty t housand dollars in cash in a brown shopping bag, she spoke to her very briefly and left her instructions. The message was simple, put the word out on the street. Tell every dope fiend, bum, drunk, hood rat, homeless person, and anybody else looking to make an easy hundred bucks, just to show up in the downtown court district. Drivers with cars will receive two hundred that showed up in the downtown area, by the courts, to be used as a diversion – at their own risk. Word spread fast, and by Monday morning, a legion of over five hundred souls, flooded the area.
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- Initiate Plan 1: Reconnaissance - a preliminary survey to gain information, observation of a region to locate an enemy or ascertain strategic features, especially to increase the odds when unmatched and unmanned particularly in the enemy territory
Over the cause course of three days, Rain spent hours on end, watching and taking notes of incoming and outgoing of the exterior operation of the Federal Court House building, including the Department of Prisoners buses, number of officers on duty, and on the bus, buses route, average number of prisoners on the bus, male and female, and time.
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- Initiate Plan 2: Execute – The Breakout
As expected, the day it was going down, and because of the high-profiled case of