Free Grab (Letty Dobesh #3) by Blake Crouch Page A

ball-gags in their mouths, they reminded Letty of roasting pigs. She glanced back at the wall behind the bar. A spray pattern—two dozen holes—arced up toward the ceiling.
    Isaiah gagged his man and stood.
    He headed to the entrance, glanced through the peephole.
    Stu and Jerrod returned, Jerrod toting the empty duffel bags under one arm, Stu carrying a small, beefy drill.
    He hit the first cage, had the lock drilled out and off in less than forty-five seconds.
    Jerrod glanced at Letty, said, "Shall we?"
    He pulled open the door to the first cage. Letty reached in. Both hands grabbing crisp stacks of hundreds bound with black wrappers. On each wrapper, "10,000" had been printed in gold. The cube of money was twenty stacks high, twenty-five packets per story.
    $ 5,000,000 per cart.
    Six carts.
    $30,000,000.
    G ive or take.
    Something so satisfying about dropping them into the duffel, the smell of ink and paper filling the room.
    Letty could feel the eyes of the guards on her as she worked. Stu was already through the third lock, and she and Jerrod had nearly filled the second duffel.
    "Report, " Isaiah called from the door.
    "Cruising, brother," Stu said. " What's our time in?"
    "Two minutes, fifty-five seconds."
    Jerrod zipped the first two duffles, pushed them aside.
    They started in on the third cage.
    Aside from the whine of the drill, they worked with a quiet intensity. The minutes whirred past with a staggering paradox of speed and timelessness.
    So much adrenaline raging through Letty's system it felt like they'd been in this room for hours.
    Stu drilled out the last lock. Then he lifted something that resembled a TSA wand and started moving it slowly over the duffle bags.
    "We got company," Isaiah said. "One guy."
    " Need an assist?" Jerrod asked.
    "What are you implying, brother? "
    "Armed?"
    "Just stay on task. I got this."
    There was a knock at the door.
    Letty looked up. Would've missed the entire thing if she'd blinked.
    Isaiah opened the door, dragged a good-looking Latino into the suite, and turned his lights out with a n elbow strike.
    Ten seconds later, the man was bound and gagged with the rest of them.
    Isaiah jogged over as Stu was wanding the last cage.
    "We happy?"
    "Yeah, none of the cash is chipped."
    "What does that mean?" Letty asked.
    "It means they can't track it."
    Letty packed the last armful of stacks into a duffel and zipped it up. Isaiah, Stu, and Jerrod had already carried most of the bags into the bathroom. Letty tried to lift one, but it didn't weigh much less than she did. It was all she could do to drag it across the carpet.
    Halfway to the bedroom, she heard the guard's radio.
    A man's voice. Deep, raspy.
    "Matt, did your camera show up, over?"
    Letty dropped the duffel, rushed back. She turned Matt over, unfastened his ball-gag, and grabbed the radio. The closest weapon was a MAC-10 lying on the coffee table.
    She grabbed it , held it under the man's chin.
    "Matt, do you copy, over?"
    She said, "Tell him he just showed up and that you'll be back online momentarily. Say just those exact words."
    "Letty, what's up?" Isaiah from the bedroom.
    She held up her finger.
    Stared straight into Matt's eyes, saw plenty of steel there, but some fear too.
    Hopefully enough.
    As she held the radio to his mouth, it suddenly occurred to her what she was doing. That she was threatening a man with his life. Of course she wouldn't pull the trigger if he sold them out, but still—a line had appeared and she'd crossed it.
    Without hesitation.
    Pure reaction.
    Her first armed robbery.
    You have no choice. You have to get out of this hotel right now.
    Matt spoke into the radio, "He just showed up. We're installing it now. Be back online momentarily. Over?"
    "Copy that."
    She took the radio and bolted back into the bedroom.
    The duffels were gone and Jerrod was just lowering himself down through the crawlspace.
    She stopped at the edge of the gaping hole and got down onto her knees. Isaiah gave her a hand