The Box Read online

  The Box

  A Bruder Heist Novel Book Two

  Jeremy Brown

  The Box

  Kindle Edition

  © Copyright 2021 Jeremy Brown

  Wolfpack Publishing

  5130 S. Fort Apache Rd. 215-380

  Las Vegas, NV 89148

  wolfpackpublishing.com

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events, places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, other than brief quotes for reviews.

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-64734-572-3

  Paperback ISBN: 978-1-64734-573-0

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  Contents

  Part I

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Part II

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Part III

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  A Look At The Wake (A Bruder Heist Novel Book Three)

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  About the Author

  The Box

  Part One

  Chapter One

  When the armored car came into view just past nine in the morning, Bruder and Kershaw and the other two in the crew were ready for it.

  They were on a windblown straightaway of two-lane asphalt called Pine Lane in the northwest quadrant of Iowa.

  An overnight dusting of snow rippled sideways across the road like flat white serpents and disappeared into the ranks of brown cornstalk stubs.

  It wasn’t enough snow to bring out the plows and there wasn’t any ice to require salt trucks, which was good. Either one of those might have caused trouble.

  Bruder and Kershaw waited in the concrete tunnel beneath a railroad overpass, the only feature of note in any direction. They wore heavy winter work clothes and reflective vests and hard hats with the symbol for the Iowa Department of Transportation on them.

  Under the hard hats they wore insulated balaclavas with the mask part tucked under their chins to leave their faces exposed. Under the balaclavas everyone wore electronic earbuds connected to radios. The earbuds also amplified ambient sounds and speech but clamped down to protect the wearer from sudden noises above eighty five decibels, like gunshots and explosions.

  Surveying equipment and hard plastic cases were piled outside the tunnel, where they could be seen from the road, and Bruder and Kershaw walked around beneath the railroad and pointed at the concrete and nodded or shook their heads.

  The road and the railroad crossed each other at exactly ninety degrees, like an X, with the road going northwest to southeast and the tracks going southwest to northeast.

  The tracks ran on a low berm, like a wrinkle in the otherwise flat landscape, and the road beneath it was dug out slightly below ground level.

  The old concrete tunnel was too narrow for two modern-day vehicles to pass each other. The entrance looked like a World War II bunker, with thick concrete retaining walls starting wide and narrowing like a funnel. It was too low for anything taller than ten feet, even with the road dug out, so all the big rigs and buses used different roads.

  It was also much too small for any road work equipment, and the road under the overpass was scarred and pitted concrete that turned to newer asphalt as soon as possible on the slight inclines coming out from under the tracks.

  Permanent signs with flashing lights warned drivers to stop about one hundred feet from the tunnel, where they were supposed to verify no oncoming traffic was already in the chute. It was a straight shot from both stopping points through the tunnel, plus the rest of the road all the way to the horizon, so there wasn’t much guesswork involved.

  The armored car coasted to a stop at the northwestern sign, then crept forward to Connelly, the man standing out there with another stop sign on a pole. He was dressed the same as Bruder and Kershaw, with thick canvas coveralls and a reflective safety vest and a DOT hardhat.

  Connelly also had two Glock 17s inside the coveralls and his balaclava was pulled up, allegedly to keep his face warm, but mostly to keep anyone from recognizing him.

  A pair of safety sunglasses hid his eyes.

  His radio had the talk button locked down so the others could hear his conversation.

  Bruder and Kershaw listened, and waited.

  Aiden Connelly was thirty years old and liked to think of himself as a breacher.

  He had an open, Irish face with a resting smirk that acted like an inkblot test for other people.

  For those who wanted to enjoy life, looking at Connelly’s face made them say, “What’s so funny?”

  Those who had a piss-poor outlook and went around in search of examples to reinforce their misery looked at Connelly and said, “What’s your problem?”

  Connelly enjoyed both reactions, because they either led to fun or a fight, which to him was also fun.

  He liked the word breacher because it described him personally and professionally. He prided himself on his ability to chat with almost anybody and put them at ease, make them feel special, like he was cracking their emotional and intellectual defenses. He mostly used it on women, but it came in handy when he was working and had to establish a rapport.

  He could also blow just about anything up or open, a more literal application of the breacher tag.

  When the armored car stopped next to him, he was looking up at the blue morning sky, unblemished from horizon to horizon except for a few contrails being slowly scattered and erased from the tail forward.

  He turned and smiled, letting it show in his eyes, and looked through the thick, hazy window at the bearded man inside. He didn’t recognize the man but knew the vehicle as a 1987 International, probably purchased at auction or pulled out of a scrap yard and brought back to life.

  It was painted flat black and looked more like a military or S.W.A.T. assault machine than a cash-in-transit vehicle, but considering who was inside, it was probably a bit of both. It had newer run-flat tires but that wouldn’t matter.

  Connelly said, “Good morning!”

  He turned his free hand in a cranking motion to get the man to drop the window.

  The man shook his head and frowned at Connelly, who was apparently too stupid to realize armored windows don’t roll down.

  Connelly said through his balaclava, “Is it broken?”

  The man shook his head in irritation and leaned down to the gunport centered just below the window.

  He moved the interior steel plate aside and said, in a thick Eastern European accent, “No roll! No open! What’s happening here?”

  Connelly knew where the men were from and he was tempted to say, “Is that a Romanian accent I detect?”

  Just to mess with them.

  But Bruder was listening, and he didn’t like improvisation unless it was absolutely necessary, so instead Connelly knocked the stop sign pole against his hard hat and rolled his eyes.

  “Oh, duh! Of course it doesn’t open. This thing is like a tank, right? Anyway, yo
u can go on through, nobody’s coming. I don’t even know why they have me standing out here, there’s already a freaking stop sign, you know?”

  The man turned and said something to the other man in the passenger seat, who also had a beard, then opened the gun port again.

  “What is happening here?”

  “Oh, we’re surveying. Surveying! They want to see if it’s possible to widen the tunnel. Wider!”

  Connelly looked down the road behind the armored car, then through the tunnel. He had to shield his eyes against the sun, about a hand’s width above the tracks. No other vehicles were in sight, just like every other time they’d scouted the road.

  He listened and didn’t hear any approaching freight trains, which was also according to schedule.

  “You can go through! It’s fine!”

  The man said something to his passenger again and frowned through the thick glass at Connelly, then put the truck into gear and rolled forward.

  Connelly could see his mouth moving but couldn’t hear the words. He turned away from the vehicle and looked northwest along the road, seeing nothing but more drifting snow and the remnants of last summer’s corn.

  When the armored car’s rear bumper went past him, he unlocked the radio’s talk button, but before he let it go he muttered, “Ten seconds.”

  When the armored car moved again Kershaw went to the pile of surveying equipment just outside the tunnel and started messing with a laser level mounted on a tripod. Bruder left him there and walked through the tunnel to the southeast end.

  The low rumble of the diesel engine was getting funneled toward him, but he could tell from the sound it wasn’t in the tunnel yet.

  He didn’t want to look back.

  He walked the twenty three steps without hurrying. When he got to the end of the tunnel, he went to the white crew cab truck sitting on the gravel shoulder with the tailgate and cap open. A telescoping rod with height measurements and a laser receiver attached were waiting on the tailgate along with a bright yellow carrying case the size of a small cooler.

  The truck didn’t look like anything special, but some modifications done at a Las Vegas garage would make sure the truck would do what Bruder and the crew needed it to.

  So far, all they needed it to do was sit there and look like a truck.

  When the sound of the armored car’s engine grew and began to echo straight at him, Bruder took the equipment off the tailgate and started walking along the truck, away from the tunnel and toward Rison, the other man standing out in the wind with a stop sign on a pole.

  As he walked, he counted down to himself: 3…2…1.

  Kershaw hit the button when the armored car was exactly halfway through the tunnel.

  The shaped charges disguised as lumpy concrete patches went off, a jarring crack that smacked out of the tunnel and rolled out into the empty fields.

  The small but powerful explosions went up and out at about a fifteen-degree angle from the centerline and lifted the armored car a few inches, just enough to take the weight off the tires and shear the rims off the axles.

  The vehicle slammed back down on its belly in a cloud of dust and brief splash of sparks when the old metal struck the concrete.

  Kershaw pulled his mask up and lifted an AR-15 with a 16-inch barrel, suppressor, flashlight, and optics out of one of the hard equipment cases and slung it across his chest.

  He found the rope tucked into the snow and dead weeds along the concrete retaining wall and moved with it toward the middle of the road. The rope popped loose of the snow and occasional bits of ice until it hung straight down from the railroad overpass and Kershaw pulled hard, unfurling the thick canvas tarp.

  The far end of the tunnel was already blocked, so Bruder was ahead of him.

  Bruder pushed through the tarp blocking the southeastern end of the tunnel.

  The tarp crackled as it moved because of the reflective insulation foil lining the inside, which, along with the thick concrete walls, turned the tunnel into a Faraday box. No electromagnetic signals—like those from cell phones, in particular—could get in or out.

  Bruder had a 100,000 lumen flashlight attached to his AR, and he sent the beam through the armored car’s windshield.

  Dust and dirt drifted through the white light but he could clearly see the two bearded men in the front seat lifting their hands and turning away from the beam, which hit like a baseball bat when you looked straight at it.

  Bruder wasn’t sure how muffled his voice would be inside the vehicle or how badly the ears in there were ringing, so he erred on the side of loud.

  “Open the back!”

  The two men inside blinked and flinched in the flashlight beam.

  “Open the back now, or we will blow it open!”

  Their mouths moved as they talked to each other, then the driver turned in the general direction of the flashlight with his hand held up to shield his eyes and addressed Bruder.

  “Fuck you!”

  Bruder heard that just fine, so he knew the men inside could hear him.

  “Last chance! Open the back or we will blow it open!”

  The men pointed pistols at him through the windshield.

  The driver yelled, “Come on in!”

  Bruder hit his radio.

  “Blow it.”

  Kershaw slapped the shaped charge against the armored car’s back doors and flipped the toggle switch to make it live.

  No one was supposed to be in the back of the vehicle, but if they were, the sound of the magnetic frame thumping onto the steel doors ought to be sufficient motivation to open up. The frame had a piece of duct tape with #2 written in black Sharpie.

  Kershaw pushed through the tarp on the northwest end and stood with his back against the concrete retaining wall. He pulled out a small black remote, which had its own piece of tape with #2 written on it.

  The remote for the charges that had blown the armored car’s wheels off had “******1” on it, and it was in a vest pocket he’d designated for used charges.

  The pocket for unused charges still held remotes numbered 3, 4, and 5.

  He pressed the radio.

  “Blowing in three, two, one.”

  Then he hit the #2 button.

  The shaped charges were small and focused but still made a hell of a noise inside the tunnel.

  Kershaw checked on Connelly, who was now about twenty yards from the entrance, still watching the road for any vehicles. There weren’t any coming from the northwest, and Rison hadn’t raised the alarm about anything coming from the other side.

  Kershaw knew Rison would also be closer to the tunnel on that side, near the white truck, and both he and Connelly could come into the tunnel for backup if needed.

  Connelly had designed and built the explosive charges, and after the second one went off, he turned and gave an enthusiastic thumbs-up to Kershaw.

  Kershaw returned the gesture, dropped remote #2 into the used pocket and lifted the rifle and went back through the tarp.

  Bruder was already at the back doors of the armored car.

  More dust and dirt swirled in the beam of his flashlight, and when Kershaw kicked his light on the rear of the vehicle was lit up like a football stadium at night.

  The rear doors hung open a few inches. Bruder used the suppressor at the end of his barrel to ease the right door open a little wider so Kershaw could toss a flash-bang grenade in, then Kershaw pushed the door shut.

  They looked down and waited until the bang came. When it did, the windows of the armored car sent a lightning flash into the tunnel.

  Bruder pulled the door on the left open and Kershaw took the right.

  The storage area of the armored car had been stripped of its metal shelves and cages and jump seats at some point, and there was no partition behind the cab’s two seats. Now it was just a large metal box with mismatched duffel bags lined up along the walls.

  The two bearded men were both covering their heads with their arms, tipping around in their seat
s from the shattering light and noise of the grenade.

  Bruder stepped in and went past the bags and pulled the pistol out of the driver’s hand. It came without a fight.

  Then he pulled out a knife, ready to slash the seatbelt, but the driver hadn’t bothered with one.

  Bruder hauled him out of the seat and tossed him toward the back doors, where Kershaw waited with pre-looped zip ties.

  The passenger didn’t have a gun or a seatbelt, but he had regained some sense of what was happening and when Bruder reached for him the man lunged up out of his seat and clawed at Bruder’s throat.

  Bruder stepped back, pulling the man with him over the seat, and slapped him between the eyes with the butt of the rifle.

  The man dropped to the metal floor with his legs tangled between the seats.

  Bruder dragged him between the duffle bags to Kershaw, who trussed him up and put him next to the other bearded man along the wall of the tunnel, both with cloth bags over their heads.

  Bruder hit his radio.

  “Load up.”

  Connelly took the sunglasses off and came through the tarp carrying the hard plastic cases that had been stacked near the retaining wall. The cases held the rest of the explosives and extra magazines for the rifles.

  The stop sign on a pole was in the ditch next to the corn field.