meant mad research. Above all: a fat headache. Jorge never would’ve been able to do it without the Finn, and it was still gonna be tough. But all the same: in the end, the responsibility rested on his shoulders—a heavy burden to bear. How the fuck would it work? The answer was clear. Spelled p-l-a-n-n-i-n-g.
And last but not the runt, the most important rule. The rule that you must never forget. The Finn’s third pillar. Repeated again and again.
Team members who were 100 percent.
The Finn nagged: “Are your bros trustworthy?”
J-boy understood.
One single rat—and it could all go to hell. Some cunt couldn’t take the pressure, caved to the cops’ promises about reduced sentences, personal protection, a new identity, money, a house in the country somewhere, a discount on their punishment. Slippery interrogators played nice. Cop swine served pizza in the jail cell and brought a porno over at night. One single canary sang, and that was it. One single cunt’s cowardly confession. It could be enough for a prosecution. Worse: it could be enough for a conviction.
And that was why you had to know that you were surrounding yourself with ass-tight bros. Not just ones that wouldn’t ordinarily snitch—no one did that. They had to be built to handle more pressure than that. Had any of them ever collaborated with an authority? Had any of them been in jail for months with full restrictions? Max one hour per day outside in fifty-square-foot rec cages—the only time in the day you could smoke. No contact with other inmates, no TV. No phone calls or letters to the outside world, not to their
amigos
or to their mama. Just by themselves. Alone.
How had they acted? Talked? Handled the five-oh?
He thought of the forms that the Red & White Crew and other gangs had their prospects fill out—like a fucking application to continuing ed or something. Maybe Jorge should do that too.
But he knew Mahmud, Javier, and Sergio inside out. Tom was 100 percent. Mahmud swore on Robert. Tom swore on Jimmy and Viktor.
They were tighter than the gangs with their vests and made-up regulations—the heaviest hitters never rocked idiot shit like that: that was like attracting the cops’ attention on purpose. The heaviest hitters operated without being seen.
Still: the third pillar—if you compromised with that, you deserved to do time.
He thought about the progress he’d been making over the past few weeks.
He’d searched on Google Earth like a freak. Satellite photos over Tomteboda: mad
Enemy of the State
shit. You could see everything: cars, fences, the control booths by the entrances, the train tracks, the loading docks. You could even angle the images in 3D. Move back and forth like in a computer game. Jesus—it was so awesome. He tried to order blueprints of the reloading facility—got shot down. Apparently classified. He wondered why WikiLeaks only released documents for terrorists but nothing for robbers.
The Finn got hold of hand-drawn blueprints instead. Jorge studied them as if he’d just been admitted into a program for security room architecture. The Finn drew lines on the paper:
This is how we get out
.
He lifted a digital camera from Media Markt. A small piece: Sony, three hundred grams. He and Mahmud let an old drunk rent a car for them and headed out to Tomteboda. Drove around half the afternoon. Ill espionage setup. Learned the roads. Got acquainted with the signs, the roundabouts, the number of lanes. Got closer, bit by bit. Taped the camera to the instrument panel with duct tape. Wrapped a T-shirt around it. Boom: hidden recording device.
Spring for real now: small white flowers in the lawns, leftover sand on the roads, defrosted dog shit on the sidewalks.
Tomteboda glimpsed in the distance. A huge building: two thousand feet long. Outer shell of sheet metal. Glassed-in rooms that jutted out, pillars and elevator shafts on the outsides of the walls. Thick pipes,air-conditioning ducts, awnings, drainpipes,
And last but not the runt, the most important rule. The rule that you must never forget. The Finn’s third pillar. Repeated again and again.
Team members who were 100 percent.
The Finn nagged: “Are your bros trustworthy?”
J-boy understood.
One single rat—and it could all go to hell. Some cunt couldn’t take the pressure, caved to the cops’ promises about reduced sentences, personal protection, a new identity, money, a house in the country somewhere, a discount on their punishment. Slippery interrogators played nice. Cop swine served pizza in the jail cell and brought a porno over at night. One single canary sang, and that was it. One single cunt’s cowardly confession. It could be enough for a prosecution. Worse: it could be enough for a conviction.
And that was why you had to know that you were surrounding yourself with ass-tight bros. Not just ones that wouldn’t ordinarily snitch—no one did that. They had to be built to handle more pressure than that. Had any of them ever collaborated with an authority? Had any of them been in jail for months with full restrictions? Max one hour per day outside in fifty-square-foot rec cages—the only time in the day you could smoke. No contact with other inmates, no TV. No phone calls or letters to the outside world, not to their
amigos
or to their mama. Just by themselves. Alone.
How had they acted? Talked? Handled the five-oh?
He thought of the forms that the Red & White Crew and other gangs had their prospects fill out—like a fucking application to continuing ed or something. Maybe Jorge should do that too.
But he knew Mahmud, Javier, and Sergio inside out. Tom was 100 percent. Mahmud swore on Robert. Tom swore on Jimmy and Viktor.
They were tighter than the gangs with their vests and made-up regulations—the heaviest hitters never rocked idiot shit like that: that was like attracting the cops’ attention on purpose. The heaviest hitters operated without being seen.
Still: the third pillar—if you compromised with that, you deserved to do time.
He thought about the progress he’d been making over the past few weeks.
He’d searched on Google Earth like a freak. Satellite photos over Tomteboda: mad
Enemy of the State
shit. You could see everything: cars, fences, the control booths by the entrances, the train tracks, the loading docks. You could even angle the images in 3D. Move back and forth like in a computer game. Jesus—it was so awesome. He tried to order blueprints of the reloading facility—got shot down. Apparently classified. He wondered why WikiLeaks only released documents for terrorists but nothing for robbers.
The Finn got hold of hand-drawn blueprints instead. Jorge studied them as if he’d just been admitted into a program for security room architecture. The Finn drew lines on the paper:
This is how we get out
.
He lifted a digital camera from Media Markt. A small piece: Sony, three hundred grams. He and Mahmud let an old drunk rent a car for them and headed out to Tomteboda. Drove around half the afternoon. Ill espionage setup. Learned the roads. Got acquainted with the signs, the roundabouts, the number of lanes. Got closer, bit by bit. Taped the camera to the instrument panel with duct tape. Wrapped a T-shirt around it. Boom: hidden recording device.
Spring for real now: small white flowers in the lawns, leftover sand on the roads, defrosted dog shit on the sidewalks.
Tomteboda glimpsed in the distance. A huge building: two thousand feet long. Outer shell of sheet metal. Glassed-in rooms that jutted out, pillars and elevator shafts on the outsides of the walls. Thick pipes,air-conditioning ducts, awnings, drainpipes,
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