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Cassian pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yes sir,” he said. “Yes. I understand, sir. Just until the end of the week, sir. I know the way she thinks. She’s got to be getting twitchy. She’ll do something soon.”
“Cassian?” his partner called to him. “You may wish to view the cameras.”
“Yes, sir. Right. I’ll keep you up to date.” He ended the call and took the two steps necessary to cross the tiny surveillance van that the FBI had issued to them. “What is it, Kay?”
He pointed at the monitors, which showed the bank’s security feed. “Do you see the man who just entered?”
Mid-twenties, South Asian or Middle Eastern, dressed in a hoodie and jeans. Hands in his pockets, shoulders up around his ears, eyes darting.
“He looks squirrely.”
“He hasn’t done anything.” Cassian leaned closer. “Except to get in Jyn Erso’s line.”
His eyes went to the young teller at the front of the line that the man had just joined. White, petite, brunette. Hair pulled back in a smooth twist, pieces of her bangs already escaping. Dressed in a dull gray shirt and black pants. Her nametag said Liana H.
She looked like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.
She’d robbed five or six banks before the age of eighteen, working with a notorious gang known as the Partisans. Scuttlebutt said that she’d parted ways with them, but what else would an ex-bank robber be working in a bank for?
And now a very nervous-looking man had gotten in her line.
“He’s not anyone associated with the Partisans,” Kay said.
Cassian shook his head. “He could be new. Let’s see how this shakes out.”
“I can help next in line,” Liana Hallik said in a flat Midwestern accent.
The man who stepped up to her window looked rough - sweat edging his hairline, eyes reddened, breathing fast.
She glanced at the thick Plexiglas between them. “Yes sir how can I help you,” she droned.
“H-here,” he said, shoving a deposit slip into the well. It was blank.
“Sir, you’ve got to fill it out before getting in line - ”
He flipped it over.
This is a robbery. Place 250k in a bag and give it to me.
Jyn stared at it for a moment, then looked from side to side. One side was empty and the girl on the other side was flirting madly with her customer. Nobody would notice.
She didn’t touch the note. She wasn’t an idiot.
When she spoke again, she’d dropped the Midwestern completely and reverted to her usual English accent. “Look, mate, this really isn’t the time. Trust me. Give me like, a week? And then you can come back. Actually - ” She did some swift calculations. “Give me two.”
She’d still be a suspect, but she’d be long gone by then.
But the man shook his head jerkily.
Damn.
“Need the funds now? I get it, I do. There’s a Great Western down the road, about two miles east. Can’t miss it. Lovely bank, shit security. You’ll be in and out.” And she’d be on the security cams here the entire time. This could work out.
“N-no,” he said. “No, it has to be here.”
“It doesn’t. It really doesn’t. One bank is as good as the next, trust me.”
“I - I - I have a gun.” He put his hand in his pocket. “Please?”
Whether it was the please or the tremor in his voice, something made Jyn take another hard look at him. Then at the note. “You didn’t write this.”
“Yes, I did.”
“No, you didn’t. You’re left-handed.” She nodded at the hand that was in his pocket. “This was written by a righty. Someone making you do this?”
His face crumpled. He nodded once, fast.
“How?”
“They have my sister. In the trunk of their car.”
“Are they in here? Watching?”
“Out - outside.”
“Grey sedan or red coupe?” she asked without looking. She didn’t mention the white paneled van; she knew it wasn’t them.
“Red.”
“Of course red.” She heaved a sigh and turned beseeching eyes to heaven - or at least, to the drop ceiling of the bank with its stained tiles, which was less beatific. “Honestly,” she said to the ceiling. “I’m trying. I am. Nobody believes me. Saw doesn’t believe me. The FBI doesn’t believe me. But I’m honestly trying to go straight. And now this happens.”
“Excuse me? What was that about the FBI?”
“Don’t worry about it. Stay here, civilian."
"My name’s Bodhi.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll take care of this.”
She shut her drawer and walked swiftly to the back.
“Where are you going, Hallik?” said her manager, a stuffy man who smelled of chemical body spray.
“Taking my smoke break.”
“You don’t smoke!”
“Thought I’d start.” Just to make absolutely sure she had the attention she wanted, she swiveled on her practical low-heeled shoes and flipped off the security cameras with both hands.
Cassian hadn’t needed the double bird. “What is she doing,” he said to Kay.
Kay was focused on something else. “That red car’s been sitting there, idling, for seven minutes thirty-four seconds,” he said.
Cassian glanced at it, frowned, and looked back at the security feed from the bank. The man who’d first drawn their attention was still standing at the teller window, jittery. Jyn Erso was long gone.
They traded looks, and as one, drew their weapons and unlatched the back door of the van.
Jyn went out the back, cut forward through the alley, and trotted up behind the red car. She hauled open the driver’s side door and smiled cherubically at the man behind the wheel. “Hello there.”
“What - who - ”
As quick as a snake, she reached over and nabbed the car keys.
“Give those back!”
She tsked, swinging the keys from her forefinger, well out of his reach. “You know, that’s the trouble with kids these days. No respect for the craft.”
The driver lunged at her. She slammed her palm into his solar plexus. He crumpled backward, wheezing.
“Look,” she said with the patience of a veteran first-grade teacher explaining one plus one, “if you’re gonna rob a bank, have the decency to do it yourself, right? Don’t go coercing some poor civilian to do the job for you. Look at him. He’s got anxiety now.”
“I couldn’t do it on my own,” he muttered sulkily.
“So go to a shitty bar and pick up somebody else down on his luck. How thick are you?”
He snarled, “Bitch, I will shoot you if you don’t give me those keys back.”
“If you had a gun, you’d’ve stuck it in my face by now,” she said. “You gave your only gun to that civilian in there. Wow, are you sloppy. And you kidnapped some poor woman - ” She hit the button on the key fob to pop the trunk. “About the only thing that could have made it worse is if you picked the one bank in this whole stupid city that’s been under surveillance by the FBI.” She put her finger to her chin. “Oh wait. You did.”
“The what?”
“And there they are now.” She looked back and saw two agents rushing up, stopping short at the opened trunk. The shorter one bent over, speaking gently to whoever was inside. A moment later, he leaned in, then straightened up with a girl who couldn’t have been more than about twelve years old in his arms.
Red swamped her vision.
Some time later, someone was pulling her bodily out of the front seat. The driver had crawled all the way into the passenger side, face bleeding heavily.
“Lemme go,” she snarled, flailing madly. “Let me go! I’m going to rip his fucking throat out!”
“The federal government would prefer that you didn’t.”
She gave her opinion of the federal government in loud, clear, and filthy terms.
“Please stop fighting so I can arrest him,” the same voice said.
“Fuck you, too,” she said, but allowed herself to be lowered to the ground again.
Lowered a long way, too. Clearly it was the tall, skinny agent who’d hauled her off the driver. The shorter one was talking to the civilian, who was hugging his sister as both of them were crying and shaking.
Her manager, all her coworkers, and all the bank customers had rushed out to view the show, it seemed. Some of them were filming.
“Hallik!”
“Christ,” she muttered, shoving her tumbled hair out of her face. She’d lost a shoe somewhere. Hopefully up the driver’s arse.
“Hallik!” her manager yelled, marching over. “You left your post. You left a customer waiting!”
“Blow me,” she suggested.
He went red in the face. “That’s it. I put up with your attitude and your - your attitude, but this sideshow is too much. You’re fired!”
“Okay,” she said.
“Did you hear me?”
“Everyone heard you.” Some of them were filming him now.
He didn’t seem to notice. “Someone will bring your things out to you."
"Don’t bother, I don’t want any of it anyway.” Then she remembered she had twenty dollars in her purse. If she was fired, that was all she had until she could hustle or scam more. “No, bring it.”
The taller agent had gone around and was cuffing the driver, who seemed to be fine with it as long as the bulk of the car was between him and Jyn. She bared her teeth at him, and he whimpered.
Sirens wailed, getting louder as they drew close. She fought not to go tense, not to bolt. She was innocent, for fuck’s sake.
For once.
Still, she didn’t breathe until the driver had been turned over to the police and they weren’t looking at her anymore.
“Nice work,” murmured a voice in her ear.
She glared over her shoulder. “You didn’t notice this dumbass sitting here idling?”
The shorter agent crossed his arms and smiled down at her. “We were too busy surveilling the known bank robber working in a bank.”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.
“Excuse me?” her ex-manager said. “Do you mean her?”
“Of course we do,” said the taller one, sounding bored. “It was your fault for not being better about your background checks. Really, you have nobody to blame but yourself.”
“Fucking narc,” Jyn said. “I’m already fired. And anyway, I was never convicted. And they sealed those records.”
“It’s fine,” said the shorter man, flashing his badge. “She’s an FBI security consultant.”
“I am not,” she hissed at him as they hustled her away toward the van. She still only had one shoe and no purse, and more importantly, no twenty.
“Would you like to be?”
She gawped at him. “You’re not serious.”
“He is,” said the taller one. “He’s been hanging around in hopes of catching you at it and offering you a job in exchange for immunity.”
"Kay," the shorter one said.
"What? You have been."
"Excuse me? What the hell is going on, exactly?"
“Cassian Andor,” he said. “And that’s my partner, Kay Tuesso.”
“Didn’t ask. What in the name of fuck makes you think I want to be a narc? No matter how long you two hung around, I wasn't going to rob the damn place, I was trying to work there."
Kay opened his mouth.
"Don't bother asking how I knew you were there. Like I didn’t clock your stupid van immediately. Don’t they teach you anything at Quantico? And now you expect me to be a G-man?”
“G-woman,” Kay said.
“Security consultant,” Cassian said.
“Look, I’m trying to leave all that behind. Go straight. Be normal. Or something.”
“So your solution, as a former bank robber, is to get a job in a bank? Are you surprised we were suspicious?”
“Okay, I can … admit that wasn’t my cleverest moment. And it’s not worth it, either. The pay’s shit and I have to be nice to people all the time.”
“And you tip off the FBI.”
The manager, never quite the sharpest lightbulb in the toolbox, hustled over. “What was a security consultant for the FBI doing in my bank?” he blustered.
Jyn couldn’t help herself. “Because besides your amazing lack of background checks, you’re skimming off half the little old ladies in this town, you’re inflating sales figures, you only give hours to girls you’re banging, and the security’s overall shit. Is why.” She snorted. “And you call me a crook.”
The manager went from purple to green.
“Also, someone’s going to get a disease from that refrigerator, and would it kill you to spring for donuts every now and then?”
Kay pulled out a notebook. “Tell me again about the theft part,” he said to Jyn.
After the manager had been taken for questioning by the police, Cassian found her shoe and gave her purse back. She checked. The twenty was still in there.
“You spotted all that in three weeks of employment?” Cassian said.
She shrugged. “Wasn’t hard.”
He smiled at her. “Not for you, apparently.”
She twisted up her mouth so it wouldn’t smile back at him. “Just out of idle curiosity, what might this security consultant gig pay?”
“More than you got here.”
“Mhm. And do I have to be nice to anybody?”
“My boss.”
“Not you?”
“Cassian likes when you’re mean to him,” Kay said. “Believe me.”
“So, what do you think?”
“I dunno. I might want to explore my options.”
“Mmm. Would a donut help?”
She considered. “Maybe if it was jelly filled.”
FINIS