How I Rob Banks

Chapter 9This Is My Office Now

Every now and then, a job goes so well that when you write up the report, it seems unbelievable. When this happens, it feels like luck and the universe want you to do something awesome—and they also want you to get home early.

I had a tricky task this time: a very secure building on a very secure site. What's more, the goal was not just to gain access to the building but to gain access to physical files (and more) that were held on the most secure floor. The files were accessible to only four people and kept in a secure enclave at the end of an exceptionally long corridor so no one could accidentally walk down it. The office was staffed 24/7: at a minimum, there was one staff member in there, and often there were two.

In this story, I'm not going to share the details of how I managed to gain access to the site. Similar methods are described in this book, and I have a duty of care to clients to not give away all their secrets. Let me just tell you that I got in.

After gaining access to a secure site, it is polite to contact your client, explain that you are there, and keep them informed of your progress. After all, then they may not intervene if they hear about a security alert; this way, they are aware of the situation.

I decided to meet the client in the staff canteen, a low-slung building with glass-fronted doors and a blackboard menu that touted the soup de jour. It was about five past nine in the morning; I was not in need of soup, but I had ...