How I Rob Banks

Chapter 56The Apartment Across the Way

Most of the time when doing recon, I have to sit in ditches, hide in trees, or stand around in the cold for hours. But one time, the planets aligned, and I lucked out by finding an apartment block across from the target site with serviced apartments rentable by the day.

For this job, I formulated a plan: I would rent an apartment in the block across the street to perform my recon. Bonus points because I could stay warm and do all my recon from the comfort of a sofa. I could sit and eat and, more importantly, not be seen or raise suspicion, which meant I could do many more hours of recon than usual. This was going to be a proper stakeout!

As with any plan, there are simple parts and there are complicated parts you can't always control. The tricky part of this plan would be booking the right apartment, because only three had windows facing the dull grey building I needed to break into; the rest looked out onto a lovely vista. The booking system didn't allow you to pick a specific apartment; you were assigned whichever one was free. So, a few options came to mind. I could, for example, have wasted a lot of the client's budget booking several apartments and hoping one of them would work, but my travel department had a much better idea. She was going to get me the apartment I needed!

I am known for my social engineering exploits—this book is a testament to some of those escapades, after all. But the plan my travel assistant came up with still ...