The bank was a mighty edifice indeed—over a hundred stories high, rising in sweeping setbacks to a point where its tapering top was lost in the shimmering noonday sky. It was, Alan knew, the center of global commerce.
Armed guards were bringing packages of currency from within the bank and were placing them on the truck. Alan's heart raced. The streets were crowded with office workers out for lunch; could he get away with it?
It was all precisely synchronized. As Hawkes and Alan strolled toward the bank, Alan caught sight of Kovak lounging across the street, reading a telefax sheet. None of the others were visible.
Webber, Alan knew, was at this moment sitting in an office overlooking the bank entrance, staring out the window at the scene below. At precisely 1240, Webber was to throw the switch on the wave-damper that would paralyze the four roboguards.
The instant the roboguards froze, the other conspirators would go into action. Jensen, McGuire, Freeman, and Smith, donning masks, would leap for the three human guards of the truck and pin them to the ground. Byng and Hawkes, who would enter the bank a moment before, would stage an impromptu fist-fight with each other just inside the main entrance, thereby creating confusion and making it difficult for reinforcement guards to get past them and into the street.
Just outside the door, Hollis and Kovak would lurk. As the quartet pounced on the truck's guards, they would sprint across and yank the driver out of the cab. Then Alan would enter quickly from the other side and drive off, while the remaining nine would vanish into the crowd in as many different directions as possible. Byng and Hollis, if they got away, would head for the rendezvous to meet Alan and take the cash from him.
If it went off properly the whole thing should take less than fifteen seconds, from the time Webber threw the switch to the time Alan drove away with the truck. If it went off properly.
The seconds crawled by. The time was 1235, now. At 1237 Hawkes and Byng sauntered into the bank from opposite directions. Three minutes to go. Alan's false calm deserted him; he pictured all sorts of possible calamities.
1238. Everyone's watch was synchronized to the second.
1239. 1239:30.