Next Door Neighbour

Laura parked the van in the deserted car park of the truck stop well in advance of the time the guards would stop for their coffee. ‘Wait here’, she said and disappeared through the back door of the café.

She returned a little while later and told Gerry to follow her inside. The café was empty and Laura told him that the manager had been well paid to “turn a blind eye”. She instructed him in how to use the coffee machine and then injected the doughnuts with more of the drug that he would add to their coffee.

‘If anyone else comes in, which is highly unlikely as this is a quiet time of the day you will have to serve them as best you can’, she said leaving him to man the counter having warned him about messing this up. If he did she would just leave him there and distribute the photos. Gerry nodded his acceptance.

The security van turned in on time and the guard got out, locked the door and went in to the truck stop. He registered that “Tina” was new but couldn’t help staring at her ample breasts as he gave his order. Gerry turned away and prepared the coffees as he had been instructed. He had already emptied the phials in the cups.

He put lids on each and two doughnuts in a box and took the money from the guard who turned and left without another word. As Laura had told him Gerry locked the front door and made his way out of the back door to Laura’s van.

They watched the guard get in and lock the door and they could see from their vantage point both eating the doughnuts and drinking their coffee.

A few minutes later it was clear that all was not well in the cab. Finally the driver opened his door and got out and was violently sick on the ground. He was heaving so much he didn’t hear Laura walk up behind him but he felt the cold steel of her gun pressing on his neck.

‘Don’t call out’, she hissed and he nodded still weak from being sick. She held a chloroform soaked cloth over his nose and mouth and despite a struggle he was soon unconscious on the ground.

By now his colleague was asking if he was alright. Laura stood in the open door and pointed her gun at him and told him to climb out slowly. All he could see was a masked female in black leather pointing a gun at him so he complied. ‘Pick your colleague up and carry him over to that van’, Laura said pointing across the car park. There was no working CCTV, she had already disabled it and these were the only two vehicles.

Gerry opened the door and it didn’t dawn on him that he wasn’t masked so the guard had seen him in the café and now saw him holding the door.

Once the unconscious guard was inside she told the other one to remove his jacket, shirt and trousers. Once he had stripped to his vest and boxers she handed the clothes to Gerry; ‘get dressed!’ she commanded and he had little choice but to obey.

More chloroform rendered the half naked guard unconscious and she bundled him into the van and bound both their wrists and ankles with duct tape. More tape secured the chloroform rags loosely around their mouth and noses to ensure they stayed unconscious.

She told Gerry to move all the money bags across to her van and then once that was done she instructed him to follow her in their van; hence the need for the uniform. The whole robbery had taken the same length of time the guards normally stopped for so the control centre would be none the wiser.