I wanted to strangle my uncle. I settled for punching the wall, “Damn it,” I cursed and in my head I added a few more curse words on the reign of the elders. “I am tired of smiling at every cop that passes by in the street,” I hissed at him, even though I knew it wouldn’t help. The Besa is deeply ingrained in every Albanian soul. “You don’t understand that I can do a whole lot more than just watching out for all the Americans that come to the casino and feel on top of the world just because they were born here.”
“By the way, talking about looking after the Americans,” he said, “today is ‘Veterans Day’, I think you should go to the hall and start doing your job. Their holiday is our working day.” I hated his patronizing smile.
I left his office, furious. Even though my hand hurt like hell, I wanted nothing more than to take a gun and shoot someone in the head. Actually, not just anybody. I knew that what I really needed to do was to return to the room, draw a gun and shoot him. Absolutely. But then I might get in trouble with my old man, who, although he lived on another continent, still domineered over the Albanian mafia.
Alex bumped into me in the hallway, “Hey, where did you disappear to?” he asked.
I answered, “The old man had something to say… he thinks he is wise.”
“To say about what?” he asked. “About the new deal? Did you tell him? It’s a great continuation of a great operation.”
His words managed to calm me down. I said, “You know, in retrospect, that burglary didn’t need to be so sophisticated and involve so many people.”
Alex smirked. “Not so sure. How could we have brought over the intelligence? The factory was in the middle of nowhere. Between the highway and the park. There weren’t any facilities or anything of the sort, and take into account that surrounding it was a high wall. Not so simple to bring over information, to arrive without anyone seeing you already from over a kilometer away.”
“Yes, I suppose. The idea of the innocent family picnic in the park, and the competition of the quadcopters.”
“That was the most brilliant part of the plan. Even the kids participated in the competition and the cameras that were on the quadcopters brought in excellent intelligence!” He smiled, and it was a contagious smile.
“You know that if we had planned it to happen here, we all would have been arrested,” I noted. I started feeling somewhat hungry but continued towards the control room.
“But in Europe it works differently. Do you remember that in minutes the guards were already there?”
“Of course some guards came. The laughing of the kids and the enthusiastic cries of everyone brought them. Those Germans… they don’t interfere with Muslims that aren’t causing havoc. On second thought, they don’t interfere with Muslims that do cause havoc.” We both laughed.
We carried on walking along the corridor and down the stairs to the control room. All those thoughts of the operation were still spinning in my head and caused a feeling of contented happiness. My blood filled with adrenaline from the memories alone: The mapping of the factory, the revealing of the correct gates, the human intelligence that the cargo would be priceless. And the operation itself took place a week later. The truck left the factory, the cars that followed it, each time a different car. At the right moment I overtook the truck and put on my emergency break. The truck braked, its tires grinding to a halt. I thought then that if the truck wasn’t able to brake in time, he would have crushed me to death in the little Audi I was driving, but he stopped a few centimeters behind me.
As if he had read my thoughts, Alex said, “I was sure he wouldn’t manage to stop. That he was going to ram into you. When we got out with our heavy weapons to burst his tires and ruin their radio contact, I wanted to go and see if you were alright. When you got out and shot the driver and the guard sitting next to him, I was sure that it was from being pissed at them for almost running you over.”
What we hadn’t take into consideration was escaping the Russian Mafia. What an inflated ego they had. Not allowing others to deal with firearms, as if a few rifles were going to ruin their control over the market.”
“And the havoc that’s been created from the fact that someone is biting into their business,” Alex smiled, “And that is how we found ourselves here. All in all, much better here than at the bottom of the river.”
I peeked into the control room, which was still relatively empty of shift workers. It was important for me to have the same shift workers from yesterday. So I suggested to Alex that we go find ourselves something to eat. I wanted to sit with him and reminisce about the operation. It would relax me after my annoying conversation with my weak uncle.
“Because the robbery had to do with firearms, the German police started shaking the Russian Mafia rats out of their hiding holes,” Alex said.
“And because the Russian Mafia didn’t like it, they sent their long tentacles into Germany and from there to other countries in Europe. They are a lot more effective than Interpol. The only information they had was about the picnic, families who spoke a foreign language. As soon as they found out it was Albanian,
