The Elephant in the Room
Carter Skolnick
“Does everyone understand?” Roman addresses the crew after they finish going over the complete plan for the first time. The crew consists of 4 people. Roman and Valkyrie are the most important. Roman’s pretty much in charge, being infamously known as the greatest bank robber in the US at the time. He’s very intelligent and crafted the majority of the plan single-handedly. Val was in charge of the Artillery. She’s incredibly useful for getting all things required for something like this, vehicles, machine guns, explosives, the works. There was also Dave, who was in charge of the decoy plan to distract authorities. His job was the dangerous one, with a big likelihood of him getting caught. Finally, there was Leonardo, the driver. First started driving at the ripe age of 10 and had certified race car training by 15. He’s the best in the get-away driving business for sure.
“I’ve never driven a semi-truck,” Leonardo states, “at least not to get away, seems anticlimactic.”
“You got a better Idea?” Roman said snarkily. “How else are we going to transport an elephant that weighs tons?” Leonardo sat silently. “Should we go over the plan again?” Roman started from square one. A few months ago a very wealthy and powerful entrepreneur by the name of Brock contacted Roman. Brock collects exotic animals and usually can buy himself what he wants, but this time it was different. African Elephants are very endangered, and near extinction, leading to buying/selling them being completely illegal worldwide. That didn’t stop Brock's ambition. He is willing to do whatever it takes. This all led to Brock contacting Roman with a proposition. He said he was willing to pay Roman and his crew a total of 135 million dollars to complete a heist breaking into the San Diego zoo, stealing an African Elephant, and delivering it to him.
The plan works like this. Dave goes to the Westfield Mall and opens fire to create a distraction for authorities. After giving the authorities enough time to arrive on the scene, the real plan takes place. Leonardo drives himself and the rest of the crew to an off-road that leads them to a wall behind the zoo's elephant exhibit. From there they signal Dave that they're ready and he then opens fire on the Westfield Mall about 8 miles away. Val then plants the C4 charges on the wall, giving enough time for authorities to arrive on the scene at the mall before they detonate. Once they detonate, Leonardo backs the gigantic, armored, matte-black semi-truck into the entrance of their breach with the trailer open. Val takes out any zookeepers, security, or civilians trying to intervene while Roman lures the elephant into the truck by sitting on top with a carrot on a stick. Once the elephant enters the truck, roman tranquilizes it, and they drive off to the safe house. Dave meets up with them there if he’s able to make it out free and/or alive.
The morning of the heist arrived. Roman and the crew meet at the safe house to run over the plan one last time. Once there prepared, Dave sets off in his car with his Draco AK-47 while the rest of the crew hop in Leonardo's semi-truck. The ride from the safe house to the breach point of the zoo was a whopping hour and a half. This left the team concerned because there was no way they would be able to drive any faster with a whole, live African elephant in the back.
Roman, Leo, and Val arrived nervously at the spot. They sat for a moment, in silence, as they mentally prepared for the task at hand. Once everyone had enough time to themselves, they signaled Dave through the radio and hopped out of the truck armed and dangerous. Val slowly but surely planted the charges, and once Dave radioed in saying the authorities had arrived, they attacked. The crew took cover as Val gripped the charge’s rubber grip and pulled the trigger. There was a second of silence that was soon disrupted by an extreme explosion. There was now a huge hole in the Zoo’s exhibit and the elephants were going wild. There were 3 smaller Asian elephants, but Brock was after the one and only gargantuan African elephant.
Roman sat on top of the semi-truck as it backed into the breach point and tranquilized the other elephants to avoid any distractions possible. Val ran in on foot taking out all zookeepers and guards as planned. At this point, the one and only elephant standing was a bit panicked and reluctant to move. Roman was sitting on the truck waving a big bag of bananas from a stick down into the storage unit. The elephant was not moving, and the crew had to think quickly. Val had stopped shooting by now, and even though all immediate threats were taken care of, there was a limited amount of time before more would come. Roman yelled out to Leo “Play Elephant Noises! Now, and Quick!” Leo pulled some up on Youtube and blasted them on the truck's speakers. This was working, the elephant was enticed and started walking slowly toward the truck. As Roman waved the bundle of bananas back and forth faster, the elephant slowly started to move quickly. Finally, the elephant reached the trunk's bed. It put one foot in after the other, and each time the elephant's weight sunk the truck down a little more. Once it was all the way inside the vehicle, Roman tranquilized the animal and shut the heavy doors to the back quickly. It struggled, banged, and shook the back of the semi-truck until finally, it was still and asleep.