THE THIEVES

They look more like retirees than master criminals. They tell me their real names, then excitedly assign each other the fake names they'd like for me to use in my book.

Long-faced "Lou Morrison" has the demeanor and hyper-masculine energy of a high-school gym teacher. His arms are hairy and his smile is broad.

"Reed Aronowitz" could be mistaken for a young Don Knotts, although a neck tattoo snaking out from under his collar spoils the image.

"Sterling La Monte" is the most academic-looking of the bunch. He's dark-eyed, with round spectacles that appear to be one size too small.

Morrison's wife brings us all cookies as we relax into chairs on his back porch.

LOU MORRISON: Looking back, stealing those replicators from Alphacorp was probably the best thing we've ever done. But you know, we were really being pussies about it at first. We had to be talked into it by THE CUSTODIAN'S DAUGHTER.

STERLING LA MONTE: Yeah, we might've had six nuts between us, but she was the only one with cajones.

REED ARONOWITZ: Y'all speak for yourselves. I was down to clown, soon as she pitched us the idea.

LA MONTE: Her plan was pretty well laid out. I kept trying to poke holes in it, but she'd thought of everything, including the gear we'd need.

ARONOWITZ: That was my favorite part. Getting all locked and loaded up. We went down there to the military surplus store and had an absolute ball. Body armor, night-vision goggles, friggin' flash-bang grenades! I still can't believe they were just sellin' that stuff.

LA MONTE: That's Colorado for you. We weren't intending on actually hurting anybody, but we did need to be able to scare the shit out of people. So we bought a fully kitted-out SMG, enough ammo for a long winter, and a semi-automatic shotgun filled with blanks, just for the noise effect. Aside from the weapons, we also picked up a portable concrete cutter and a diamond-tipped sawblade to go along with it. Once we had that, we were pretty much ready to roll. After all, we only had to buy one of everything, then make copies using THE CUSTODIAN's rep.

LA MONTE: Once we had our shit all packed up, we told our families we were going on a long fishing trip. None of us knew how to fish, so that raised some eyebrows. But I guess it was believable enough, because we all got permission from our wives

ARONOWITZ: I mean... my wife was pretty pissed off. I just kind of ran out of the house yellin' that I'd make it up to her later. I'm still doing make-up payments on that loan.

MORRISON: Once we made it to the Bay Area, we realized we hadn't brought enough money to afford a hotel, so we wound up sleeping in the van that first night. Then Sterling thought to text THE CUSTODIAN'S DAUGHTER and she paid for a room for us online... after chewing us out for being such idiots.

LA MONTE: Understandable.

MORRISON: That night, we started casing out Alphacorp headquarters. The place looked about as well-protected as a fortress, but there was this sort of alleyway on one side that I guess they used for delivery trucks. At the end of it there was a little wooden gate, about 12 feet high. THE CUSTODIAN had drawn a rough map of the place and the specific lab we needed to get to. We knew this gate was right near the entrance to that lab, so we decided it was our best shot at getting in.

ARONOWITZ: I was near about losing my mind from boredom at this point, because Lou insisted we spend three whole nights lurking around and "checking the place out." Even though there wasn't nothing to see.

LA MONTE: Reed here was terribly annoying on this point. I agreed with Lou that we needed to watch the place for a while to learn the security team's routine. And we didn't want to risk having a delivery truck roll up on us in that alleyway halfway through the heist.

ARONOWITZ: Yeah, sure, all those delivery trucks driving around at two in the goddamn mornin'.

MORRISON: Shut the fuck up, Reed. Anyway, after those three nights, we decided to go for it. We eased up in that alleyway around 2:30 in the morning. Didn't see anybody. I had the concrete cutter, Sterling had a wheelbarrow, and Reed was keeping us covered. The idea was to cut a hole in the wooden gate that was big enough for a man and that wheelbarrow. Then we'd hack our way straight through the building's doors and hallways until we reached the lab with the replicators. We figured we had a clean 10 minutes before cops or security or some combination of the two would show up.

So we got there. Hopped out. And I got to cuttin' on the gate. Had the hole knocked out in under 20 seconds.

LA MONTE: I ran in right behind Lou. Put his concrete cutter into the wheelbarrow, in case we needed it. Reed hopped back in the van and pulled it around to the other side of the street to play the lookout.

ARONOWITZ: Can I just say? Easily the most boring fuckin' job of the heist.

LA MONTE: If we'd needed an expert in bitching and moaning we would've brought you along.

MORRISON: Things did get pretty interesting for us, almost right away. We rolled up to the door of the building with the lab. Peeked through the glass. And there was a security guard, right there in the lobby. I wanted to just cut through and take the guy out. But Sterling here is a sensitive soul. He suggested a less violent alternative.

LA MONTE: You know, lots of these tech guys work late at night. I figured I could pretend to be an employee—a night owl who accidentally forgot his badge down in the lab. I got Lou to hide in a bush with the wheelbarrow, then just knocked on the glass and beckoned the guard to come over. "So sorry! I forgot my badge again!" Hamming it up about how this always happens to me.

He just strolls over, not suspicious at all, and opens the door. He started to ask for my name and ID. Then I went for it. Yanked out my SMG, poked it right in his face, and pushed inside. Yelling, "Get the fuck down on your knees! Hands on your head or I will blow your fucking brains out."

MORRISON: Then I came in behind Sterling and sprayed a few rounds into the ceiling with my own gun. Just for good measure, you know. I think the poor guy actually pissed himself.

LA MONTE: You nearly made me piss myself. But it did work. This dude just broke down crying immediately. "I'll do anything you want, I have a family, don't hurt me." The works.

MORRISON: I was almost feeling bad for him, because I didn't see how we could possibly let him live. We didn't have any zip ties or anything to hold him down with, you know. He was a problem.

LA MONTE: I didn't want blood on my hands, so it was lucky for everybody that he was willing to take us straight down to the lab with the reps. We didn't have to ask twice. He surrendered his weapon and started off down the hallway.

MORRISON: The thing that struck me about the place was how totally normal it all looked. No way you would've thought they were developing something like a rep in there.

LA MONTE: I was thinking that same thing. Reminded me of photos I'd seen of the University of California lab building where they worked on the early internet. You ever seen the room they sent the first online message from? Looked like shit.

MORRISON: We took an elevator down like six floors into the basement. When we arrived at the lab with the reps, I was expecting some grand reveal, but nope. The security guy just opened the door with no hesitation. And there they were. Dozens of 'em in plexiglass cases. I just toted the diamond saw over and started cutting. Didn't take me more than a minute before we had one freed.

That's when Sterling suggested we grab another, just to be safe. So we plopped two of those fucking things into the wheelbarrow. They barely fit, next to the saw. That's about the same time that the call came in from Reed. He said the jig was up.

ARONOWITZ: Yeah, a couple of beat cops had rolled by and I guess one of them must have noticed the hole Lou had put in the perimeter wall. So they were stopping to check the situation out. These guys didn't exactly seem like pros. But they had guns and they looked spooked, so I knew they were dangerous.

LA MONTE: I turned to the guard and started to say, "Get us out of here." But I only got the first two words out before his brains splattered all over the wall. Lou didn't even give the guy a chance.

MORRISON: That guy alerted the cops somehow. We couldn't trust him.

LA MONTE: Goddammit Lou, I've been saying this for years and you just don't listen. The alert could've been triggered automatically at some point in the raid. That man might not have done anything to deserve that.

MORRISON: We started having this argument right there in that room and it's been going on ever since. I still say it had to be done. But at that point, Reed was yelling at us to get the fuck outta there. So I grabbed up the guard's keys and we headed for the door with our two reps in tow.

LA MONTE: The way we'd come in wasn't safe, so we were just hoping there was another set of elevators on the other side of the building. We took off down the hallway. Lou was running in front with his gun out, and I was bumping along with the wheelbarrow. Right as we turned the first corner, we saw this door at the far end of the hallway creaking open.

MORRISON: I didn't know who or what it was, so I just ran full speed at the door and got ready to shoot whatever came out. It was a guy in a lab coat. Scientist of some sort. He had his arms full of something, and he was sort of using his back to push the door open, so when he shuffled out into the hallway he was facing me. He screamed and dropped everything he was holding. And that's when I put four rounds in him. Made a real mess.

LA MONTE: By this point I was about to get sick on myself. I wanted to get out of there. But Lou stopped in front of the guy and just stood there staring. I was like, "Get a fuckin' move on!" But he held up his hand for me to stop. And that's when I saw it.

MORRISON: Gold bars. Solid gold. That's what the scientist had been holding. His body was slumped down against the door, holding it open. So I could see inside the room. My brain couldn't process what was in there.

LA MONTE: It was Fort Fucking Knox. Gold stacked from floor to ceiling.

MORRISON: I started grabbing bars up. Tossing them into the wheelbarrow with the reps. I had probably chunked a dozen in before my brain turned back on and I figured out why Sterling was yelling at me. "Just take one, we only need one!" (Laughs.)

LA MONTE: I mean, I get it. Once you've got a rep, it takes some time to adjust your mindset. Finding one of anything is the hard part. Zero to one, that's still tough. But one to infinity? That's easy.

MORRISON: Except for reps. You need two of those, if you wanna make more.

ARONOWITZ: I could hear these two goons babbling about gold into their headsets. And so I started yelling at 'em, "Y'all are going to jail!"

MORRISON: That did snap us out of it. We headed back down the hallway, and when we turned the next corner I started cussin' up a storm. Because there wasn't an elevator. Only stairs.

LA MONTE: We dumped all the extra gold bars out of the wheelbarrow. I stuffed one into my pants so I could use both hands to push from the bottom while Lou pulled from above. It was hell getting that wheelbarrow up the stairs.

MORRISON: About halfway up, we started arguing about whether or not to dump the second rep. It was just too goddamned heavy, and we figured the cops were hot on our tail.

LA MONTE: I wanted to ditch it, but Lou talked me out of it. He said, "This is the only chance we've got. If we only take one, and it turns out there's something wrong with it, we'll go to our graves regretting it." I knew he was right.

MORRISON: That final flight of stairs near about killed me, but when we reached the top we still didn't hear anybody behind us. I knew the way we'd come in wasn't safe. But I could also tell from all the street noises nearby that we were near the edge of the complex. So I just ran over to the closest wall and started sawing.

LA MONTE: I waited at the top of the staircase with my gun while Lou went to work with his saw, but nobody ever came. I think our pursuers probably got slowed down the same way we did when they passed up that room full of gold.

ARONOWITZ: Even after Lou told me to drive around to the other side of the complex, I was surprised to see these two clowns standing there unharmed. They had a big ol' hole sawed straight into the perimeter wall. I opened up the back of the truck, they hopped in with all their shit, and it was an easy ride out of there. We were back in Colorado by the next night.