With a loud thud from what I presumed to be a door far away had been breached, I began desperately to yank the diamond.

“Shit!” I exclaimed in a frustrated whisper. I propped my left leg onto the side of the pedestal and my hands on the diamond. With a hard push that contained all my force, I pulled the diamond using all my strength. To my surprise, it moved!

“Hehe!” I laughed in happiness. I held onto the diamond to prevent it from snapping back and pushed my leg once again. This time, as I yanked the diamond towards me, I was launched back onto the floor. I held onto the diamond tightly as I fell.

Rising up in triumph, I picked the diamond up. Emptying my pockets, I placed it gently and carefully. It only weighed 21 grams and was about 3.5 centimeters long and wide by 1.3 centimeters deep. Despite all this, something so small was worth at least $140 million.

When I had gotten back up, I looked back at the display case. The base where the diamond once stood was now opened. My eyebrows furrowed as I approached it. I looked inside and saw that there was a piece of paper. Curiosity took it over me and I pinched the small paper and lifted it up.

It felt old, with its brown color looking like it was from a different century. It was quite warm, almost burning my hand while holding it. The paper itself was small and the text was even smaller. It was only a few inches away from me but I couldn’t read the text.

My attention was diverted when I saw that the base had magically closed itself.

‘What the fuck?’ I thought. ‘When did that happen?’

But I couldn’t dwell on it. Time was running out. I attempted to put all my other loot into my backpack. Fitting the scepter in was a challenge and cost me precious seconds as I tried out different angles. Eventually, I was able to fit it in. I zipped it up frantically as soon as I was sure it fit.

I looked up and faced the room for the final time. I felt an odd sensation of satisfaction. The odd feeling I had been accustomed to passed through my body again. It was a high that I was addicted to.

I was brought back to reality when I heard footsteps coming from the top right side of the room. It was footsteps. Tens of footsteps. They were about to turn the hallway to view the entrance to the room!

I took out a card and put the top between my index and middle finger. With a quick flick of the wrist, the card was sent flying through the air and landed on the display case that once held the Koh-I-Noor diamond.

“Goodbye my love,” I whispered before opening the door. Before closing it, I made sure to activate the locks on the handle of the door. I let the door fall back into place as I began running east of the room. I sprinted as fast as I could, with the heavy backpack slowing me down immensely, until I turned the corner.

Huffing and puffing, I hugged the corner of the wall. I closed my eyes and listened for the sounds that followed. I heard someone pull on the handles hard.

“Stand back,” a voice had said. It was followed by footsteps and a loud thud. It almost caused me to jump as the sound echoed through the hallway. My eyes jolted open. I heard the sound repeat again before the doors fell onto the ground.

‘Well, break time’s over’ I thought to myself. Using the sound as cover, I walked through the hallway. When I reached the end, I took a turn and looked out of the window.

I could tell I was at the far end to the exit. The fastest way was back west, but that would mean that I had to go walk past all the officers. The other way was to keep walking with my heavy stolen goods and risk getting chased down. Needless to say, I was stuck in between a rock and a hard place.

…

Or so that’s what everyone thinks! For you see, anyone who leaves this building would be asked to produce identification and be notified to everyone inside. The identification wouldn’t be an issue, but notifying everyone would result in getting arrested immediately.

This was the problem I had faced during planning. How do you exit this building without anyone knowing? The whole perimeter was being monitored, so jumping out of the window wasn’t an option. Sneaking out wasn’t possible.

But what if you don’t need to sneak out? What if you could leave with everyone else? No one would be notified of your exit. And that leads us to the problem of making everyone leave. A trivial one to solve.

All you needed was a little bit of patience and illusionism. I placed the backpack down a few feet in front of me. I took a few big steps back and squatted down. I quickly felt my pockets to reassure myself that I had everything I needed.

I remained in the squatted position, waiting for the mark. I closed my eyes and listened to sounds as I pictured my new persona.

“Mate. How’s it go-going mate?” I whispered, practicing my accent. “L-Lovely day innit?”

I kept on making micro-adjustments to get used to the accent and make it sound natural. Under heavy scrutiny, I still carried a slight American accent. The security guard from before wouldn’t have had any reason to be suspicious, but these officers would be. I would have to be perfect.

Footsteps intruded on my practice section. I heard two pairs of distinct footsteps running towards me. I had to fight my natural instinct to jump up or run away. I had to keep my feet glued to the floor and keep my back turned to the approaching officers.

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I felt my blood pumping and my breathing increased as I stayed in my squatting position. The footsteps got louder as the officers got closer. And closer. And closer.

The sound changed from coming from my side to directly behind me. After the change, the sound ceased. It was time for my performance!

I stood up and turned to face them. I had a small joyful and confident smile on my face. I met their suspicious eyes with my jovial ones. I couldn’t let any fear or uncertainty show less I be caught. To add the cherry on top, both men were rather large. Their muscles were well-defined and I noticed a scar on one of their arms.

“How’s it going mate?” I asked with the accent. “Are you the only ones they sent?”

“Sent?” One of them questioned. I saw him look down at my Scotland Yard uniform. “Who are you?”

“Robin Fitzooth, part of the undercover unit,” I said. “The thief left their goods here.”

“Undercover? Why do you have your uniform?”

“Well, I’m out of the field as of now. Plus, they called all available personnel and I thought it would be better for our co-workers to recognize me in this.”

“What are you doing here?” The officer asked suspiciously. His eyes narrowed and I saw him reach for his weapon. “We were the only ones that went this way.”

“Calm down mate,” I said while raising my hands up. “I branched off when they breached the door. There were already around twenty people there, so if he was inside the room he would’ve been caught. I went down this way searching for him.”

His hand began to inch away from his weapon, but he didn’t relax or retract it completely. “Why didn’t you call anyone?”

“I did!” I said defensively. “They told me they were sending someone over.”

“We didn’t receive that message.”

I blew out as I exhaled. I clicked my tongue a few times as if in thought. “What channel were you blokes on?”

“Channel 3,” he said. This time, he moved his hand away from his weapon completely.

“Ah, I was told to switch to channel 5 when I was on my way here,” I chuckled. “I’ve been getting updates. You may want to switch.”

The man I had been engaged with nodded as he approached me. The other person changed his channel. I took a silent gulp as he didn’t change his.

“You’re quite young for undercover, but it’s a pleasure to meet you Robin,” he said as he extended his hand to me. I looked at his nametag. “Likewise Gerard.” I shook his hand as a smile formed on his face.

“So they left their backpack here?” he asked as he got close to it. I put my arm out to prevent him from moving closer. “I opened it to examine its content, but don’t get closer as to accidentally contaminate evidence.”

“Ah, alright,” he said while continuing to eye the backpack.

“I presume he dropped it to escape as it’s quite heavy,” I said as I walked back a bit. “I notified them and I was told they’d be sending people to monitor the entrance as well as a forensics team, but so far you two are the only ones to come. Is anyone else coming?”

“Well most of the team is on channel 3, so I don’t think so,” he said. “I’ll go call it in there right now.”

As he looked down to his radio, I took out a small bottle from my pocket. The movement was small, one that could’ve been written off by the other officer looking at me. “Actually, I can call it in. After all, I'm the one that found it.”

“Trying to get the credit eh?” he asked with a chuckle. I responded with a similar one as I walked in front of both of them.

“We all want a raise,” I said. In my head, I was calculating the distances between the two of us and if I had enough time to make a getaway.

“Are you go-” he began before he heard a puff and saw smoke. When he looked up, he saw that my nose was covered with my shirt and my finger was holding down on the top of the bottle.

He tried to grab me, but his movements were sluggish and I was able to jump back in time. “How much do you weigh?” I asked, back in my original voice. “190 pounds? 210? Halothane should knock you out in thirty seconds.”

The two of them reached for their radio. As they looked down at it, all they saw was a flash before pain flared up from their finger. It had forced them to release the radio and let it drop to the floor.

But that wasn’t the strangest thing. Trickling to the floor was … a card! In my left hand was a deck of cards and in my right was a card positioned in between my pointer and middle. As their heads turned up, I flicked my wrist hard and sent the card spinning through the air towards their finger.

They were beginning to wobble as the halothane they inhaled began to reach their brain. “If I were you, I’d just drop to the floor to avoid brain trauma for when you inevitably fall.”

“You … bastard!” the other guard exclaimed softly. His eyes were beginning to close and his body finally dropped to the floor.

“One down, one to go,” I said, my voice filled with confidence. The distance between us was too big; he couldn’t run that far. He couldn’t scream for the halothane was already affecting his muscles. All he could do was slowly wobble over to me.

It caused me to snicker a bit. Watching a buff man approach you while walking like he’s drunk. Everytime he tried to pick up the remote, I just threw another card and he retracted his finger.

True to my estimate, thirty seconds later he went unconscious.

With a small and triumphant laugh, I walked over and picked up their radio.

“Right, channel 3,” I said to myself. I didn’t know which one they would use, so I had to thank the kind officers for doing their duty to the public and telling me. I moved the knob on the walkie-talkie to the correct one.

Immediately, I heard the voice of the chief. “Army Reserve, this is the chief of Scotland Yard. Ground all London Gatwick flights and screen every passenger that arrives! The thief is escaping in an airplane!”

A smile curled with a subtle, knowing confidence, crept on my face. The corners of my lips turning upward in a self-assured grin. They were falling for my red herring.

You see, dear readers, illusionism is the most beautiful form of art. The pieces that make it up are subtle, so much that you don’t even notice, yet they work together to build up one grand picture. And you can’t appreciate the beauty and ingenuity of illusionism until you’ve fallen for it.

Everyone thinks that you would escape using the fastest way possible. Why slow down around and run the risk of getting caught? If I were to ask you how you would flee a country, you would say plane. Their minds would make them believe the lie.

But me? I’m much more imaginative than Scotland Yard, the National Crime Agency, Army Reserve, or even the Royal Guard that were tasked to guard the jewels. No, I wouldn’t escape in the most painfully obvious way possible.

However, my escape was contingent on me getting out of the building. That, and not escaping, would be the hardest part. How do you get out of a building with the entire nation watching the building?

But don’t freit! I have the answer. And the first part:

Picking up the radio, I cleared my throat. “This is Officer Gerard Dunn! Suspect has been spotted running west of the room!”