Real Money Heist – Part 1: The Planner

I still remember the first time I met him.

Not in some dark alley or abandoned warehouse like they show in movies.

It was at Gloria Jean’s in DHA Phase 6, Lahore. A quiet Thursday. Rain on the windows. He was already there — sipping black coffee, no sugar. Looked like someone’s retired uncle, not the man who would plan the biggest heist Pakistan never found out about.

He didn't say much at first. Just pushed a small black notebook toward me. Inside, there was no name. Just a question:

“If you could steal 6 billion rupees and vanish forever — would you?”

I smiled. "You watch too much Netflix."

His reply chilled me.

“No. I inspired one of those shows.”

I was about to laugh, but his eyes said otherwise. Cold. Steady. Heavy with something I couldn’t place. Maybe loss. Maybe anger. Maybe revenge.

The Recruits

Over the next ten days, I met the others — one by one.

Babar: Ex-ISI signals officer. Discharged in 2020 for “questionable activity” in Balochistan. He could tap, clone, intercept anything.

Rani: A 24-year-old software prodigy from Karachi who built her own crypto mixing platform. She didn’t speak much — but when she did, it was all code and chaos.

Kashif: A security contractor from Dubai, now hiding in Lahore under a fake name. The kind of man who smiled when he broke bones.

Dr. Zoya: A trauma surgeon from Peshawar. She joined for reasons none of us ever asked.

Ali: The youngest — just 19. Pickpocket, locksmith, gambler. Said he once picked a Minister’s pocket during a jalsa. No one believed him. Maybe we should have.

We were strangers. No last names. No backstories. Just skills.

He — we only called him “BABO” — trained us in silence. For weeks. No phones. No questions. No money — yet.

We stayed at a farmhouse on the outskirts of Sheikhupura. No cell signals. Generator-powered. Each morning began with drills — blueprints, panic scenarios, vault timings, facial mimicry. Then afternoons were about improvisation. What if a guard panicked? What if police showed up early? What if one of us cracked?

The Target

On Day 31, BABO finally revealed the prize.

Not a bank.

Not a private mansion.

But something worse.

The "Sundar Vault" — a confidential financial storage located below a private defense contractor’s Lahore office, tied to two foreign aid programs. Officially, it didn’t exist.

It held “frozen funds” from U.S. black-budget deals during the Afghan pullout. Idle. Unguarded in plain sight. But not accessible through typical systems.

That’s where Rani came in.

The vault’s outer doors had legacy biometric locks — easily foolable. But the transaction verification keys? Those were digital, real-time, and pinged via a VPN back to Maryland, USA.

“Nothing is truly offline,” Rani muttered. “Even ghosts leave signals.”

The Lie That Bought Us In

We were all in — except me. Not fully.

Something felt… staged. Too clean. Too specific. Why us?

So I followed BABO one night. He said he was going into Lahore to get burner phones. I tailed him.

He didn’t go to Hafeez Center. He went to a gated house in Model Town. The lights were American bright. A Land Cruiser with a diplomatic plate sat in the driveway.

I stood in the rain for over an hour, watching nothing and everything. And then I saw her.

A white woman. Late 40s. Blue folder in her hand. She kissed BABO on the cheek before stepping back inside.

The next morning, BABO looked at me differently — like he knew I knew.

Day Zero Is Coming

As I write this, it’s Day -4.

We’re four days from the heist. We call it “Ghanti” — the Bell. BABO said:

“When Ghanti rings, history will reset.”

But what he didn’t know is this:

I’m not just part of the team.

I’m the insurance policy.

They don’t know who I am. They think I’m a driver from Faisalabad with a military background.

In reality, my name isn’t Salman.

I’m not here for the money.

I’m here to find out what the hell this is — and who’s pulling the strings from across the border.

If this goes sideways — and it will — someone needs to survive to tell the real story.

Even if no one believes it.