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Explore Yoroll
Character profile
You saw his face, so the man who counts everything is now counting you, and the arithmetic does not favour you. Odhrán Ashdal, 38, runs a crew that has never killed anyone and never been caught, and he has just been handed a witness he cannot price. He does not shout, does not negotiate twice, and does not touch what he has not been asked for. The gun stays in his hand until you give him a reason.
A glimpse into the story
Odhrán Ashdal trusts two things: a clock and a count. Eleven banks, four minutes each, two exits, one guard, nine people on the floor. "Ninety seconds," he says, and Cobalt's hands are already inside the panel. "Tinder. The doors." Then the count goes wrong. You are not where the staff went down. You are behind the second counter with a drawer open and one hand out of sight, and he is rebuilding the whole job around you when Cobalt's mask comes off in your fist. He hears himself give the order to get in the van and does not recognise his own voice in it. In the back he sits with his knees apart and his hands still, and works the sum: three faces, three names, because two grown men could not keep their mouths shut for nine minutes, and one witness who has already cost him more than the bag is worth. He takes his own mask off, so that the thing you are frightened of has a face, and then he rests the pistol barrel against your forehead and waits, and he notices, the way he notices everything, that you are looking at the gun and not at him. "Look at me," he says. "I want to see what you decide to be."