The Getaway (Sam Archer 2) Read online

  ‘If anyone makes a sound, tries to do something stupid, I blow this guy’s head off!’ the man shouted. ‘I want this place as quiet as a church! Clear?’

  No one replied. Everyone was face down on the marble, no one daring to speak or move.

  ‘Everybody, get your phones out,’ the point man shouted, quickly. ‘Out! Slide them across the floor. If any of you don’t and I find out, this guy’s brains will be sprayed in the air like confetti!’

  The people on the floor all complied, and the sound of scores of cell phones sliding across the floor echoed off the silent bank’s walls. Across the room, the other two thieves finished plasti-cuffing the two guards, pushing them face-down to the marble floor, each guard landing with an oomph as the air was knocked out of them. The bank robbers reached over and pulled each guard’s Glock pistol from their holsters and threw them over the teller counter, out of reach, the guns clattering against the wood and marble as they hit the ground. That done, the pair ran forward to their next tasks. The man vaulted the counter and slammed open the door to the security room, rushing inside. A series of monitors were in the room, the place humming, each small screen showing a different view inside the bank and on the street. He yanked out a small white bag from the inside pocket of his doctor’s coat and started pulling out all the tapes from the monitors, dumping them in the bag one-by-one, checking the time on his wrist-watch as he did so.

  Fifty seconds down.

  2:10 to go.

  Back inside the main floor, the woman saw the manager cowering on the floor across the room. She moved towards him swiftly, the shotgun aimed at his head, her gloved hands around the sawn-off pistol grip.

  ‘Up,’ she ordered, standing over him.

  He hesitated then rose, unsure.

  He had good reason to be.

  In the same moment, she smashed the barrel of the shotgun into his face hard, breaking his nose. People started to scream, shocked at the violence.

  ‘Shut up! Shut the hell up’ the point man shouted, his shotgun against the hostage’s neck. ‘Or I’ll kill this man and you can decide who takes his place!’

  That got them quiet. The manager had fallen to floor, moaning and gasping with pain, blood pouring from his nose, leaking all over the clean white marble. The woman grabbed him and pulled him back to his feet with brutal strength for her size. She dragged him around the counter and towards the vault as he clutched his face, blood staining his hands and fingers, and slammed him against the steel with a thud. She put the shotgun against his groin, her finger on the trigger, her face hidden behind the surgical masks and sunglasses.

  ‘Open it,’ she ordered.

  Two words.

  One shotgun.

  All she needed.

  Without a moment’s hesitation, the man reached for the lock with his right hand, clutching his smashed nose with his left, blood pouring out and staining the sleeve of his white shirt. He twisted the dial, trying to keep his shaking hand steady, and paused three times on the combination then paused again. It clicked. He had a key looped on a chain attached to his top pocket. She grabbed it and yanked it off violently, then hit him in the face again with the Ithaca, dropping him like a stone. He fell to the ground, covering his nose, whimpering from the second blow. He wasn’t going to be any trouble.

  The woman grabbed the handle on the vault, twisting it and pulled open the steel door. It led into a room holding a second vault, but this one had no spin-dial, just a normal lock. Rushing forward, she pushed the key inside the lock and twisted. It clicked, and she pulled the handle, opening the door to the second vault. Inside were a series of metallic shelves, like four large filing cabinets pushed against the walls.

  But each shelf was packed with stacks of hundred dollar bills, bricked and banded.

  She moved inside quickly. Dropping the shotgun and letting it swing back under her coat on its strap, she unzipped the front of her medic’s overalls and pulled out two large empty black bags. Back outside on the bank floor, the point man tilted his wrist so the shotgun nestled against the hostage’s neck, and checked his watch.

  ‘Forty seconds!’ he called.

  Inside the vault, the woman worked fast. She swept the bill stacks from the shelves straight into the bags. Once loaded, she zipped them both shut. The third man had just finished taking the tapes in the security room and rushed inside to join her, taking one of the bags and looping it over his shoulder, keeping his shotgun in his right hand and the white bag of security tapes in the other. She took the other bag and followed him, and they moved outside, pulling the vault doors shut behind them, twisting the handles, then heading towards the front door. They paused by the exit, tucking their shotguns away under the coats, then pushing their way through the doors, left the building.

  The point man checked his watch and started backing away to the door, dragging the terrified hostage with him, his gun still jammed in the guy’s neck.

  ‘This guy is coming with us,’ he shouted. ‘If any of you move, or we see anyone on the street in the next two minutes, he dies. DO NOT MOVE!’

  He turned his back and shouldered his way through the doors, taking the hostage with him.

  And suddenly, the bank was eerily quiet.

  They were gone.

  In the silence, everyone stayed face down, terrified to look up, or even speak. The large hand on a large clock mounted on the wall ticked forward.

  9:10 am.

  And across the bank, the lock on the vault clicked shut.

  Three hours later, a small cluster of detectives and a handful of vehicles had gathered in an almost empty parking lot across the East River in Queens. Police tape had been pulled up and around some knee-high traffic cones, cordoning off the scene, and beyond them were four blue wooden road blocks, Police, Do Not Cross printed on each in faded white lettering. In the rough square the tape and wooden roadblocks created, several experts from forensics out of the FBI’s Violent Crimes team were examining the burnt-out wreck of what used to be a NYC taxi cab.

  The carcass of the vehicle smouldered and smoked in the midday sun, the once-yellow exterior blackened and burnt, the interior melted down by the fire that had engulfed it. Fifteen yards from the car, two officers from the NYPD stood near the tape, ready to keep back any civilians who might decide to approach and take a closer look. They had been the ones who discovered the wreckage, driving their beat in their squad car nearby and noticing fire coming from the taxi parked across the lot. They’d called it in, reporting the plates whilst they approached the vehicle and put out the flames with two fire extinguishers, and to their surprise the FBI had turned up and immediately taken over. Apparently the vehicle was linked to an on-going investigation of theirs, and they wanted sole control of the crime-scene.

  Across the parking lot, a black Mercedes pulled into the lot and drove up towards the gathering, coming to a halt and parking beside the NYPD squad car. The driver killed the engine and stepped out, closing the door behind him and smoothing down his tie. His name was Todd Gerrard, and he was a Supervisory Special Agent with the FBI.

  Gerrard was a few years past fifty but fit for his age, a benefit of his constantly hectic and busy lifestyle, a seasoned veteran in every sense of the word. He’d been around for a long time, and had arrived at hundreds of crime-scenes like this during his long career. He was tall and well-built, six two and a hair over a hundred and ninety pounds. Although he had freshly arrived in New York from D.C last summer, he’d started out in this city, literally from the first moment of his life, born and raised in Brooklyn. He’d joined the NYPD as a rookie in the early 80’s, and had stayed with the department for eleven years. After the bombing at the World Trade Center in ‘93, he’d then applied and been accepted into the FBI, and he’d been with them ever since.

  But lately everything had gone wrong. Trouble with his superiors, his marriage on the rocks and a recent demotion had meant Gerrard’s career would now never hit the heights of many of the guys he’d come up with, and
he was still battling his anger about it. He’d been shifted from Washington to New York City last summer, down-graded and put in charge of a six-man Violent Crimes Unit specialising in bank robbery in the city, known simply as the Bank Robbery Task Force. He was still smarting from the humiliation. He’d been well on his way to maybe an Assistant Director or Executive Assistant Director position, but then had been busted back down to a Supervisory Special Agent, back amongst the bright-eyed kids in their twenties and thirties. The only way he was getting out of here was by breaking a major case, and he knew it. And judging from events of the past few months, that didn’t look like it was going to happen any time soon.

  Standing alone, Gerrard slid a pair of sunglasses over his nose and looked at the parking lot around him. It was pretty much empty, only a handful of cars parked in odd spaces, and it was hot now, the merciless sun beating down on the tarmac as it had done all summer. He looked to his right and saw the Manhattan skyline across the East River, sunlight reflecting off the glass windows of the buildings. They were near the water, the Queensborough Bridge looming a hundred yards over and behind them. He could hear car horns and distant shouts in the distance, the constant soundtrack of the city, but the parking lot itself was quiet. The only physical activity in the area was the small gathering by the burnt-out taxi. His gaze settled on the charred ruins of the vehicle, and from his position across the tarmac he examined it closely.

  It had been torched from the inside, the interior blackened and destroyed from the blaze. There were several detectives from forensics examining the wreckage and an FBI agent from his team was standing alongside talking with them, all of them wearing white latex gloves. He sniffed and smelt something in the air and instinctively covered his nose. There was no mistaking what it was. It was slightly sweet yet sickening and unforgettable. He’d smelt it once before, when he was still a cop and had been down at the World Trade Center after the bomb went off in ’93.

  Burnt human flesh.

  Trying to adjust to the smell, Gerrard walked forward, stepping past the blue wooden NYPD roadblock and pulling his badge from his pocket. One of the NYPD officers at the tape saw him approaching, badge-in-hand, and nodded, letting the FBI agent pass as he stepped over the taped cordon. A woman in a dark work suit standing near the vehicle also saw him coming and turned to meet him.

  Her name was Special Agent Mina Katic, one of the five agents under his command in the detail. She was a slim, dark-haired woman in her late-twenties, efficient, reliable and quick. She was athletically built, as if she played in some kind of sports league on the weekends or had maybe just been blessed with great genetics, but Gerrard knew that she burned off most of those calories just with her day-to-day activities working for the Bureau, much like himself. She was a single mother but was far too proud to live on maternity grants, and he knew she was determined to prove people wrong and maintain and build a successful career, whilst raising a nine year-old girl. He saw her walking towards him, a file in her hand, and thought about her situation.

  Despite the monthly pay-checks and the impressive poker face that she wore at work, Gerrard knew that she was struggling to make ends meet. She’d had the kid and married young, but her husband had died prematurely from cancer the year before, leaving her to fend for herself and the child alone. He would never tell her, but she was the best agent on his team, professional and intelligent. But for some reason Gerrard didn’t warm to her. He saw something in her eyes every time she looked at him, like she was mad at him or just didn’t want him around. He figured she was probably pissed that he’d been placed as head of the Bank Robbery Task Force and not her.

  She was one of the three originals who were on the team before Gerrard arrived with the other two newly-assigned agents. He knew all three of them had been gunning for the promotion, especially considering the great work they had done in lowering the heist-rate across the city in the last couple of years. They had been instrumental in that process and they knew it, and they had also managed to develop a solid working relationship with the NYPD, which in itself was pretty damn rare for any Federal office. He figured she was angry at being ignored for the post, or just angry at the shitty cards life had dealt her following the death of her husband. She was the only woman on his Task Force and had clearly learned to fight her corner in a male-dominated organisation. Gerrard watched her walk towards him. Despite being her boss, that constant look of distrust in her eye suggested that she considered him another opponent across the ring.

  She had a latex glove on her right hand and was cradling an open yellow folder in the crook of her left arm, containing some kind of report. Pulling off the glove, she stood beside Gerrard, who was surveying the scene through his sunglasses. Neither bothered with greetings.

  ‘They strike again,’ he said.

  She nodded.

  ‘Did you come from the bank?’

  He swallowed down his irritation. Katic never called him sir. It was petty, but chain of command was still chain of command. He felt like he had to earn that from her, which was the wrong way around.

  Ignoring the slight, he shook his head, staring at the charred taxi, the roof and bonnet smouldering like mist rising from the ground in the early morning.

  ‘I was downtown. Fill me in.’

  ‘The bank was a Chase, Upper East Side,’ Katic said, reading from the file in her hand. ‘2nd Avenue, between 62nd and 63rd. Today was delivery day, so they got the vault when the time-lock was off. Cleaned house. Did a fake-hostage routine, and left. In-and-out in three minutes and got away clean.’

  ‘Anyone inside get an I.D?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘They were fully disguised,’ she said. ‘Full medical gear, surgical masks, aviator sunglasses and latex gloves. No DNA, no fingerprints, no traces, no luck. Everything was fresh out the packet. Doesn’t matter anyway. They left it all on the back seat to be burned. There’s hardly any of it left.’

  Gerrard nodded. ‘The hostage?’

  ‘Parker and Siletti are over at the bank interviewing witnesses,’ she said. ‘Most of them were looking down, too scared to look up. One lady, a teller, said the guy was wearing sunglasses and a cap, but that was about all she could tell us. Nothing that would hold up in a perp walk.’

  Gerrard nodded.

  ‘Clever. They put one of their own team in the bank. He’s disguised to the point that people would struggle to place him in a line-up, yet not enough to demonstrate that he’s a part of the job. They put an empty gun to his head and say if anyone leaves the bank or alerts the cops, they blow his brains out. The moment they walk outside, they take the gun off him and he gets in the car alongside them. They drive off, and everyone’s a winner.’

  ‘Buys them instant co-operation inside the bank and saves having to get rid of a real hostage,’ Katic added.

  Gerrard nodded.

  ‘OK. What else?’

  ‘Security tapes were taken, so checking them isn’t an option. They’re on the back seat of the car beside the remains of the disguises, all melted up. The bank was on 62nd and 2nd so they were near the Bridge. They could have gotten over within sixty seconds if traffic was light.’ She turned from the folder and pointed at the car. ‘And the rest is clear. They parked here, unloaded the cash into a switch car, poured petrol into the cab, then tossed a match and left.’

  Gerrard glanced around the parking lot again.

  ‘Any witnesses? Homeless guys, or kids?’

  Katic shook her head, wiping her brow delicately from the stifling heat.

  ‘None. The vehicle wouldn’t have attracted attention. They weren’t being pursued or breaking the speed limit, and their disguises would be easy to remove. And a taxi-cab in Long Island City is just about as invisible as a vehicle can get.’

  Gerrard nodded, looking back over his shoulder towards the Bridge. Just a few blocks away on Vernon Boulevard was the central taxi depot for the entire area. Thousands of the yellow vehicles, all in a tight radius, hundreds of th
em moving around, coming to and from the depot. The thieves who pulled this job were intelligent. Even if they were being pursued, once they got over the Bridge and turned down the side streets, they’d soon have become invisible, especially if they moved anywhere near the depot itself. He turned back to Katic.

  ‘How about tracers in the bank? Or should I even bother to ask?’ he said.

  She shook her head. ‘No luck. They left the registers. They knew where the dye packs and bait money were. They went straight for the vault. The bank manager is over at Lenox Hill getting his nose fixed. They busted him up pretty bad. He took a shotgun barrel to the bridge of his nose twice. Looks like he’s going to need surgery to realign his septum.’

  ‘What was the take?’

  ‘Just over five hundred thousand. Half a million.’

  Gerrard shook his head and swore, long and hard.

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘Like I said, it was delivery day. The vault was fully stocked up. They cleaned house.’ She looked back down at the report in the folder. ‘A silent alarm they didn’t know about was tripped, but it didn’t matter. Every cop in the area was uptown. Judging from the timings, it looks like they called in a fake emergency on the police frequency, and it emptied the entire 19th precinct as they headed the opposite direction, responding to the call.’

  Gerrard closed his eyes, processing everything she’d just told him, picturing the entire heist in his head from start-to-finish. There were a few moments of silence as he mentally ran through the job, seeing it unfold in his mind.