The Getaway - By Tom Barber Page 0,5

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