The Getaway (Sam Archer 2) (18 page)

‘Transport? A
c
ar?’

‘A helicopter. They’re planning to fly over any roadblocks at the city and State borders and ride all the way down to AC.’

Gerrard looked at him for
a moment, then shook his head.

‘Son of a bitch. A damn fighter shouldn’t be that smart.’

Archer nodded,
taking a bite from his burrito.

‘Farrell and his team have a couple of secret rooms at the back of his gym, behind a secret doorway,’ he said. ‘When I was down there, I saw Regan and Tate stitching some fabric on sewing machines. Tate showed us what he was working on. It was a black, long-sleeved vest, reinforced with Aramid and steel-plated body armour.’

‘Like the
North Hollywood
shootout.’

‘Exactly. They’ve done their homework. I think that’s got something to do with Sunday. I’m guessing that armoured truck from the tennis is going to have armed guards inside, maybe more than usual. I think they’ll try to take them out head on, duke it out with a gunfight. The body-armour is insurance against getting hit. They wouldn’t need it for the Garden heist.’

Archer bit into his burrito again, tasting the warm meat, rice and cheese. It was good, if a little too spicy. Across the van, Gerrard was thinking hard, and seemed to
come to some kind of decision.

‘OK. Today’s Wednesday,’ he said. ‘That gives us three days to prepare. We can take them at the Garden. Don’t worry about the tennis truck. They won’t even make it that far. You said they’re going through the Penn Station entrance?’

Archer nodded.

‘Farrell, Regan and Ortiz will go in
side
in cop uniforms, headed for the stash room.
It sounds like they’ve paid off the necessary people to let them inside. Not the guys in the coal room, but the guys who are protecting them I guess.’

‘What about Tate?’

Archer took a
bite of the burrito and nodded.

‘That’s the part you’d like. They send him down to
Atlantic City
every fortnight, packed up with the stolen cash from their previous jobs. He drives slow, breaking no laws, drawing no attention. He spends the weekend down there, passing the cash through the chips at the casinos, then settles up and comes straight back. He’s headed down there the night of the fight. He’s coming back for the main event on Sunday.’

Gerrard nodded, taking a last bite and finishing his b
urrito, scrunching up the foil.

‘So they want you in the car?’ he asked.

‘Yes. I’ll be kerb-side in a cop car, on 33
rd
, facing east. Plan is to move across town as fast as possible and get to the Midtown Tunnel before anyone can close it off.’

‘OK.’

And with that, Archer stayed silent. He took another bite of burrito and looked at Gerry. He’d told him everything he knew.

‘Wow,’ Gerrard said. ‘I’m speechless. Great job kid. This is beyond anything I could have hoped for. You sure as hell take after your father.’

Archer bit
into his food, saying nothing.

‘How are you feel
ing?’

‘OK.’

‘Has Farrell talked about Jimmy’s murder?’

‘He knows about it. He threatened me. Said if I told anyone what I saw or what he told me I’d end up with Brown and the
dead
F
ed
, as he put it.’

‘Did you pursue it?’

‘I can’t. It’ll set off alarm bells instantly. I need him to bring it up again, talk about it himself, unprovoked.’ Archer paused. He looked at the older man
on
the other side of the van. ‘But I still mean what I said to you. I’ll back off, but if he tells me he did it and I’ve got a chance to take him out, I’m doing it. He put a gun to my head yesterday, Gerry. I’m not going to forget that.’

Gerrard nodded,
wiping his hands with a napkin.

‘No argument from me. Get rid of Ortiz too whilst you’re at it.’

And just like that, the conversation had ended. Archer finished his burrito, then rolled up the foil, wiping his hands on a napkin.

‘Thanks for the grub.’

‘Least I can do,’ Gerrard said. ‘You’re certainly
a cop, kid. It’s in your DNA.’

Archer nodded.

‘I’ll be in touch,’ he said. ‘Just start
getting your team ready,’

‘Good work, Sam. Y
our dad would be proud of you.’

Archer thought for a moment, then reached for the door handle. He pulled it open and stepped outside into the humid evening air of
Union Square
.

Slamming it shut behind him, he checked to make sure no one had followed or was watching the van. Satisfied, he tossed the rolled up ball of foil into a trash can beside him
and headed off into the night.

Across the street, a woman was slumped down behind the wheel of a silver Ford. She watched the English guy climb out of the white van, slamming the door and heading off across the Square. She stayed still, keeping her eyes on the van, waiting to see who would appear a
nd move into the driver’s seat.

After a moment, a figure in a suit
emerged
.

It was Gerrard.

She watched him fire the ignition and move off uptown
.  A
s he left, she raised herself upright in her seat. So they were working
together. That much was clear.

Her eyes narrowed as she thought of the situation and its r
amifications.

Gerrard was clever, using the English guy. Farrell would never have seen this play coming. She watched the Brit walk to the subway entrance, disappearing down the steps and out of sight.

And wondered how she could use him and all this to her advantage.

TEN

Thursday. September 1
st
.

10:05 am.

The bank was a Chase on 40
th
and
7
th
Avenue
. It was a good location, close to
Times Square
and convenient for all the tourists, yet also readily available for all the businesses and workers operating out of the
M
idtown area. It was accessible from both sides, located on the ground floor of a tall office building on the corner of the street. From the east, one would walk through a set of double doors from Broadway, through a golden lobby and over a marble floor, then turn left and pass through a doorway that led into the bank. From the west, access to the bank was a simple wide entrance on the corner of 40
th
and 7
th
, right on the doorstep of
Times Square
. This portion of 7
th
was also known as
Fashion Avenue
and was right up there with the wealthiest areas in the city. Over three
quarters of every piece of clothing in the entire United States were tailored and put together in this district, and once the garments were sold, the profits came straight back. Consequently this bank was another perfectly
placed branch for Chase, right in the centre of a money-making and industriously corporate area, and when coupled with all the tourists in the neighbourhood, business thrived every single day.

That Thursday morning, the bank was busy. Customers were using ATMs
,
both just outside on the street and inside the bank itself, and tellers were lined up on the north wall behind bullet-proof glass, busy handling cheques and deposits and dealing with other customer requests. A queue of twelve people or so formed a line horizontal to the tellers, each waiting for their turn and for a teller to become available, some more patient than others. Against the south windows, a series of desks ran side-by-side all the way down the wall, several of them occupied with
bank
employees conducting private, one-on-one discussions with customers, handing out financial advice, organising loans or setting up new accounts.

There were two armed guards inside, as there were in every Chase bank in the city, and they were
standing
on either side of the bank,
against the walls,
blend
ing
into the background, yet alert and vigilant, watching everyone who walked into the branch. All things considered, they both figured they had a pretty cushy deal. Although the double entrances meant there was a constant stream of people flowing through the bank, and any one of them could be a potential thief, the NYPD had a headquarters set up on the southern edge of
Times Square
just two blocks away. All five tellers were protected behind bullet-proof glass with a silent alarm button by their feet, and each guard had a Glock 17 and two spare mags tucked into a holster on his hip as extra insurance. It would be foolhardy to say that a bank was impossible to hold up, but this branch was up there with the most impenetrable. Armed guards, five panic buttons, bulletproof glass, a vault as strong as a nuclear bomb shelter, and not to mention long windows on every wall revealing the
interior of the
bank to everyone walkin
g outside on the sidewalk.

If anyone came in and tried to use weapons, they’d be spotted by about fifty witnesses outside in an instant, not to mention everyone else inside the bank. This was the kind of place that made bank robbers wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat. In every aspect it was secure and protected. A couple of thieves had been stupid enough to try note-jobs here in the past, and had t
urned to find the entire south-M
idtown NYPD division from Times Square rushing through the west doors, thirty seconds after the tellers had pushed the panic buttons with their toes. There were thousands of banks in
Manhattan
, but this was most definitely a branch that thieves would be be
st-served to leave well alone.

But at 10:06 am that September Thursday morning, three cops approached the west entrance to the bank.

They were two men and a woman. They were dressed in full navy-blue NYPD clothing, and each had large aviator sunglasses over their noses,
sitting snugly under
the police
caps pulled low over their eyes.
It was a bright, sunny day outside, so the sunglasses didn’t seem unusual or cause suspicion. Even cops
needed protection from the sun.

As they approached the entrance and pulled
the doors
open, no one outside on the street or
standing inside
the
building as they walked in,
gave them a second glance. Cops like this were just as much a part of the city as burgers and baseball. If anything, people in their proximity felt just a little bit more secure by knowing they were there. The three cops moved across the floor into the heart of the bank. One of the men and the woman stopped, examining the interior of the place and the people around them, their faces impassive and expressionless. Meanwhile, the second man, the biggest of the trio, headed straight for the bank manager, who was just finis
hing up with a female customer.

The manager was a small, family man called Dean Wileman,
thirty nine years old,
only five-seven and a hundred fifty pounds,
he was
an academic, not an athlete. Wileman had a wife and daughter and a large house over in
Long Island
which was a benefit of his job in the bank. He’d met his wife when they were both students
at Harvard, college sweethearts.  She now
worked five days a week at an accounting firm in
Long Island
. Wileman was physically slight and hated confrontation of any kind, but nature had found a balance and given him a brain for numbers and
a talent for
organisation which made him the perfect man for his job. He’d taken over the role eighteen months ago and he was damn good at it. His unintimidating nature and proficiency with spread-sheets and percentages were reassuring to customers as well as his superiors, and business had thrived since he’d taken over the role as manager of the bank.

He’d noticed the three cops enter through the west entrance, and wrapped up his conversation with the customer he was currently attending to. He thanked her for doing business with them, giving her his best smile, then once they had shaken hands and she’d departed, he turned to the big policeman approaching him. The cop was intimidating, a big man, the kind of guy
who
had given Wileman such a hard time at high school all those years ago. He looked at the man’s face as he approached, but all he saw was his own reflection in the cop’s sunglasses.

‘I’m looking for Dean Wileman. Th
e bank manager,’ the cop asked.

Not a request, but a statement. Wileman nodded, offering his hand. The cop shook it, his hand enveloping Wileman’s.