The Getaway (Sam Archer 2) (19 page)

‘That’s me. Is there a problem, officer?’ Wileman asked.

The cop nodded.

‘Yes. There is. I need to speak to you alone for a moment, sir.’

‘What’s the matter?’ he asked.

The cop stepped past him.

‘Just come this way and I can explain, sir.’

Wileman nodded and followed the cop to one side, towards the east windows and around the corner. Across the bank, the other two cops stayed still, side-by-side, both of them silent. Nearby, the two branch security guards were watching them, curious. The two cops just stood there, stern and expressionless. The guard on the east side of the bank moved off the wall and looked closer at the pair. Their heads turned in unison, and he saw the two of them staring back, their eye
s hidden behind the sunglasses.

Across the bank, the big cop led Wileman around the corner, then pulled something from his pocket and passed it to the smaller man. It was a cell phone. Wileman looked down at it, confused. He had his back against the wall, the cop standing in front of him, shielding him from everyone else inside the branch.

‘What’s this?’

‘Listen,’ the cop said.

Confused, Wileman took the phone from the man’s hand and put it to his ear.

‘Hello?’

‘Dean?’
a voice replied, shaky, scared.

Wileman froze.

It was his wife.

He heard her crying down the other end of the phone, sobbing. She sounded terrified. Before he could react, the cop interjected, his voice low, his eyes hidden behind the sunglasses.

‘If you make a sound or react or do anything that pisses me off, she dies. So does your daughter. Understand?’

Wileman stared up at him, horrified. Around him, people in the bank continued with their activities, none of them aware of what was happening. Wileman nodded silently, hearing his wife’s
terrified
sobs through the receiver.

‘Dean, please do everything they say,’
she said, her voice shaky.
‘They have me and Kimberly. There’s a man here. He’s saying he’ll rape and kill us if you don’t do what they ask.’

Wileman tried to respond, but he couldn’t speak. He was in shock, and felt like he was going to throw up or faint. The policeman took back the phone and put it in his pock
et.

‘Get everyone out of here,’ he ordered. ‘You trip an alarm, alert someone, do anything stupid, your entire family dies in a heartbeat. My man will go to town on them first. Your daughter first. Then your wife. Then your daughter again before he shoots her in the head. Then your wife again before he shoots her.’

Wileman swallowed, picturing it in his head. He tried not to hurl.

‘What do I do?’ he whispered.

‘I want this place empty.’

‘How?’

‘Think of something. Tell them there’s a gas leak. You’ve got sixty seconds or you’l
l never see your family again.’

Wileman nodded, slowly, willing himself not to collapse or throw up. He looked up at the man’s face, desperate to find some humanity, some part of the man that he could reason with. But all he saw was his own terrified re
flection in the man’s aviators.

He stepped past the cop, who turned to watch him. The two security guards had moved forward, seeing the cop take Wileman to one side.

‘
Excuse me, everyone!’
Wileman suddenly called, thinking on his feet, desperately trying to hide his terror
and keep his voice steady
. Everyone in the bank turned. ‘I’m
very
sorry, but this officer has just informed me that there is a gas leak in a pipe running under the bank. I’m afraid that you will all need to step outside for your own safety whilst we investigate the problem further.’

There was a pause. People stood still for a moment, taking the news in, then they started to file through the exits, most of them irritated by the disruption. Chase employees at the desks finished up conversations, and the tellers behind the glass locked up their stations and headed for the exits. One of the two security guards step
ped forward to talk to Wileman.

‘Is
everything OK, sir?’ he asked.

Wileman nodded, and managed to keep his voice even,
hiding his terror.

‘Everything’s fine, Ray. Just get everyone outside,’ he said.

The guard called Ray looked at him for a moment, then nodded, turning and
moved
towards the exit, guiding people out. After about a minute, the whole place had been cleared. Wileman turned back to the cop, who had stood and watched the whole thing, expressionless.

‘Very good,’ the cop said. ‘Now take me to the vault.’

‘The vault?’

‘I know it’s open. You had a delivery six minutes ago. Don’t try to lie to me. You waste another second, my man will start on your daughter. I hear she just turned sixteen, correct?’

Wileman paled.

He moved
unsteadily
around the teller counter and headed in
to a second portion of the room
. The design on the vault here was exact
ly the
same as the other Chase banks in the city. He entered the spin lock combination. They were around the corner, out of sight from the street, so no one out there had any idea what was going on. After entering the six-digit code
, he twisted it, and it opened.

‘Now th
e second one,’ the cop ordered.

Wileman looked at him then moved forward, taking a key from a keychain around his neck and sliding it into the lock. He twisted this one and pulled open the second door.

The cop was right, but Wileman had no idea how he’d known that information. They’d just had a delivery less than ten minutes ago. Most Chase banks did the drop-offs every fortnight on a Monday, but with a spate of bank robberies in the area recently the company had decided to change the routine. As a consequence, that morning the vault was packed with stacks of bricked and banded hundred-dollar bills, fully stocked. Close to two million dollars, neatly piled on the shelves.

‘Over there,’ he ordered Wileman, pointing to the corner. ‘Face the wall.’

Wileman complied, trembling. But before he turned, he saw the cop do something bizarre.

He unzipped his trousers.

Wileman sneaked a longer glance as he shuffled to the wall and saw that the man had a second pair of dark trousers under his police-issue pair, compartments stitched into the black fabric running all the way up each leg. He proceeded to pack a stack of bills in each slot, ten on each leg, taking them one at a time from the shelf, moving fast. Each stack contained ten thousand dollars, so that was two hundred thousand. He pulled his trousers back up, then unbuttoned his shirt. Wileman glanced over his shoulder and saw the man was wearing a black vest with similar compartments.

H
e filled them up. Fifteen more.

Three hundred and fifty thousand dollars in t
otal, strapped to his body.

He zipped his coat back up and smoothed down his trousers, making sure none of the shapes of the bill-stacks were visible. Satisfied, he looked at Wileman.

‘Don’t move or I’ll kill you
.’

He moved outside and nodded at one of the other two cops. They swapped places, the female officer moving into the back, the big guy taking her position beside the third man on the bank floor. Outside, he could see people were standing just outside the windows, talking to each other, waiting for the issue to be resolved. He saw one of the guards was staring inside, but his partner wasn’t paying any attention, his head back, enjoying the sunlight and respite from being indoors as he stood with all the other employees and customer
s
.

After a brief spell, the woman reappeared and the third cop took his cue, moving into the back. He did the same thing. Once he re-appeared, the big guy went back into the vault. Wileman was still stood against the wall, trembling.

‘Close it,’ he ordered.

Wileman nodded, then shuffled outside, locking the second vault, then doing the same with the first. That done, he stood there, facing the cop, who towered over him, twice his size. The big man checked his watch, then turned to the small manager.

‘We’re leaving. But this isn’t over for you. If I hear or see anything suspect, anyone chasing us, any sirens, your family dies. Clear? Face the wall again.’

Wilema
n trembled and nodded, turning.

He pictured his wife and daughter in his mind, taped and gagged, some anonymous man threatening them, a gun in his hand, the w
orst of intentions on his mind.

‘But how-’ he started.

He stopped, and risked a quick scared glance over his shoulder, hoping to plead with the man.

But it was useless.

The cop was already gone.

Outside on the street, the guard called Ray was standing there in the sunshine, looking into the bank. He could see two of the cops there, but Mr Wileman wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Around him, the other employees
who were enjoying the unexpected break in the morning's work
and
the
handful of customers
who were still hoping to complete their business,
had
their backs turned to the bank and were
chatting with each other. But Ray wasn’t so relaxed. Something about the three cops wasn’t sitting right with him.
T
here was something about them, a coldness, that was trying to set off alarm bells in his mind.

Something just didn’t add up.

Through the glass, he saw the third cop reappear, and watched as the three of them walked towards the east exit, the opposite side
from
where they had entered,
but
no sign of Mr Wileman. The guard walked around the corner on Broadway and 40
th
and over to the doors to the building, waiting for them to exit. When they passed through the doors, he noticed none of them were carrying
anything
. Nothing to make him suspicious. They did however seem to be in a hurry, all three of them moving fast.

‘Everything OK, officers?’ he asked, as the
trio moved out into the street.

The lead cop nodded.

‘It’s just a maintenance issue,’ he said. ‘Ruptured pipe. We’re going to get back-up and call maintenance to come fix it. Stay here and keep everyone outside, sir. We’ll be back soon.’

Ray looked at the three of them, their faces expressionless, their eyes covered by the aviators. He nodded, satisfied, and watched as the three of them walked off swiftly down the street, headed towards Bryant Park and
6
th
Avenue
.

Watching them go, Ray thought for a moment then decided to go check on Mr Wileman and see if he could shed some light on the situation and an estimation of when it was likely be fixed. He wasn’t intruding, he was just doing his job. He pulled open the east entrance, moving through the golden lobby, and then moved left and pulled open the second door, wa
lking back into the Chase bank.

It was quiet, strangely so. He was so used to seeing the place full, but it was empty and silent, all the
activity outside on the street.

Mr Wileman
wasn’t around. No sign of him.

‘Sir?’ he called. ‘Sir?’

No response.

He walked through to the back, behin
d the teller desks.

He found him.

It was bizarre. He was standing there, facing the wall, like he was a kid who had been in trouble and put there as a punishment. He looked absurd. To his right, Ray saw the vault door was shut.

‘Are you OK, sir?’ Ray asked.

Wileman didn’t move. Ray moved forward and lightly touched his shoulder.

‘Sir?’

Wileman jerked around, and
looked at him. Ray was shocked.

The small man was pale, his eyes wide, and he seemed almost paralysed with fear.

‘Sir? Talk to me. What’s going o
n?’ he said.

Wileman went to
speak, but no words would come.

The only thing he did was flick his eyes to the left and look at the vault.

And Ray realised what had just happened.

The response was as fast as lightning.

Despite Mr Wileman’s sudden and unexplained panic and frantic protestations begging him to stop, Ray rushed back into the bank floor and pushed the silent alarm button on the teller station. The NYPD were there in less than a minute from
Times Square
, six cops in bulletproof vests bursting in through the East entrance, shotguns in their hands. Ray told them three cops had just held up the bank, and that they were somewhere in the area, headed towards Bryant Park. He couldn’t give any detailed descriptions, seeing as each had been disguised, but he confirmed the trio were two men and one woman. One of the cops who’d arrived made a call over the radio instantly and it was passed on straight away to the FBI Bank Robbery Task Fo
rce Office at 26
Federal
Plaza.