CHAPTER 1:
RIAN'S POV
The building was relatively quiet, soft voices, and the sound of typing permeating the warm stillness of the air. I pulled my hair so it fell over my left shoulder and pooled on the counter I was currently leaning over. I frowned as my dark red hair, once again interfered with the deposit slip I was writing on. I reached into my jeans pocket, hoping to find... bingo. my hand wrapped around a hair-tie and I used it to quickly pull my hair back away from my face
I need to get my hair cut.
Between thinking about when would be a good time to cut it, and fidgeting with it, I managed to fill out the deposit slip, glancing at my paycheck and smiling. I loved teaching and even though I had to put up with hormonal teenage males all day the paycheck certainly made up for it.
I placed the chained pen back on the counter and made my way to the tellers. Thank god the lines were non-existent today.
"Hello. How can I help you?" A young man smiled at me from behind the counter.
"Hi. I'd like to make a deposit please."
I handed over my check and the slip.
"One moment please." He smiled and started typing on his computer. I looked around the bank's lobby; there was hardly anyone here. A woman and her young son stood at one of the counters, a few meters away from where I had been standing, the woman writing frantically on some piece of paper while trying to keep her son by her side. An old man stood at the counter next to me, waiting for his helper to return from wherever they had gone. I heard the doors open and turned to look and my heart stopped. It wasn't the fact that he was a man, or that he must've been close to 6 and a half feet, no. It was the semi-automatic machine gun he had aimed at the ceiling.
Oh shit.
"EVERYONE GET DOWN ON THE GROUND!"
His left hand fired off some bullets, causing some lights to shatter and glass to rain down on him, while his right hand pulled a handgun from the arsenal he had strapped to his chest and pointed it at us.
I knelt quickly, "ALL THE WAY!" He placed a gun to my head. Forcing me to lie on my stomach. Amid the noises of people crawling I heard a buzzing noise and a very loud click, almost as if... I turned my head to look at the bank doors. The little lights above them that had been a bright emerald green were turning red one by one, each with a little buzz and a click.
Damn it. I saw his shoes move away from me, squeaking on the tile floor. He moved down the line, ordering everyone to the ground before going after the tellers who he ordered around to the front of the lobby with the rest of us. I looked around there must have been 8 of us. 5 tellers and three customers, including me.
"Are you okay?" I asked the old man who was lying on my right, simultaneously pulling my phone from my pocket. Typing as fast as I could I typed out:
1 HT, hs outside hlp,
He must've seen my phone because the next thing I knew a shoe landed squarely on the screen, smashing it, and my hands into the ground. I grimaced in pain as his weight crushed my hands. I dropped the phone and tried to remove my hands from under the shoe. I avoided looking at him, but I could tell he was glaring at me from behind the mask. Once the pressure lifted from my hands I clutched them closer to me, rubbing them as if I could rub the pain away. All I could do was hope that the text got through as I stared at the shattered screen of my phone, lying dark and dead on the floor
Shit.
"Slide all your electronics towards me." he instructed.
There were rasping noises as the cases and backs of said electronics were pushed out towards him. One by one he went around, stamping on each one until he was surrounded by crackled glass and useless electronics.
I could hear him moving farther away, behind the teller stations. I looked up, seeing if we could make a run for it. He was shoving cash from the tills into a duffel bag and mumbling under his breath, as though talking himself into or out of something. He still had his semi-automatic in the air. He hadn't killed anyone yet, but I had the sneaking suspicion that he would if we tested him. He moved back around to the main part of the lobby, waving the semi-automatic at us.
"Okay UP! EVERYBODY GET UP."
We all stood up cautiously,but quickly, slightly bent over at the waist, as if bending over made us slightly less visible as none of us wanted to get shot by the crazy madman waving a semi-automatic around. I helped the elderly gentlemen next to me to his feet; his breathing was labored and he had some difficulty catching his breath. The gunman herded us towards a room just off the main lobby. A room that was inhabited by what looked like the rest of the bank staff and any other persons who had been in the building.
"SIT DOWN! NO TALKING!"
Most of us sat on the floor, but I offered an available seat to the elderly man, "Thank you." He rasped out. I offered him a small smile before taking a spot on the floor next to him
I raised my head, trying to get a clearer look at him. I was met with the barrel of a gun.
"Keep. Your. Head. Down."
I lowered my head, straining my ears, listening for anything at all.
"Plea-"
"BE QUIET!"
The only sound besides the squeak of the man's shoes was the sound of terrified breathing.
There were 6 other attempts to talk to him.Each was shot down immediately and loudly. What was he waiting for? He could have gotten away with the money."
He didn't talk to us, or utter any other commands. He simply paced the room, hands on his vest having a mumbled discussion with himself
My eyes flitted around the room as the gunman paced back and forth in the hallway outside. There was a CCTV camera in the corner, a red light blinking away at us. Then a voice over a loud speaker shattered the silence the man had tried so hard to keep.
"This is the Strategic Response Unit. Can we please talk to whoever is in charge?" I recognized the voice and a feeling of relief swept over me. Sergeant Parker would get us out.
The old man's breathing was getting worse.
"What's your name?" I whispered
"John Raynolds." He replied
"I know the people handling this. Don't worry."
"Thank you dear."
"Can you try to take bigger breaths?"I whispered, worried about the possibility of him having a heart attack.
I glanced up at the man, his brown hair contrasting with his black clothing. Something was off. I couldn't place my finger on it, but after listening to my brother talk about all the cases he had worked on, I had some knowledge about hostage situations.
"You can talk to me." The man replied, his voice was shaky and choppy.
"Well we want to do everything we can to take sure everyone can leave safely."
"I agree,"
I frowned at that. What the hell was up with this guy
"Can you tell us what you want? What we can do to help everyone get out of here."
"I want... A car to... the airport. You have... one hour."
"Okay, but my bosses won't give me anything, unless you give me some hostages."
"No."
"You have 12 in there why don't you whittle it down to seven, and just give us five?"
"Fine."
My eyebrows shot up at that. No HT agrees to terms that quickly. Something was wrong.
"You five... and the old man. Leave. NOW!"
They stood there for a second, before practically sprinting out of the door. One woman helped John out the door. A minute later I heard an ambulance speed away. Everything about this was wrong; the hairs on the back of my neck started to tingle, as if someone was watching me. I turned my head, staring at the security camera blinking away at us.
"You now have.... 30 minutes to get me the car....and ....if you make one wrong move..."
He grabbed me by the arm, pulling me up and putting his handgun to my temple "She dies."
The gun shook against my temple.
"Can you put down the gun please? You will get your car."
"Is.. Is this because this girl... is valuable?"
His speech patterns were getting weirder.
"She's just as valuable as any other life."
"You are... wrong... Sergeant Parker."
"How am I wrong Michael?"
"How do you know my name?" There were no pauses or inconsistencies this time, and he sounded terrified. I felt the guy, Michael, stiffen, his hand shaking even more. He whispered to himself, "They know my name. They know my name! This is too far."
I knew better than to say something, Parker ws trying to establish a relationship and interrupting might set him off.
"This is... Rian Azamoz... Azarov... Rian Azarov."
HOW THE FUCK DID THIS GUY KNOW MY NAME?
"Don't... play games... you can't win Parker"
"We just want everyone out safely Michael, even you."
"... Then get me a car... Your deadline is closing. Only 15 minutes left."
Michael let go of me, almost pushing me down and away from him. I sat back down on the floor, the remaining 6 hostages who were all trying not to stare at me, but completely failing.
Sergeant Parker tried to get Michael to talk again, but Michael never responded. It seemed as though he was listening to something else entirely. Finally he paused and mumbled to himself, as if having a moral dilemma, before walking towards me.
"Come with me... please." He whispered the last part in my ear after I had stood up.
We shuffled out to the front of the bank, the gun still raised.
We were met by 4 SRU bulletproof shields, hiding the officers who currently had their weapons pointed at us.
Greg Parker stepped out from behind the shield, "put the gun down Michael."
"I can't"
"What is holding that gun to her head going to do?"
"Keep you back"
Greg placed his hand to his ear, pressing the earpiece I knew was there more snugly into his ear.
You're clear Michael. He's not listening or watching anymore.
"No, you don't understand."
"We do. we've blocked all cell signals into and out of this building."
Tentatively Michael released me, stepping away towards Greg, only to meet a man in bombsuit. I barely registered the hulking green suit guiding Michael to a corner of the building
With no one holding me anymore my legs kind of crumpled and I fell to the floor. In an instant, Jules Callaghan had a blanket wrapped around me.
I looked up at my best friend.
"Jules. What the hell just happened?"
JULES' POV
"Hot Call Team One." Winnie called over the intercom.
Ed slammed his pen down "Thank god! I hate paperwork."
We all just rolled our eyes at him, before making our way to the locker rooms to grab our supplies., I was packing the small explosives and extra ammo when my cell phone beeped. I filed the beep in the back of my mind, promising myself that I would check it once we were loaded and on our way.
4 minutes later we were loading everything into the SUV's. Sam and I in one, Boss, Spike in another, and Leah and Ed in the third. With Sam driving I pulled my cell phone out, staring at the text from my best friend
Rian: 1 HT, hs outside hlp.
What?
I put it away, shaking my head. My best friend was one weird lady
Soon we were speeding away to a TD bank branch, listening as Sgt. Greg Parker, our boss read out the specs of the case.
"So there was a call of a bank robbery, an unknown number of hostages..."
"Shit." I said too loudly.
"What's wrong Jules?" I turned to look at Sam, who was driving.
"I got a text from Rian. It said 1 HT, outside help. She was going to deposit her paycheck today."
"Damn it. Is Rian in there?" Ed asked over the headsets as the SUV he was driving cut in front of the one Sam and I were in.
"I have no idea." I said, trying to contain my worry. Instantly the tension over the comms escalated immensely. Rian was part of the SRU family. If anything happened to her...
"Spike can you try to get into the CCTV's?" Parker's voice pulled me back into reality.
"Yeah Boss."
"Okay, Jules you're my second, Spike; CCTV's , Ed, Sam and Leah you're with me. There's no way we can get sniper's around the bank."
I spoke up, "what did the caller say about the HT?"
"Not much," Parker responded, "she should be still on the scene so-"
"-I'll talk to her," I cut in, interrupting. "What was her name?"
"Holly Manning."
The ride to the bank branch was pretty short and soon we were setting up the command center from the truck.
Over the comms I could hear Parker talking to the first responders outside, getting every bit of information they had, but I was interviewing the one bank personnel who had made it out of the bank.
Holly Manning was a gorgeous willowy blonde banker, whose 4 inch heels brought her to around 6 feet high. She seemed genuinely worried for everyone else in the bank. She kept twisting her hands and jewelry anxiously as she attempted to answer my questions.
"Did you see who had the gun?"
"I think it was a man, but I saw him through I window, I was in the printing room, and I heard the gunshots and snuck out the back door. But the weird thing was. I heard the door lock, they make this annoying buzzing sound, but it was so fast. I just thought it was off. But there's no way that you can lock the doors that fast. They're designed that way. You need the password and the manager's computer and he hadn't been into the manager's office yet."
"Do you know how many people were inside the bank today?"
"Total? Maybe 10? 13? I'm not sure, I'm sorry."
"Did you see what kind of gun he was carrying?"
"It looked slightly like those machine guns the bad guys use in movies. Big, black, with the shoulder strap."
"Okay, thanks. I'd appreciate your help identifying your coworkers."
"Absolutely, I'll help any way I can."
I showed her to the truck and she stepped inside.
"This is Constable Scarlatti." I said, pointing at Spike, who was typing furiously on the laptop trying to hack into the CCTV system. "Once we have the CCTV feed we will need you to identify everyone you can."
"Absolutely, thank you constable." She said as I walked away.
"Boss?"
"Go Jules."
"So I got an employee, Holly Manning who made it out. Says she thinks there was just one but he managed to lock the doors which requires a certain password and access to the manager's computer. Given her timeline, there's no way the HT could've done all that. He must have outside help, a hacker? Someone at the bank? Maybe that's what Rian meant."
"We don't even know if Rian is in there."
"Not yet. Sorry boss. I just have this feeling, and it's not a good one."
"Never apologize for your gut feeling Jules, unless it's without a doubt wrong."
"Yes Boss."
I interviewed more first responders, while half listening to Ed, Sam, and Leah talk about entry points.
"Boss was right we can't use snipers," Ed was saying, "The bank has that huge awning, and it blocks all access from anywhere besides another 1st story. We'll have to be on the ground. There's three exits on the blueprints, the main one, the back one near the loading dock, and the fire exit which is right here."
"Boss?" Spike said over the comm. "I got eyes and ears. I reversed the phone lines." My breath caught in my throat as I waited for the following words, "and I have eyes on Rian."
"Go ahead Spike" All of us were listening to him as he narrated what he was seeing. I attempted to weave through all the personnel standing outside and make it back to the truck as I listened.
"Okay we have 12 hostages, Holly here says that eight of them are employees, including the manager and assistant manager and four of them are customers, including Rian."
"Dammit." Ed cursed through his comm.
"But guys that's not the only thing. Hacking this should've taken at least half an hour, but I did it in 15 minutes."
"No need to brag Sp-"
"I'm not bragging" Spike said, interrupting Ed, "Someone hacked them first, and I just followed them in."
"Are they still watching? My money's on yes because I'm getting some kind of interference with the phones and video."
"But just one HT?" Sarge asked.
"Just one on the premises."
"Okay, so what exactly did Rian's text say Jules."
"Umm.." I pulled it up again, stopping under a tent, farther away from the noisiness that the scene was becoming.. "1 HT, and then something that looks like has outside help."
"GOT IT!" Spike exclaimed. "I was right, there's someone else watching this besides us, they're uploading the video to a public website."
"Spik-"
"I'm on it Boss, trying to track the website. I also uploaded footage to Winnie for identification"
"Okay team, I'm going in."
I blocked Sarge out as he began negotiations.
A few seconds later the entire team was on edge. His speech sounded forced, much more forced than it should be. He was behaving so unlike any HT we'd ever dealt with before.
"Jules?"
"Yeah Sarge?"
"Are you hearing this guys?"
"The HT?"
"Yeah Jules.
"Yeah, his speech pattern is off,"
"I may have the answer to why, but I want someone to double check me,"
"What is it Spike?"
" Something weird."
"I got this, Sarge." I said closing the distance between me and the truck in a matter of seconds.
"Spike?" I asked, entering the bright interior of the truck.
He gestured over his shoulder, eyes never leaving the computer as he continued to work his magic. I stood behind him, staring at the monitor.
"Okay, look at his ear."
"His what?"
"His ear."
"Spike it's too small for me to say anything besides that it looks like an ear."
"Hold on I'll magnify it."
A few keystrokes later and the two of us were staring at a frozen image of the gunman's ear as Parker began negotiations
"Boss?"
"Yeah?"
"Spike was right."
"So what does that mean?.."
"He's being fed what to say, that's why his speech patterns are off." Spike said, still typing viciously on the laptop
"How do you know Spike?"
Spike was quiet for a few moments, and in the silence another voice popped up.
"Sergeant Parker?" Winnie asked over the headsets.
"Hey Winnie, did you get an identification?"
"Yes I sent it to your pads, but here's the short version. His name is Michael Gambon and he is a 45 year old construction worker. At 26 he dropped out of the police academy to take care of his mother who died a few year later from brain cancer."
"Anything that points to why he's doing this?"
"Nothing, he's not a rich man, but he's not in debt, he has a good job and a family."
Spike was still typing vigorously, but he stopped abruptly and leaned back in the chair.
"That interference I was getting? It's a signal, and Jules and I think we're seeing one of those flesh-colored ear-comms."
"There's something else though." Parker mused
"Do you think he's under duress?"
"We'll look at the surveillance and try to find something Boss" Spike answered.
Both of us trained our eyes on the HT, but it wasn't until he drew a gun from the small armory he was carrying on his vest when I realized something.
"Spike, are you seeing his vest?"
"You mean the arsenal? Yeah."
"No the arsenal is on top of it. Look at the distance rest of it is away from his body. That's at least three of four inches.
"What are you thinking?"
"Maybe he's hiding some--"
We saw it at the same time. The HT had turned around, giving us the first good look at his left side. He had lifted his arm to rub his head, and that's when we saw it. It was a small wire and a blinking light.
"No." I whispered as Spike face twisted into a frown.
"Boss?" Spike called over the comms, "Jules and I think he's strapped to a bomb."
"Shit. Winnie? Call the bomb squad." Ed ordered
"Yes Sir" she responded quickly.
"Okay. Well, we have to assume he's being watched."
"We KNOW he's being watched." Spike clarified.
"Can you tell us what you want? What we can do to help everyone get out of here." Parker said to the HT.
"Spike. Is there any way we can alter the video feed, make whoever's watching look at something else?"
"I can work on that. Give me a minute. I'm going to try to block the signal."
Over the comms I heard Sergeant Parker negotiate for some of the hostages.
"I'm almost there..." Spike muttered.
"He's escalating!" Ed said over the mic.
I glanced down at the screen to see the HT holding a shaking gun at my best friend's head.
"Dammit!" Sam said over the comms. "No solution. Ed?"
"I don't have one either."
"Spike! We need that signal jammed."
"I'm working as fast as I can."
We listened as the Sarge tried to get the HT to lower the gun he was currently holding to Rian's head
"Can you put down the gun please? You will get your car."
"Is.. Is this because this girl... is valuable?"
The watcher was interested in Rian?
"She's just as valuable as any other life." Parker responded
"You are... wrong... Sergeant Parker."
"How am I wrong Michael?"
"This is... Rian Azamoz... Azarov... Rian Azarov."
"Guys, how does he know her name?" I asked
"No idea," Spike's voice was worried
We heard a truck pull up outside and someone stepping inside.
"Team 1 I presume?" a voice asked.
"Yeah, Jules Callaghan bomb squad?" I asked, turning around and shaking the man's proffered hand.
"Yeah David Franks. What do we have?"
I ushered him over to the monitor, pointing out what we knew, or what we thought we knew as Parker continued negotiations.
"Don't... play games... you can't win Parker" the HT responded
"We just want everyone out safely Michael, even you."
"... Then get me a car... Your deadline is closing. Only 15 minutes left."
He and Rian started moving towards the front of the bank.
"Franks, do you have a signal jammer?" Spike asked, still typing
"Yeah, one of my guys is already working it."
"Okay, tell him to turn it up as high as he can."
"He's on the move." I said, the movement catching my eye on the CCTV. I watched as they walked to the front of the bank.
"I have a man suiting up, he'll be ready when you need him," Franks said, stepping outside
"Solution?"
"Not yet." Ed said.
"I have a solution." Sam responded
"Wait for my signal. Spike?"
"Almost there.... GOT IT! Okay, watcher's eyes and ears are down, and all cell phones and signals have been blocked."
I saw the bomb squad carefully defusing Michael's vest, but I was sprinting to get to Rian.
She was in a heap on the ground, her hands shaking and her eyes were wide as she looked up at me. I wrapped a blanket around her and hugged her.
"Jules." Her voice was shaking. "What the hell just happened?"