Authors: Sid K
“Strangely
no,” the other policeman said and handed three bullets to the chief that had
come through their windshield, “I have never seen this caliber before, but
definitely not ATR rifle.”
“I
haven’t either,” the chief looked puzzled as he examined the bullets. “And I
had training to recognize different ammunitions. This must be a foreign
caliber.” Importing foreign arms and ammunition into Starfire Nation was
completely banned and thus considerably harder to procure. This must be a very
formidable syndicate, the chief thought.
“By
the way, there are three patrols cars behind the bank. They just radioed us,”
he said to the chief.
“I
told them to go there and watch the back window as the robbers may try to
dangle a rope ladder to escape,” police chief said, “Anyways, pass these
bullets around, see if anyone recognizes them, and someone get me a megaphone.”
The
policemen passed the bullets amongst themselves but none of them had seen the
caliber before. A megaphone was given to the chief. He looked up from behind
the car with the megaphone in his left hand and the pistol in his right,
pointing to the door.
“Bank
robbers, you are completely surrounded by the police,” he said. The megaphone
amplified his voice to a loud boom that could be heard even behind the bank.
“I have twenty policemen outside the front door and six behind the back window.
There is no other way out of the building. You can’t escape. Surrender or we
will shoot to kill.”
There
was no reply. Every ten minutes the police chief repeated himself till he
finally gave up after his fourth attempt.
“Looks
like we are going to have to storm them,” the chief said to his men.
“We
just got radioed from the station that there might be around ten to fifteen
hostages in there,” a policeman said. “About dozen people called into the
station saying someone they knew had gone in that bank this morning but had not
returned.”
“They
have left us with no choice,” the chief said. “One of them shot at our car,
must be at least one more inside cleaning the vault. If we rush in fast we
could surprise them.”
“I
am all for it,” another man said.
“We
practice this very scenario twice every year,” the police chief said. “You all
know what to do. Let’s implement the standard operating procedure recommended
for this situation.”
Three
police drivers started their cars and slowly brought them to the front pathway
leading to the door. Some policemen assembled behind the car that was the third
in the line while others clutched their guns behind nearby cars. The three cars
would drive up to the door while providing cover for the attackers. As soon as
the police chief gave the signal, the first car turned on the engine, bumped up
on the sidewalk and the driver hit the accelerator towards the bank door with
the second police car following close behind.
The
next instant complete bedlam broke out as a robber pushed open one side of the
glass door and opened fire at the first car forcing the driver to duck below
the dashboard. He lost his foothold on the accelerator when the car behind
slammed into his car’s bumper. The third car braked hard but still hit the
second one in the front. Two more robbers opened fire from the second floor
windows at the car train. The policemen had abandoned those cars to avoid
getting caught in the accidents. Now exposed in the open, they scrambled and
ran back to the cover of the patrol cars on the street. The policemen behind
the patrol cars opened fire on the front door and at the two second floor
windows, and some fired at the third floor windows for good measure. Glass
shattered everywhere: the bank door and windows glass, the police cars’
windshields, mirrors and windows, even some shop windows.
“Two
of our men were hit in the back with bullets,” one policeman said to the chief.
“One is seriously injured, other one just took two bullets in his side. Shall
we call an ambulance?”
“No
too risky for an ambulance here,” the chief said, “Put them in the back of a
patrol car and have them driven to the hospital right away.”
“We
will be down to sixteen then,” he replied.
“No
matter,” the chief said. “We can’t rush them in the face of multiple automatic
fire even if we had forty with us. We are just going to have to think of
another way.”
The
policeman said ‘yes sir’ and went to get the injured to the hospital.
The
chief looked at his magazine, he had fired four shots at the door when the
firefight had broken out. He reloaded four bullets into the magazine and put it
back into his pistol.
“What
are we going to do now?” a policeman asked him.
“There
must be four to five of them,” the chief said. “If three of them came out to
fire upon us, there must be at least one or two more inside cleaning out the
vault.”
“Our
bad luck,” the policeman said. “The warriors moved out of their headquarters
here just a while back otherwise they would have stormed this bank with ease.”
The
chief suddenly remembered about the incident of the big boiler that had blown
up about three weeks ago at the headquarters of the local warrior class that
was located just two blocks north of this bank. It was closed pending the
repair of the damages and installment of the new boiler, and the warriors had
temporarily relocated to a town two hours’ drive away.
But
when it was open there had been two hundred men with ATR automatic rifles on
round-the-clock duty there. They would have been here even before the police
and would have taken the bank back with massive force. There was no way this
bank would have located their monthly cash collection branch in a small town
with only fifty-nine police for the whole town if not for that fact of the
nearby district headquarters of the warrior class.
They
waited with bated breath for more than an hour. The robbers had occasionally
fired shots out of the window and the policemen retaliated, but now even that
had stopped. The area had been evacuated, and the shops and businesses nearby
had decided to call it the day. As the news spread around the town the
townsfolk stayed away. There was an eerie silence only interrupted by the
police chief issuing his routine warning over the megaphone and an occasional
side conversation amongst the excited, yet bored policemen.
Half
an hour passed when the bank door or whatever remained of it—just the metallic
handle, all the glass had been shattered—slowly was pushed out from the inside.
“Come
out with your hands up,” the police chief shouted and rest of the policemen
quickly straightened themselves to alert postures.
“Don’t
shoot. Don’t shoot,” a voice yelled from the inside. “We are not robbers, but
bank customers.”
A
crowd came outside in a panicky state, a couple of women were crying, holding
their hands up in the air or near their shoulders while shouting “don’t shoot”.
“Those
are the counter ladies,” the young policemen who had volunteered the bank’s
information earlier at the station walked up to the chief and informed him.
“And I recognize two bank clerks amongst them as well.”
“I
recognize that man,” another policeman said pointing to a bank customer coming
out, “That is my cousin’s friend.”
“You
can put your hands down,” the police chief said as the crowd walked to the
police barricade. The policemen were still aiming their rifles and shotguns at
them as they escorted them behind the cover of the police cars.
“Are
all of you bank’s personnel or customers?” the chief asked them.
“We
are.” An elderly man stepped forward. “I am the senior bookkeeper. The manager
was shot so I am highest in the rank at this branch. Our guard was shot, too.”
“The
robbers let you go just like that?” the chief asked with puzzlement. “Are there
any other hostages inside?”
“None,”
the senior bookkeeper replied, “They didn’t exactly let us go. All of them went
into the bank vault around half an hour ago and we didn’t hear any sounds
coming from it. So we decided to take the chance and walk out.”
“Are
these robbers fools?” a policeman asked.
“Maybe
they ran out the back?” another wondered.
“We
have three cars there,” the chief said. He walked to his car, took out his
radio speaker and said, “Boys in the back, did anyone come out of that window?”
“Nobody,”
a policeman replied.
“That
is strange,” the chief said, “They have holed themselves up in the vault? But
why?”
“Let’s
rush them,” someone suggested.
“Alright,”
the chief said, “now that the hostages are safe, just keep them here till we
verify their identities and get their statements. Now let us get those
bastards.”
A
minute later, twelve policemen rushed inside the bank. Their boots crunched the
broken glass as they entered the lobby and saw two dead bodies on the floor.
Then they slowly walked over to the back office where there was a big, steel
vault door on the left. It was closed, but not locked and they pushed it open
and then yelled for the robbers to surrender. They got no reply. They repeated
their warnings a few times then charged inside with their fingers on the
triggers. The vault was empty. Empty of money, empty of men.
“Take
a look chief,” one of them yelled for the police chief who was in the bank
lobby examining the dead bodies.
“Send
them to the morgue,” the chief said to a policeman next to him. “I am going
inside the vault.” He drew his pistol and walked in the vault and to his
amazement there was only his police force there, but no money and no robbers.
“Do
you think they are hiding in this building?” the chief asked. “Second or third
floors?”
“Unlikely,
the bank personnel said that those doors were locked and they haven’t been
broken,” one policeman replied. “But we will check anyhow.”
The
police spent the next fifteen minutes searching room by room on the second and
third floors but they found nobody and told as much to the chief who was still
in the vault. He started tapping the floor with his feet as he walked all over
the vault.
“I
doubt they went underground,” someone said. “Banks never build their branches
on the top of sewer or utility pipes for this very reason.”
“They
have to have gone somewhere,” the chief scoffed. “They did not disappear in the
thin air.” Suddenly he realized that he had tapped a hollow tile. He ordered
that tile to be dug out along with a few others nearby. His hunch was proven
right when they discovered a tunnel—small but spacious enough for a man to walk
through.
From
there on the Ironbridge town police quickly put two and two together and
discovered the details of the whole operation. The makeshift tunnel that the
bank robbers had dug went under the road behind the bank, under the next
building and came out one block over from the bank. The robbers had connected
the tunnel to a big sewer pipe on that road. The residents and storeowners
nearby informed the police that they had heard breaking noises every now and
then but had attributed it to the construction work happening nearby two blocks
to the south. The police estimated that it must have taken the robbers four to
six days to build this tunnel. They had also carried the bodies of the two dead
robbers back with them. The bank hostages could not provide any more
information than that the robbers looked foreign. Realizing the competence and
the capabilities of these bank robbers, the Ironbridge police chief decided to
kick the case over to the House of Police, the government department that
oversaw all the town police in the Starfire Nation. That House appointed its
own police teams to solve crime that was beyond a town police’s resources and
capabilities.
* * *
Somebody
else had also decided to contact the House of Police over this bank robbery.
Mr. Warwyk was a man in his early sixties, the owner and head manager of Warwyk
Savings Bank and an unofficial spokesman at times for the banking industry. He
was sitting in the garden in front of his sixty-room marble mansion located in
the most expensive part of the Eaststar city. There were a couple of small
tables and six chairs arranged, with a few pieces of silverware—that were
actually made of silver—and some food on the table. His wife and their
grandchildren had taken their supper with him just ten minutes ago and had gone
back inside the mansion. His grandchildren had been dropped off by his daughter
for the weekend, and wanted him to come play with them. As much as he would
have liked that, there was this very disturbing development that had to be
taken care of right away.
“Sir,
the newspaper that you wanted has arrived,” his personal assistant said and put
a newspaper on the table in front of him.
“Take
a seat while I read it,” Mr. Warwyk said picking up the paper. “I may have a task
for you afterwards.”