by Tom Barber
He walked over to the bed and lay down, thinking. Four escaped felons crossing state lines, killing cops and members of the public, then each man ending up here in Cleveland shooting up sections of downtown and what looked to him to be sabotaging a robbery. He corrected himself: three of them had been shooting and sabotaging. In those few moments he’d seen him rescuing the woman, Nicky Reyes hadn’t been carrying or firing a weap…
A knock on the door jolted him awake. Archer looked at the time and realized he’d fallen asleep for almost thirty minutes. With pistol in hand, he moved over and checked the peep hole to make sure it really was room service; after putting the gun out of sight and collecting the tray, he secured the door again.
As he started to eat a burger and fries, he found a paper map in the large Hotel Information folder on the desk and opened it. Devouring his lunch quickly, he located where the thieves had been ambushed by the Loughlins and Lupinetti, on that East Superior Avenue intersection. He remembered Richie’s comment; a prison breakout yesterday four hundred miles away, and this morning all four Gatlin fugitives show up at the same time during a robbery?
He was right. No way in hell was that a coincidence.
‘Reyes and O’Mara are from right here in the city,’ the SWAT commander told Richie and the chief deputy Marshal on a conference cell phone call, the leaders of the manhunt driving across town towards where the blue Chrysler Reyes had driven away in from the robbery had been discovered dumped outside the bodega on St Clair. The SWAT team were following in their truck, an APB out for the plates on the deli owner’s stolen car. ‘They’ll have friends, family, places they could hide out. They’ll know the streets, the ways in and out.’
‘Guy from the NYPD said Reyes has been in prison for almost twelve years,’ Richie replied, as Glick drove. ‘City’s changed in that time. And the girl’s got a bullet in her.’
‘They won’t hang around, instinct will be to get their asses out of town fast as they can,’ the chief Marshal reasoned. ‘Same for the two brothers and this former NYPD lieutenant.’
‘That’s where geography’s gonna help us,’ Richie said. ‘Lake Erie’s north between us and Canada, so to get around the water they gotta go east all the way to New York State or west into Michigan. Archer told me the Loughlins are from near Syracuse. They make it out of Ohio somehow, they’ve gotta be trying to head that way.’
‘What about south?’ the Marshal said.
‘They just ran from that direction, Chief. Like you said, right now, with all the heat on them, they’ll be working on instinct. That almost always steers people towards places they know.’
Behind the wheel of the Chevy Blazer they’d stolen after killing the couple in West Virginia last night, and stuck downtown with no way to get out in a street layout he and the brothers didn’t recognize, Lupinetti saw a roadblock in the distance on the road ahead and swore before pulling a sharp left.
‘The hell is this shit?’ Billy said from the back seat. ‘This is it?’ He was looking at the contents of the bag he’d retrieved from the street; the first of two the girl had taken from the truck, but the one she’d dropped. He’d shot out the lock on the safety deposit box with the Ruger revolver, but found another smaller one inside that looked to be made of titanium with a thick Granit padlock. ‘Thought there was millions on offer here, big brother. You couldn’t fit five thousand bucks into this thing.’
Lupinetti glanced back at the bag. ‘Must be worth something. If it was in a lockbox and the group back there chose to take it, outta everything else in that truck.’
‘I heard what the bitch said to Reyes,’ Brooks said, keeping his eyes on the road as Lupinetti cut down more streets, running them near what a sign said was the State Memorial Highway. ‘The take was worth millions in cash from this.’
‘So we get the wrong one?’ Billy asked.
‘Won’t know until we get that son’ bitch open.’ Brooks took the titanium inner lockbox from his brother and examined it. It was then he realized Billy had been holding it upside down, and he saw the initials K O’M were engraved on the front.
Behind the wheel, Lupinetti glanced over and saw him smile. ‘What?’
‘We might not be the only ones who came away with the wrong bag.’
TWENTY TWO
Four hundred miles south in Virginia, the Gatlin laundry truck used by the Loughlin brothers to break out of the federal prison was being held in the Jonesville PD impound, soon to be signed over to State investigators for analysis. Marquez had been permitted inside to take a look after providing her credentials and explaining why she was there. Her ID had been double-checked with New York and the Marshals Office before she was supplied with protective booties and gloves.
She’d been inside the back of the vehicle when Shepherd had called, telling her that according to Archer a major incident had just taken place in downtown Cleveland with all the members of the Gatlin Four involved. He went on to tell her about the heist, the shootout, and the current lockdown in large parts of the city. ‘Sam got caught up in it?’ she asked.
‘Why do you sound surprised?’
‘Yeah, I know. But is he OK?’
‘He’s good, but a couple of Cleveland Heights officers aren’t. Their bodies were found in an alleyway, stripped of uniforms, squad car missing. The Loughlin brothers were seen driving it at the shootout.’
After Shepherd told her the rest of what he currently knew and ended the call, Marquez switched her focus to Prez Rainey. ‘You held back details,’ she accused the incarcerated biker angrily on her next call as she jumped out of the laundry truck. His deal last night had been for her to call him at 1pm, but she’d jumped the gun by twenty four minutes and he’d answered. ‘You could’ve told me your celly was planning to help Kat pull off a robbery. Two more cops were murdered this morning. If we’d known what was coming, we might’ve been able to save their lives.’
‘Who killed them? The kid or the girl wouldn’t have.’
‘You so sure?’
‘I’d bet my life on it.’
She took a deep breath and started to pace. ‘It was the Loughlins. They were wearing the dead officers’ uniforms and driving their stolen squad car with Lupinetti acting as support. They killed all the thieves on the heist too, apart from Kat, but they still shot her.’
‘How bad?’ Rainey asked quickly.
‘Don’t know. She was alive last anyone saw her, but she might have bled out by now. People are dying here and you could’ve helped us stop this.’
‘That’s why the kid busted out.’
Marquez stopped walking around, standing in the sun. ‘What?’
‘Nicky didn’t break outta here to help the girl, Detective. He broke out to stop her.’
*
‘She’s planning to hit an armored truck?’ Prez asked, sitting on the bleachers in Gatlin’s fenced-in yard the previous Thursday afternoon. Almost a full forty eight hours before the robbery and just after Nicky’s face-to-face with Kat in the meeting hall. ‘Is she missing being in a prison cell?’
‘What I thought when she told me,’ Nicky answered, on the bench beside the biker and staring at the ground, knowing he couldn’t let the crushing anxiety he was feeling become apparent to anyone watching. You can’t show any weakness in this place, Prez had warned him all those years ago during his first twenty four hours inside. Wrap those feelings up, lock them in a box and save it for when you get out. The younger man had always heeded the advice.
‘She must be working with a crew?’ Prez said.
‘Five, including her. The truck is returning safe deposit boxes to a major bank.’
‘Which one?’
‘Morningstar, in Cleveland. A downtown branch has been having its vault reinforced. The boxes have been stored off-site for the last month. This weekend, they get taken back.’
‘How’d this crew know that?’
‘Paid for the schedule. She’s flying back to Ohio tonight and they’re hitting it Saturday mor
ning during the transfer.’
‘How’d she get involved?’
‘Other woman on the team is someone she met inside and now her roommate. She told her what they were planning and Kat got sucked in. There’s something she wants real bad in the truck.’
‘It’s worth this?’
‘It is to her. She told me to meet her in a town in Canada when I get out of here next week.’ He swore quietly.
‘You think they could pull it off?’
There was a pause, then Nicky looked up. ‘No. You’re right, she’s gonna end up back in a prison cell. You can’t attempt something like armed robbery then just hop across the border. And if someone dies, that’s aggravated murder. Gets you the death penalty back home.’
‘So why’s she taking the risk?’
Nicky kept his voice low and told him, not wanting to risk anyone else hearing. The biker considered what he’d just heard, then rose off the bench. ‘Call her right now before she’s in the air,’ he said, seeing one of the payphones in the yard was free. ‘No details, remember.’
Nicky went with him, as the bigger man kept an eye on their backs and they walked across the yard.
Kat had just arrived at the Tri-Cities regional airport on a bus when Nicky caught her on her cell. ‘Nick?’
‘You can’t pull this off,’ he told her flatly. ‘You’re gonna get killed or end up back you-know-where.’
‘What are you doing? Don’t they record calls?’
‘Listen to me,’ he said, not answering the question but also not giving any specifics away. ‘There’s no coming back from something like this. It’s gonna end badly.’
She closed her eyes, stepping off the bus and away from the other passengers. ‘I’m taking back what’s mine,’ she told him after a deep breath. ‘Don’t call me again. I won’t answer.’
‘Kat, please, just li-’
‘I’ll see you next week. Go where I said. I’ll be there.’
Prez glanced at Nicky as he swore before immediately trying her again. However, she remained true to her word and didn’t answer. After it rang through for the fifth time, Nicky gave up and walked away, the two men returning to their seat on the bleachers. ‘Turned off her phone. Said she won’t talk to me until it’s over.’
As Nicky thought about what Kat was planning, his eyes were drawn to two men wandering through the yard talking with each other. He knew both were convicted bank robbers who were doing thirteen years each after trying to take down a First Horizon somewhere in Tennessee. They’d almost got away with it, but now they were in here. And they were career thieves, not like Kat who was doing this out of desperation. He knew how badly she’d struggled for a long time and had seen her determination to keep fighting slowly fade to the point she’d now agreed to get involved in this crazy, risky planned heist. It was about as far as you could get from the kind of thing the old rational Katherine would do.
And there’d be no going back if she went ahead with it. He stared out at the yard, then up at the guard tower and the rolls of razor wire topping the fences.
‘I gotta get out of here, Prez,’ he said quietly. ‘I have to stop her. She’s not thinking straight.’
‘Neither are you. Don’t talk that kind of bullshit.’
‘I mean it.’
‘You’re done in six days. Twelve years of your life, paid in full in a place like this. You ready to restart the clock and do it all over again?’
‘Saturday’s a national holiday,’ Nicky continued, not seeming to listen. ‘They’re hitting this truck at an intersection with escape routes, but there’s gonna be police all over the city for Labor Day. Even if they pull this first part off, five wanted people can’t stay on the run together. They’ll be too easily identifiable once their faces hit the news so they’ll have to split up, then she’ll be by herself trying to get to the border. And that’s if the others don’t kill her to get her share.’
‘You know anyone else who could intervene and prevent this?’
He thought about it. ‘The old family maid. Used to work for Kat’s father when he was still alive.’
‘She’d care?’
‘She loved Kat. But I can’t get her involved, even if I wanted to. I haven’t spoken to her in years, and don’t have a clue where she is or how to reach her. She might not want anything to do with us either, after everything that’s happened.’
‘I could send up some of my guys.’
‘If Kat won’t listen to me, think she’ll listen to a couple of bikers from Atlanta who she’s never met?’
‘She’s a big girl, kid. She knows what she’s getting into.’
‘I don’t think she does. In her current state of mind? Her run of luck since her father died? She told me she feels like she’s got no other choice anymore. That kind of thinking makes people go all-in and do stupid things. You know that.’
‘What’s her take?’
‘Five million.’ He saw Prez’s reaction. ‘See why she’s jumping to hit the truck?’
‘And these other thieves won’t screw her for it?’
‘She and her roommate seem tight. I don’t think so. But who knows.’
‘You’re right. If she fails, she’ll be looking at 15-to-20 for armed robbery. More as it’ll be her second time inside. Or the needle if someone gets killed.’
Nicky nodded. ‘She promised the way they’re planning it no-one’s gonna get hurt. But if things always followed a script, none of us would be stuck in here.’
‘She gave you a lot with the COs standing around in the meeting hall.’
‘We started using a code a few years ago. I realized pretty early here the screws listen in on what we say to visitors.’
‘You try to break out before your release, they’ll throw you a load more years too,’ Prez said, returning to his original theme. ‘And if against everything you actually make it out, you’re gonna be spending the rest of your life hiding or back in a joint like this. The cops and feds will never stop until they catch you.’
‘I can keep ahead of them.’
‘Lot of people have thought that, kid. Almost all of them end up back inside or gunned down out on the road somewhere. You haven’t planned out a single lick of this and you got less than two days to do it. Get real. Your girl’s crazy thinking is catching on.’
‘Every man in here has thought about how he could break out and stay out. I’m no different.’ As he spoke, Prez saw the younger man’s focus switch to the fences; it was then the biker realized at the back of his mind he’d already started trying to think of ways to assist him. His celly was obviously becoming set on this, and Rainey knew he could either hinder or help.
‘Even if you somehow got out of C Block without being caught, the guys in the tower would see you trying to cut through the fence,’ he told Nicky. ‘If it was that easy to break free, tumbleweeds would be blowing through this place. And no point trying to bribe any of them to leave a door unlocked. You’d need a helluva lot to get them to help you. Even then, most wouldn’t.’
‘With what money anyway? I haven’t got two nickels to rub together.’
‘You could try and get transferred over to the labor camp. Less security out there. Your record’s good enough.’
‘The screws won’t bother. I’m down to less than a week left on my bid. What’s the point in moving me now?’
Prez shrugged. ‘I ain’t got many other ideas. Like you said, guys fantasize about breaking out of a place like this without getting caught. That’s where it stays, as fantasy. Shit ain’t possible.’
‘It’s been done before.’
‘Not from inside the main prison, and not planned in less than forty eight hours. Make that thirty six, if you’re gonna get outta here and make it to Cleveland in time to stop your girl. That’s an eight hour drive, not including roadblocks. And that’s assuming you can get your hands on a car.’ Like Nicky had tried with Kat, Prez was attempting to get him to see sense, but as he spoke he noticed his younger cellmate’s
keen gaze was focusing on something or someone.
Rainey turned to see what had caught his attention.
It was the two older Loughlin brothers. Brooks and Billy.
‘Been keeping an eye on those two for so long, I know when something’s up,’ Nicky said. ‘They haven’t been acting normal lately.’
‘Look pretty much the same to me. Big and ugly.’
‘They tend to hog space around the weights or walk around the yard, right?’ Prez saw what the younger man was talking about. Instead of being at one of the bench presses or squat racks lifting heavy barbells or dumbbells, he saw the two brothers were jogging together and had just stopped to catch their breath; as they watched, Brooks pulled a pencil stub from his sock and wrote something on a piece of paper in his hand. ‘Noticed three weeks ago they’ve started running. Guys that big aren’t built for cardio. Why suddenly change their habits?’
Prez saw what his cellmate was talking about. He hadn’t picked up on the adjustment in their behavior, but in hindsight realized the kid was right. ‘Looks like they’re building up their endurance.’
‘So why would they do that?’
A horn went and yard time ended, one of the inmates who’d been playing basketball with a load of others sinking a final lay-up before the ball bounced dead and rolled to the edge of the court. Guys at the weight pile racked barbells and dumped dumbbells down before pulling vests, t-shirts or jumpsuit tops back on as they went to get in line.
‘Not a lot of Gatlin inmates training for track meets right now,’ Nicky added as they both rose off the bleachers.
‘If they’re planning something, you think there’s a chance in hell they’ll let you in on it?’