The Nick Lawrence Series

by Brian Shea

  “Jesus. That’s a big number,” Patterson interrupted, pausing only for a second before he made his exit. He added, “I’m going to leave you guys to it. Let me know if you need anything.” He said this and then demonstrated the classic technique of an administrator who realized the potential workload. He left it to the worker bees.

  “My boss said that you had some good video of the perp?” Nick asked.

  “Yes. Looks like our doer is a banger. The guy wasn’t thinking. He didn’t pull the mask over his face until he was only a few feet from the guards. The cameras picked up his face. The car he used was also visible on camera. It shouldn’t be too challenging to find this guy.” Darryl spoke, looking for the validation of his assessment from the FBI agents.

  “Izzy is going to be reviewing the video footage. She is our resident techie. Do you have the recordings or is it still on the bank’s server?” Nick’s brain was on autopilot, rapidly moving through his mental checklist.

  “I’ve got a digital copy of all the cameras from that day. I can give you a quick tutorial on how to use the program so that you can manipulate the settings and replay functions,” Darryl said, showing no resistance to working with Izzy. A sign of a professional investigator. He was able to put the case before pride and was on board with the Bureau support. Things always moved quicker when inter-agency friction was minimized.

  “Sounds good. Show me what you got,” Izzy chimed in.

  “I am going to need the list of witnesses. Have you conducted a thorough interview of the guards?” Nick asked in a non-confrontational tone.

  “The officers on scene took a statement from them. I can get you copies. They were not brought in for questioning, if that’s what you’re getting at. It was pretty much their version of the circumstance. No real interrogation was done.” Darryl said this with a hint of defensiveness in his voice. His response indicated that he had already ruled out the guards’ potential involvement.

  “I’m going to need to bring them in for a formal interview.” Nick shot a quick glance over at Izzy. She knew exactly what he was getting at. The guards needed to be interrogated to determine if they had any knowledge of the crime. An interview like that could not be done on the side of the road, amid the chaos of a crime scene.

  Darryl began banging away on the keyboard with his thick stubby fingers. The printer behind Nick came alive, spitting out several pages.

  “That’s the initial case report that includes the witness information. Pretty much everything we’ve done up to this point.” Darryl seemed nervous. Nick understood why. Nobody liked to have their work judged by someone else. Especially the FBI.

  Nick picked up the stack of papers, still warm from the printer, and began moving toward the hallway. He nodded at Izzy. She smiled back. It was her way of giving him the green light to go.

  “Thanks, Darryl. Izzy has my number if you need to reach me. I’m going to head out for a bit. Are you guys good?” This last question was said aloud but was directed at Izzy. She winked in response.

  Nicholas Lawrence stood outside of the front doors of the police department. He looked down at the GPS on his phone and punched the address of the bank into his maps app. He stared down at the phone in disbelief. He assumed it was an error. Nick looked up. He squinted his eyes against the mid-morning sun and realized that he could see the façade of the bank on the opposite side of the street, about an eighth of a mile down the road. This guy had some serious balls to pull off a robbery this close to a police department.

  Nick walked past his government vehicle and continued on foot in the direction of the bank. Time to find out if this robbery was as open and shut as Darryl thought.

  7

  Declan sat on the faded blue plastic Adirondack chair in his fenced-in backyard and slowly sipped a glass of wine. His girls danced around him in a manner that resembled a tribal ritual. His tribe. He put a smile on his face, but his mind was still reeling from the robbery. One day had passed since his crossover into the criminal world. But to Declan, it felt like an eternity. That invisible line of right and wrong disintegrated.

  He wondered what his children would think of him if they ever learned what he had done. Would they understand and see that it was all for them? He hoped the time would never come where he had to find out.

  There was no going back. Only forward. The Only Easy Day Was Yesterday. The words hung from a weathered sign in the courtyard where his SEAL physical training took place, affectionately known as The Grinder. The poured concrete surface left scars on its users. Both physically and mentally. That slogan had been drilled into his brain. That ethos etched into the core of his makeup.

  He replayed the op’s execution in his mind. An after-action review. This had been done after every operation and live-fire drill. Critical assessment of the good and the bad was a necessity. In the Teams, errors made were drilled until corrected. The body never forgot those lessons. Declan had learned long ago that there was no such thing as perfect. Find the flaw. Train the mistake. Learn the lesson.

  He was lost in thought. The noise from his children was distant. He melded into the formed plastic of the cheap lawn chair.

  “Daddy, look at me! I’m a cheetah,” Abigail, his seven-year-old, chanted as she circled him on all fours. Her words broke his trance. Abby’s hands slapped the ground and her feet sprung her forward, like the hunter-cat she now portrayed. Declan smiled. He shouldered an imaginary hunting rifle.

  “You better run. Wild Jack, the great and fearless hunter, is on the prowl!” Declan said in a horribly overacted Australian accent. He lurched forward and slowly began to stalk his prey.

  Abigail giggled with delight, running in the direction of her weather-beaten playscape. She spun and called to her five-year-old sister, Ripley. “Run! The hunter is coming!”

  The two girls screamed and darted around the yard in mock attempts to dodge the hunter’s aim. This game had been played out many times before and Declan knew his role. In the world of daddy-daughter theater, he would’ve received an Oscar.

  He put aside his mission review. He chose to embrace this moment with his daughters. He knew there would be time later to assess the success of his first armed robbery.

  Declan continued his backyard theatrics with his oldest two girls. He caught a glimpse of Laney. She sat on the swing with her feet dangling. The light breeze blew her long curls and gently rocked her. He couldn’t tell if she registered the things happening around her, but he held out hope that she was aware, even though she did not join in the play. Declan had comforted himself by believing that she derived some joy from being around it.

  Laney had not yet spoken a single word. To Declan and Val, her silence was louder than any screaming the other two girls could muster. And it took its toll on all of them in different ways.

  Later that evening, after the girls were bathed and stories had been read, Declan retreated to the living room to resume the process of evaluating his op and finding his mistakes. Every operation had them. He needed to know if his were big enough for anyone else to notice.

  He wrote nothing down. The details were tucked in his memory. He inhaled deeply as he began the process.

  The trick to any successful review was a true-to-fact, pull-no-punch kind of honesty. Egos and false bravado got in the way of many operators’ ability to improve. Declan had shed those roadblocks, leaving himself humbled to the premise that even the best could be better.

  After considerable contemplation, Declan had dissected the details of the armored truck operation. He had found three mistakes. The first occurred when he looped the block before entering the lot. That could have drawn suspicion, but after careful consideration, he felt this mistake was likely to have a minimal impact.

  Mistake number two. He threw the guards’ weapons in the truck. His goal was to eliminate any reason to seriously injure the guards. He had worried that if he didn’t secure the guns then one of them might try some type of stupid hero crap as he was walking away. Bullet ho
les in his car would make for some tough explaining later. Securing them in the truck came to him on the fly, but with the driver’s door open it seemed like a smart move. Plus, he had shut the door and knew that would have slowed down any attempt to follow. Kill two birds with one stone.

  He had thought it was a good idea, but looking back on it there was a downside. His “character” was supposed to be a street thug. What gang banger would pick up two guns and not take them?

  He wondered if the investigator would catch this anomaly when the video was reviewed. Declan decided that this mistake was not likely to connect him to the crime. The cops might even think the robber was a “good dude” because he showed restraint by not killing the guards or taking their guns.

  The third error in his operation came when Declan drove into Hartford. He had not gone far, driving only a quarter mile before he looped back to Wethersfield on a back road. He had pulled under a bridge. Selected because he’d found no visible surveillance camera system. The residential section did not begin their line of closely built houses until further down the road. Declan had timed it during his rehearsals and that it took twenty-seven seconds to park, exit and remove the fake license plates and decoy bumper stickers. In real time, it turned out to be less than twenty-one.

  After completing the quick task of removing the exterior camouflage from the Toyota he got back in the car. He removed the gray hooded sweatshirt and began the process of wiping off the bronzer. Declan used his wife’s make-up remover which returned his face, neck, and wrists to their regular complexion. The adhesive tattoos on his neck and wrist also came off with relative ease. During this brief time, a car drove by as he was cleaning off his neck. The driver, an older female with wire-rimmed glasses, looked at him a split second longer than he was comfortable with. Maybe she had just been lost in thought. Or worse, she might be the neighborhood busy-body, noting anything suspicious. Part of a citizen watch group. What did she see? A man cleaning his face. Would that draw her interest? The news would release a vehicle and suspect description, but he was unsure whether this woman would be able to put the two together. These unanswered questions left lots of potential for increased risk.

  Three mistakes. Declan closed his eyes and replayed the op again. Did he miss anything else?

  8

  “Okay. What’s the damage?” Nick asked with the bored resignation of someone who had seen how petty the yield on most of these robberies typically turned out to be, unlike the movie’s portrayal.

  “The total loss was $87,140. The reload canister was full at $60,000 and the rest came from the residual cash left in the machine’s container.” Janet, the bank manager, said this with a subtle panic in her voice. This reaction was indicative that this was probably her first robbery and although trained in proper protocol, she lacked the experience to be comfortable in her role under the circumstances.

  “That’s a bigger haul than most. I’ll need to set up times to meet with you and every one of your employees. That means all the bank employees, to include even ones that were not working on that day. I will need a list of workers that have been fired, transferred, or voluntarily resigned within the last year.” Nicholas knew what he needed, cutting right to the chase. His best bet was to get the manager working for him and to keep her busy enough so that she did not become overly nosy in his investigation.

  “I can do that. I will have it for you within the hour. Is there anything else you need right now?” Janet asked, seeming eager to help. Nick realized that this desire to assist the investigation stemmed from a sense of guilt. The pressure from senior bank managers asking questions of Janet’s protocols would feel like an accusation into a lack of foresight on her part. That somehow, she had left the bank unprepared for the robbery. This blame game was normal but completely misguided.

  “I’m good for right now. I will let you know if something comes to mind. I’m going to walk the bank’s exterior and take some pictures. I shouldn’t be too much of an interruption to your daily routine here at the bank,” Nick said, knowing that it was important to let people know what you were doing on a scene. It lowered anxiety.

  Nick stepped out of the bank’s sterile atmosphere into the brisk air. For as much as he missed his life in Texas, he definitely loved fall in New England. It was actually one of the only times that his coworkers didn’t have to listen to him complain about Connecticut.

  He moved about the parking lot stepping to different corners, looking at the bank from various angles. He always tried getting an idea of the potential witness’s points of view. Nick also needed to stand in the suspect’s exact spot to see things from his perspective. That was the challenge with law enforcement. Too much time spent thinking like a criminal and that line between right and wrong could become skewed. Nick knew the pitfalls but also understood its value as a necessary investigative tool.

  Nicholas Lawrence stood in the spot where the suspect had parked his vehicle. He looked out toward the ATM. This guy had a plan and this spot had a specific purpose. What was it? Nick noted that the parking space created the most direct approach to the armored car. A key factor in closing the distance to the guards quickly. It also provided an excellent angle to exit the parking lot during the getaway. This guy was smart.

  While Nick stood in the parking space used by the robber, he heard the chirp of a police siren, directing his attention back to the headquarters located a quarter mile down the road. This guy was really smart. From his current vantage point, Nick saw that he had a visual of the police station. The robber would have been able to simultaneously monitor both the armored truck and the police response. He was impressed but equally concerned. Either this bad guy had some amazing luck, or it was meticulously planned. Nick didn’t believe in luck. Especially because recent life events had left him feeling as though all of his had run out.

  “Anything?” Nick had called Izzy, looking for an update.

  “It’s like watching a Jon Woo movie. This guy moves like a ninja.” Izzy sounded impressed. Nick aware that this was not easily accomplished.

  “You sound starstruck Izzy. I’ve never heard you so giddy,” Nick said, chiding her.

  “Well, I haven’t seen someone move like this except in the movies. At first, I thought something was wrong with the replay function. Like it was stuck on fast forward. When I realized that it was set to the normal play speed I was shocked,” Izzy said, trying to conceal the level of her enthusiasm.

  “When we catch him, I will get him to autograph his booking photo for you. Hell, maybe I can set up a conjugal visit.” Nick shook his head as he spoke, realizing that he sounded like a jealous boyfriend.

  “Beyond his amazing superhero-like moves, was there anything else that stood out to you?” Nick’s mind was back on task.

  “It took me a few times to catch it, but the bad guy, who I have nicknamed Flash.” Izzy paused. She giggled like a school girl and then continued, “I noticed that he pulled something from his left pocket as he was pulling the gun. Flash fired the gun next to the guard’s head. He managed to strike him on the opposite side of his head with the object while the gun went off. This blow to the temple seems to be what dropped the guard.”

  “The initial police report stated that the gun went off when the suspect had pistol-whipped the guard. So, I’m assuming that the video was not reviewed by police at the time the report was written?” Nick asked, seeking clarification.

  “That’s what I have been trying to tell you. They had reviewed the video. Flash moved so damn quickly that even I didn’t catch his left hand’s movement. Not until I had slowed the footage down and watched it several times.” Izzy was starting to show a trace of excitement again.

  “Good stuff Izzy. I will be back in a bit. I’ve got the bank manager gathering up the usual employee files. Any luck in getting a good image of the license plate?”

  “Actually yes. It’s a New Jersey plate and I ran it through the system. Comes back to a rental company out of Middletown. Same make and
model. Looks like Flash screwed up. I already have a call into the business to get the renter’s information. I’ll let you know when I hear back,” Izzy said, her confidence evident, developed over her many years of investigations.

  “Keep me posted.”

  Nick clicked the phone off and began photographing the scene using his small Fujifilm X100F. He knew that the Bureau would send their crime scene techs out if Nick requested, but at this stage of the investigation, he did not feel this was needed.

  Nick knew that initial crime scene photos had been taken. It was noted in the police report that Darryl had given him. He was sure that the photos would be adequate by investigative standards, but he was equally sure that these images would be relatively useless to his investigation. Nick had found it extremely important to take pictures or video from the perspective of the suspect. Nick liked having his own photos to support whatever theory he developed. He found it always better to do it himself. And this is what he did.

  Nick began taking the series of photographs from the exit point of the suspect’s car. He took three photos from that spot. The overlap of the pictures would give him a 180-degree visual range. Nick progressed forward, snapping three more pictures every four steps that he took. He continued this methodical process until he stood at the point where the two guards were subdued. Then Nick repeated the process as he walked back toward the suspect’s parking space.

  Nick was good at what he did, yielding arrests in cases deemed by other investigators to be unsolvable. Hopefully this time it would be good enough, because after his conversation with Izzy he got a feeling that he was dealing with a pro. Even pros made mistakes. It was his job to find and exploit them.

  9

  So, the FBI has come to Wethersfield? They would have come in a few days anyway, Khaled thought, as he sat on the bus bench across from the Clover Leaf Bank. A newspaper folded on his lap and coffee in hand. He watched the agent inside the bank as he took a sip of the hot liquid. American coffee was weak compared to what his taste buds were accustomed to, but he made do. Diluted coffee was a minor price to pay for this opportunity.