by Lisa Harris
Several uniformed officers moved forward in order to control the scene, but chaos ensued. The smoke thickened. Someone pushed into her, almost knocking her over in their rush to exit the building.
She kept pushing the gurney down the sidewalk, knowing she needed to get Vincent to the ambulance, but also needing to be able to see where she was going.
The siren continued to blare, but the smoke was slowly clearing. Several of the hostages sat down on the sidewalk looking dazed. Several more were crying in a huddle to her right, including Grace, the girl she’d gotten the inhaler for. At least they were all alive. She headed toward the ambulance, her ears ringing from the noise.
This was their exit plan. They’d created enough chaos that they could slip out with the hostages. All they needed was distraction, and if they took off their masks and coats, the officers wouldn’t be able to tell who were the hostages and who were the hostage takers.
Which meant now they just had to slip into the crowd and disappear.
“Jonas?” She tried her comm as she started toward the edge of the perimeter.
Nothing. The signals were still being scrambled. There was still chaos outside the bank as she spun around and searched the vicinity. The gray haze still lingered in the air, making it hard to see very far.
“Madison?”
She blew out a sharp breath at the sound of his voice. Jonas.
“Are you still in the bank?” she asked, pressing a hand over the comm in her ear to block out some of the noise.
“I’ll check the interior then head out. They dumped their masks and coats. Do you see them? I wasn’t able to get a good look, but I know that one was wearing a baseball cap and black boots.”
“There’s too much commotion. I can’t see anything.” She scanned the area to see if anyone was rushing away from the scene.
“Did you notice inside that one of them was a woman?”
“Yeah,” Madison said. “I was thinking. . .what if it was Kira?”
A paramedic ran toward Vincent and her. “Hold on, Jonas,” Madison said. “I’ve got the injured guard here. He needs to get to the hospital.”
She left Vincent, then started searching the crowd. Most people would be running to the police. Their suspects would be running away. And like all the other cases, they would have a getaway car lined up. They couldn’t have gone that far. Not yet. She’d exited the bank before they had. They still had to slip through the cordoned-off area, and more than likely, Agent Osborne had already set up roadblocks for anyone leaving the vicinity.
“Madison,” Jonas spoke through his comm. “They have to be somewhere in this crowd.”
“I know, but their plan might just work. I don’t see them.”
“Get the car and bring it around to the west side of the bank and pick me up,” Jonas said. “They’re not going to stick around.”
“I’ll meet you there.”
“Deputy James?”
Madison turned around. Special Agent Osborne handed over the service weapon and badge she’d relinquished for the undercover operation.
“I heard your partner over the comm. What else can you give me?”
“We know that at least one of the suspects is a woman. We need to have roadblocks set up for their getaway car.”
“We’re setting one up at a ten-block radius as we speak.”
“We can’t be far behind them. I’m grabbing our vehicle and going to meet Jonas.”
“I want to know what he saw,” Osborne said. “I’ll get his gun and badge to him.”
She glanced at her watch as she ran to the car. The getaway vehicle would have had to be parked outside the initial perimeter around the bank. Far enough out that it didn’t look suspicious. Leaving the scene separately would make them look even less suspect. She pulled out her keys and unlocked the car. It was time to tighten the noose and put an end to this.
SIX
The air was still filled with smoke as Jonas stepped out of the bank and into the sunshine. Figures sat along the sidewalk, coughing and crying, while officers and paramedics tried to bring order to the chaos. The suspects had managed to find their way out, but they couldn’t be that far ahead of him. Despite the threat for those who had been left inside the bank to stay put, it had taken Jonas only seconds to realize that the plan had been for the suspects to leave with the hostages and then vanish into the crowd.
And so far they’d succeeded.
A uniformed officer approached him. “Sir, I need you to put your hands in the air and walk toward me slowly.”
“I’m not a paramedic.” He went to grab his badge, then remembered he’d left it with Osborne along with his service weapon.
“I have orders to check everyone.”
“He’s with the Marshals Service.” Special Agent Osborne ran up to them and handed Jonas his credentials and Glock. The officer moved to the next person as Osborne asked, “Can you ID the suspects?”
Jonas shook his head. “All I know is that they ditched their masks and jackets before heading out, but there was too much smoke to see their faces. It’s one woman, two men. I’m guessing they split up, but we need to search the surrounding neighborhood.”
“I’m working on that now as well as roadblocks farther out, but it’s going to take time.”
“Time is something we don’t have.”
Jonas pressed on his comm button as he rushed toward the side street behind the bank where he’d told Madison to pick him up. “Do you see them yet?” he asked.
“No. Not yet.”
While the smoke had dissipated farther from the scene, with no positive ID on the suspects, identifying them was going to be an issue. A misty rain started to fall as clouds moved in and covered up the sunshine. He started jogging west, where there were a number of side streets and the quickest escape to freeway access. He started going over the details of the last few minutes in his head. He’d seen the suspects’ backpacks still lined up on the wall as he exited the bank, which left him to assume they’d found a way to take the money with them. Ten thousand dollars in hundreds could easily fit into a pocket and would be extra incentive to escape without getting caught.
About a hundred yards down one of the side streets, he saw someone wearing a baseball cap, their head down. Jonas picked up his pace.
“I’ve got a possible suspect in my sights,” he said into his comm.
“Where are you?” Madison answered.
“Headed west on Downy Street.”
“I’m on my way now.”
“Osborne? Do you copy?”
Silence.
Jonas frowned. He must already be out of range.
Farther away from the bank the streets seemed eerily quiet. Movement to the right caught his eye. Two more figures emerged from an alley and were headed for a white van parked fifty feet in front of him.
Bingo.
He clicked on his comm again, hoping Madison could still hear him.
“I’ve got them in my sights,” he said. “Three suspects running toward a white van on Downy.”
“Roger that. I’m almost to your location.”
Jonas picked up his pace and closed in behind them, knowing that any backup wasn’t going to get there in time. “Stop where you are.” He raised his gun and shouted at the strangers. “US Marshal. Drop your weapons and put your hands in the air now.”
One of them spun and fired at Jonas. He ducked behind the engine block of a parked car, then took a double shot. The first one took out the back window. The second skimmed the back tire.
A crack of gunfire erupted from the van.
Jonas took a third shot. “Put your hands in the air now.”
His demands were answered by another round of gunfire. A woman exited the building to Jonas’s right, and he waved her back inside. Endangering innocent lives wasn’t an option.
He turned back in time to see the damaged van skidding away.
“Jonas, I’m driving up behind you,” Madison said.
�
��Be careful. Shots fired. I repeat. Shots fired.”
She pulled in behind the car he had been using as cover and he jumped into her vehicle, bracing his hand against the dashboard as Madison pulled away from the curb and floored it.
“Go, go, go. We can’t lose them,” he said.
“I don’t intend to.”
Madison flipped on the lights and sirens, then swerved around a truck that had pulled over on the narrow street.
He called in to dispatch. “This is Deputy US Marshal Jonas Quinn. We’re in pursuit of four suspects in connection with a series of recent robberies. Requesting backup immediately.”
“Roger that. Can you give me a description of the getaway vehicle?”
“White van with a shattered back window.” He leaned forward, then recited the number on the plate.
“I’m sending backup to your location now and tracking your cell phone.”
“Be advised that suspects are armed.”
“Roger that.”
Madison’s phone rang. He grabbed it off the console and answered. It was Michaels.
“I just got off the phone with the FBI,” their boss said. “They told me the hostages were let go, but our fugitives escaped.”
“I know. We have the four suspects in front of us. I just called dispatch for backup. You were my next call.”
“Where are they heading?”
“Looks like toward I-5, but your guess is as good as mine after that.”
“Were you able to make a positive ID of Ben Galvan?”
“Negative. I couldn’t get close enough to any of them without their masks on, but check video footage in the area,” Jonas said. “Maybe we can ID them that way.”
“I’m working with the FBI for access to the bank’s exterior security footage as well as cameras in the surrounding area. Be advised that there’s a wreck on the freeway south of your location.”
Jonas ended the call, frowning as he updated dispatch. Rush hour might be officially over, but in reality, it never really ended. The geography of Seattle, a city wedged between Puget Sound and Lake Washington, made it a natural bottleneck when going through downtown. There was simply no outlet for the heavy flow of traffic.
Madison pushed on the accelerator, then pulled in front of another car as she raced down the freeway, but the white van had managed to get three cars ahead of them. Jonas braced himself against the dashboard again. High-speed chases were always risky, but so was losing fugitives.
The heavy traffic gave them little room to get closer, but trying to force the other vehicle to stop at this point could endanger civilians. He glanced at Madison and caught the tension in her expression. Her hands tightened around the steering wheel as she worked to keep the van in sight with the near gridlocked conditions.
“He’s taking the next exit,” Jonas said.
She managed to maneuver her way across two lanes of cars and take the exit with only two cars between them. “They might be headed to Pier 52 where they could catch either the Bainbridge or Bremerton ferry.”
“Agreed. The tunnel entrance is nearby, but a roadblock at the exit would be easy to set up. Maybe they’re simply trying to lose us.”
“I don’t think so,” she said. “They’ve had an escape plan every step of the way. I don’t see why this would be any different.”
Jonas nodded. “And it fits the profile we discussed regarding what fuels them.”
“Exactly. They’ve played this all along like a strategy game, and their only way out of it is to ensure they stay one step ahead of the authorities.”
There were a few pedestrians on the sidewalk of the one-way street with its downtown buildings towering over them and Elliott Bay in the distance. The van, still two cars in front of them, ran a red light. A Cadillac on its way through the intersection slammed on the brakes, forcing Madison to swerve to the right to avoid getting hit. Their car fishtailed and jumped the curb.
Jonas’s body tensed as Madison checked both directions before pressing on the accelerator.
“They’re turning right,” he said.
“Keep your eye on them.”
She plowed through the intersection, then took the next turn.
“This doesn’t make sense.” He shook his head. “They’re heading away from the ferries.”
Jonas tried to swallow his frustration and drummed his fingers against the console. If it were him, he would have stayed on I-5 and tried to lose the tail in the traffic. From there he would head toward Portland, or across 90 to Mercer Island and Bellevue, toward the mountains. Instead, they were heading north again, toward the aquarium, Pike Place Market, and the Space Needle. Maybe their plan was to ditch the van. Maybe they were betting they could easily vanish.
Jonas blew out a sharp breath. Their anticipated morning raid had turned into a bust, but Ben Galvan was in that van. He was certain of it.
A second later, the white van disappeared.
“Jonas, they had to have turned.”
He leaned forward, checking every possible street, then caught the tail end of the van. He pointed. “There.”
“Where does that street go?” she asked.
“Toward the parking garage for Pike Place Market.”
Madison weaved her way through the traffic then followed. Seconds later, they were waiting for the yellow arm to let them into the garage. But by now the white van could be anywhere. Pike Place Market was one of the most popular destinations in Seattle. And it provided easy access to the bus system, light rail, and ferries.
“We could be looking at another hostage situation if we’re not careful,” Madison said, driving slowly through the garage.
“Yes, but they planned for this scenario. It would make more sense for them to get as far away as possible. They’re not going to want to take any more risks. My guess is they dump the van and have a second car waiting, or they take public transport out of here.”
But the problem was that there were too many exits. A few shoppers made their way to their car, a child’s squeal echoed across the garage. None of them had any idea what was going on around them. Jonas considered the situation as he surveyed the area. Law enforcement couldn’t just evacuate the building. That would only lead to panic and chaos. Neither could Jonas totally dismiss Madison’s concerns regarding the possibility of a hostage situation. But his gut told him their suspects would stay under the radar and simply disappear. And he intended to find them.
She kept driving past rows of cars.
A few shards of glass caught his attention.
“Stop.” He pulled open his door before she’d come to a complete halt. The white van with its shattered back window was parked beside an SUV.
He ran to the vehicle while she parked out of the way then started searching it, but it was empty. Nothing beyond some fast-food bags and a pile of clothes. No sign of their suspects. No sign of the money. They’d dumped the car and run.
He walked around to the other side of the vehicle, opened up the passenger door, then stopped.
There was a trail of fresh blood on the seat and floorboard.
One of them had been hit.
SEVEN
Madison quickly scanned the parking garage for movement. A family was getting into a car four spaces down, while another shopper, carrying half a dozen bags, hustled to her vehicle. All were oblivious to the potential danger. But the suspects had just been here, which meant they couldn’t be far. They needed to find a way to track down their fugitives without anyone innocent getting caught in the cross fire.
“There’s quite a bit of blood here,” Jonas said, heading toward her. “Enough that whoever was hit is going to need some kind of medical care.”
She walked toward the sky bridge that led to the entrance of the market, then stopped and knelt down. “There’s more blood here, Jonas.”
“Head to the market while I search the garage,” he said. “I’ll catch up with you.”
She nodded. “I’ll call Michaels.”
; Madison pulled out her phone.
“We found the van,” she said once Michaels had answered. “At least one person was hit during the shootout with Jonas. There’s fresh blood in the van and on the sky bridge at Pike Place Market. That’s where they parked. We followed them in and are checking the perimeter.”
“Good job. I was just able to confirm that the vehicle was stolen two days ago.”
She frowned. Of course.
“I’ll distribute Ben’s photo to market security so all their officers will be looking for him,” Michaels said. “But without positive IDs on the other three, except for the fact that one of them is injured, you’re going in blind.”
“What about footage outside the bank when they left?”
“I’ve got Piper, our new intern, going through it now, but so far the smoke has made it impossible to see much of anything. From what I’ve been told, it’s still a mess there as they try to interview hostages and witnesses.”
“Keep me updated,” she said, then disconnected the call.
Madison sprinted across the bridge that linked the parking garage to the market. To the south was the familiar view of the Bainbridge ferries and the Pier 57 Ferris wheel, but today she hardly saw it. There were a dozen ways out of the market. The suspects could have parked a second getaway car in the garage, or simply planned to run on foot. Close by was the metro bus route and the Link light rail station, and they weren’t far from the ferries.
Jonas ran up next to her, matching her stride. “There’s a good chance that they split up, but I think we need to start with the restrooms.”
“I was just thinking the same thing,” she said. “If one of them is hurt as bad as we think, they’re going to need to try and find a way to clean them up.”
The two marshals merged into the market, and just like Madison remembered, the crowded space was packed. While the famous market had originally opened over a century ago to provide Seattle with local produce, today it was a hot tourist attraction that had expanded to nine acres and brought in thousands of visitors a day. She and her mother had come here at least once a year while she was still alive. The multiple floors were full of farmers, craft artisans, and mom-and-pop businesses. Restaurants, artwork, and toys filled the space. In addition to all that, there were hundreds of apartments, and even a hotel and a theater, making it the perfect place for an escape. Finding fugitives in the middle of thousands of shoppers was going to be a nightmare.