The School of Turin

by Dale Nelson

  A bank patron walking out saw him and immediately recognized this for what it was. She screamed. Jack raised his pistol but did not fire, he shouted for everyone’s attention in Italian. The Serbians fanned out behind him in a coordinated dance of menace.

  Jack explained the obvious.

  Don’t be stupid. We don’t care about you, we only care about the vault.

  He felt sick.

  He watched as the Panthers moved out in a practiced semicircle, enveloping everyone, herding them into a controlled center. There was one security guard dressed in a lazy uniform, who was on the ground and zip-tied within seconds.

  Jack asked for the bank manager.

  There were three teller windows on the back wall behind reinforced glass and a giant, decorative bronze plate designed to look like an arch over each window.

  Radas and Maksim made it clear that someone would be shot if they didn’t come out. They offered no resistance.

  Jack assumed one of them hit a silent alarm already.

  They had minutes.

  Curko went to the front door and placed a small charge on the frame. He then attached a trip wire to the door, which he secured with putty. He stepped back and flashed a thumbs-up to the others.

  Jack informed everyone in the lobby what would happen if someone tried to escape. He also knew that meant he couldn’t go anywhere because he had to make sure no one came in. Smart move on the Serbians’ part.

  There was no bravado, no bravery on the part of the bank employees. Dane located the bank manager in the farthest of the bank’s three windowed offices on the right side of the lobby and pulled him out. Jack listened as the two of them went through a list of languages that they could communicate in, finally settling on English. Jack wasn’t sure if the manager actually spoke the language, instead of just recognizing certain words, but he certainly spoke “gun in the face.”

  Most of the bank patrons were on the floor now in the central area between the table and the teller windows. The tellers were out there as well. Hands were on heads, and everyone was lying face down on the floor. Jack stood with his back to the right side of the bank, the row of offices that had been cleared out, so that he could keep a view on the hostages and the door without having to turn his back on either one.

  Dane looked back at Jack. He had a loose hand on the bank manager’s shoulder and held his weapon, cross-body, in the other with the muzzle pressed against the hostage’s ribcage. “See you around,” Dane said.

  Jack said nothing.

  Dane nodded, and they disappeared down the hall.

  Jack scanned the room for movement and then looked to the door, astonished and sickened at how quickly this happened. The word “hostage” kept repeating over and over in his mind.

  Jack looked to the door. So far, so good there. That’s when he saw a blur of motion out of the corner of his eye. He turned and brought the pistol up. A man wearing an expensive suit quickly rose to stand, his actions were fluid and resolute. He knew exactly what he was doing. In the same motion, he pulled a pistol from a shoulder holster.

  This explained the half-assed guard in the sloppy uniform.

  The suit was the bank’s real security.

  He’d answer to the actual owners, not to some rent-a-cop factory, and certainly not to the local police.

  He also wouldn’t be concerned about leaving a body.

  Jack leveled his pistol at the mafia guard by a half-second. “Don’t do it,” Jack said in English without thinking. The message got a across, regardless of the language, but he repeated himself in Italian. “Don’t be stupid. Put your gun down, and we’ll all walk away.”

  The man looked to be in his mid to late forties. They wouldn’t trust this to some unproven punk. He was well-dressed, even for an Italian, which suggested he was well-paid. This told Jack that he was competent, trusted, and a professional. He was about Jack’s height, if not slightly shorter. He had dark, wavy hair, close cropped on the sides and thick on top. He was clean shaven but had a day’s worth of five o’clock shadow that looked like a dusty halo on his face. But it was the eyes—hard and dark. Killer’s eyes. There was no emotion in them, only calculation. These were the eyes of someone who would murder a man and then wash it down with an espresso.

  The eyes narrowed, and he brought his pistol level with Jack.

  Bluff called.

  Jack returned his left hand to the grip and pulled the hammer back. “I’m not warning you again,” he said.

  There was a shout from the vault. It sounded distant and far away, but whatever the news was, it wasn’t good. The killer’s eyes darted to his left, drawn to the sound, even though his back was to that hallway.

  “Someone is going to come up here any minute, and when they do, they’re going to drop you. You can still walk away from this.”

  Jack could almost see the math behind the eyes.

  Steps in the hallway. Fast. Angry.

  Calculation.

  The weapon lowered.

  In Italian, Jack said, “Good. Now put it on the floor and kick it over to me.” He did. Jack bent over and picked it up. He pulled the slide back to see that there was a chambered round. He set his empty pistol in the duffle bag, which he left on the floor next to him. He stood back up and looked down the hall. He saw Dane rounding a corner, face red. “Get down, on the ground, fast,” he said to the suit. He did.

  Dane stood in the doorway, which they’d propped open on the way in. “What the fuck is going on, Jack?”

  “What are you talking about? Everything is under control.” Jack held his pistol out, pretending to cover the room, but moved it slightly to the right, closer to Dane.

  “The diamonds.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “The box number you gave me, asshole, there was just a small bag of stones. Maybe a couple million dollars’ worth. There’s no hundred million down there. What kind of shit are you trying to pull?”

  “Maybe Bartolo used a couple of boxes. I don’t know. It’s not like I talked to him about it. That’s the box number that Guilia gave me.”

  “You get that bitch on the phone right now and—”

  “You took my phone, asshole.”

  “Listen, you better—”

  Jack shot Dane in the chest.

  Twenty-Four

  Well, he eventually shot Dane in the chest.

  Jack’s first two shots went wide. Firing at a person was not the same thing as firing at a target. Dane’s body jerked back when the third shot found its mark. Jack wished he had just a second longer to enjoy Dane’s smug expression turn to shock as he took a hit from a gun he didn’t think was loaded.

  People started screaming at the sound of the gunshots.

  Jack ran over to Dane’s body and scooped up the MP-5. The Serbian was still alive, but the shot was through the center left on the center of mass. His lung would be filling with blood now, and it would be getting harder for him to breathe. Without medical attention, he’d be dead in a few minutes.

  Jack didn’t care.

  Blood appeared at the corner of Dane’s mouth and on his lips. To say that he was surprised was understating it a bit. Jack leaned down next to him and said, “There weren’t any diamonds because I took them already.” He stood. “See you around.”

  He put the pistol in his waistband and held out the MP-5, listening. There were more shouts from the vault. Jack ran to the end of the hallway and turned the corner. There were a few more feet of hallway and then a set of stairs that descended to the vault. He fired a quick burst from the submachine gun in the direction of the open vault door, watching the sparks fly off the floor where the bullets impacted. That’d keep them occupied for a minute.

  Jack ran back into the bank lobby, closing the hallway door behind him.

  The mafia guard was standing in the center of the room next to Jack’s bag, probably thinking Jack was the dumbest criminal he’d ever met. He picked the gun up, a hairline smile on his face, until he realized i
t was empty. Had never been anything but. He muttered something—Jack wasn’t sure of the exact translation, but the gist of it questioned Jack’s parentage. Ignoring him, momentarily, Jack ran to the front door. As he was moving, Jack saw someone appear in the doorway, hand on the handle.

  The lobby was pandemonium.

  Half of the people were screaming at the gunfire, and the other half were screaming at the person outside not to open the door.

  Jack aimed the MP-5 into the ceiling and shot off a quick burst. People were still screaming, but at least he had their attention. He commanded everyone to get back against the wall, near the teller windows. Then he got an idea. Jack looked at the teller area again. It’d be tight, but they should fit. There were only six or seven customers. Jack told them all to file into the teller’s window. The mafia guard went too, a cold, emotionless stare at Jack as he did.

  Once they were all behind the glass, Jack went to the door. The person on the other side had apparently sought cover when he’d fired. Jack kneeled.

  Jack was on the edge of his personal envelope robbing a bank, but he knew nothing about bombs.

  But this also looked like a fairly simple setup. Curko hadn’t had the time to rig anything complicated. He’d used an old mobile phone as the detonator, which was taped to the doorframe, and there were two wires that connected it with the plastic explosive. The phone, he assumed, meant that they could remotely trigger the bomb.

  He had to act fast.

  By now, the crew probably assumed Dane was dead and someone had his gun.

  As carefully as he could, Jack removed the wires that ran from the detonator to the putty. He pulled the detonator off the door and slid it across the floor, as far from the explosive as he could. Then he picked up the bomb. Jack closed his eyes and waited for the end.

  Nothing happened.

  He believed it was safe now.

  Right?

  It was disconnected from the detonator so it couldn’t explode.

  Right?

  Jack picked up the MP-5 and lifted the sling up over his shoulder so that weapon rested cross-body. Jack held the bomb in one hand and the trip wire in the other. He realized how extraordinarily stupid and dangerous this was.

  Moving slowly, so that he didn’t jostle it, he set the explosive inside the bank manager’s office and shut the door behind him. If they decided to detonate it now, assuming they even could, at least the wall would blunt the blast.

  “Everybody out,” he shouted, in Italian. “Go, get out of here!”

  Not surprisingly, no one moved. They remained huddled behind the glass in the teller’s room.

  Jack walked over to the glass door that led to the vault. On the other side of it was the door to the teller’s room. He opened that and repeated to everyone to get out of the bank.

  Jack stepped back to let them pass. He was several steps from the glass door so that if the guard made a move for him, it’d be obvious. He didn’t try anything.

  There was a more or less orderly, if not panicked, exodus from the bank.

  Jack knew there was a hostage situation in the vault below. He also knew that was the police’s problem. Jack turned back to the front door. He had to get in touch with Danzig immediately.

  Someone on the other side pushed their way through the crowd flowing out. What the hell was he doing?

  The man stepped into the lobby.

  Giovanni Castro.

  Castro and the mafia heavy exchanged a look.

  “Hey, Jack,” Castro said.

  “What are you doing here?” Jack said, feeling a strange mixture of relief and confusion.

  “I had you followed when you left our meeting. The guys texted me to say you were taking metro, so I put a car outside all the stops on the A Line. We picked you back up outside the terminal and followed you to Andelić’s safe house, I assume. They followed you here and called me. Honestly, I’m surprised that you didn’t pick up the tail,” Castro said and shrugged. “Maybe you’re slipping.”

  “Andelić took my phone and had a gun on me. I was more focused on that.” Then he said, “I couldn’t get in touch with you.” Jack indicated to Dane, lying on the floor in the hallway. “One’s shot, there are three more in the vault, and they have the bank manager as a hostage.”

  “They let you have a gun?” he said skeptically.

  Jack threw a glance to the mafiosi, who was circling right outside the door. “Let’s just say I found one. They also have explosives.”

  “Explosives?”

  “They booby-trapped the door. That’s why I fired, traying to wave you off coming inside. You’d have killed all of us. I couldn’t see that it was you at the time, just that it was someone.”

  “Where’s the bomb now?”

  “The bank manager’s office. I think I disarmed it, but I don’t know. They’ve got more. Their plan is to blow a hole in the basement wall and escape through the city’s utility tunnels.”

  Castro cautiously eyed the MP-5 slung across Jack’s chest.

  “I’m really curious to know the game you’re playing,” he said.

  Jack looked from Castro to the other man. “That goes for both of us,” he said. “Where’s Danzig?”

  “She’s at the embassy. I haven’t called her yet. So, I figure we’ve got a little bit to get to the bottom of what’s really going on here. Maybe less once this hits the airwaves.”

  In a city the size of Rome, it was difficult to tell where the sirens were coming from because there was rarely a time that you didn’t hear them. But as their pitch and number increased, Jack knew they were heading this way. Jack looked over his shoulder in the direction of the hallway leading to the vault. They were still down there. The longer they waited, the greater the likelihood that the Serbians were going to try their escape route. The vault wall that shared a side with the street would be right below where they were standing now.

  “Well, you helped stop a bank robbery,” Castro said. “That’s something. Now, how about you give me that machine gun before the responding officers think you’re one of the perpetrators?” Jack handed him the submachine gun and the pistol he’d tucked into his belt.

  “Can we take this outside? Their escape route is just under our feet. I don’t want to get blown up.”

  Castro, oddly nonchalant about the whole thing, shrugged and waved a hand in the direction of the door. They walked out onto the street and then moved across to the far sidewalk. The mafia man stood in the center of the street and put sunglasses on.

  Several Carabinieri police cruisers, dark blue Alfa Romeos with red accent stripes, blasted onto the scene on either side of the block.

  Castro looked at the mafia guard and told him that he should probably disappear. The man nodded and just started walking away. Cold as a cocktail shaker.

  Jack, baffled, looked at Castro for a long moment.

  What was going on?

  “We’ve got a pretty short window to catch Andelić,” Castro said.

  He pulled his phone out and issued fast orders to whomever picked up. He pulled his badge out and held it up for the approaching police officers to see. Castro walked over to them, indicating for Jack to follow. Castro introduced himself as an inspector with the Guardia di Finanzia responding to a bank robbery in progress. Three suspects were still inside the vault with a hostage, and they were believed to have an explosive device on them, which may be used to escape or may be used as a booby trap. One perpetrator was shot.

  The cop asked if it was Castro who did the shooting. He said no and indicated to Jack. “This man,” he said in Italian, “is an undercover asset working for me. I’d had him inserted into the gang. When he saw one of them was going to start shooting hostages, he engaged with his weapon. No other choice, really.”

  Castro asked the cop if he had any other questions, and the man looked at him as if he had three heads. Castro told him that the rest of his squad would be here shortly under the command of a Sergeant Dante Roselli. They had an opportuni
ty to arrest the head of this gang, who ran a large criminal network in Europe, but they had to act now. The cop protested again, telling Castro that he was the responding officer and the on-scene commander and he couldn’t just leave. “These guys are Pink Panthers. I’m not going to pass up a chance to take them down because you can’t wait for backup.”

  Jack counted at least ten police officers on scene.

  “If you can’t take command, Officer, I’ll find someone who can.”

  Jack acknowledged that he didn’t understand Italian law enforcement all that well, but he knew enough that Castro and this cop were in two completely different branches. It was the equivalent of the FBI and a local cop, or more accurately, a state trooper, as the Carabinieri was Italy’s national police force. He didn’t know exactly how far Castro could push this.

  The cop said he had it.

  Castro told Jack to follow him, and they fast walked to his car, a four door Alfa not unlike the Carabinieri patrol cars, though this one was black and unmarked. Castro dropped the MP-5 and the mafia guard’s pistol on the back seat as though they were groceries. Castro put his lights and sirens on and blasted out of the block.

  “I don’t suppose you remember the address,” he said.

  “No, but I think I can find it. I’ve got a good head for directions.”

  “I remember.”

  They rode in an awkward silence for about two blocks. Jack’s hands were starting to shake as he came down off the adrenaline rush. He’d shot a man. A man, who in all likelihood, was dead already. Jack had always avoided guns since his earliest days in the life. It was a botched attempted armed robbery of an armored car depot in ‘95 with Reginald LeGrande that forced him to hide out in Turin in the first place. Then, when Bartolo ambushed him and tried to kill him, Jack had fired back and very nearly killed Guilia in the process. Since then, he’d sworn off guns.

  There was also the practical side of it. After the depot job in Long Beach, Jack decided he was only robbing places at night—or at least when they weren’t open. The human dynamic created too many variables, too many possibilities that couldn’t be controlled without a weapon. How many times had he said guns were for people who couldn’t plan? But after Milan Radić had very nearly killed him and Agent Danzig, Jack was finally forced to admit that he needed to learn how to shoot.