MUSICAroLina

by Daniel William Gunning

  Mac, the living epitome of calm on the other side of the room, reclined nonchalantly in one of the huge leather chairs that surrounded the table. His legs were up and his feet rested comfortably on the top of the desk. He had a flask in one hand, and in his other was his shotgun, which he had pointed directly at the hostages. He looked almost comically serene and out of place given the scene unfolding around them.

  “’Bout time you got here, man; the phone is for you by the way, and let me tell you, he is sick and tired of waiting. I got pretty bored of talking to him so I just set it down; said you’d be along momentarily. You won’t believe this, but he sounds rather upset about the whole affair. He keeps droning on and on about how it’s not good for our relationship if we go around shooting guns inside a bank filled with hostages. He says it’s dangerous; he says if we are truly going to trust one another we should be honest with him and tell him what’s going on. Give a little; get a little; some junk like that: blah, blah, blah. I swear; all this talk about trust and relationships, he’s like seventy-five percent chick, dude. Seriously, I think we actually are in a relationship,” Mac said, chuckling with mock frustration. He set down his flask, calmly picked up the phone, and tossed it to John.

  Kurt followed John into the room and posted himself by the door saying, “In fairness, Mac, whether we’re in some kind of relationship or not, it’s generally unwise to start shooting when you are surrounded by trigger-happy cops in a high-pressure situation. I’m just saying is all.”

  “Fair enough,” Mac replied, picking his flask back up, taking a drink, and winking slyly at the hostages.

  John smirked at his friend’s inappropriately odd demeanor, put the phone to his ear, and sarcastically said, “Hello, and thank you for waiting, as your call is very important to us. You’ve reached the Bank Robbers’ helpline. How may I be of assistance today, officer?”

  “Well, finally the man in charge himself can be bothered to take my call; I am indeed deeply honored. At the risk of sounding a bit pretentious, I was getting a little tired of getting the run-around by your flunkies. I thought I was more important to you than that. You see, I thought you and I were going to be friends; then, you go and do something silly like start shooting things and you don’t even give me the basic respect, or common courtesy of taking my calls afterwards. Call me crazy, but I don’t think that’s the basis of a good friendship; in fact, it’s just plain rude.”

  “Well, I think that you’ll find that all great friendships and relationships, for that matter, are fraught with their natural ups and downs; it’s a simple fact of life. In fact, weird coincidence, my friend here was just commenting on relationships and how you sound a bit like a woman. You know, I think he may be on to something there, because you do sound more than a little bit like many o’ one of my scorned significant others. I think it’s only fair to warn you that I have always thought that women are exactly like pizza. You always want to go out and get a piece. You take your time, look over all your options, and then you pick one out with just the perfect toppings. You get one that’s hot and fresh and yes, we’re all adults here, I’ll just say it, a little bit saucy; but there’s nothing, nothing worse than getting it all the way home, opening it up, and finding sausage.”

  “Yes, well, thank you for that, that’s simply a delightful image to be sure; although right now that seems to be a rather unnecessary, totally pointless, and frankly, a bit too revealing tangent there. So, moving past that if we may; let’s get back on the right foot. I suppose you can start by telling me what all that gunfire was about, or—and this one is of the utmost importance so pay particular attention to what I’m saying here—you can give me some form of assurance that all the hostages are all right in there,” the voice on the line demanded, starting to show some annoyance.

  “Now just calm down, my li’l chum; everyone is fine here. I’m fine too, by the way; thank you so very much for asking. Tell you what, though; since our relationship is a little frayed right now—which is slightly my fault, I’ll freely admit—I’ll prove it to you. Everyone, please say ‘hello’ to my special friend in the police department. His name is Sergeant Russell Carpenter and I think you guys would really, really like him. You have a surprisingly large amount of the same goals and dreams in life. For example, you both want to kill us and go on home to your families; isn’t that just great?” With that, John held the phone out toward the hostages and, after allowing for a rather halfhearted and jumbled chorus of “We’re fine” and more than a few adding, “Just come in and shoot them already”, John put the phone back up to his ear and said, “Happy now?”

  “Well, to be perfectly honest, out of all the various emotions I’ve experienced during the course of this particularly trying day, I don’t think happy has ever been amongst them.”

  “Oh, Sergeant Carpenter, how I will miss your charm and razor wit when all this is over.”

  “Well, since you’ve broached the topic then, I don’t suppose I could press you for how long until this is over?”

  “Unfortunately, Sergeant Carpenter, and please don’t be too depressed; our time together, although it has been a hoot and half to be sure, is reaching its inevitable end.”

  “Well, hopefully it will be a peaceable ending.”

  “Oh, it’s going to be a very peaceable and very happy ending. Believe me, there will be laughing, rejoicing, and yes, dare I say it, even dancing in the streets. You might even cry; seriously, there might be honest-to-God tears.”

  “You’ll have to forgive me for being so eternally pessimistic, but if everything is going so swimmingly in there, then what was all that gunplay about?”

  “Oh, that? We were just having a little target practice is all; you see, what transpired was that we just so happened to stumble upon a few rats in here. We thought we should do the bank a solid, since we are robbing it and all, and do a little pest control for them, free of charge even. You see, despite what you may think, hostage-taking and bank robbery ain’t the thrill it seems like on the T and V. We’ve got to keep ourselves entertained in here somehow, don’t we?”

  “Listen, I don’t think I need to remind you that this is not a joking matter, not by any stretch of the imagination. Out here, we have a full tactical team—snipers, SWAT, helicopters, and pretty much every available officer in the entire state of North Carolina—who would all love nothing more than to put a few bullets in you, so they can be home in time for supper with their loving families. In fact, I think I even saw a guy with a bazooka out here somewhere and I’m not even sure he’s one of ours. So, if you’re really that bored, may I suggest that you simply give up and come on out; I’m sure that we can find more than a few extremely entertaining ways to occupy your time.”

  “Well, that is certainly a generous offer to be sure, sir; I won’t deny that, but somehow I don’t think my idea of a good time and yours are really quite in alignment.”

  “Either way, I’m going to need some assurance of the hostages’ safety, and no, that little stunt you just pulled doesn’t even remotely qualify.”

  “I suppose you are going to suggest that the proper offering for this given situation would be the release of a hostage, or maybe even two or three?”

  “You would assume correctly, my good man; while we’re at it, since you seem to be so intuitive and obliging today, may I go out on a limb and suggest four?”

  “Very funny, Sergeant Carpenter, but fortunately you are in luck. It would seem today may as well be your very own private Christmas day, as it were. Tell you what; you give me about five minutes to wrap up things in here and then you can have all of your innocent, little hostages wrapped up, our present to you, safe and sound. Plus, I’ll even throw in a special bonus prize just because I like you so much,” and with that, John abruptly hung up the phone.

  John motioned to Kurt and said, “Let’s get them up. I think it’s well past time that we finished this and I think they’ve more than earned a look at what all this has been about anyway. Mac,
are we all set to go with the explosives?”

  “Ready to blow this joint when you are, literally!” Mac shouted.

  “Well, triple check everything anyway. The last thing anybody needs at this point is a mistake involving powerful explosives,” John ordered. Mac pulled his feet off the desk, saluted him, and hustled out of the room. “All right, here we go; let’s get this done,” John said, and turned his attention to the hostages. “Ladies and gentleman, I would like to truly and deeply thank you for your extremely valuable time and your endless courtesy today through this, admittedly, rather harrowing ordeal. Now, I know that your cooperation was quite forced by us and that you all had things that you would rather have been doing today; in fact, I’m pretty sure you’d rather be doing anything but this today. However, may I personally assure you that there is nothing more important that you could have done with your day today. When all this comes into the light, every wicked little detail, you may be more than a little confused about what transpired here today. Let me try to clear a little bit of it up for you before we go our separate ways.

  First of all, remember there are no heroes in this story, my friends. As much as I’d like to think otherwise, we are most definitely the bad guys, but there are people out there that are far worse than us. There are certain lines that we won’t cross. Much as you’ve already discovered today, life so many times isn’t something we choose or control; it’s just something that kind of happens to us. All you can do is whatever you feel is right in that moment; when you live in such a morally grey world like we do, it’s tough to find that line sometimes. I’ve wished so many times in my life that I could be more like one of you, but what can I say? We are what we are.

  You all have performed very admirably today under extremely adverse conditions and you should all be very proud of yourselves, each and every one of you. You were put in an impossible situation and you have all been very courageous, but I need you to be brave for just a few minutes more. What is going to happen now is that we are going to put you in the vault for your own safety. I’ll be completely honest with you here; you are going to see some blood on the floor from where we killed some vermin—okay, a lot of blood on the floor—but please don’t panic. I promise all of you will be fine. You’re almost home free, people; now, let’s just get you the rest of the way there.” With that, he motioned for them to move out the door.

  Kurt went outside first, watching them carefully as they shuffled out one by one and he followed alongside. John shadowed the last of the hostages as they all filed out of the doorway. John and Kurt followed the group on either side, covering them with their shotguns, marching them slowly down the hall. They could see Mac moving about the bank, checking the explosive charges that were rigged in strategic locations along the outer walls and on the windows of the bank. They continued to herd the hostages down the hallway. The frightened hostages huddled tightly together, grasping each other for strength, many crying out as they saw that gruesome trail of blood that led from where they were being herded to and back down the entire length of the hall. Some screamed and tried to turn back at the sight of the blood, but John or Kurt kept prompting them forward with their shotguns. A simple pump of the shotgun usually propelled even the most fearful of the hostages back into the perceived safety of the group. Mac finished checking the explosives and joined them just outside the bank vault. The blood trail led all the way to the entrance of the vault. The door to the vault was opened about halfway, but he stopped them before they could see inside.

  John once again addressed the group. “Folks, I know nothing I can say or do will ever make up for what we put you through here today, but I hope inside that vault you will agree that the treasure we came here for was worth all the suffering you had to endure.” He then signaled for them to enter the vault. The first hostage in the group, nearest to the vault door, tentatively pulled it open the rest of the way and allowed everyone to enter as a group. Once inside, the hostages stopped short. They surveyed the room in complete and utter disbelief. For a brief fleeting moment, they forgot entirely the perilous situation they were in. Their hands dropped to their sides, their jaws gaped open, and they took in the bizarre scene inside the vault. No one could seem to fully comprehend what they were seeing.

  John’s voice suddenly jolted them back to reality, “All right, ladies and gentleman, myself and my fellow associates here would like to sincerely thank you once again for both your time and your assistance in our current endeavor. Though not really your decision, nevertheless, it has been of inestimable value to us. Without you, none of this would have been possible and for that, I truly thank you. Given what you now see before you and what will come out when all is said and done, I sincerely hope that you can take heart that your sacrifice was not in vain. I am, again, truly sorry that we had to put you through all this, but please believe me it was the only way.” With that, the bank robbers closed the vault door, leaving the bewildered hostages still standing there, inside, taking in the scene.

  Outside the vault, John nodded, satisfied, at Kurt and said, “I hope Sergeant Carpenter appreciates me wrapping his present for him like this.”

  ***

  Outside of the bank, Sergeant Carpenter paced up and down anxiously behind the police blockade. The head of the SWAT team approached him and asked, “Well, what’s the situation? Do you think we need to go in?”

  “Well, they say the hostages are all fine. In fact, get this; they even say in a few minutes they are going to release them all.”

  “That seems a little farfetched. You don’t believe them, do you?”

  “The general rule of thumb in situations like this is not to believe a single solitary thing guys like this tell you, but this feels different somehow. None of this makes any logical sense.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Let me lay it all out for you, if I may. Three guys break into a bank, fine. That happens all the time; nothing out of the ordinary there. But nothing they’ve done since then makes even the most remote sense at all. From the very start, they seemed to have almost no interest in escaping. They took hostages immediately, released the children the instant we got here as a show of good faith, and then they just seem to be sitting in there. It’s like they want to be in there for some reason. As far as we can tell, they aren’t even trying to take anything. They haven’t made any crazy demands; they haven’t tried to escape; and, that gunfire notwithstanding, they haven’t threatened the safety of any of the hostages even once. It’s like the whole point was just to get into a hostage situation in the first place.”

  “Maybe we just got here too fast; they were trapped, and now they are simply biding their time to figure a way out of this.”

  “No, it was way too organized for that. They knew exactly what they were doing the minute they went into that bank. They sent out the kids so we’d give them time, thinking they were rational, and it’s giving them all the time in the world to get whatever they came here for. I’m telling you, whatever they want is in that bank, but I don’t think it’s the money.”

  “Then what is it and how do they plan to get it back out?”

  “I have no idea but...” Carpenter began to speculate, but he was abruptly cut off mid-sentence as the area around the bank was rocked with a violent explosion. Instinctively, he threw himself to the ground and covered his head, as glass and debris sailed through the air. The crowd behind the blockade was in hysterics as onlookers dived for cover, or simply screamed and pointed, frozen in place. Once most of the debris landed, Sergeant Carpenter quickly scrambled to his feet. He looked at the bank and saw smoke billowing out from every window; the façade was a shambles and rubble spread across the lawn.

  “Well, that’s certainly not good,” he muttered aloud.

  ***

  Several hours later, after the Fire Marshal finally declared that it was safe for them to have access to the crime scene, Sergeant Carpenter entered the bank wearing bulky fireman’s gear over his police uniform. Besi
de him, dressed in similar protective garb, was the head of the SWAT team. Inside the bank, forensic teams, police officers, and firemen of all sorts milled and moved about; carefully searching and sifting through the wreckage. The inside of the bank was scorched, ceiling tiles and lights were strewn about, or swung wildly from the ceiling, but it appeared as if no serious damage had been done to the interior.

  “What do you think happened? Did they just blow themselves up? Because that would be awesome; well, except—do you think the hostages are still alive?” the SWAT leader asked.

  Sergeant Carpenter scowled at him and replied, “Possibly, but nobody has found any bodies yet, living or dead.”

  “Then what happened, did they mess up blowing open the vault or something?”

  “No, I don’t think so; look how good the condition of the interior is, under the circumstances. I mean all things considered, it’s like they specifically rigged all the explosives to the windows and unimportant areas. It’s more like they were using it as a really big flashy distraction.”

  “You’re telling me they blew up a bank as a distraction? That seems a little extreme don’t you think and anyway, a distraction for what?”

  “I don’t know, but it was too carefully orchestrated to just be some sort of happy accident. Why else would they set off that many explosives and not do any real damage? That can’t just be a coincidence. It’s like they were throwing a giant flash bang grenade to disorient us.”

  “Sir, we’ve got three bodies here in one of the back rooms,” crackled a voice over the radio.

  The negotiator grabbed his radio and responded, “What killed them, the explosion?”

  “No, sir; all three have been shot. Multiple entry and exit wounds, from the size, looks like a shotgun. They were piled in a corner of the back room.”