by Sid K
But when it was open there had been two hundred men with ATR automatic rifles on round-the-clock duty there. They would have been here even before the police and would have taken the bank back with massive force. There was no way this bank would have located their monthly cash collection branch in a small town with only fifty-nine police for the whole town if not for that fact of the nearby district headquarters of the warrior class.
They waited with bated breath for more than an hour. The robbers had occasionally fired shots out of the window and the policemen retaliated, but now even that had stopped. The area had been evacuated, and the shops and businesses nearby had decided to call it the day. As the news spread around the town the townsfolk stayed away. There was an eerie silence only interrupted by the police chief issuing his routine warning over the megaphone and an occasional side conversation amongst the excited, yet bored policemen.
Half an hour passed when the bank door or whatever remained of it—just the metallic handle, all the glass had been shattered—slowly was pushed out from the inside.
“Come out with your hands up,” the police chief shouted and rest of the policemen quickly straightened themselves to alert postures.
“Don’t shoot. Don’t shoot,” a voice yelled from the inside. “We are not robbers, but bank customers.”
A crowd came outside in a panicky state, a couple of women were crying, holding their hands up in the air or near their shoulders while shouting “don’t shoot”.
“Those are the counter ladies,” the young policemen who had volunteered the bank’s information earlier at the station walked up to the chief and informed him. “And I recognize two bank clerks amongst them as well.”
“I recognize that man,” another policeman said pointing to a bank customer coming out, “That is my cousin’s friend.”
“You can put your hands down,” the police chief said as the crowd walked to the police barricade. The policemen were still aiming their rifles and shotguns at them as they escorted them behind the cover of the police cars.
“Are all of you bank’s personnel or customers?” the chief asked them.
“We are.” An elderly man stepped forward. “I am the senior bookkeeper. The manager was shot so I am highest in the rank at this branch. Our guard was shot, too.”
“The robbers let you go just like that?” the chief asked with puzzlement. “Are there any other hostages inside?”
“None,” the senior bookkeeper replied, “They didn’t exactly let us go. All of them went into the bank vault around half an hour ago and we didn’t hear any sounds coming from it. So we decided to take the chance and walk out.”
“Are these robbers fools?” a policeman asked.
“Maybe they ran out the back?” another wondered.
“We have three cars there,” the chief said. He walked to his car, took out his radio speaker and said, “Boys in the back, did anyone come out of that window?”
“Nobody,” a policeman replied.
“That is strange,” the chief said, “They have holed themselves up in the vault? But why?”
“Let’s rush them,” someone suggested.
“Alright,” the chief said, “now that the hostages are safe, just keep them here till we verify their identities and get their statements. Now let us get those bastards.”
A minute later, twelve policemen rushed inside the bank. Their boots crunched the broken glass as they entered the lobby and saw two dead bodies on the floor. Then they slowly walked over to the back office where there was a big, steel vault door on the left. It was closed, but not locked and they pushed it open and then yelled for the robbers to surrender. They got no reply. They repeated their warnings a few times then charged inside with their fingers on the triggers. The vault was empty. Empty of money, empty of men.
“Take a look chief,” one of them yelled for the police chief who was in the bank lobby examining the dead bodies.
“Send them to the morgue,” the chief said to a policeman next to him. “I am going inside the vault.” He drew his pistol and walked in the vault and to his amazement there was only his police force there, but no money and no robbers.
“Do you think they are hiding in this building?” the chief asked. “Second or third floors?”
“Unlikely, the bank personnel said that those doors were locked and they haven’t been broken,” one policeman replied. “But we will check anyhow.”
The police spent the next fifteen minutes searching room by room on the second and third floors but they found nobody and told as much to the chief who was still in the vault. He started tapping the floor with his feet as he walked all over the vault.
“I doubt they went underground,” someone said. “Banks never build their branches on the top of sewer or utility pipes for this very reason.”
“They have to have gone somewhere,” the chief scoffed. “They did not disappear in the thin air.” Suddenly he realized that he had tapped a hollow tile. He ordered that tile to be dug out along with a few others nearby. His hunch was proven right when they discovered a tunnel—small but spacious enough for a man to walk through.
From there on the Ironbridge town police quickly put two and two together and discovered the details of the whole operation. The makeshift tunnel that the bank robbers had dug went under the road behind the bank, under the next building and came out one block over from the bank. The robbers had connected the tunnel to a big sewer pipe on that road. The residents and storeowners nearby informed the police that they had heard breaking noises every now and then but had attributed it to the construction work happening nearby two blocks to the south. The police estimated that it must have taken the robbers four to six days to build this tunnel. They had also carried the bodies of the two dead robbers back with them. The bank hostages could not provide any more information than that the robbers looked foreign. Realizing the competence and the capabilities of these bank robbers, the Ironbridge police chief decided to kick the case over to the House of Police, the government department that oversaw all the town police in the Starfire Nation. That House appointed its own police teams to solve crime that was beyond a town police’s resources and capabilities.
* * *
Somebody else had also decided to contact the House of Police over this bank robbery. Mr. Warwyk was a man in his early sixties, the owner and head manager of Warwyk Savings Bank and an unofficial spokesman at times for the banking industry. He was sitting in the garden in front of his sixty-room marble mansion located in the most expensive part of the Eaststar city. There were a couple of small tables and six chairs arranged, with a few pieces of silverware—that were actually made of silver—and some food on the table. His wife and their grandchildren had taken their supper with him just ten minutes ago and had gone back inside the mansion. His grandchildren had been dropped off by his daughter for the weekend, and wanted him to come play with them. As much as he would have liked that, there was this very disturbing development that had to be taken care of right away.
“Sir, the newspaper that you wanted has arrived,” his personal assistant said and put a newspaper on the table in front of him.
“Take a seat while I read it,” Mr. Warwyk said picking up the paper. “I may have a task for you afterwards.”
He only had to look at the front page. There was the headline ‘Ironbridge Bank Robbed’ under the paper’s title, Ironbridge Daily News, and the whole of the page was taken up by the account and interviews regarding the robbery. He had heard about it a couple of days ago from Mr. Helvyk, the owner and head manager of the Helvyk National Bank with whom he had played a couple of polo matches a few years back. Mr. Helvyk wanted Mr. Warwyk’s help in getting the police to take a more proactive role and prioritize solving this and similar bank robberies. While Helvyk National Bank was only the twenty-third largest bank in the country, Warwyk Savings Bank was the second biggest in the whole of Starfire Nation by amount of deposits. Started by his great-grandfather it was the bank that purchased larg
e amounts of government bonds as well.
Mr. Warwyk had promised to help but he wanted to get a proper account of the robbery before he took any action. After he finished reading the front page and a small section of the second page, he slammed the paper down on the table.
“Ninth big robbery in the last few months,” Mr. Warwyk said, “I don’t remember any year when so many banks were robbed of so much money.”
“So are you going to meet the head of the House of Police?” his assistant asked him.
“I definitely will and I should pull his nose for letting this get out of hand,” Mr. Warwyk said angrily. “Did you find out who it is?”
“Constellar Taktar,” his assistant replied. “Do you want me to call his office and book an appointment?”
“No, I am going to crash at his door,” Mr. Warwyk said. “Have my plane ready. I will be at the airport in a couple of hours. I want to reach the King Starryvk City by midnight so I can meet him tomorrow morning as soon as they open.”
“Yes sir,” his assistant said and walked away to make the arrangements. Mr. Warwyk went back to his mansion thinking that his grandchildren weren’t going to be too happy, however this was too important to postpone any longer.
* * *
08/15/958
Mr. Warwyk took a taxi from the airport to the headquarters of the House of Police. Normally, he would have had a company car drive him, but that would have taken time to arrange. The House of Police was the government department that oversaw all town police departments. Every five years it appointed the police chiefs of all the towns in Starfire nation, and it ensured the compliance of the police with government’s rules of operations. The town police had investigative and arrest powers within their own towns only, however the House of Police had the authority to put together police teams for particular cases and endow them temporarily with national investigative and arrest powers. Mr. Warwyk’s mission today was to make such a team formation happen.
The taxi dropped him off outside the gates of the House of Police. The gate was open and four policemen stood guard, two on each side, armed with repeating rifles on their shoulders. There were ten-foot tall concrete walls on either sides of the gate that enclosed the main building of the House. Mr. Warwyk walked up to the gate and inside without being stopped or asked about his business. He was wearing his purple suit over a white shirt and black pants, the unofficial uniform of the owners and head managers of the private companies. In Starfirian corporate culture, only one person in an entire company usually wore purple suits; two if the owner and the head manager were two different individuals. A purple suit was the most commonly recognized indicator of a person’s position as a big boss and Mr. Warwyk believed this is why the gate police did not bother to stop him.
There was a large lawn on both sides of the road leading to the building. The building was five stories tall and shaped like an equal sized cross. Its first, third and fifth floors were colored with white glass while the second and fourth floors were of red—King’s Red—glass, representing the colors of the police uniform—King’s red shirt and hat, white pants, belt and boots.
Mr. Warwyk slowly walked the length of the road to the front doors. Here there were more guards, four patrol cars with two parked on each side of the door and twelve armed policemen patrolling the front. No doubt there were more on the sides and the back as well. This was the national headquarters of the police and the security reflected that.
Mr. Warwyk walked through the front doors and presented himself at the desk where the middle-aged receptionists were just getting started for their workday.
“I am here to meet with Constellar Taktar,” he said to one of them.
“Do you have an appointment sir?” she asked and started looking through a calendar.
“No,” he replied.
“Well, you are lucky. You are the first private visitor today,” she said. “Even so, it will be one or two hours before I can schedule you with Constellar Taktar.”
“No,” he said. “Tell Constellar Taktar that Mr. Warwyk, the owner and head manager of the Warwyk Savings Bank is here to meet him.”
His firm reply raised a few eyebrows from the secretaries and turned a few heads from the other visitors in the room. Almost everyone had heard of the Warwyk Savings Bank, for all he knew some of them had deposits and loans with his bank. He had learned over the years of his business experience that a show of confidence could open otherwise closed doors. He smiled at her as she turned around and picked up a phone.
He looked around the main reception area where sofas and comfortable seats for visitors were arranged in a semi-circle around the central receptionist desks. Ten to fifteen police chiefs were quietly sitting there. Big shots all of them in their own towns; here they patiently and humbly awaited their turn to meet their political bosses. Perhaps some were here to beg for more funds to hire more police in their towns, others might be here to answer complaints filed against them by someone in their towns, and still others to request help with solving some case.
“Constellar Taktar will see you now Mr. Warwyk, in his office on the fifth floor,” the receptionist said after putting down the phone. “The office is straight down from the elevator. It will be the only one with lights right now.”
“Grateful,” Mr. Warwyk said and walked to the elevators.
It happened that Taktar was not in his office and it was closed. The floor was nearly empty as the staff had not yet arrived. Mr. Warwyk walked the hallways till he found a big conference room that was lighted with a person standing behind a singular chair placed at the head of the table with five chairs each on each side. Mr. Warwyk knocked on the half-open door and said, “I am looking for Constellar Taktar.”
“Come on in Mr. Warwyk,” the man said, “I am Taktar, apologize for the confusion. I meant to say conference room to the desk lady downstairs. When I called her again, you were already on your way up.”
“Anyways,” Mr. Warwyk said, “where is everybody else?”
“They will trickle in,” Taktar said, “I am the Head of the House of Police so I have to be early. Why? Did you want to talk to anyone else on the House as well?”
“No, you will do,” Mr. Warwyk replied.
“Well in that case, have a chair,” Taktar said.
“Never mind, I won’t be long,” Mr. Warwyk replied.
“I am presuming you are here about that bank robbery in Ironbridge?” Taktar asked and after Warwyk nodded he continued, “If you had called ahead I would have had the Ironbridge police chief rush me his report of the robbery for our discussion.”
“If I had called ahead,” Mr. Warwyk chuckled, “you would have found an important appointment for today.”
“Well, we are here to help,” Mr. Taktar grinned, “I know Ironbridge was a big hit of two point three million stars, but we are going to get these robbers.”
“Two million, three-hundred-fifty-six thousand, seven-hundred and eighty-eight stars,” Mr. Warwyk said, “Mr. Helvyk himself told me the exact amount. And we bankers are not happy with the way the police is handling these robberies. There have been nine armed bank robberies with over one million stars in loss in each one over the last few months by gunmen armed with automatic rifles! This has never happened before and you haven’t even appointed a national investigation team for this.”
“We don’t take over the cases from the town police unless the chief requests us to or if there has been a year since the crime and they haven’t made much progress,” Taktar said. “That is our procedure.”
“And you can’t change it? Is that mandated by the Constellation?” Mr. Warwyk asked. Constellation was the law-making body of the Starfire Nation.
“No, but changing it would require a vote by the full House of Police,” Taktar said, “That whole process would take a month assuming it is even approved. It is easier if a police chief requests our help and I am happy to tell you that the Ironbridge police chief has done just that. He informed me over the phone t
hat he will be sending a formal, written request for us to take over along with his official report.”
“And how long will all this take?”
“Two to three weeks,” Taktar said.
“By then they may have robbed two more banks,” Mr. Warwyk said exasperated. “Never mind the police team. I want you to do something else for me; I want you to hand this case over to SPASI.”
SPASI was the spy and detective department of the Starfirian state. It had earned a reputation over the years for cracking complex cases and its detectives were known for their sharpness.
“Bank robberies are police jurisdiction,” Taktar said.
“But syndicates are SPASI jurisdiction,” Mr. Warwyk replied, “These robberies were well-planned in advanced, locations and timing of cash scouted out, and executed with army-like discipline. I mean they had automatic rifles. Small time outlaws don’t work like this, they wave a couple of pistols, grab whatever is in the counter and run, not stick around to break open the vault, dig tunnels and hold off an entire police department.”
“Maybe they are a syndicate, but even then I can’t just hand it over to SPASI,” Taktar said.
“WHY NOT?” Mr. Warwyk spoke louder.
“Mr. Warwyk I don’t mean to imply that we don’t want to hand it over to SPASI because we don’t want them to take credit for it, it’s not that at all,” Taktar said, “What I mean is that I can’t tell SPASI what cases to take. Just because it might be a syndicate, doesn’t mean SPASI has to take it. Police has jurisdiction over all the crimes and SPASI over only specific areas, but that doesn’t mean I can call SPASI Chief Yucker and tell him to pick up a case. He will tell me to take a flying hike.”
“Oh.”
“For my part, I would be delighted if I could hand over half a dozen more challenging cases that our teams aren’t getting close to solving to SPASI,” Taktar said, “However, I can do something else for you. I can set an appointment for you with Chief Yucker.”