The Big Thaw

by Donald Harstad

  “‘Smoke’?” Hester grumbled. “In this fog, you couldn’t see smoke if your nose was on fire.”

  Moments later, the team in the deputy’s house announced that they’d come down the steps to street level, and were in their secondary position. “Alpha Three is at the little wall. We have no smoke, but there’s something … uh … going on in the bank … stand by, One.”

  They were on the opposite side of the bank, with a much better view to the inside.

  Radio traffic really started to pick up. “Alpha Foot is between Alpha Mobile and Two, going toward the bank, and we need instructions…”

  “Alpha One is back on the roof… But we can’t see much in the weather.”

  “Yeah, guys, Alpha Three sees some sort of activity on the inside of the drive-up window …”

  “Alpha Two has the same. It looks like they’re putting in insulation around the window.”

  I looked. Sure as hell. A man in a ski mask was holding what appeared to be multicolored clothesline around the edges of the teller’s window, while another man was taping over it, all around the window frame of the thick, bulletproof glass. They were moving quickly, but clearly not attempting to hide their actions.

  Hester and I stood by a parked car, which was between us and the bank. Less conspicuous, like we owned it. Watching, through the thickening fog, as the men at the drive-up window completed their task.

  “What the hell are they doing?”

  “Beats me,” she said. “Sticking something around the inside of the window.”

  “Uh, Alpha Two thinks it might be det cord,” crackled over my radio. “Inside the drive-up window.”

  The fire siren on top of the city hall began to sound. That could be activated in one of two ways; either by pager from the Sheriff’s Department, or manually by somebody either at the fire station or the city hall.

  Sally was on the radio in an instant. “Automated fire department pager and siren activation,” she announced. “The firemen’s personal pagers were activated first. The alarm’s at the Frieberg Community Savings Bank.”

  So. While we had been standing there, volunteer firemen all over Frieberg were being automatically paged to go to the bank. But there were no indications of a fire.

  Almost in slow motion, we could see three or four rotating blue dash lights, as individual volunteer firemen began driving to the fire station. I reached for my mike. “Three to Alpha Chase … when the firemen get there, tell them we have a robbery in progress, and have them stand by! Do not let them respond to the bank until further notice.”

  I can think fast on occasion.

  “Right, right,” said Volont, over the radio. “Good move. Right.”

  “Three,” crackled Sally’s voice, “the Sheriff’s Department advises that the alarm was not, repeat not, activated in the auto mode. It’s a manual activation.” Information right off the screen at the Sheriff’s Department. It could tell how the alarm was activated. The dispatcher up there had probably just noticed the mode, in all the activity. Strange. A real fire would have activated the auto alarm. Somebody at the bank had set it off manually.

  As proud as I was of my warning to the firemen, sometimes even your best isn’t enough. I watched in silence as three firemen went directly to the bank instead of the fire station. I could tell because of the little, flashing blue volunteer fireman lights on the dashes of their cars as they pulled into the lot. They obviously intended to make sure people were out and planned to don their equipment when the apparatus got to the scene. Standard procedure in rural areas, where some of the volunteers might drive right by the threatened location on their way to the fire station. I saw them head toward the bank. They started in, and I saw the last one put his hands in the air.

  “Uh, Alpha Two believes we now have three firemen as hostages.”

  “Alpha Three confirms.”

  “Ditto Alpha Mobile.”

  Damn. Or, as Hester said, “Shit.”

  “Come on, come on,” murmured Hester. “They can still get away. There is still time to get away. You don’t need hostages, damn it.”

  “Maybe not,” I said. “But they sure have ’em.” I radioed Sally. “See if we can get a good guess as to how many people were in the bank when they went in.”

  Alpha 2 responded with “We believe five, plus the odd-hour teller, plus three firemen.”

  Nine people.

  “Well,” I said, disgusted, “that ought to be plenty.”

  As I spoke, a second vehicle approached the bank from out of the fog, pulled into the lot, made a turn, and backed toward the bulletproof teller’s cage. A white panel truck with a potato chip logo on the side, it stopped about fifty feet away, and Hester and I watched in fascination while there was a puff of white and a loud crack and the drive-up window flew out of its mountings and slammed into the paving. I could see the shock wave hit her hair, making it fly back. Fascinating.

  “It was,” said Hester, even as we ducked down behind the car. “It was det cord he was putting up …”

  “Alpha Two here … did you see that? They’ve blown the window.”

  Even as he spoke, the truck backed up toward the brand-new opening, and bumped into the wall.

  “Well, I guess those windows are designed to resist pressure from the outside, not the inside,” Hester mused. “Pretty slick.”

  “How long you think it takes to load a couple of million dollars?” I asked, cautiously raising my head to look over the hood of the car. “Ten minutes?”

  “I’d estimate fifteen to twenty,” said Hester, glancing at her watch. “And if they bother with the change, maybe as much as an hour.”

  A radio crackled again. “Three, it’s Twenty-nine,” said Sally, on the secure frequency. 29 was the local car, Frieberg PD. “He’s going nuts, people keep running up to him and asking him what the hell he’s doing just sitting there when there’s an emergency at the bank.”

  Taxpayers are sensitive about that sort of thing. It was my call, being the highest-ranking local officer within range.

  “This is sort of going to shit,” I said, to Hester. “Comm, tell him to go to the bridge ramp and stand by there … nobody can even see him over there. Not in this fog.” I turned to Hester. “Uh, does anybody you know have a Plan B?”

  Just then, somebody tapped me on the shoulder, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. I turned, and there was one of the TAC team officers.

  “No disrespect,” he said, “but would you two mind moving? You’re fouling our line of fire.”

  That was about as nice a way as he could have done it. In person, and not over the radio where everybody would have heard.

  “You bet.”

  “Hell, Houseman,” said Hester. “We’re just in the way, here. Let’s get back up to the CP.”

  We arrived back at the Command Post in time for a major event. Just after we quickly briefed George and Volont on what we’d seen, the phone rang, and Sally picked it up. After a couple of seconds, I became aware that there was no conversation. I looked over at her, and her face was as white as I’ve ever seen one.

  “Yes. Sure, yes… just a second …” she managed to get out. “Mr. Volont,” she said, “it’s for you.”

  “Take a message,” he barked, still looking out the window, vainly trying to see the bank.

  I could see her listen intently, and then look about her frantically. She covered the receiver. “Hester! Do you have a speaker phone button here? Where is it? Hurry!” With that, she got the attention of everybody in the room. Hester didn’t bother to tell her, just reached over and flicked a small button of the side of the phone base.

  “It’s on,” said Sally.

  “Mr. Volont?” asked a heavy, sarcastic voice. “You there for me today?”

  “Who is that?” asked Art.

  “This is Gabriel,” said the voice. “Where’s Special Agent in Charge Volont?”

  Twenty-four

  Sunday, January 18, 1998, 1018

  This is
Volont.”

  The speaker phone wasn’t quite the quality it could have been, but I suspected it hadn’t cost the state that much, either.

  Gabriel chuckled. “I’m so very glad it’s you. We have some business to conduct.”

  “Not until you surrender the hostages,” said Volont.

  “No, no. You never understood planning, my boy. No, the way it is is this… my people will drive away from the bank when they signal they’ve finished their business. They will drive away unmolested. Period.”

  “Not that easy,” said Volont. “As long as they have hostages in there, they don’t leave.”

  “Call the bank,” said Gabriel. “Ask to speak to the teller. We had a man pull the fire alarm, to set it off. We wanted some firemen present when we set off the charges to open the drive-thru window. Just in case of fire.” He chuckled. “We care about the citizens.”

  “Won’t work,” said Volont. “We’ve got the bank sewed up tight. Nobody leaves.”

  “Want to do an exchange?” asked Gabriel, lightly. “A lot for a few? Maybe some of your people? I’ll give you a great exchange rate. Two of your agents on the street for the one in the bank.”

  “I think not,” said Volont.

  “You ‘think not,’ do you? My, my. I’ll have to get back to you in a minute.” The line went dead.

  Volont reached over and took the microphone from Sally’s desk. “All units, be extremely cautious. There may be other suspects in the area, and we have information that leads us to believe they know we have an agent in the bank.”

  “How’d they ID him?” asked George. “Did they watch him go in?”

  Volont shook his head. “He wasn’t the one I’d picked, remember? My pick got lost in the fucking fog.” He sounded disgusted. “The replacement is Unger. Built like a fullback. Moves like a cat. Looks nothing like a clerk or teller. They probably just took one look and neutralized him.”

  Sure. The agent in the bank would have been under very strict orders not to endanger anybody, so if they picked him out right away … I would hate to be in the shoes of the “lost” agent when Volont got hold of him.

  He resumed his conversation on the radio. “Each post … check your six, very carefully,” he said. Warning the agents to make sure there was nobody trying to maneuver into position behind them.

  As he put the mike down, a klaxon began to sound in the distance. We all looked toward the bank. No apparent activity there.

  “What is that damned thing?” asked Hester.

  The phone rang, and Sally answered. We were all expecting Gabriel, I think. She listened for a second, and leapt to her feet, looking out the window toward the General Beauregard. We followed her gaze. Through the thickening fog, we could make out what seemed to be thick green smoke coming from the after section of the boat. Green.

  “What burns green?” asked George.

  “The horn sounding off is the fire alarm on the boat,” said Sally. “This is our office, and they’ve got a fire alarm on the boat.”

  There was a small marine band radio on top of a filing cabinet in a corner of Hester’s office. It came to life.

  “General Beauregard to the DCI office in the Port of Frieberg,” came a calm, clear voice. “This is Captain Hanson, calling the DCI office at the Port of Frieberg.”

  Hester picked up the mike. “Beauregard, this is Agent Gorse. Go ahead.”

  “Ma’am,” said Captain Hanson, “there’s a man here with a mask on and a gun to my head, who says I’m to call you and give you a situation report on my vessel.”

  Hester was more self-possessed than I was at that point. She actually answered in a normal tone of voice. “Go ahead with your report.”

  “Well, ma’am, first of all we don’t have any fire. I repeat, there is no fire. We have some intruders who pulled the alarm and say they just set off a smoke candle. Then my engineer tells me that we have an engineering casualty in that somebody has set off a little bit of explosive that has disabled our engines. We don’t have a fire. We still have generating capability, but we can’t move the boat under her own power.”

  “Right,” said Hester.

  “Then,” said the captain, “the head of security tells me that the cash cages on the oh-one, oh-two, and oh-three decks and the counting room on the second deck have just been forcibly entered by armed men. They are going to remove all the money from the ship.” He paused.

  “Yes…” said Hester.

  “And I’m to tell you that we don’t have any casualties yet.”

  Silence.

  “Captain?”

  Nothing. Hester picked up her binoculars, and looked toward the Beauregard. “I can’t see for shit…” She paused. “The green smoke is letting up … I think …”

  The marine band radio came back to life. “DCI?”

  “Go ahead, Captain,” said Hester.

  “This man says that they are to be allowed off the boat unhindered, or they will sink her.” You could faintly hear some other voice in the background. “And he also says that they are going to break our radios here, and that they’ve confiscated all the walkie-talkies from security. I guess this is the last trans…”

  It apparently was.

  “Fuck,” said Art. He did have a way with words.

  “We don’t negotiate yet,” said Volont. “We don’t know enough.”

  “This isn’t yours,” said Hester. “There are about six hundred people on that boat. This is us and the sheriff only. We have jurisdiction here.”

  I would have been just as happy if she had left me and my department out of it. “We’d appreciate your help, though,” I said.

  Hester glared at me. I shrugged. She and I had no assets on the ground in this one. Ours were all at the other banks… A lightbulb might as well have come on over my head.

  I held up my right hand, and counted on my fingers, out loud. “One, the Frieberg bank. Two, the cash cage on the oh-three deck. Three, the cash cage on the oh-two deck. Four, the cash cage on the oh-one deck. Five, the counting room on the second deck.” I grinned. “That’s our ‘five banks.’ And they’re close together, just like everybody said.”

  In the silence, I told Sally to contact the Sheriff’s Department, and have all the troops watching the other areas head for Frieberg. “Ten-thirty-three all the way, please.”

  Nobody argued.

  “You want the chopper up here, too?” asked Sally.

  “Yeah, if it can fly in this stuff. Might as well have her close. The airport across the river will be just fine, if the fog permits. Otherwise, anywhere close they can land.”

  “The fog’s just along the river,” interjected Sally. “The higher areas are clear. They don’t have any fog at all in Maitland …”

  “Excellent.” I looked at Volont, who was calmly staring out the window, toward the vague shape of the Beauregard. “Trying to do it to us again, isn’t he?”

  He didn’t answer.

  Art, bless him, was doing his usual muttering to himself, and came up with a good point. “So, how is this supposed to work?” he asked, rhetorically. “I mean, he gets his people out of the bank … okay … then he gets off the boat with those people … they leave, and we get them, right?” He looked around. “I mean, what’s the advantage here? How’s he gonna sink the boat after he leaves? Why would he sink it after he left?” He kept tapping his foot on the side of a metal desk, unconsciously. “I don’t get this… all we gotta do is watch him leave, and hustle the people off the boat…”

  Good point. One I somehow was sure Gabriel hadn’t overlooked.

  “Let’s get boat security up here,” said Hester. She spoke to Art. “Get our bosses informed, and get supervisors and hostage negotiators on the way. Get a second TAC team, too.”

  “Maybe,” said George, “we should call the bank like Gabriel suggested we do?”

  George always comes through in a pinch. Volont just nodded at him. George waved his hand at Sally. “What’s the number of the bank?”
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br />   Sally, who was on the phone to our office, getting everybody heading our way, simply reached over and threw the phone book at him. In itself it was no big thing, inasmuch as the phone book for all of Nation County is less than an inch thick. But it was the thought that counted, and it helped to break the tension. Especially since George was caught off guard, and missed the book.

  Our secure radio came back to life. “CP from Alpha Two? Two things, up there. One is that, ah, we have another truck backing toward the bank. And there seems to be a problem on that gambling boat…” Alpha 2 was about 100 yards closer to the boat than we were. They apparently could see her, anyway.

  “Yeah, and Alpha Mobile has the new truck, too. Straight truck, double axle, with a lift gate.”

  Maybe they were going to take the change as well. Regardless, it sure looked like they weren’t worried about time.

  “I’ve got the teller on the line,” shouted George. Since nobody else was talking at the time, it sounded sort of strange. “She says,” he said, in a more normal tone, “that everybody is just fine, and that they are going to set off another explosion.” He held his hand up for silence. Nobody was talking. “Uh-oh, I’ve got a fireman coming to the phone now …”

  “Calm down,” said Volont.

  George looked surprised. He hadn’t realized he was shouting. “I see … I see … yes, that’s very considerate, isn’t it? Yes…”

  He looked up. “The firemen say that they’ve been allowed to watch, and that the bad guys are going to take out a section of wall with explosives, so they can load straight into the truck on that side. That they will seek shelter in the vault, and that the firemen are supposed to be ready in case of fire.” He was back on the phone. “Right, all right. Yes, we will…”

  The secure radio came back up. “Alpha Three can see inside the new truck… and it looks like they have one of those … oh … portable forklifts… a dolly forklift? It’s near the back of the truck, and they seem to have like fifty-five gallon drums in the back…”

  “Jesus,” said Art. “They gonna blow up the whole bank?”