A Triple Thriller Fest

by Gordon Ryan

  Three weeks earlier, when Otto Krueger had canvassed the place, he quickly saw that it met the criteria Commander Shaw had described, especially the multiple exit routes in the event of trouble. Today the decision seemed even more correct. Hundreds of people would scurry like rabbits at the first shots, and their escape would be all the easier in the melee.

  Krueger nodded across the lane to the second van, and the driver exited the parking lot, turning onto El Camino and heading toward the main intersection. As the light turned yellow for the opposite traffic, the usual group of vehicles raced to make their crossing before the light turned red. He gunned his engine, aiming for the back of a station wagon that was trying to be the last car to beat the changing light. The crash brought cross traffic to a standstill, and horns began honking, with other vehicles and pedestrians stopping to observe the commotion.

  Immediately following the crash, the driver of the van tripped a fifteen-second timer, jumped out of the damaged vehicle, and ran to the side of the road, melding with the foot traffic that was heading toward the mall. The van suddenly erupted in a fireball, also setting fire to the damaged station wagon, whose two occupants quickly exited their vehicle. The instant confusion in the intersection was followed by the sound of sirens, and within moments, two police cars had blocked off the intersection with their emergency lights flashing.

  Krueger smiled at the success of the diversionary tactic and directed his driver to pull up and stop directly in front of the bank. He and two other men in the back of the van pulled balaclavas over their faces, exited the side door of the vehicle, and quickly pushed their way through the front door of the bank. The lobby was crowded with people waiting to use the automatic teller, plus four lines of customers standing in front of teller windows running the length of the main counter.

  As soon as he entered the building, Otto pulled a shotgun from beneath his overcoat and fired a blast into the ceiling of the bank, then two more shots in quick succession aimed at the security cameras strategically placed in the corners of the interior walls.

  “Everyone, down on your face. Now!” he bellowed.

  Women began to scream, but paralyzed by the suddenness of the violence, people didn’t immediately respond. Otto repeated his demand, his voice even louder, and many people began to drop to the floor, husbands covering wives as best they could and mothers embracing their children. The two men with Krueger took up positions at either end of the main counter, their weapons drawn and aimed at the customers.

  Krueger quickly approached the leftmost teller window. “We’ll have it all, young lady,” he said to the terrified woman, his voice calm. He dropped the barrel of his shotgun on the counter top, the metal clattering against the marble facing. Krueger shoved the weapon through the window opening until the front of the barrel was pressed against the young teller’s stomach. “Just keep calm, and you’ll live to enjoy a long and healthy life.”

  The frightened woman took the canvas bag Krueger handed her and began clumsily filling it with the contents of her cash drawer. When her drawer was empty, Krueger motioned with the shotgun toward the next window in line and stepped along the outside of the counter in that direction. From behind the counter, the young woman paralleled his movement, her eyes wide with fear. They repeated the process through two more windows, emptying each cash drawer. At the last window, Krueger again smiled at her.

  “You’ve done well … Sara,” he said, reading her nametag. “Now, back away from the counter and keep your hands in sight, and you won’t get hurt.” He turned toward his accomplice stationed at the far end of the lobby and jerked his head toward the door. “Time to leave,” Krueger said to his closest associate, and the two men began to step over the prostrate customers scattered on the floor. The third man, at the far end of the counter, made his way toward the door, also.

  “FBI! Drop your weapons and hit the floor!” a voice shouted from within the teller cages.

  Krueger spun around to face the main counter, his shotgun swiveling in the same direction, as he sought to identify the source of the voice.

  “I said drop it!” the female voice repeated in a commanding, Quantico tone.

  Krueger spotted a dark-haired young woman standing behind one of the tellers’ windows, her pistol extended toward him in a double-handed stance.

  A husky male voice from the far end of the bank lobby joined the chorus. “This is the FBI. The police have the bank surrounded, and there’s no escape. Now drop your weapons, get on your knees, and raise your hands.”

  His gaze still riveted on the female teller, Krueger stole a quick glance at the new voice and observed a man dressed in a business suit, kneeling on the floor with a pistol drawn and leveled directly at him. For several moments, the stalemate continued, then one of Krueger’s companions turned and fired a shotgun blast at the kneeling man. Several of the customers screamed hysterically, and one woman jumped to her feet, bolting for the front door. She caught the brunt of a second blast full in the chest and sprawled backward, landing on another woman and her child who were cowering on the floor.

  Reacting instantly, the female teller redirected her aim and fired two quick shots at the man who had discharged his weapon. Krueger took that opportunity to level a hurried blast toward the teller window, but his aim was low, and the pellets imbedded themselves in the front of the counter. He reached down and grabbed a female customer who was lying at his feet. Jerking her roughly upright, he locked his arm around her throat and began backing toward the entrance, still clutching the moneybag and his weapon. As he reached the door, he could see his associate lying on his back. Blood had saturated his hood and was pooling under his head, and his unseeing eyes stared at the ceiling out of the eye holes of his mask.

  Krueger motioned to his second companion, who quickly joined him, and together they exited the front door. They ran around the side of the bank and dragged the hostage with them into the van, which then began to weave its way between the parked cars. Krueger stuck the shotgun out the open van door and fired into the fuel tank of a parked car, which immediately erupted in a ball of flame. Pedestrians in the parking lot began screaming and running away from the flames, hysteria spreading quickly throughout the mob of shoppers.

  Four police cars, two of which had been parked near the bank on standby alert for the anticipated robbery, were now gathered at the site of the traffic accident, where the officers were busy keeping traffic away from the burning vehicles. At the sound of gunfire, seeing they had no ability to move their patrol cars through the intersection, the four officers drew their weapons and began running toward the bank.

  The escaping van bounced off several cars in the driver’s frantic attempt to clear traffic and make his way to El Camino Real and the freeway entrance. Before the officers could reach the scene, the careening vehicle had negotiated the congestion and disappeared onto the freeway, the hostage still inside.

  As soon as the gunmen cleared the front door, FBI Agent Nicole Bentley, who had been posing as a teller for two days, ran the length of the main counter toward where she had last seen her partner, Al Samuels. Using her arm as a fulcrum, she leaped over the locked, waist-high swinging door beside the main counter and ran toward the front door.

  “Al, c’mon, if they get into the crowd, we’ll never catch them,” she shouted, glancing to where her partner had last been. Then she saw him on the floor, slumped awkwardly against the base of the customer counter, bleeding profusely from a wound in the side of his neck. She halted her pursuit and ran to him, sidestepping several customers who were trying to regain their feet now that the shooters had departed. She knelt down next to her partner.

  His eyes were already beginning to glaze over. He tried to speak but could make no sound.

  “It’s all right, Al, I’ll get help. Hang on,” Nicole said.

  She grabbed her radio and called for paramedics, instinctively knowing it was too late. Samuels slumped lower against the counter, and Nicole sat on the floor beside him,
lifting his upper body and cradling him in her lap. She tried to apply pressure to his neck, but the pulsing of blood was already beginning to slow. Helpless to prevent his slipping away, Nicole held Al Samuels, her tears blurring the vision of her partner, as he bled to death in her arms.

  She sat that way for several long moments as customers held each other and gaped, traumatized by the violence that had erupted around them. Finally, two more FBI agents entered the front door and approached Nicole where she sat on the floor, leaning against the counter, cradling her dead partner. They were quickly followed by two paramedics who had originally been called to the traffic accident at the corner intersection. Nicole looked up at the men, her eyes blank, her mind uncomprehending. The senior FBI agent squatted down next to her and placed his hand on her shoulder, looking into her eyes.

  “Maybe we should take him now, Nicole,” he said softly.

  She pulled Al closer.

  The kneeling agent turned his head and nodded toward the paramedics, who moved forward. Again, Nicole tightened her grip on Al Samuels’ body.

  “It’s all right, Nicole,” he said, reaching for Al’s weapon, still clutched in the dead agent’s hand. “We’ll take care of him.”

  Nicole stared down at the lifeless body of the man she had worked with daily for slightly over a year. Tears streaming down her face, she spoke in barely a whisper. “How many times have I told you, Al—that tie doesn’t go with that shirt. Oh, Al,” she said, shaking her head and sobbing, “why you, Al? Why you?”

  * * *

  Once clear of the Natomas area and the emergency vehicles racing down El Camino toward the multiple fires and gunshots, Krueger directed the driver of the van to turn north on Fulton Avenue and enter the Haggin Oaks Golf Course parking lot, where they stopped next to a Ford Expedition parked in a far corner of the lot. Krueger directed the driver and his remaining companion to exit the van and get into the Ford. He then climbed into the rear of the van with the hostage. He sat on the wheel-well next to the terrified woman, who lay on her back on the floor of the van, her head covered with an oily rag. Otto removed the rag, and the woman turned her head slightly, blinking her eyes and glancing up at her captor.

  “I’ve got two choices, lady,” he said, brandishing his pistol near her face. “I can kill you, like those people in the bank, or I can leave you here.”

  Trying to speak through her sobbing, the woman pleaded, “Oh, please, please, don’t kill me. I’ve got two children.”

  “Now hear me good, lady. I’ve got your purse, with your driver’s license, and I’ve got your home address. Don’t forget that. I know where you live. I’ve also got your cell phone. One of my men is gonna be sitting in a parked car close by for the next several hours. I suggest you sit here calmly and wait for dark before you try to find help. If you make one sound, just one noise that he can hear, he’ll get back in the van and bring you to us. And you’re not gonna like what we do to you. Do you understand? Do I make myself clear?”

  She nodded slowly, the tears running down her cheeks.

  He continued to stare at her, then lowered his hand and ran it slowly over her face, down past her throat, pausing as he reached her breast. She whimpered and her body shuddered. “Just remember—we can come to your home if we need to, cops or no cops. They won’t watch you forever, and when they’re gone, we’ll come. It will take a long time for us to finish with you, but it’ll end with a bullet in your pretty little face. You tell the cops nothing—you could see nothing. We wrapped a cloth around your head and you were unable to see. You understand me?”

  “Yes,” she said, her voice choking.

  He gathered up her purse and the large oily rag that had covered her face and exited the van, locking all the doors. Then he entered the Ford Expedition, which was already occupied by the other two men. They started the engine and drove away, making for the freeway entrance to I-80 and driving west, taking the on-ramp at the I-5 North intersection.

  “They killed Ralph,” the young bandit said from the backseat of the Ford after they had driven for several miles.

  “They knew we were coming,” Krueger replied.

  “How could they, First Sergeant?” the younger man asked as they sped past the airport and then over the bridge where they had previously hanged Lieutenant McFarland.

  “Because we’ve still got a spy in the brigade. But that won’t be for long. And when I get my hands on him …”

  Krueger remained quiet the remainder of the trip north until they took the cut-off just beyond the city of Corning and headed east, up into the mountains.

  The evening news ran footage of the robbery and hostage situation, including shots of the victims being taken out by stretcher, one hostage shot and killed and another injured, and one of the robbers also killed. Agents had directed the paramedics to take the body of Al Samuels quietly out another entrance, and no film was available of his remains. However, the report of an FBI agent killed in the line of duty was front-line news.

  * * *

  Later on The O’Reilly Factor, Senator Malcolm Turner took the opportunity to point out that this was a tragic story of yet another American citizen, driven to the brink of desperation by oppressive federal government involvement.

  “Excuse me, Senator,” the host, Bill O’Reilly said, “but I don’t see how a bank robber—a killer, in this case—can blame the federal government for his actions.”

  “Bill,” Turner postured to O’Reilly, “have you read the recent history of this unfortunate young man’s life? Here’s the case of a young American …” Turner paused momentarily. “Perhaps, Bill, I should say a young Californian—a husband, father, and dedicated son, by all accounts—who sought only to right what he saw as the wrong being perpetrated on his mother by the unfeeling and federally controlled Internal Revenue Service.

  “My Sacramento staff have spoken to the deceased man’s wife, and she explained that her husband’s father died about two years ago, and that the IRS has been pressing his mother—she’s sixty-nine years old, Bill—the IRS has been hounding her for back taxes, and finally, in a cold bureaucratic way that only the IRS can employ,” he paused as if contemplating the tragedy, and then shook his head in disbelief, “finally, they foreclosed on her home. Now you tell me, Bill, and your listeners will understand this, where is a sixty-nine-year-old widow going to live? And you know what galls me, what absolutely drives me up the wall? They wanted nine hundred and sixty-three dollars from this poor old woman. Can you believe it? Less than a thousand dollars, and they foreclosed on her home. She and her husband had lived in this modest little home in Daly City for over thirty years. It’s just unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable. Now we have two widows, several fatherless children … Bill, this is exactly why Californians need to turn out at the polls next month and vote ‘yes’ for secession. ‘We’re mad as hell, Bill, and we’re not going to take it anymore,’” Turner shouted, firing his well-recognized slogan. He continued to shake his head in disbelief.

  “Senator,” O’Reilly said softly, “this is indeed a tragedy for this young family, but surely you don’t condone bank robberies as a way to right a government indiscretion or oversight? And murder?”

  “Of course not. I’m against violence in all forms, Bill, you know that. But that still doesn’t excuse the government for driving this young man to do what he felt necessary to get the money to save his mother’s home.”

  O’Reilly just shook his head in disbelief at the senator’s comments and redirected his attention to his other guest, displayed on a split screen besides O’Reilly. “Mr. Greenlaw,” he said, “what say you?”

  “Bill, our hearts go out to these poor families, both the tragic victims of this robbery attempt and even the unfortunate family of the misguided young man who committed these crimes. And of course we wish them well as they pick up the threads of their lives. But Senator Turner misses the point, as usual. If this man had not had such easy access to guns, this tragedy would never have happened. We
need to tighten gun control, Bill—you know my stand on that issue. Registration, no assault weapons …”

  And so the program went on, with neither the guests nor Bill O’Reilly concentrating on the dead FBI agent, as Nicole Bentley continued to watch from her Walnut Creek apartment, still in shock from the day’s events. Unknown to the swarm of people at the site of the shooting, Nicole had gone into the ladies’ room as Samuels’ body was being removed and vomited until nothing more would come up. She had killed her first criminal … but was he a criminal, or just an unfortunate man who couldn’t cope with the system? And her partner—her friend—had bled to death in her arms.

  For the next several days, the incident continued to make headlines, with the San Francisco Chronicle—firmly in support of the secession movement—running the banner: “Widow’s Son Dies in Misguided Robbery Attempt.” Little was made in the article of Al Samuels or the bank customer killed in the fracas. And the gun control lobby focused solely on limiting acquisition of weapons, claiming the FBI had fired prematurely. Killing the misguided young man should have been avoided.

  * * *

  In the U.S. Senate confirmation hearings, Judge George Granata was grilled about the bank incident and his plans to deal with such actions. His appointment was eventually confirmed, and Director Granata took office amid a flurry of inquiries about Bureau policy and tactics. But in a week, interest in the stories faded, replaced by the president’s upcoming trip to Japan and the continuing story of the hour, California’s court-ordered special election on the secession referendum, only forty-five days away in November.