She looked nervously over at her boss.
Stone said, “He’s entitled to his opinion, but it doesn’t mean he’s correct. I have some experience in these matters and I find it highly unlikely that they will leave here with us still alive.”
She said in a low, quavering voice, “We received a shipment of blank credit cards, about ten thousand of them.”
“Aren’t they in the vault?” asked Robie.
“Not yet. They just arrived today. We were going to load them into the vault after we closed. They’re in the storage room in cardboard boxes.”
“Blank credit cards,” said Stone.
The teller nodded. “You can steal them and then sell them. Criminals can input stolen IDs on them and they can be used as legit cards.”
“But if the bank knows they’ve been stolen won’t they simply put a stop on all of them?” asked Stone.
“If they can get the cards operational before the bank finds out, they can run up a lot of charges. They can also reencode the magnetic strip on the back with stolen account data. The bank has had problems with that in the past. They lose millions of dollars that way.”
Stone did not look convinced by this. “What else?”
“Well, we have customer account data on our computers. They could download that and sell it or use it to encode either homemade credit or debit cards or reencode stolen ones.”
“That might be it,” said Stone.
Now Robie did not look convinced. “But can’t they hack into the bank’s computer systems and do the same thing? Why come here and kill somebody? Now they’ve got a murder charge against them.”
“I have no idea,” said the woman, who started to shake and looked like she might be sick.
“Here, have some water,” said Stone. He crossed the room with Robie and filled up a glass with water and brought it back to the woman.
She thanked him and drank it down.
Stone and Robie walked off and stood in a corner.
“Do you hear that?” Stone asked.
Robie nodded.
Stone said, “Sounds like someone sawing.”
“And I don’t think they’re cutting into the vault. Not with a hand saw.”
“And if they were going to rob the vault they wouldn’t have closed it.”
Robie added, “And the blank credit cards are in cardboard boxes. You don’t need a saw to open cardboard.”
“Which means they are trying to go from here to somewhere else,” reasoned Stone. “And I wonder where that ‘somewhere else’ could be.”
CHAPTER 3
Stone looked at Robie. “Know the configuration of this mall well?”
“Not really, no.”
“I do. I’ve been coming to this bank for years. And while I don’t really have the financial means to shop at the stores here, I have walked around this mall many times.”
“So what’s in the vicinity?” asked Robie. “What’s the possible target?”
“There’s a jewelry store on the floor above. A fur shop next to it.”
“Jewels are easier to get away with than furs. But aren’t the stores open now?”
“The fur shop is closed on Saturdays. The jewelry shop closes at two today.”
“So it could be either one,” said Robie. He looked over at the door. “You think they plan to kill us?”
“I don’t want to wait to find out,” replied Stone. He peered closely at Robie. “You like your job?”
Robie stared back at him. “My job?”
“When were you assigned it?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Really? I thought it was obvious.”
“What do you mean?”
“You just picked today to do some banking?”
“Saturday is errand day.”
“But you claimed you’d never been here before.”
“No, I said I didn’t know the configuration of the mall.”
Stone smiled. “My mistake.”
But in that look it seemed that Robie could sense that he was the one who had made the mistake.
Stone looked away when the door to the room opened. It was Chase.
He said, “Just to reiterate, if you cause no trouble, you will not be harmed. The reverse of that is also true.” He glanced over at Robie and Stone when he said this. Then he looked at the bank manager. “You, come with me.”
The color drained from the manager’s face. “But I haven’t done anything wrong. I’ve just been sitting here.”
“Now.” Chase pointed his pistol and the manager hastily rose to his feet. “And just remember, I don’t need a reason to kill you,” added Chase. He cut him loose from the woman he was tethered to, put his arm around the man’s shoulders, and propelled him out of the room. The door shut and locked behind them.
Robie said, “What do you think that was about?”
Stone shrugged. “Possibly he’s recruiting an informant. Or else the man has some more security codes that they need.”
“If they want him to be an informant I think he’ll finger us pretty quickly. The head guy is suspicious of us already.”
“Which means we probably should act with some urgency.”
Stone looked over at the fax and communications port.
“Got a way to turn that into a working phone?” asked Robie.
“Actually, I might,” replied Stone cryptically.
He took the pitcher of water and poured it into the slots of the electrical outlet. There was a loud pop, a flash of electrical current, the smell of smoke, and the lights went out.
There were screams and a few seconds later the door burst open.
Stone had by then set down the pitcher of water and stepped far away from the outlet.
A flashlight beam cut across them.
“What the hell is going on?” barked a voice. It was Chase.
Stone called out. “We don’t know. The lights just went out.”
Robie added, “And we smell smoke. There might be a fire. Did you guys hit something out there?”
They heard Chase mutter, “Shit.” Then he said, “Out this way, now. Follow the beam of my light.”
They did so and were soon back in the main bank area. It was dark out here as well. Stone couldn’t tell if the lights were still on outside in the mall or not.
One of the other men sidled up to Chase and whispered, “This is not good. We tried the circuit breaker but something got fried. Maybe we cut a line with the saw.”
“The plan goes on. We have portable work lights. Have somebody check out the other room. The last thing we need is the fire department showing up. Then I want them back in there as fast as possible.”
“But it’s going to take longer now.”
“We have a time reserve built in. Just do it.”
The other man said something else and Chase turned back to him.
While the pair had been speaking Stone and Robie had drawn close enough to hear enough of this to understand that the gunmen were on a tight timetable.
And Stone had been able to see enough of the room through the sweeps of the flashlight to become reoriented to the outline of the space. Now that he was out of the other room, he had to execute the plan that had started with him pouring water into the electrical outlet.
While Chase and the other man were still talking, he and Robie felt their way along the edge of the wall. Stone found what he was looking for, did a quick search entirely by feel until his hand closed around something, and then placed that object in his pocket. Then he edged back along the wall to where he had been originally. A second later the flashlight beam hit him in the face.
Chase drew closer to Stone and said, “I really hope you’re not trying something.”
“All I’m trying to do is stay alive, along with everyone else here.”
“Get back in the room, all of you,” Chase snapped.
They filed back into the room and the door was shut and locked behind them once more.
They sat in the darkness. Stone had turned away from the others and was working away on something he held in his hand.
“Calling the cops?” whispered Robie. He had seen that the thing Stone had taken was his phone from the basket in the other room.
Stone shook his head. He was doing his best to block the small amount of light coming from the phone screen so that the other hostages would not see it.
“A friend,” he said in a bare whisper.
“And this friend is better than the cops?”
“We’ll find out,” replied Stone. “But I have great confidence in my friends.”
Stone punched in the number and spoke quietly into the phone when it was answered. When he was done the person on the other end said simply, “On it.”
Stone put the phone away in his pocket.
Robie asked, “How could you tell which was your phone in there?”
“By feel. It was the smallest. Everyone else, including you, has one of those large-screen smartphones. I’m a little more old-fashioned. My phone is simply, well, a phone.”
“Who did you call?”
“A friend, like I said.”
“And what will this friend do?”
“Call my other friends.”
“You have a lot of friends?” asked Robie.
“Not a lot. But the ones I do have are quite capable. We’ve actually done some pretty extraordinary things together, my little club and I.”
“Club?”
“Yes. Didn’t I say? We’re known as the Camel Club.”
He took a moment to study Robie in the bare light of his phone.
“I’m surprised your briefing didn’t include that,” said Stone.
CHAPTER 4
Annabelle Conroy, tall, lean, and auburn-haired, was the newest, youngest, and only female member of the Camel Club. She was also a first-class con artist, though she had mostly retired from the field.
Mostly.
She had already reached all the other members, except for one.
Secret Service Agent Alex Ford had not answered his phone.
Reuben Rhodes, Caleb Shaw, and Harry Finn were already on their way to the mall in Georgetown.
Ten minutes later Annabelle was standing outside of the mall entrance waiting for them to arrive.
Reuben’s battered pickup truck screeched to a halt and he called out the window to her, “Any developments?”
She shook her head. Reuben eyed a car pulling out of a parking space on the street while a late-model Porsche convertible waited to pull in. Available parking spaces on the streets in Georgetown were unheard of and tended to be fiercely fought over.
Reuben timed it just right and slid into the parking spot before the Porsche could beat him there. The young man and his friend in the sports car immediately began yelling and cursing at him. The passenger jumped out and approached the truck. He was lean and buff and his hair was impressively tousled. He was dressed like a movie star trying to look hip. Everything he wore was expensive but tried desperately not to seem so.
With one look at him all Reuben wanted to do was knock him right into the waters of the nearby Potomac.
The guy stuck his face through the truck’s open window. “You took our space, asshole. Now move this pile of shit, old man.”
Reuben turned off his truck and stepped from the cab. At nearly six foot five and two hundred and seventy pounds he had the enormous size and breadth of shoulder of an NFL lineman. If he had had money he would have bought his clothes at the Big and Tall Men’s Shop, with the emphasis on big and tall.
He looked down at the far smaller young man, who had taken several steps backward when Reuben stepped from his truck. With a thick beard shot with gray and wild, tangled hair, Reuben looked more than a little unstable. And he could act crazy with the best of them.
Sometimes it wasn’t an act.
He grabbed the front of the man’s shirt and jerked him off his feet. “Do you think I’m too old to kick your ass?” he growled, his eyes boring into the younger man’s. “Because if you do, then I suggest you and your punk friend give it a try. I haven’t had the chance to shit-kick some pricks since Vietnam and I’m getting damn tired of waiting.”
The young guy was shaking hard as he took in the old army jacket that Reuben wore and then stared back at the wild eyes and the huge frame.
“We can find another space, dude.”
“Damn good idea. Because I’m busy right now.”
Reuben hurled him away and hurried down the block toward Annabelle.
When he reached her, Caleb Shaw was just getting out of a cab.
Caleb was in his fifties, paunchy, with gray hair and a trim beard. He wore wire-rimmed spectacles and looked like a librarian, which he was. He worked in the Library of Congress’s Rare Book Reading Room. Although he was the most sedate and overtly timid member of the group, he had proved his mettle in action many times in the past.
Caleb said, “A bank robbery? In Georgetown?”
Annabelle said, “Oliver doesn’t think the target is in the bank. He thinks they’re going after something else using the bank as a launch point.”
“Well, that’s a bit odd.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” replied Annabelle. “But then odd is usually the only thing we get.”
A moment later Harry Finn came rushing up to them. In his thirties, lean and fit, Finn had first run into Oliver Stone because he’d wanted to kill him. Now Harry was one of Stone’s closes allies. He had a duffel bag over his shoulder.
“Nothing on the news,” he said. “No one must know yet.”
Reuben said, “So if not the bank what’s the target?”
Annabelle said, “There’s a jewelry store and fur place that the robbers might be able to access from the bank. At least that’s what Oliver said.”
Harry said, “Then we need to cover them both. But what about Oliver? Did he give you the lay of the land in there?”
“He’s one of ten hostages. Four bank employees and six customers. There are four robbers, heavily armed, and they put booby traps at the bank entrance in case someone tries to get to them that way.”
“Pretty well prepared,” said Reuben. “Doesn’t bode well.”
Annabelle nodded. “And he said they knew the bank’s protocols. The closing of the vault by a certain time and emails that had to go out to ensure the central office would believe nothing was wrong.”
Caleb said, “What can we do other than monitor the possible targets?”
“I tried to get a hold of Alex but he’s not answering.”
“Probably on an assignment,” said Reuben. “Otherwise he always answers.”
“But we don’t know for sure that the target is either the jewelers or the fur place,” said Harry. “That’s just speculation.”
Annabelle said, “And there’s something else. The robbers killed the security guard.”
“Which means they’ll have no compunction about killing anyone else,” said Caleb ominously.
Reuben said, “Well, we just have to make sure that doesn’t happen. But first things first. We need to cover the two potential targets. I’ll take the jewelers. Harry can take the fur place.”
“Are you armed?” asked Annabelle.
Reuben smiled. “You’re asking me that kind of a question?”
Harry said, “I have a pocket and there’s something in it. But what about the cops? The FBI? Shouldn’t we call them in?”
Annabelle shook her head. “Oliver said not to. The robbers may have a spotter out here. If a SWAT team comes barging in they’ll know it. And the robbers might start popping off hostages. We have to use stealth.” She looked at Caleb. “While Harry and Reuben cover the two possible targets, you and I have to figure out if there might be another place in the mall we’re missing.”
The four of them split up. Reuben and Harry entered the mall while Annabelle and Caleb went back to her car, where she snagged her laptop. They entered the mall and we
nt to a coffee shop on the ground floor. Annabelle started clicking keys while Caleb accessed the Internet on his phone.
She said, “Search for anything having to do with this mall. See if you can get the building layout, what all is here, that sort of thing. I’m surfing the Web to see if anything pops.”
After thirty minutes Caleb looked up. “I’m not finding much. But there is a place in the garage that is blocked off. I can’t find anything on the Web to tell me what it is.”
“The garage?”
Caleb nodded.
“Forget the Web, let’s go see for ourselves.”
CHAPTER 5
Robie studied Stone’s face.
“My briefing?” he said.
“You look surprised.”
“That’s because I am.”
Now Stone studied him, his gaze moving up and down Robie.
“What do you do for a living?”
“Is that any of your business?”
“I’m just asking. I work in a graveyard. And you?”
“I’m a lobbyist.”
Stone shook his head and pointed at Robie’s right hand. “Not with those calluses on your thumb and forefinger. I can’t think of anything that gives those marks other than firing thousands of rounds of ammo.”
“I’m a weekend skeet shooter, “said Robie.
“Of course you are. And I’m trying out for American Idol.”
“You must have me confused with someone else.”
“I am rarely confused on points such as this.”
Muffled sounds from outside the room interrupted them. Both men jerked when they heard them. More hand tools operating. A saw again. And what sounded like a hammer. And then a crowbar.
“Can’t people hear that from outside?” asked Robie.
“Doubtful,” said Stone. “Since we can barely hear it.”
Robie looked around at the other hostages. “You’d think folks would start missing some of the customers in here. Or the workers. They probably have families and homes to go to.”
“Which means whatever these men are doing can be done relatively quickly.”
“A jewelry store and fur shop will have vaults that have to be broken into.”
“A good point. An obstacle that would take far more time to get through.”
Bullseye: Willl Robie / Camel Club Short Story Page 2
