There were three security guards, and there might as well have been none. They were all taken by surprise as they slouched at their stations near the entrance, one of them literally jumping in shock at those two gunshots that got the bank customers falling over one another in their hurry to hit the ground.
Cristy remained standing as she watched like she was in a trance. But it was the clearest, most lucid trance ever, and she could hear her heart beat, feel the blood steadily pound in her ears, sense her own will power taking over and telling her not to panic.
Ralph at the next window was on his knees behind the counter, crossing himself and praying. Cristy wasn’t sure if it was a Hail Mary or the Lord’s Prayer, and when she realized that she was actually trying to figure out which, it occurred to her that maybe she was in fact panicking and not thinking straight.
She looked for Jeff, but he was nowhere to be seen, and it took Cristy a moment to realize that Jeff was huddled on the floor in front of the counter, and he was most certainly panicking.
“Oh, God,” he was whimpering. “Please don’t let me die. Not here, God. Please don’t let me die.”
Now Cristy’s attention fell on the dark foreign man behind Jeff. If memory served her right, while the rest of the customers were stumbling and screaming when the shots rang out, this man had calmly surveyed the room and then slowly, coolly sat down on the floor. And now, as all the other customers lay flat on their stomachs, some of them in fetal positions, the tall foreigner was sitting cross-legged on the smooth black tiles, his back perfectly straight, his arms relaxed and placed on his thighs, palms facing up. He might have been meditating, Cristy thought, but when she looked at his face she could tell he was focused and present, his jaw set tight, his eyes intense like he was watching closely, thinking hard, like he had been in a crisis before, handled a dangerous situation before, thought about what he might do if something like this happened.
So did you, Cristy told herself. You’ve thought about this, and you decided that the best thing to do is stay visible and not move. There were two types of bank robberies, Cristy knew: One where they cleaned out the day’s cash from behind the teller windows, and one where they ignored the tellers and simply went for the vault in the back. And considering the robbers were making no move towards the tellers, it was probably the latter. Which meant they knew what they were doing, what they were after.
“Harry,” the biggest man called out to the shortest robber, the one who had so brutally grabbed that little girl by the hair. “You and Dick cover the main floor. Anyone moves, just shoot them in the head.”
“Got it, Tom,” said the middle robber, chambering a bullet with an ominous click as a few isolated whimpers and other sounds of fear and panic rose up from the couple dozen people gathered on the bank’s main floor.
“With pleasure,” said Harry, his voice almost a sneer.
Tom, Dick, and Harry? Nice names, Cristy thought as she watched Tom head to the east side of the room like he knew where it was, like he had been in here before. Now she looked at Dick and Harry, her gaze resting on Harry, on his narrow eyes that looked red and peaked from what she could see.
Harry looked at her just then, his eyes widening and then narrowing as he pointed his gun at Cristy.
“You,” he said. “Get out from behind the counter. Down here where I can see you. On the floor right here.”
Now Harry strode towards the counter as Cristy slowly walked around, averting her eyes so the man wouldn’t see her as a potential threat. She stopped in front of her own teller window, slowing sitting down near where Jeff was crumpled in some mix of a fetal crouch and an airplane-crash position. He didn’t even notice her sitting down.
No way I’m lying down, Cristy told herself as she backed up to the counter and leaned against the cool, polished wood. Not in this skirt!
As she relaxed her body a little, Cristy realized how tense she actually was, how much adrenaline was actually blasting through her system, how much of a shock it had really been to have a gun pointed at her!
Oh, God, I could have died, she told herself as she felt dizzy suddenly, nauseous for a moment, her head spinning as she closed her eyes tight and focused on her breathing. I should have just ducked down like Ralph and the other tellers. Maybe I was wrong to—
“All you tellers, out now,” Harry shouted. “Do like Miss Piggy here and get out in front where I can see you.”
Cristy could hear Harry walk behind the counter now, tapping on the countertop with his gun as the other tellers scrambled to comply. She kept her eyes closed and took a deep breath. Miss Piggy? Really? Do I look that fat in this skirt? And do I seriously give a shit about that right now? Do I have some body image issues that I need to address when I get out of here?
The thought almost made her laugh, and the weird mix of indignation and amusement seemed to take the edge off the adrenaline buzz. Now Cristy opened her eyes, and the first thing she saw were those cool green eyes, that handsome brown face, those dark red lips . . . lips that were curled up in the slightest of smiles, a private sort of smile, like it was meant for just one person.
She smiled at the man, for a second thinking how odd it was to be calmly smiling at a strange, handsome man while three masked gunmen were robbing a bank. But what else could she do? The man was looking right at her! And that was a smile on his lips, wasn’t it?
“All right,” said Dick, the second robber. “Everyone just sit still and be quiet. We don’t want your damn wallets or your jewelry or your watches or iPhones or whatever. We’re gonna be gone in ten minutes, and it’ll be like we were never here. You can even finish your bank business before heading home. So don’t lose your place in line.”
A couple of nervous chuckles and several sighs of relief rose up as Dick slowly paced the room. The ringleader Tom had disappeared to where the manager’s office and the vault was, and Cristy couldn’t see Harry anywhere. Perhaps he was still behind the counter, helping himself to the petty cash in the drawers. Go nuts, Cristy thought. And then just go!
She looked over at the scared little girl, who was sitting up with her back against the soft cushion of the easy chair, her legs pulled into her chest. Those innocent blue eyes were wide with fear, looking towards the front door.
Oh, please don’t, Cristy thought in panic as she saw the little girl start to move. Oh, God, please don’t!
“Hey,” Cristy quickly whispered, as loud as she dared, her voice as calm and cheerful as she could make it. “Hey, little invisible fairy! Can you make yourself invisible for me? Lie on your belly and cover your eyes. Is that how you do it? I think that’ll work. Come on.”
The girl looked at Cristy like Cristy was an alien. She didn’t seem to understand, but at least she was distracted now. Cristy tried to signal with her eyes that everything was fine and she should just stay put, and the girl seemed to be relaxing just a little.
“Oh no, you didn’t,” came Harry’s voice from behind the counter—RIGHT behind the counter, near Cristy’s station. She felt the counter vibrate as Harry SLAMMED the butt of his gun down. “Oh, Miss Piggy, you didn’t, did you? Please tell me you didn’t. Oh, shit . . . TOM,” he shouted now. “Yo, TOM!”
“What is it, man?” said Dick, but Harry was running out from behind the counter, still calling for Tom. “What’s going on? What’d she do?”
The silent alarm, Cristy thought as her life flashed before her eyes. He must have seen the button back there. But how would he know I pressed it? The button doesn’t light up, does it? Unless it got stuck half-pressed or something. I did press it several times, just to make sure. Did I feel it pop back out the last time? Oh, God, I don’t know!
Just as she was sure she was going to be dragged out by her hair and shot in the head, Tom came running out of the back room, pointing at Dick and then Harry.
“Tom, this bank teller, she—” Harry was saying as he headed for Cristy, waving his gun as he strode towards her. Cristy was frozen, her eyes locked on Harry’s for some reason. A
lthough she was terrified, she still had that strange sense of heightened awareness, and from the corner of her eye she thought she saw the tall foreigner stiffen where he sat cross-legged a few feet away, his body tensing up as if he was preparing to move, move towards—
“Too late,” Tom called out as he ran to the front door, pressing himself to the wall near the glass and carefully peering outside. “Cops just got here. No sirens. Saw them through the damn window.”
“Did you get the—” Dick started to say.
“Do you see me carrying anything, genius?!” Tom shouted. “We’re now in Plan C.”
“What’s Plan C?” Dick said. “What about Plan B?”
Harry was almost within reach of Cristy, but then he abruptly stopped and turned to Tom. “Yeah, Tom. What happened to Plan B?”
Tom stepped away from the door and walked back towards the others, scanning the cowering customers as if he was looking for someone. “We were never going to do Plan B,” he said quietly as he stepped through the haphazardly crouched bodies. Now he looked up at Harry. “We can’t hole up in here with twenty hostages. That only works in the movies, Harry.”
“Yeah, but it works,” Harry said, his eyes looking wild as he waved that gun again, now taking a step towards Tom. “We got twenty hostages here! We sit tight and make our demands!”
“I told you,” Tom said, his voice still quiet but with an impatient edge to it. “We do that, and in three hours the FBI will take over. The FBI doesn’t negotiate, Harry. They will talk to us, yeah. They will send us pizza. Then they will ask us to let the women and children go. Then the old people. And then, when they’ve worn us down, they will come in through the windows and take us out. That’s the FBI playbook, and it works. Plan C, Harry. Now.”
Harry stood for a moment, looking towards the back, towards the vault room. “We can’t leave without the cash, Tom. Hell, we have time to—” he began to say.
“No time,” Tom said, still walking through the center of the floor and looking at each customer before stopping at one of the security guards, who was crouched amongst the customers. “Plan C, or we don’t leave at all. Here, we’ll take this guy.”
“Nah, he’s too big,” said Harry, and now he turned away from Tom. “We’ll take her.”
Cristy’s breath caught so sharply that she almost choked, and she shut her eyes and took a deep breath as she prepared to stand. Great work, Cristy. This is what your forward-thinking brain has gotten you.
As she placed her palms flat on the tiles and began to stand, a high-pitched SQUEAL tore through the air. Cristy opened her eyes just in time to see Harry pull the little girl to her feet, yanking her by the hair again, then grabbing her skinny arm so tight it would leave a bruise.
“No!” Cristy heard herself shout, loudly, suddenly, like it was someone else shouting. And now she was talking, and it felt surreal, dreamlike, like it was someone else talking, just like it had been someone else who screamed. “No,” she said again. “Bad idea. Three big guys and a little girl? Think you’ll stand out in a crowd? Are you kidding me? And do you guys know the law about kidnapping a minor? It automatically gets classified as a sex crime, whether you lay a hand on her or not. That’s not just jailtime, if you get caught. That’s the death penalty, boys.”
Cristy couldn’t believe that all those words had poured out of her with such confidence and poise, because inside she felt like a hyperventilating mess. She could feel the sweat pooling in her armpits, beads of perspiration rolling down the smooth curve of her back, soaking the waistband of her cotton panties.
There was dead silence in the room as all three robbers stared at Cristy like she was speaking Farsi from a spaceship. Even the little brown-haired girl was quiet, her mouth hanging open as she stared at Cristy.
No turning back now, Cristy thought as she felt the shock begin to kick into her system. If she didn’t speak now, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to in a few seconds.
“Take me,” she said, and now a few bewildered gasps rose up from the huddled customers. “Take me. I won’t give you any trouble. Take me.”
She stood up now, slowly and carefully, trying her best to preserve her modesty in that tight blue navy skirt that seemed to have shrunk over the past hour. Both Harry and Dick were looking over at Tom as she rose, and Tom nodded and waved his gun towards Harry and the little girl.
“Do it,” Tom said to Harry. “She’s right. The kid will be a problem. Do it.”
Harry let go of the girl, who ran behind that large easy chair and disappeared from sight. Now he walked over to Cristy, reaching for her arm as she leaned on the counter, trying to slip her foot back into her shoe, which had popped off.
“Well, Miss Piggy,” Harry rasped as he grabbed Cristy’s upper arm. She could smell onions on his breath. “You got a mouth as big as your ass, yeah? That sexual offence thing was a nice touch.” Now he leaned in very close, dropping his voice to a whisper. “But you know what, I think there’s gonna be some sexual offending anyway. You heard me, Miss P—”
Now the interruption came from behind Harry, and the voice was clear, resonant, deep, the words spoken like it was a command, a demand, an order. “You will take me,” he said, and it was the tall foreigner. He had stood up silently, and Cristy gasped as she saw him up close. He somehow looked taller, broader, more muscular than she had thought at first glance. His eyes were like green steel as he stared down at Harry, who stood almost a foot shorter than the man. “You will take me, not her. You will take me.”
Harry glanced up at the man, flinching for a moment as he looked into the foreigner’s intense green eyes. He seemed to hesitate, like perhaps the accent and the commanding tone had made Harry feel like he needed to obey. But he recovered soon enough.
“Man, sit the HELL down before I put two bullets through your—” Harry began to say, letting go of Cristy’s arm as he turned to face the foreigner.
But the man looked right past the barrel of the gun, right into Harry’s eyes. Then he smiled and gestured towards Cristy with his head, keeping his eyes on Harry. “Let her check my bank balance,” he said, his eyes almost twinkling now as he seemed close to smiling. “It will take a few seconds.”
Harry hesitated for a moment, like he was confused.
“Would it not be better to have a hostage who can also make you rich, my friend?” the man said now, allowing the smile to break on his calm, handsome face.
Now Harry got it, and he glanced over towards Tom and Dick. They were at the front door now, pressed against the side, watching the action outside.
“Tom,” Harry said, his eyes still on the man. “Hey, TOM!”
“Three minutes,” Tom said without turning to face Harry. “They’re almost set up. We should be getting a phone call soon. Then we tell them we’re walking out with a hostage. Three minutes.”
Now Harry looked at the foreigner. “OK,” he said. “She can do it.”
“Rizaak Al-Khawas,” the man said directly to Cristy, looking her in the eye, holding the contact, those green eyes conveying a strange depth that made Cristy feel funny inside.
“Cristy Cartright,” she said absentmindedly as she suddenly found herself lost in his eyes, trapped by his gaze, taken by his depth. “I’m Cristy.”
Rizaak burst into a smile, almost laughing as he winked at her and nodded like they were meeting on a first date at a cookie counter, and it felt so weird, so surreal, so odd that Cristy just shut it out and took a breath and slowly walked around the counter to one of the bank terminals.
“Would you like me to spell it,” Rizaak called after her. “First name is R—”
“I got it,” Cristy said as she pulled up his account. It was just a regular checking account—an old account, with no activity for years, like someone had forgotten about the account entirely, the way one might forget about an old jar of coins or something. No activity, but one hell of a bank balance. “OK, I’ve got it.”
“How much?” Harry said, looking at Rizaak an
d then at Cristy. “Quick. How much?”
Cristy glanced wide-eyed at Rizaak for a moment, then at the numbers on the screen, and then back up at Rizaak. “Well,” she said. “It’s . . .”
“Tell him, Cristy,” Rizaak said.
Cristy took a breath and shrugged as she looked at Rizaak and then Harry. “Six hundred and ninety-two thousand dollars and forty-nine cents.”
“Say what?” Harry said, his voice almost a croak. “Six hundred and what?”
“And that is an account I had forgotten about until someone called me about it last month,” Rizaak said with not an ounce of pretension or arrogance. “Yes, it is six hundred thousand dollars that I did not even miss, my friend. So you tell me, am I the world’s best hostage or not?”
Now Harry was all smiles beneath that black mask, his tobacco-stained teeth shining yellow in the white overhead light. “Yeah, you’ll do,” he said. “You’ll do just fine, Mr. Al.”
“Rizaak Al-Khawas. Would you like me to spell it?”
“Al,” said Harry. “I can spell Al.”
Suddenly a phone rang on the reception desk out front, and a hush fell across the room as Tom answered. He spoke quickly, in a low, terse voice. Cristy couldn’t make out what he was saying. Then Tom hung up, signaled to Dick, and walked briskly towards Harry.
“Bring the woman,” Tom said as he walked past them. “We’re heading out the back way. I told the cops we haven’t taken any money or anything else, and we’ll let the woman go unharmed once we’re safe.”
“And they said yes?” Dick asked, hurrying to keep up with Tom.
Tom snorted. “They always say yes. They’ll let us go, but they’ll follow us. It’s up to us to shake them. With the girl in the car they won’t try anything too risky, though. So we got a chance.”
“Jane’s here with the car?” Dick said now.
“Pulling up out back,” Tom said. “Harry! Bring the girl! We’re leaving.”
Now Harry poked Rizaak in the back with his gun. “Come on, Al. We’re leaving.”
Tom looked over in surprise now. “Who’s this guy? No, we take the bank teller, Harry. The girl.”
Hostage for the Sheikh: A Royal Billionaire Romance Novel (Curves for Sheikhs Series Book 3) Page 2
