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“You’re going to go through your routine like this was a normal day,” Vic said. “We’re going to free your hands and mouth first. You’re going to shower, shave, get dressed, have breakfast and go to work like any other day, and you’re going to follow our instructions to the letter.”
Vic motioned toward Percy, who held up a cell phone.
“If you try anything, anything at all, Percy will hit Send on a speed dial number and your wife and son are gone. There are no second chances. You got that?”
When Dan nodded, they removed the tape from his wrists and mouth.
As soon as his mouth was free, Dan rushed to speak. “Please—I want to see my wife and son.”
Vic held up another phone, showing a grainy video of Lori and Billy, bound and afraid. Given the quality, Dan couldn’t determine where they were, if it was real time or recorded.
“When was this taken? How do I know they’re still alive?”
“That’s all you get!”
Vic pulled the phone away before they forced Dan into the bathroom, leaving the door open. As they stood guard with their guns, they watched him relieve himself and then climb into the shower. His body was stiff and numb from being tied up all night, and he welcomed the needles of hot water, bringing back some of his adrenaline from earlier. He kept his thoughts on Lori and Billy, praying they were still safe.
Stepping from the shower, he glanced at Percy, who passed him a towel. After drying himself, Dan wiped steam from the mirror and lathered his face. His hand shook as he shaved, nicking his chin with the razor. He stemmed the blood with a dot of toilet paper then put a bandage on his temple where he’d been struck with the gun.
After shoving Dan’s robe at him, the men took him to the kitchen where they watched him gulp two cups of black coffee and forced him to eat a bagel. It would be a long day, and they didn’t need him hungry and light-headed. “We don’t want your stomach growling at the bank.”
In the early morning quiet, Dan heard no sign of Lori and Billy, or the two other invaders from the night before. He wondered if they were still in the house—maybe the basement? Or the garage? As he ate, he found it difficult to absorb the bizarreness of his situation: his family’s lives suddenly at stake; the armed invaders with their freakish masks; the way they watched him and then checked on neighbors at the windows with blinds drawn. As they monitored their phones for messages, Dan noticed Vic checking a duffel bag and the way he kept an eye on the clock over the fridge. If, as they said, they knew everything about his family, then they were aware of their routine. Dan went to work first, and concerns at Lori’s office or Billy’s school about their absences would not surface for a few hours yet.
When Dan finished, Vic and Percy took him back to the bedroom to brush his teeth and dress, bringing the bag with them.
On the bed, Dan laid out his navy gabardine trousers, his navy wool blazer, a silk tie and his powder-blue dress shirt. He’d got as far as pulling on his pants before they stopped him again.
Dan’s heart skipped a beat as he watched Percy reach into the bag for a vest just like the ones they’d strapped to Lori and Billy. They placed it on his chest, the Velcro fasteners crackling as they adjusted it. Dan saw the thin bricks and the wires connecting them to the power source. He could smell the nylon mingling with the scent of vanilla and plastic. They activated the power source and the timing light blinked red. Then they helped Dan tug on his shirt—a snug fit with the vest, but it worked.
Sweat beaded on Dan’s brow and his fingers trembled as he knotted his tie in front of Lori’s full-length mirror.
“Relax, Dan, and pay attention.”
Vic held up Dan’s glasses, black with rectangle frames.
“We did a little work on these, see?”
Looking closely, Dan noticed a small metal button no bigger than the head of a pin fixed to the bridge. On the inside of the arms, they’d attached two more small metal buttons.
“The one in the front is a camera lens. The ones on the sides are microphone-earphone receiver transmitters. They let us see remotely on our laptop what you see, hear what you hear. And they let us talk to each other. Put them on.”
Vic showed Dan the image he was seeing on their laptop.
“So don’t think about being a hero today. We’re watching every move. If you deviate from our instructions, we’ll detonate the vests, all three at once. Do you understand?”
He understood.
They helped him pull on his blazer, adjust his hair, slip on his glasses.
Vic checked the time, then handed Dan his briefcase containing an empty, folded duffel bag.
“Okay, Dan, let’s go to work.”
5
Roseoak Park, New York
The house is too quiet.
As they walked Dan through the back and into the garage, his fear mounted.
“Are Billy and Lori in the basement?”
“Shut up!” Vic said. “Focus on what you need to do.”
Dan’s eyes went around the garage, taking quick inventory. Suddenly the everyday items took on a new and desperate significance, a reflection of their lives before the attack. Billy’s bicycle, his goal net, his bats and hockey sticks, and up in one corner, his old tricycle.
Stacked on the bench were cardboard boxes of clothes Lori was preparing to donate to the church. Nearby were her clay planters, her gardening tools and her flower-printed gardening gloves. Looped neatly on a hook was the hose and, near it, Dan’s John Deere mower. He did his best thinking and problem-solving when he mowed the lawn.
I’ve got to do something.
Vic nudged him. Dan opened the door to his Ford Taurus and got in alone. As he sat behind the wheel, he glanced at Lori’s Dodge Dart, parked next to him.
“Step it up!” Vic said.
Dan inserted the key and started his car. Vic tapped the window with his gun. Dan lowered it and Vic leaned into the driver’s door, resting his gun on the frame. For an instant Dan contemplated grabbing it, but he was distracted when he saw that Percy had vanished.
They must’ve parked their vehicle nearby.
“Remember,” Vic said, “all you have to do is follow our instructions. You’re doing good so far. It’ll be over before you know it, so don’t mess this up. We’re watching you every step of the way. Now get going.”
As Vic stepped away from the car, Dan backed out of the driveway and wheeled down the street. The vest was hot and cumbersome. His skin tingled with each bump and pothole for fear the thing might go off.
On the console he saw the receipts from the recent weekend he and Lori had spent in Boston. His chief worries then had been finding good parking and the price of gas. Dan adjusted his grip on the wheel.
What the hell’s happening?
He rolled through their corner of Roseoak, a middle-class community of tree-lined streets with Tudor, ranch and Colonial houses. Flanked by Douglaston, Little Neck and Oakland Gardens and bordered by the Long Island Expressway and Grand Central Parkway, Roseoak Park was a desirable enclave of Queens. With good schools and no crime, it was considered a safe place to live.
A clear radio voice sounded in his ear.
“Looking good, Dan.”
He checked his mirrors in an effort to spot their vehicle. But there was nothing to see. It was futile.
“Stick to the plan and no one gets hurt, Dan.”
Dan prayed that Lori and Billy were still safe—or as safe as they could be wrapped with a bomb—and racked his brain for a way out.
Glancing in vain in his rearview mirror, he wondered again who they were—and why they’d chosen him. He crawled through traffic, knowing he had little time to act.
I could drive to the police—go right to the 111th Precinct in Bayside. Tell them everything!
He thought of Lori and Bill, and how Vic had vowed to kill them.
If I go to the police I could save them.
Sweat trickled from his temple, nearing his eye.
Or...I could kill us all.
6
Manhattan, New York
Kate Page stood on the southbound platform of the 125th Street subway station.
Waiting for the next train to get her to Midtown and Newslead, the global news service where she was a reporter, she reviewed the messages on her phone again and let out a long breath.
She hadn’t even set foot in the newsroom, but her exchange a few minutes ago with Reeka Beck, her editor, had already set the stage for a bad day.
You’re covering the conference of security experts at the Grand Hyatt for us today, Reeka had texted her.
But Chuck told me I was clear to enterprise today.
Change of plan. A lot going on today. Randy Kent’s wife went into labor, so you’re going to the Hyatt this afternoon.
What about Hugh? He’s backup on security?
It’s you, today. End of discussion.
The tunnel grumbled with distant vibrations of the approaching train. Its bright headlights shot from darkness as it rattled into the station. With a rush of hot, dank air, the brakes squealed and the train came to a stop. The doors opened. Kate boarded and found a seat under the large MTA subway map and ads for the addictions hotline and STD awareness.
As the train rolled south, Kate resumed panning for a story. For the past few weeks she’d been trying to nail down some long-shot leads, one about stolen satellite technology and one on human trafficking. She didn’t have much on either of them, and she’d wanted to pursue them today, unless something fresh broke. She’d sent out some notes to a few trusted sources to see if anything new was going on, but the messages that trickled back were not promising. Kate looked up from her silent phone, wishing for a good story.
It’s Deadsville out there.
She could not escape the fact that times were tough in the news business. More and more newspapers were shedding jobs. Newslead was losing subscribers, and rumors of cutbacks were swirling. But as the train grated and swayed, she did her best to stay positive. Whatever happened, she would survive.
I made it this far.
Kate stared at her translucent reflection in the window as the drab tunnel walls rushed by, pulling her back through her life. She was a thirty-one-year-old single mom with an eight-year-old daughter. Kate had been seven years old when her mother and father died in a hotel fire. After the tragedy, Kate and her little sister, Vanessa, had lived with relatives and then in foster homes. A couple of years later, Kate and Vanessa’s foster parents had taken them on a vacation to Canada. They were in British Columbia, driving through the Canadian Rockies, when their car spun out, flipped over and crashed into a river.
The images of that moment were seared in Kate’s mind.
The car sinking...the windows breaking...the icy water...grabbing Vanessa’s hand...pulling her free...to the surface...the frigid current numbing her body...fingers loosening...Vanessa slipping away...disappearing...
Kate was the only one who’d survived.
They’d found the bodies of Kate’s foster parents, but Vanessa’s body was never recovered. The search team reasoned that it got wedged in the rocks downriver, but Kate never gave up believing that Vanessa had somehow escaped the rushing water.
She never gave up searching for her.
After the tragedy, Kate had bounced through foster homes, eventually running away for good. She spent her teen years on the street, taking any job she could find to put herself through college, where she’d studied journalism. She’d worked in newsrooms across the country. Then, in San Francisco, she’d had a baby girl by a man who’d lied to her about being married and had written her off when he’d found out she was pregnant.
Kate named her daughter Grace and raised her on her own in Ohio where she’d worked at a newspaper in Canton, before downsizing cost her that job. But she hung on. She found a short-term reporting position in Dallas, and now here she was: a national correspondent at one of the world’s largest news organizations.
I’ve come a long way, and I never, ever, give up.
The proof smiled back at her from the photo on her phone’s screen.
Grace and Vanessa.
Kate blinked at them.
It nearly cost her everything, but eventually she’d found Vanessa.
Kate smiled to herself. It’d been a year since she’d had her sister back in her life, living with her and Grace. Vanessa was a fighter. She’d made remarkable progress with her therapy; she was going to school and working part-time as a waitress. Last month Kate and Vanessa finished a book on their lost years, Kate’s search for her and their reunion. It was titled Echo in My Heart: A Relentless Story of Love, Loss and Survival, and it was going to be released in the fall.
We’re doing okay. We’re living our lives.
Kate was also blessed to have Nancy Clark in her life. The retired and widowed nurse lived alone on the floor above them. Ever since Kate had moved into the building, she and Nancy had become more than neighbors. Nancy had never had any children of her own and had opened her heart to Kate, Grace and Vanessa. She was so kind and warm she’d practically adopted the three of them, insisting on helping them whenever she could.
A steely scraping pierced Kate’s ears and the train decelerated. The blurring dark tunnels were quickly replaced by the bright tiles of the platform walls of Penn Station.
She stepped off, remembering to breathe through her mouth and avoid inhaling the humid, musty air while navigating the pandemonium of the crushing commuter crowds. Kate had become adept at threading her way through the vast low-ceilinged warren, up to the doors and outside.
She’d surfaced in front of Madison Square Garden, across from the post office, when her phone vibrated. A man bumped her, snickering something, when she stopped to read a message from a source, a detective with the NYPD.
Nothing going on, he texted. But stay on your toes. Never know what’s coming around the corner.
That was it.
Kate put her phone away and hurried toward Newslead’s world headquarters, a few blocks away in a fifty-story office tower on Manhattan’s far West Side.
7
Roseoak Park, New York
Dan stopped at a red light two blocks from his bank, paralyzed with indecision.
Then he saw the cop.
A white guy, mid-twenties, sipping coffee from a take-out cup behind the wheel of an NYPD car in the opposite lane.
Drive into the intersection! Now! Block him and tell him!
As Dan tightened his grip on the wheel, Vic hissed in his ear.
“We see that cop, too, Dan. Don’t try anything stupid. You’ve got a lot of lives in your hands right now. You want to risk killing Lori and Billy?”
Dan hesitated.
He heard shuffling in his ear, and then Lori’s voice filled his ear.
“Dan, oh God! If you can hear me, please, do what they say!”
“Lori! Lori, did they hurt you?”
More shuffling, then Billy: “Dad, please, do what they want!”
“Billy! Are you okay?”
A beat passed, and Vic’s voice returned.
“You heard them, Dan. Just stick to the plan, and no one gets hurt.”
The light turned green.
Dan’s pulse was hammering as his foot twitched on the brake pedal.
The cop rolled through the intersection and down the street in the opposite direction. A horn tapped behind Dan, and he continued driving, dragging the back of his hand across his brow as he let out a breath.
Moments later he came to Branch 487 for SkyNational Trust Banking Corp., a small one-story building constructed in neo-art-deco style. Its floor-to-ceiling glass walls gleamed in the morning sun, with a curving clean-lined flat roof extending over the three drive-through ATMs. The property was bordered with shrubs, plants and flowers that were professionally maintained. SkyNational had given Dan awards for exemplary management of his branch.
He turned into his usual parking spot. The lot was empty except for the two cars of the staff who’d arrived first and were in charge of opening. Dan was versed in branch opening procedures and ensured his people complied with, and adhered to, all security standards of the Bank Protection Act.
The bank’s policy required two people to arrive at the same time for opening. First, they scanned the area for anything suspicious. Then the first employee entered while the second one stayed in the car, waiting for an all-clear signal or cell phone call. These steps guarded against “morning-glory robberies,” whereby criminals lay in wait for staff prior to opening.
Once it was safe to proceed, the two staff members used the dual control system to open the vault and obtain daily cash boxes for the tellers. Then they opened the night depository and collected the overnight deposits. An armored security company collected deposits from the ATMs. Aside from a few additional matters, those were the key steps before unlocking the front doors for daily business.
Until today, the branch had never been robbed.
“Time’s ticking!” Vic said. “Get your ass in there!”
Dan grabbed his briefcase. Heading across the lot to the rear entrance, he heard a metallic clanking and looked up at the flag poles. The Stars and Stripes, the state flag and SkyNational’s corporate flag waved dutifully in the breeze.
At the door’s lockbox, he swiped his manager’s card and pressed his security code on the keypad.
Nothing happened.
His hands were a bit shaky. He took a breath, repeated the process. The door opened, and he was greeted with the aroma of fresh coffee.
“Morning, Dan.” Annie Trippe, the head teller and soon-to-be assistant manager, smiled from behind the counter where she was topping up supplies for tellers.
“Annie.”
“Hi, Dan,” Jo Ballinger called out. Jo, one of his best tellers, was arranging an assortment of pastries the branch offered to morning customers.
“Morning, Jo.”
Dan glanced around. They would open the doors in twenty minutes.
“How’d your opening go, guys?” he asked.
“Tickety-boo,” Jo said. “All tickety-boo. Except...”
“Except what?”
“These 6:00 a.m. openings are killers, Dan.”
“I know.” He smiled sympathetically, trying to look as natural as possible. “But central selected us to be a pilot branch. It’s all about serving the needs of our early-bird commuters. Now, I’ve got some urgent business to take care of, then I have to step out.”
Annie’s head shot up, and she took a longer look at Dan as he headed for his office.
“Hold on, there, Dan. What happened to you?”
“What?”
Annie touched her temple indicating where Dan had a large bandage.
“Knocked my head against the door. Getting clumsier, I guess.”
The concern on Annie’s face was slow to melt as Dan shrugged and stepped into his office. He switched on the lights, set his briefcase down on his desk and logged into his computer.
Vic’s voice rumbled quietly in his ear. “You’re doing good so far, Dan.”
He immediately set to work, his keyboard clicking as he typed, but he stopped when a shadow fell over him, followed by the soft thud of a ceramic mug of coffee set on his desk.
Annie stood before him.
“What’s going on, Dan? You don’t look so good.”
He licked his lips, aware that Vic would hear and see everything.
“Shut the door,” he told her.
“Careful, Dan,” Vic reminded him.
After closing the door, Annie turned to him. She was in her midforties, with high cheekbones, dark eyes and a warm smile. Her husband was a fire captain, and her son was starting Hunter College. Annie had been with SkyNational fifteen years. She was devoted, dedicated—an intelligent woman who was not easily fooled.
“Something’s up, Dan. What is it?”
“This is completely off the record and stays between you and me.”
“Of course. What is it?”
“It’s South Branch—seems Mort’s got a little crisis.”
“Odd. Mort’s such a perfectionist. What sort of crisis?”
“His cash inventory is low, so I’m issuing a directive to transfer two hundred and fifty thousand from our vault to South Branch, which I will personally deliver to them this morning.”
“You can’t be serious!”
“Believe me, it has to be done this way.” He input several commands, and his printer came to life. “I’ll need you to cosign the directive.”
Dan grabbed the pages and his pen.
“What you’re doing isn’t right,” Annie said. “We use armored car services for interbranch transfers. They’re directed by the Central Branch. Dan, there are strict rules for this. You know that. Mort has to call Central with his inventory issue. Besides, this would drain us. It makes no sense.”
“This is an emergency, Annie.” He put the directive in a file folder and hunched over it slightly as he signed it. All the while he kept his head up, looking at her. “Believe me, you’ll understand later why I had to do this.” He closed the folder on the paperwork, turned it over to her and, leaving it on the desk with the pen, stood and picked up his briefcase. “Please cosign it after you read it carefully. I have to go.”
“No, I won’t sign it.” She turned from the desk without looking at the folder. “This isn’t right. Dan, wait!”
Dan went to the vault, opened his briefcase and began filling the duffel bag with bundles of cash, pausing to look at them and mentally counting.
“Dan, please, stop, I don’t understand what you’re doing! Tell me what’s going on.”
Just as Dan was scrambling to come up with something to tell her, Vic whispered, “Tell her it’s a security exercise, that she’s not technically supposed to know anything and that she’ll get a call fifteen minutes after you leave.”
“Listen to me.” Dan dropped his voice, continuing to load the bag. “This is part of a secret security drill. Everything’s all right. You’ll get a call from security fifteen minutes after I leave.”
Annie’s face creased with fearful disbelief.
Dan zipped the bag, hoisted it over his shoulder, left the vault and strode out the rear entrance to his car.
8
Roseoak Park, New York
Annie Trippe stood inside the bank’s rear door.
She watched her manager drive away, her hands pressed against her mouth and tears stinging her eyes. She jumped when someone touched her shoulder from behind.
“Annie, are you all right?” Jo asked.
Shaking her head and regaining most of her composure, Annie turned.
“Something’s very wrong with Dan.”
“I got the feeling something wasn’t right. What’s going on?”
“He just walked out of here with a bag full of cash—a quarter million.”
“Are you serious?”
“He was talking about low inventory at South Branch, made a transfer directive for me to sign, then said something about a security drill.”
Jo’s brow creased. “But...none of that makes any sense.”
“I know.” Annie pulled herself to her full height, looked around the empty lobby and took charge. “We’ve got to do something—fast. Jo, don’t open the front doors until I tell you.”
Annie hurried to her desk, picked up her phone and called Dan’s cell phone. As it continued to ring, she tried to come up with a reasonable explanation for what he’d just done. He clearly wasn’t himself, and she hoped she could get him to come back to the branch before things escalated any further.
When his voice mail picked up, Annie called Dan’s home and got the same result.
Her mind racing, she pulled up Dan’s full contact information, hoping she’d have some luck with his wife’s cell phone.
Maybe Lori knows what’s happening. Maybe she can help.
It rang through to voice mail. Out of options and out of time, Annie called one more number.
“SkyNational, South Branch. How may I direct your call?”
“Sally, its Annie Trippe at Roseoak.”