Holding On To You (5 page)

River takes the handcuffs from the guard's belt, and clicks them around Maddy's slender wrists. With her hands safely bound behind her back, he makes his way towards the stairwell.

'You do what I say, and only what I say, and you won't get hurt, I promise you that', River whispers into Maddy's ear. It's the first time, for as long as she can remember, that someone has been so physically close to her. If she wasn't so scared, she might have time to enjoy it.

'I said where the fuck are you going?' Peters calls to River again. His gun is levelled at River's head, but River knows he's a much better shot if it comes down to it.

'I'm walking out of here. The money in the safe is yours. I don't want any of it', he says to him, slowly backing away.

'And the money in your hand?' Peters says.

'Like the lady said already', River says. 'It isn't ours to take.'

The phone rings again, and it shocks Peters so much he nearly squeezes off a round. While he's distracted, River slips down the stairs and out of sight.

'Fuck', Peters says when he notices, and then fires the gun anyway, digging two bullets angrily into the beautiful, hand-carved wood of the curving banisters.

'Fuck him', Carlos says. 'He won't get far.'

Fergal has the handset pressed against his ear, and with his shaky hand writes down the code for the safe with his gold plated pen.

At the bottom of the stairwell, and still hidden from the main door, River prepares himself. He hugs Maddy tightly across the middle, and presses his body so snugly into hers he can feel her heart beat. Lastly, the cold steel of the gun goes up against her temple and makes her gasp with fear.

'This isn't going to be easy', River whispers to her, 'but it sure is going to be fun.'

He takes a deep breath and moves towards the glass door so the waiting officers can see him.

'Don't shoot. I'm coming out', he calls, and kicks the door open.

'Drop your weapon! Get face down on the ground', come the shouts from the officers, all four of whom have their guns trained on the bodies in front of them, unable to separate the hostage from the robber.

'Yeah, do you know what?' River says, 'I'm not going to do that. Instead,
you
are, unless you want this poor young woman to die.'

Maddy can't help herself. She's crying like she hasn't cried for a long time. Her day has just gone from bad through worse, to life threatening.

'Put your gun down', come the shouts again, this time a little less convincingly, as the officers slowly begin to realise who has the upper hand, none of them with enough authority to do anything other than what the hell River demands.

'Tell them who you are', River says to Maddy, all the time moving them away from the bank and further up the street. River has his eye on a car that has parked close by - the obese African-American woman inside, having stopped to rubber neck, and film the scene on her mobile phone.

'I'm Madeleine Parker', Maddy says through thick tears. 'Please help me.'

'Put your guns down boys', River says, 'or I'll kill poor Maddy here.'

River can feel her tense up, and hugs her closer towards him in case she tries to squirm away.

The officers look at each other. One by one, they put their guns down.

'That's better', River says.

He's nearly at the car, and the woman is still filming him, unaware of the danger that approaches. Carefully he backs towards her, his eyes all the while on the four officers in front of him.

'Get the fuck out of the car', he says to her.

For her size, the woman moves surprisingly quickly. It's almost as if she considers herself an extra on a movie shoot, because she puts up zero resistance, and instead, leaves her car as smoothly as possible, while continuing to film on her mobile phone.

One of the officers by the car gets twitchy. He can see an opportunity coming, but River sees what he's thinking and won't let him get anywhere near taking it. He fires a warning shot into the ground, a centimetre from his big toe, and is inside the car, with Maddy alongside him, before the dust has had time to settle.

River guns the car into action as the officers work quickly to retrieve their weapons. As soon as he pulls away, the back windshield explodes, as a bullet tears through it, showering the back seat with shards of glass and whistling only inches past River's ear. It isn't police procedure to fire in a situation where a hostage could be injured, but these four officers are too dumb to realise it.

'Fuck me', River says. 'Have they forgotten you're in here or what?'

He pushes Maddy into the seat well to protect her from further shots and, losing control of the car momentarily, steers it up onto the sidewalk. Another shot destroys the rear light fixing, before River ploughs his way through a row of parked cars and back onto a clean stretch of road. As he disappears into the distance, the officers pile into their own cars and set off to chase him down, unaware that two of the robbers still remain inside the bank. If Carlos and Peters weren't already in the vault, filling bin bags with stacks of money, this would have been a perfect moment for them to escape.

River casts a cautious glance into the glass hanging off the right hand side of his car, that's all that's left of what used to be the wing mirror. Up in front is a clear enough stretch of tarmac that leads through the thoroughfare of the city and out to the main road, but behind him, he sees the two police cars begin to give chase. The few moments he has until they catch him up, River uses to light another cigarette, and to find some decent music to listen to until the shit hits the fan again.

'You alright Maddy?' River asks her, but only after his cigarette has been lit, and he's taken some of the smoke down into his lungs.

Maddy is most definitely not alright. She's been forced against her will into a stolen car, by a thug with a death wish, she's been shot at, pushed onto the floor twice, her dress is ripped, her hair is a mess, and above all, she's been called Maddy, a name she absolutely detests. River tries to find something decent on the radio to listen to while he waits for Maddy's response.

'My name is Madeleine', Maddy says to him, the shock making it harder to concentrate on any thing else. She tries to pull herself out of the seat-well and back up onto the seat, but as soon as she manages to steady herself enough to do so, River swings the car violently to the right, to overtake a slower vehicle, and the movement sends her crashing back down to where she started.

'Don't be so uptight, Maddy', he says. 'Madeleine makes you sound like you've just been widowed. You haven't just been widowed have you? You kind of look like you have. Anyway, I'm River, it's a pleasure to meet you. Now what kind of music do you like?'

He spins through the dial, while cutting in and out of traffic, one eye on the steadily advancing police cars behind him, one eye on the road ahead. To his delight, he finds some blue grass, which he listens to for all of six seconds, before another bullet rips through the car and destroys the stereo.

Maddy screams, as the dashboard above her explodes in a fit of sparks and begins to catch fire.

'Oh hell', River says. 'I was enjoying that.'

They are on the edge of the city. Ahead lies a highway that curves into the deserted wastelands of New Mexico, and offers the best chance of escape. In order to do that though, they need to somehow evade two police cars, four angry officers, and the bullets from their guns, in a car with a top speed of sixty seven miles per hour, that also now happens to be on fire. The worse thing, River thinks, is that he's run out of pre-rolled cigarettes.

At the bank, Peters and Carlos are filling bin bags with bundles of cash, trying desperately to take as much of the six million, seven hundred and seventy five thousand, four hundred and six dollars as they can. In their excitement in being able to get inside the vault, they forget that nobody is left watching the hostages, who all, as soon as they see their opportunity to do so, promptly escape. Senior key holder Fergal Murphy remains the only man inside the bank, hauled along to the vault with the robbers to make sure the access code works. When it does so, he doesn't think it appropriate to try and leave, when the two men he has escorted into the vault have automatic weapons and, one of them at least, has a penchant for killing. Instead, he watches, answers when asked a question, pulls on his ginger moustache, and hopes he isn't going to die.

Frank 'The Bulldog' Giamatti finally makes it to the bank, pulling up with a fleet of sixteen officers spread across six cars, and instead of finding the two police cars and four officers he expects to see, waiting patiently for his arrival, he watches as the last of the hostages bolts out of the door and runs as far away from the bank as possible.

'What the fuck? Where the fuck is Edwards?' he says, getting out of the car before it's had a chance to come to a stop. 'What the fuck is going on here?'

Officer Mark Edwards, in his haste to catch up with River and capture his first real bank robber, has not radioed his decision into base. Nor has his dim-witted, gung-ho colleague Jesse Harper, who has done nothing but hold his gun outstretched, desperate to fill the robber with a dose of lead as soon as he receives the order from his colleague to do so. In the other car, police officers Red Jackson and Blake Phoenix have been just as forgetful, as entwined in the chase as a couple of kids playing computer games, which ironically both of them were, earlier that day.

Before Frank can get either of the pair of them on the radio, a hail of bullets comes down from above, forcing him back behind his car for cover.

Carlos and Peters have stuffed as much of the money into bags as they can manage, but they've left their escape far too late. They've also inadvertently managed to let all of their thirty seven hostages escape, every one except Fergal, and the poor off duty police officer who now has the inside of his head splashed against the back wall like a spilt bowl of hot tomato soup.

'Fuck', Carlos says.

They have six bin bags full of cash, three guns, one hostage, a car parked across the street, one exit and sixteen police officers in the way, including Frank 'The Bulldog' Giamatti, someone you definitely didn't want on your back.

Frank finally gets Edwards on the two way.

'Where the fuck are you?' Frank barks at him.

'Heading onto interstate five', Edwards says. 'Pursuing felon and hostage. I've got this Frank.'

Inside the beaten up tank of an Oldsmobile, the thick grey smoke is getting thicker and greyer and Maddy's eyes are now streaming.

'The car is on fire', Maddy screams at River.

'Yep', River says.

'Don't do anything stupid Edwards', Frank shouts at him. 'Just hold on alongside him until we get a chopper in the air.'

'I can stop him Frank', Edwards says. 'We can set up a block. I can bring him in.'

'Listen to me Edwards', Frank says, his blood boiling. 'Don't do anything, but keep him in your sights. No road blocks, no heroics and definitely no guns, do you hear me? Don't fire a single fucking shot into that car.'

'The line is cutting out, boss', Edwards lies.

'Edwards', Frank says, but he's already gone. 'Edwards!'

Edwards places the walkie back in its holder and smiles at Harper. 'Let's bring him down', he says. Harper cocks his gun.

'Motherfucker', Frank says. 'I need a chopper in the air right now over interstate five using the GPS location of Mark Edwards's car. And somebody find out what the fuck is going on here. I need to know who's still inside.'

The flames have died down, and left a thick cloud of acrid smelling smoke billowing through the car, that seems to be having more of an effect on Maddy than it is on River. Maddy's eyes are streaming, but she can't work out whether she's crying for real, or whether it's just the smoke that's causing it.

They've left the chaos of the city behind them, and the landscape has changed completely, as though they've been magically transported to a different world. Maddy can of course see none of this from where she's sat, and even if she could see out of the one window that remains intact, she wouldn't be able to see much of anything anyway out of her smoke reddened eyes.

The road has narrowed down to two lanes, a straight road that cuts right out across the sun bleached nothingness all around them and Edwards decides it's a stretch of road that provides a perfect opportunity to set up a road block, despite his specific instructions to the contrary. The traffic is almost non-existent on this two lane black top out of the city, and he doesn't reckon he'll get a better opportunity. He radios his intention to the other car, and River watches them both zoom up alongside him. To give him a final opportunity to pull over, before they
make
him stop, Harper tries to engage River in conversation.

'Pull over', Harper says in a commanding voice, his gun pointed at the wayward felon.

'Now you want to negotiate?' River says, sarcastically.

'Help', Maddy screams when she hears the other man's voice. 'Help me.'

'Pull over', Harper says again. 'I won't ask you again.'

'You going to make me officer?' River says.

'Help', Maddy screams again, with all the energy she can muster, trying desperately to stand up and make herself seen.