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Joel handed out forty-five caliber pistols along with extra magazines. “That gives each of you fourteen shots,” he told them. Dan stuck his gun in a front pocket and then passed out the ski masks. Gordon had added hair to the edges of the ones that both he and Joel ended up with, making them look like they had long black curly hair. Shrini slipped on a pair of tinted aviator glasses and put his ski mask on over them. They all sat for a moment collecting their thoughts and then Dan whistled to get their attention. He got out of the car and took a duffel bag from the trunk. Shrini followed, also taking a duffel bag. Joel and Hoffer both opened their bags and brought out Kalashnikov rifles.

“Fuck it,” Joel said. “Let’s get moving!”

He led the way, pushing though the shrubs and running at full speed towards the bank. Dan followed behind. He felt strange, almost as if he were watching himself from outside his body. Dreamlike more than anything else.

The scene didn’t seem real to him as they descended on the bank, guns drawn. Customers and bank employees looked on with confused and shocked expressions. An older woman started screaming. Joel smacked her on the back of the head with the rifle barrel. That shut her up as she sat on the floor holding the area where she’d been hit. As Dan looked around he could see the light going on in some of their eyes as they realized what was happening. Two of the tellers had their hands below the counter. He knew they were pressing the alarm signal. One of them showed a thin smile, as if he had some joke over them that they didn’t know about. Of course, the alarms were disabled, but they didn’t know that. Joel and Hoffer were rounding them up, making them lie on their stomachs while Gordon wrapped their wrists and ankles with duct tape. Dan ran to the bank manager’s office. The manager looked up at Dan, scared, and told him the silent alarm had been pressed.

“You might as well leave now while you still can,” he said. “Before someone gets hurt.”

This was the same manager who had made the decision to farm the software development to India instead of letting Dan build it. Dan signaled with his gun for him to stand up. As he got out of his chair and started for the door, Dan pushed him hard from behind. The manager tripped and fell to his knees before stumbling back to his feet. Joel spotted him, ran over and dragged him to the others.

Dan caught Shrini’s eyes. The two of them made a beeline towards the room where the safety deposit boxes were kept. That was what they were after. The robbery plan had come together once Dan hacked into the bank’s customer database and saw that one of the customers owned eight safety deposit boxes. After researching who this customer was and realizing he was a renowned Russian mobster it had all clicked. This man, Viktor Petrenko, wouldn’t be able to go to the police about what was stolen, and without that, how could the police catch them? And why would they ever suspect a bunch of geeky software engineers of pulling this off – especially if they had physical evidence linking the robbery to a reputed Mafia member?

There were electric outlets in the hallway. Dan and Shrini both opened their duffel bags and took out extension cords, plugging them into the outlets. The door to the room containing the safety deposit boxes was unlocked. If the alarm had been working, the door would’ve been bolted shut.

Inside, the two of them took high-performance power drills out of their duffel bags, plugged them into the extension cords and went to work. Dan had bought the same make of safety deposit box over the Internet. They were paid for with money orders and delivered to an address in Revere, a block from Raymond Lombardo’s home; he had been able to pick them up without anyone knowing about it. He and Shrini had practiced on those boxes and learned how to open them. There were three bolts that needed to be drilled through and then the boxes slid out easily. It still seemed like a dream as he drilled open the boxes belonging to Petrenko and dumped the contents into his duffel bag. There seemed to be a lot of money in the boxes, mostly packets of hundred-dollar bills held together by elastic bands.

Both of them were finishing up when they heard a gunshot. It was louder than Dan would’ve ever imagined and just seemed to echo on forever. They both shut off their drills.

“Is that what I think it is?” Shrini whispered.

Dan held up a palm for him to be quiet as he tried to listen to what was going on. He heard a woman yelling and then another shot.

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” he told Shrini.

“Wait a second.” Shrini turned his drill back on and finished cutting through the last bolt. Dan stood and watched, feeling like his heart was going to explode. After Shrini dumped the contents into his duffel bag and zipped it shut, the two of them grabbed their bags and headed back to the lobby.

What was going on there didn’t make any sense to Dan. There were no cops, no reason for any shooting, just Joel and Hoffer standing with their rifles while Gordon stood over two women, his body rigid, his arm fully extended as he pointed his gun at them. A large red puddle was leaking outward from one of the women. She couldn’t have been much older than twenty. Her shirt looked like it was drenched in blood. Her eyes were closed. Her skin bloodless. There was no question she was dead. The other woman, maybe in her forties, moaned loudly as she squirmed on the floor. She had been shot in the stomach. Gordon asked her several times if she had anything else she’d like to say to him.

Dan looked over at Gordon and then at Joel, trying to figure out what had happened. Joel shook his head angrily and headed quickly towards the lobby door, Hoffer joining him. Dan followed, his head buzzing, trying to understand how those two women got shot. As he was running, Shrini grabbed him and gestured towards his ski mask. Still in a daze, Dan took his mask off near one of the hidden security cameras. That was a big part of the plan since he knew the location of all the hidden security cameras. He paused for a moment and then kept going. When he got to the Chevy, Joel was waiting for him, livid.

“I told you not to bring him,” he spat out through clenched teeth.

“What the hell happened in there?”

“Ask your loon buddy.”

Gordon was pushing through the shrubs, breathing hard.

“Gordon, what the hell…?”

“Dan, you should’ve heard what those two said to me.”

“We have to get out of here,” Joel said, taking the ski mask from Shrini and collecting his gun. Dan blindly handed Joel both his gun and mask.

“Gordon, do you realize what you did to us?”

“Come on, Dan, I didn’t do anything to us. What difference does it make if I shot those two?”

“What difference…?”

Joel interrupted Gordon, slapping him on the arm. “Hey, loony, give me your mask.”

Annoyed, Gordon threw his mask at Joel before turning back to Dan. “Anyway, what did you expect?” he asked. “You invited me along and gave me a gun. Jeez, you should’ve known I’d do something like that.”

All Dan could do was stare at him. Joel moved forward, his hand out in front of Gordon’s eyes as he snapped his fingers. “Your gun, now!” he barked. Gordon turned to him, his face red. “What is your problem!” he yelled back, shoving the gun, barrel first, into Joel’s outstretched hand.

Joel without any hesitation flipped the gun in his hand and shot Gordon in the middle of his forehead. Gordon rocked back and forth on his heels and then fell straight back as if he were a piece of timber that had been cut.

Joel pointed the gun at Dan. From the corner of his eye, Dan could see Hoffer aiming his rifle at Shrini, his plastic grin now a hard sneer. “Take his overalls off,” Joel said softly. “Both of you.”

“Joel, what are you doing?”

“You got twenty seconds,” Joel said, his face white, his eyes glassy. “I’m counting now. Otherwise, I’m leaving you and your Indian buddy here with this loon.”

He started counting. Shrini moved first, kneeling by Gordon’s dead body and unzipping the overalls. Dan joined him, his hands shaking. He could hear Hoffer standing behind him laughing softly. Somehow they got the overalls off before Joel finished counting. Underneath, Gordon had on a Grateful Dead T-shirt and a pair of shorts. Hoffer balled the overalls up and threw them into the Chevy’s trunk, along with the duffel bags.

“Take his car keys,” Joel ordered.

Dan went through Gordon’s pockets and pulled out both his wallet and keys.

Joel waved his gun at Dan. “We’re getting out of here now. Dan, you drive, Gunga Din here can sit in the back with Eric.”

They moved quickly into the car. Dan could feel himself trembling as he gripped the wheel, not out of fear but from a white-hot rage. He pulled the car on to the street and headed towards the highway.

“You would’ve shot me back there,” he said.

“If you didn’t get those overalls off in time, yeah.”

Dan drove another minute stewing in silence. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a cell phone.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m calling for an ambulance. That woman in the bank, the one shot in the stomach, needs one.”

“Forget it. I’m sure someone heard the gunshots, and I’m sure plenty of ambulances are on their way.”

Almost prophetically the sound of sirens could be heard in the distance. Within seconds the noise grew louder until it was almost deafening, and then just as quickly it faded. The police cruisers and ambulances must’ve traveled past them on a parallel street.

“You fucked us,” Dan said to Joel after it became quiet again. “It was bad enough what Gordon did, but what you did fucked us. The police are going to tie him to the robbery. You screwed up the frame we had in place for Lombardo.”

Joel squeezed his jaw with one hand while he used the other to hold a gun on Dan. “I made an executive decision,” he said. “No way I was going to trust my life with that loon, not after seeing what he did in that bank. Fuck him anyway, he got what he deserved for what he did to those two women.”

“You still fucked us.”

“I didn’t fuck anything. I used the same gun he used. That means ballistics are going to match up and the cops are going to figure that he was shot by the same bank robbers, probably so they could take his car. They’ll look at him as simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“That’s right, chief,” Hoffer snickered from behind. “Nothing at all to worry about.”

Joel glanced back at him, giving him a look to shut up.

“What happened in there?”

“Exactly what you should’ve expected.” Joel showed a pained expression, shook his head. “Even worse, exactly what I should’ve expected. I never should’ve agreed to let you bring Gordon.”

“He just started shooting them?”

“Pretty much. He started talking to that girl, the one he shot in the chest. I don’t know what the fuck he was saying to her, shit about Brazil and the Jersey Shore and God knows what else. She called him a couple of pretty rough names and he flipped her over and shot her in the chest. Then that other woman started mouthing off, and he flipped her over and shot her also.”

“You couldn’t stop him?”

“How?” Joel asked. “What could I have done?” He shook his head angrily. “No, pal, this is your fault. You insisted that he be part of this. You promised me you could control him for ten lousy minutes.” His voice choked off as he stared at Dan, his features hardening, making him look like an old man. Then, softly, “I didn’t sign up for a felony murder rap. Sorry, Dan, but this changes everything. You’re going to drive to your buddy’s car, the two of you are going to get out and you’re going to forget about any share of the money.”

“This isn’t right, Joel.”

“The price you have to pay, Dan.”

“What about me?” Shrini asked from behind.

“Sorry, Gunga, but that’s your price also. As far as I’m concerned Gordon was as much your mistake as Dan’s. My advice, go back to India and forget this ever happened.”

Dan turned into the mall parking lot where they had left their cars. He pulled up to Shrini’s Civic.

“This is not a good idea, Joel.”

“Why not? You’re going to tell the police on me?” Joel made a face. “I don’t think so.” His eyes glazed over as he trained the gun on Dan’s chest. “If either of you do anything other than quietly get into that car, I’m going to cut the two of you down right here and take my chances. Have a nice life, okay, pal.”

“Nice seeing you again, chief,” Hoffer added.

Dan sat frozen until he felt the barrel of Joel’s forty-five push into his ribs. He turned to say something, but the look in Joel’s eyes convinced him that it would be useless. He got out of the car. Shrini stared helplessly at Dan before joining him. They stood and watched as Joel slid over into the Chevy’s driver’s seat and Hoffer moved up front. As they drove off, Hoffer rolled down his window and saluted them with his middle finger.

15

Alex Resnick noted the location of the surveillance cameras as he entered the bank. Two other detectives, Tom Stillwall and Phil Hollings, were already inside talking to a witness. Resnick nodded to them and then glanced at the dead woman. Over the years he had grown mostly numb to the sight of dead bodies, but seeing this girl weakened him in the knees. She was just too damn young to have something like that happen to her. He heard a low groan, and saw his partner staring in her direction.

“Damn, there’s a lot of blood,” Maguire said.

Stillwall approached the two of them, both hands pushed deep in his pockets, his face frozen in a constipated frown. He was a big man, messy, his hair uncombed, a thick six o’clock shadow already showing. His suit, which was several sizes too big, looked as if it had been slept in.

“Hey, boyos,” he greeted them, his constipated look growing more pained, “what a mess, huh? We’re going to be here all goddamn night. And just my luck, I’ve got Sox tickets for this evening.”

“Two people were shot?” Resnick asked.

“Yeah, we had two of them all right.” Stillwall consulted a notepad. “One Mary O’Donnell, forty-two, lives right here in Lynn.” He closed his notepad. “She was in pretty rough shape when they took her out, shot point blank in the stomach with a forty-five. Whoever did that wanted to inflict much pain, my friend.

“Now this poor girl,” Stillwall went on, waving a hand in the direction of the dead woman. “Margaret Williams. Only barely twenty-three. Always hard to imagine when they’re dead, but she must’ve been something to look at when she was among the living. This was a pure execution. And like the other shooting, a forty-five was used. Two shots, two casings. We got them both.”

“Why’s she still here?”

“FBI’s sending over one of their CSI experts, although I don’t see the point of it. I mean for crying out loud, we know what happened, and even if we didn’t we’ll be watching videotape of it later. But what are you going to do, rules are rules.” Stillwall moved closer to Resnick. “Let me give you a quick rundown,” he said, lowering his voice. “Six or seven guys stormed in here, all wearing masks, all with guns drawn. Several of them had assault rifles, maybe AK-47s. They laid everyone out on their stomachs and taped their wrists and ankles behind them.”

Stillwall stopped in his tracks, his frown deepening as he held his stomach. “Damn acid reflux,” he said after a while. “I had a sausage sub for lunch and I’ve been paying the price ever since.”

“So everyone’s on the floor…” Resnick said patiently, trying to get Stillwall back on track.

“Okay, so after everyone’s on the floor, they go for the safety deposit boxes. They didn’t try for the vault or bother with any of the money from the cashier drawers.”

“What about the shootings?”

“I’m still not clear on what happened. That guy over there with Phil, the pencil-necked individual who looks like he’s about to pass out, is one Craig Brown, the manager of this fine banking establishment. According to Brown and several other witnesses, there was something going on between the two victims and one of the gunmen.” Stillwall edged closer, his voice dropping to a low growl. “Now something I find interesting; this bank has a new state-of-the-art security system. We tried it five minutes ago and the system worked like a champ, yet during the robbery the damn thing’s a bust. You got to ask yourself why.”

“You think there was someone on the inside?” Resnick asked.

“I don’t know how else to explain it. The system is locked away in a cabinet. Brown unlocked it for us and showed us that everything was up and running. I have to think the system was turned off before the robbery. And according to Brown, he’s the only one who has the key to the cabinet. Figure that one out, boyo.”

Stillwall raised an eyebrow, waiting for a reaction from Resnick. When he didn’t get one, he turned to Maguire. “Your partner’s a hard man to please. Just about talk your ear off if you let him, but you must know that by now.” He waited a few seconds and then sighed after still getting no reaction from either of them. “No sense of humor, the both of you.”

Stillwall led the way to the back of the bank where the safety deposit boxes were kept. Two extension cords plugged into outlets in the hallway snaked through an open door. Resnick walked into the room. Both cords were attached to drills that lay on the floor. He counted the number of safety deposit boxes that had been dumped on the floor. Eight of them, each with three holes drilled into them. Examining one of the boxes, he saw that the holes had cut through bolts that would’ve kept the boxes from being able to be opened.

“Seems they knew what they were doing,” Resnick said.

“That it does,” Stillwall agreed.

Maguire stood squinting at the rows of safety deposit boxes. “I wonder how they happened to pick the ones they did,” he said.

“Do we know who owns them?” Resnick asked Stillwall.

Stillwall showed a thin smile. “So far Brown’s not being very cooperative. He’s making noise about the privacy of his customers, crap like that, but he doesn’t have a leg to stand on. We could get a court order by tonight if we had to, but I think if we lean on him a little he’ll cave fast enough. What do you say, Alex?”

“Sure, just give me a minute.” Resnick stepped back and took several shots of the damaged safety deposit boxes before sliding the digital camera back into his jacket pocket.

They got to the lobby as two FBI agents were entering the bank. Resnick knew immediately they were FBI from their dress and body language. One was a tall, thin man in his late forties with a long dour face; the other an athletic dark brunette around thirty who would’ve been very attractive if her face hadn’t been set in a humorless, rigid expression. Phil Hollings joined them and there was a quick round of introductions. The woman, Kathleen Liciano, was the crime scene investigator, and she quickly left them to go and examine the dead body. The other agent was Donald Spitzer. Stillwall gave him a quick rundown, more tersely than he had with Resnick and Maguire.

“The government is going to be seeking the death penalty for the people behind this,” Agent Spitzer announced glumly. “We’ve been looking for a case like this in Massachusetts ever since the federal death penalty was expanded.”

“I hope we’ll be able to oblige you,” Stillwall said. “The perps who did this deserve at least that much. We were about to talk to Mr. Craig Brown and try to find out, among other things, why the bank’s security system magically stopped working before the robbery. Would you care to join us?”

Spitzer indicated that he would. Brown, who was standing across the lobby, turned a bit green as four detectives and an FBI agent approached him. Stillwall did the introductions. The bank manager had put out his hand to the FBI agent, but pulled it back after Spitzer ignored it.

“We’d like to talk to you someplace quiet,” Resnick said.

“All of you?”

“You don’t have a problem with that, do you?” Spitzer asked

“No, of course not.” Brown’s eyes jerked from Resnick to Spitzer. He took a handkerchief from his suit pocket and wiped the back of his neck. “My office should be fine.”

After they got situated in the bank manager’s office, Resnick asked Brown about the shootings.

“They had us all lying face down. I don’t think any of us saw the shootings. When that first shot happened I thought it was a bomb. I never heard anything so loud.” Brown’s voice wavered, probably as he replayed the moment in his head. As his attention focused back on Resnick, his skin looked paler, almost waxy. “I still can’t believe this happened,” he muttered. “I feel like I’m going to have a heart attack or something.”

“Do you require medical attention?” Maguire asked.

Brown shook his head. “Maybe a glass of water.” He picked up a coffee mug from his desk and started to get up, but Maguire took the mug from him. “I’ll get you the water,” he told him.

“Why do you think those two women were shot?” Resnick asked.

“One of the robbers was talking to Peggy. I don’t know exactly what he was saying, some strange things, like about a Brazilian bikini wax. I think he was trying to pick her up. Peggy just let him have it, told him what she thought of him. Then he shot her.”

“Peggy – you mean Margaret Williams. You knew her?”

“I’ve known her since she was seventeen. I know her parents also. Peggy was a beautiful girl. Also very feisty – someone who wouldn’t take guff from anyone.”

“Did you have a relationship with her?” Hollings asked.

“What? No, of course not.”

“Why do you think your security system didn’t work?” Spitzer asked. There was a hard edge to his voice and the bank manager flinched at the sound of it, almost as if he had been punched.

“I have absolutely no idea,” he said. Maguire had brought back his coffee mug. Brown’s hands shook as he drank from it, some of the water spilling on to his suit jacket. “Right after I was freed, I checked the cabinet and found that the system was still on. I tested it later with two of the detectives here and the system worked the way it was supposed to. I have no idea what happened.”

“Who was with you?” Spitzer demanded.

“What do you mean?”

“When you checked the cabinet, who was with you?”

“I was alone…” Brown’s mouth closed slowly as he realized what Spitzer was getting at. As he stared at the FBI agent, a shadow fell over his eyes. “I don’t like what you’re implying,” he said. “Maybe I should consult a lawyer.”

“That’s your right,” Resnick said. “And if you’re involved in this, it would probably be a good idea.”

“If you do want to lawyer up, we’ll be more than happy to bring you down to the station for official questioning and make sure the media knows all about it,” Stillwall added.

Brown’s complexion turned a sickly white as he looked from Spitzer to Stillwall. “This is ridiculous,” he said. “I had absolutely nothing to do with this.”

“You can understand why we would be suspicious,” Resnick said.

“No, I don’t understand that.”

“Anyone else have a key to that cabinet?”

Craig Brown shook his head.

“There you go,” Hollings offered.

“Add to that your unwillingness to cooperate with us,” Resnick said.

“Unwillingness to cooperate?” Brown sputtered. “How am I not cooperating?”

“A woman is shot to death, another critically wounded, and you can’t tell us why your alarm system didn’t work,” Stillwall said.

“I’ve been telling you, I don’t know.”

“You won’t even tell us who owns the safety deposit boxes that were broken into,” Resnick said.

“Which is just plain silly,” Stillwall explained. “If we go to a judge, we’ll have a court order within the hour forcing you to provide us with that information.”

“You would make things easier for me if you got a court order,” Brown said. “The person who owns them wouldn’t be happy if I gave you the information voluntarily.”

“One person owns all of the boxes that were broken into?” Maguire asked.

Brown nodded. Then, very softly, “Viktor Petrenko.”

Resnick’s voice cracked as he asked Brown to repeat the name. Brown repeated that Viktor Petrenko owned all of the boxes that were robbed.

Resnick could feel his heart beating a mile a minute. “Did he own any others?” he asked.

Brown shook his head. “Only the ones that were broken into.”

There was a knock on the door and a patrolman stuck his head in. “We found another dead body out back,” he said.

“What do you mean out back?”

“In a lot behind the bank’s. A male Caucasian, around sixty, shot once in the head.”

Resnick exchanged glances with his partner and then Stillwall, who lowered his head into his hand and squeezed his eyes. “I might as well throw my Sox tickets away,” he moaned.

Resnick and Maguire left with the patrolman, the others staying behind to continue questioning Brown. Resnick had to get out of that office anyway. Hearing that Petrenko owned those safety deposit boxes had sent a burst of adrenaline pumping through his system and he had to get moving. Petrenko must have had more than just money in those boxes. Probably also weapons and other incriminating evidence. If Resnick could get his hands on what was taken from those boxes, he had no doubt that he would be able to put Petrenko away for a long, long time.

As they walked towards the lobby, Resnick was so caught up in his thoughts that he only half heard his partner ask the patrolman whether the media had picked up on the robbery yet.

“It’s a zoo out there,” the patrolman was saying. “Reporters from all the local stations and newspapers are parked out front.”

“Any of them know about the dead body out back?” Resnick asked.

“Not that I know of. We’re trying to keep them away.”

When they got to the lobby, Resnick noticed that Margaret Williams’ body had been removed. A large puddle of blood remained where she had died. When they left the front lobby door, a burst of voices yelled out to them. Resnick looked up and saw a mob of reporters and cameramen being restrained by a line of uniformed cops. He ignored them and moved quickly towards the parking lot in back. The patrolman led the way, pushing through a thick row of shrubs about three feet high. Maguire cursed as his pant leg caught on a branch and the fabric ripped.