‘We haven’t got the resources,’ Donovan replied to Tom, ‘not with the presidential debates going on.’
The city was host to the incumbent president and his challenger’s first live television debate in the run-up to the elections, and half of the goddamned force was on high alert at the Hofstra University on Long Island. The fact that the most wanted gang of thieves on the east coast had possibly chosen today to hit a target in Manhattan, during a period of reduced police activity and after a massive reduction in law-enforcement manpower, wasn’t hard to understand.
‘And it’s based on a tip-off and a hunch,’ Glen added, ‘not exactly rock-solid grounds for deploying the entire department, Tom.’
Tom Ross shrugged and checked his firearm. ‘These aren’t Boy Scouts we’re up against. Five cops against four psychopathic thieves isn’t my kind of odds.’
‘You should’ve seen Basra,’ Glen began, ‘you’d have—’
‘All right, Glen,’ Donovan cut him off, ‘we’ve heard it all before.’ The old man looked across at Karina. ‘Is Neville in position?’
Karina keyed a microphone concealed low under the dashboard. ‘You ready, Nev?’
The voice of Neville Jackson, an African-American cop and the team’s fifth member, came back over the radio loud and clear. ‘I’m on Grand. If they run north, I’ll pick them up.’
Karina scanned the Pay-Go one more time, and then Glen tapped her on the shoulder. ‘Here comes the armoured truck.’
Karina resisted the urge to glance over her shoulder at the traffic flowing down Broadway, instead looking down at her wing mirror to see a brief glimpse of a dark blue Freightliner easing its way toward the intersection.
‘We got any lookers?’ Karina asked.
All three men shook their heads. Nobody had been seen acting suspiciously, no lingerers on the intersection watching the Pay-Go. Karina searched for parked vehicles or motorcycles running up as the cash truck approached, but nothing untoward was happening.
‘Maybe they got wise to us and took off, ’ Tom hazarded.
It was possible, Karina reflected. A gang as methodical and experienced as the one they sought might have found a way to discreetly observe the Pay-Go and noticed the unremarkable gray sedan parked a hundred yards up from the intersection. At the least, they would have monitored the Pay-Go’s daily pickups. Most all armoured cash vehicles these days ran varying routes to avoid having regular daily collection times, all of which helped to confuse potential heists, but, with Pay-Go stores, there had to be at least one daily collection to avoid the vaults overfilling. A patient gang would wait for the right moment to strike.
‘That’s a big truck,’ Tom said.
The Freightliner pulled into the sidewalk alongside the Pay-Go and one of the armed personnel aboard climbed out, methodically locking the door behind him as the driver waited with the vehicle.
‘What’s the truck’s position on the round?’ Glen asked.
‘Fourteenth pickup,’ Donovan replied without hesitation. ‘Average pickup is worth about a quarter million bucks.’
‘Three and a half million,’ Karina said. ‘Well worth hitting, if you’ve got a plan.’
‘They’ll have to hurry up,’ Glen said. ‘Courier will be out of the store real quick, and, once he’s back aboard, there’s no way they can reach the cash.’
Armoured trucks were notoriously tough, and the drivers never had access to the money inside. They simply transferred the aluminum bank-cases into the vehicle. The cases were later retrieved at a secure depot.
Karina watched as the door to the Pay-Go opened and the armed man walked back out with a steel-gray cash box handcuffed to his left wrist. He strode into the cold, bright sunshine, toward the Freightliner’s side door, as the driver leaned forward to press a button to unlock the external cash-box door.
Karina knew the drill. The door would unlock. The guard would open it and insert the case into a locking mechanism, half in and half out of the vehicle. Secured, he would then uncuff himself and push the steel case fully inside, before shutting the door and climbing aboard.
There was no access to the cash from the vehicle cab.
There were no other access doors, no other way to get inside.
‘It’s not going down,’ Tom said. ‘He’s already at the door.’
Karina saw the guard disappear from sight as he reached the armoured truck, but she could see his reflection in the windows of the Pay-Go as he reached out for the door and slid it back to reveal a steel cage. He reached down, lifted the case and inserted it into the dock.
‘It’s off, ’ Glen agreed. ‘They can’t hit them now.’
Karina was about to reply when a screaming engine howled past them down Broadway. She turned her head as a huge, battered old Kenworth truck thundered through the traffic and across the intersection, black smoke pouring from its exhaust stacks.
Karina’s jaw dropped in disbelief as she realized what was about to happen.
‘They’re not hitting the store!’ she yelled. ‘They’re hitting the truck!’
‘Get out of the car!’ Donovan bellowed. ‘It’s on!’
In a moment of time frozen in Karina’s mind, the Kenworth roared through a red light across the intersection and, with a deafening crash of rending metal and shattering glass, it crashed into the parked armoured truck like a missile through an eggshell.
5
Karina grabbed her door handle and leaped from the car as the Freightliner was hurled across the sidewalk amid a shower of splintering plastic and glass that sparkled in the bright morning sunshine. The immense mass of the charging Kenworth lifted the Freightliner momentarily off its tires before smashing it aside.
‘Cover the left!’ Donovan shouted. ‘I’ll block the right!’
Karina, Glen and Tom all ran down Broadway as vehicles screeched to a halt and pedestrians hurled themselves clear of the two massive vehicles.
The Freightliner’s tires hit the sidewalk and squealed as it was smashed to the right and spun out of control. It plunged through a fire hydrant and came to rest alongside the intersection amid a fountain of high-pressure water that sprayed down across the street. The chassis was twisted beneath the vehicle where the Kenworth had struck it, the axles warped, and the metal body of the truck had been ripped open like sharp metal leaves. From the split side of the vehicle spilled a dozen or so aluminum cases, the cage within ripped apart by the tremendous force of the impact.
The Kenworth plowed onward and smashed into the Pay-Go store, the broad windows shattering as half the vehicle plunged into the building to a crescendo of screams from within. As the Kenworth came to rest with white smoke billowing from the cab and the hood buried inside the store, Karina saw the flailing body of the guard spin through the air and land on the hood of a Mercury that screeched to a halt outside the Pay-Go. The body slid down the hood and landed with a dull thump on the asphalt below.
Donovan screamed into his radio as they ran. ‘All units, robbery in progress, corner of Broadway and Pike, request back-up immediately!’
Karina dropped one hand instinctively to her sidearm as the four officers sprinted toward the Pay-Go. Karina dodged past pedestrians who had stopped to stare at the terrific impact, her pistol held low and her thumb fingering the safety catch as she ran.