Day of Reckoning
Chapter One
Thursday
"What the – " Claude Franklin muttered as he brought the armored truck to a stop in front of the "detour" sign.
Jerry Crandall, riding shotgun next to him, consulted their run sheet. "There's nothin' about a detour here," he said.
"Lemme see," Franklin demanded, grabbing the sheet.
"Let's call it in," Crandall suggested. "Maybe they got some new info."
"Nah, it's gotta be bogus, we just left ten minutes ago. You know our orders – ignore any detours or road closings that aren't on there," Franklin said, indicating the run sheet. "I'm going around."
"OK, I guess," Crandall said doubtfully.
Franklin steered the armored truck around the "detour" sign and drove down the deserted street in lower Manhattan. Near the end of the first block, he skidded to a stop, barely avoiding running over a prone figure in the roadway in front of him. "Shit," Crandall exclaimed, opening the passenger side door and sprinting toward the person lying in the street.
"Dammit, Jerry, get back here," Franklin yelled. "We're not supposed to stop or get out for anything, you know that. Look out!"
His warning came too late. As the man lying in the street jumped to his feet, holding a semi-automatic pistol in his gloved hand, two black-clad figures, wearing masks, suddenly appeared from behind a parked car. One of them ran toward Crandall, firing an assault rifle. Crandall collapsed to the ground, then lay still, a pool of blood spreading around him on the pavement.
Franklin scrabbled across the front seat of the armored truck in a desperate attempt to close the passenger-side door, but he was too late, again. The second black-clad figure reached the passenger side of the truck before he could close the door. He sprayed the interior of the truck with multiple rounds from his assault rifle. Franklin fell across the seat, dead. The masked man reached into Franklin's jacket pocket and removed his keys. He and his confederate quickly opened the rear of the armored car and removed the money sacks, stuffing them into several large duffel bags. A black van, driven by the third man, pulled out from the curb halfway down the block. The two men threw the duffel bags into the back and climbed in after them. The van drove away. Only three minutes had passed since the armored truck stopped at the "detour" sign.
"Tape," Karen said, as the uniformed officer lifted the crime scene tape at the perimeter, allowing her and Jim to follow Marty and Tom to meet the patrol supervisor standing next to the open rear doors of the armored truck.
"What've we got?" Marty asked.
"Armored truck robbery," Sergeant Stan Bartick told him. "The driver and the guard are both DOA. Looks like the 'detour' sign at the end of the block – " He paused, nodding his head in that direction. " – was a fake. The drivers are trained to ignore stuff like that, if it isn't on their run sheets, so they must've driven around it, straight into an ambush."
"Yeah, but what made 'em stop?" Jim wondered out loud. "Aren't they also trained not to stop for anything?"
"Yeah, they are," Bartick agreed. "So far, there's nothing to indicate why they would've stopped here."
"How'd it come in?" Marty asked.
"The company – Garrison Armored Transport – notified us when the driver didn't check in on schedule," Bartick explained. "They gave us the route, we followed it, and – " he gestured at the covered figure of the dead guard lying on the pavement.
"When did it happen?" Karen asked.
"According to the company, they were scheduled to be at this location about a half hour ago, if they followed their route," Bartick answered.
"What about witnesses?" Jim asked.
Bartick shook his head. "None so far. Apparently, there was no other traffic on the street, because of the 'detour' sign, and the buildings on either side are vacant, because they're both being renovated."
Marty frowned. "Damn," he said, "looks like a lot of planning went into this. Whoever did this is pretty slick."
"Yeah," Jim agreed. "We'll start a canvass at the end of the block, see if anyone in those buildings heard or saw anything."
"OK," Tom said. "We'll wait for crime scene and the ME."