“Aw, c’mon, Fucker,” whined Eric’s new friend. “Can’t we just take the money and go?”
“We get double if we do the other thing,” his friend snapped. “Fucker Three, got your load?”
“Yup,” said the man on the other side of the cashier’s window. Eric saw that the men had been working their way from the outside in, and while rocket science this wasn’t, itwasorganized, and itshouldhave been quick.
His eyes darted to Jai’s again.What are they waiting for?
Jai shook his head and shrugged.
At that moment, a single police unit screeched into the parking lot, siren going, and Eric stared through the double glass doors in time to see Brady get out of the driver’s side and crouch there, assessing the situation over the hood of his SUV.
He spoke into the comms unit on his collar and then scowled.
“That it?” said Fucker Three, gesturing with the nozzle of his automatic weapon.
“We got the take,” said Fucker Two—or Fucker 2000 for all Eric knew. “Three, Four, get the doors!”
Eric’s heartbeat, which had stayed pretty even, suddenly sped up in his chest. He could see it so clearly—two of them would haul the doors open, and then they’d go out, two by two, guns blazing.
This? Wasthiswhat they’d been waiting for? For this one single SUV to pull up?
Brady,get the fuck out of there, he thought.
Eric had toforcehimself to wait for the bank robbers to all move past him to the doors, his gun burning aholethrough his spine.
He caught Jai’s eyes, and Jai shook his head. “Wait,” he mouthed, and Eric suppressed a whimper. He listened for more police sirens,prayedfor them in a way he’d never prayed for law enforcement before, not even when his father was still alive. Brady was out there all by himself, and these robbers weren’t preparing to negotiate, they weren’t trying to escape.
They were getting ready to go out, semiautos forward, and take the lone officer out before they cleared the building.
But the fuckers weren’t stupid.
As two of them got ready to pull the doors open, the other two, at their shoulders, turned around and scanned the room. Eric had to control his breathing, keep hishandfrom twitching, just stay there, on his aching knees, hands going numb over his head while the woman next to him tried not to whimper, as those wild eyes drifted from patron to patron.
The robber’s gaze lingered on Eric’s for a moment, and Eric wondered if he saw raw hatred or a tranquil, deeply frozen glacier.
Either was possible, he knew, but his heart stayed steady as he thought of how quickly he could reach that gun behind him.
The wild brown eyes turned back to the rest of the bank robbers, and the two behind put their hands on the shoulders of the two in front while Fucker One called out, “One, two—”
“Now!” Ace cried, and while Eric reached for his gun, he saw the most amazing thing.
From the corner of his eye, he caught Ace, way back at the door to the hidden employee accesses of the bank. His hand was extended in front, and one leg was extended in back, his body a beautiful profile of athleticism and grace.
In front of Eric’s eyes, he tracked Ace’s knife, unfolded, that long, serrated blade flying straight and true, as though it was an arrow or a spear, pushed by the weight of the haft and handle, as it traveled through the air so fast time slowed down.
Eric’s Beretta jumped into his hand like an eager puppy, and he’d set his aim on one of the two lead trigger men to his right. On his left, he watched as Ace’s knife slid through thehandof Fucker One and into the shoulder of Fucker Two.
Both men screamed, and Fucker One dropped to the floor in pain, dragging Fucker Two with him, while the two Fuckers on the right, their attention diverted from the lone police officer for a moment, both stared at the spectacle before raising their guns to take out everybody in the bank.
Eric, taking a page from Ace’s book, fired through Fucker Three’s wrist and into Fucker Four’s shoulder. They both yelped, and Eric fired one more bullet, this one into Fucker Three’s shoulder, and that man dropped to the ground. Four tried to lift his gun, but Ace hadn’t been idle. Time sped up again as Ace ranup on the two men pinned together by the knife and ripped the thing out of their flesh.
Jai had been right behind them, and with two swift, brutal kicks to the face, he left them unconscious while Ace had time to hurl the knife into Fucker Four’s stomach.
Four grabbed at the hilt and dropped to the floor, gibbering. Ace ran forward and yanked the knife out of his stomach and then called, “Out through the back.”
The three of them hauled ass out of the bank, through the empty corridor Ace had obviously made his way through and out the back door of the establishment. Eric spotted a broken doorframe and a fried keypad as they ran, and he figured Ace, too, had his own ways to escape detection.
“Eric, go tell him to call an ambulance,” Ace snapped. “And tell him what those assholes said. You got thirty seconds.”
