Eejit.
My copy showed the photos of two women, and mugshots of two men wearing prison orange as well as what appeared to be still photos of the bank’s interior taken from ceiling cameras. Inanother shot, the armed gunmen carried semi-automatic rifles. Though all four gunmen were masked, it was obvious that two of them were women based on body shape, build, and stature.
“This is a gang of bank robbers we’ve been tracking for the last three months,” Snow said. “They’ve hit eleven banks in the greater Los Angeles area. And though we’ve been following the aftermath of the robberies since the beginning, we haven’t been successful in getting ahead of them or even identifying them until last week.”
I held up my hand. “Sorry to interrupt, but how were the identifications made?”
Snow glanced at me. “After robbing a Bank of America in Sylmar on the twelfth, the security guard followed them out and shot at them in the parking lot. They drove away but left behind a pool of blood.”
“The guard hit one of them then?” I asked.
“Yes, a woman by the name of Louisa Davis. The blood was identified as arterial which would make sense since the guard stated that he believed he shot her in the thigh as she attempted to climb into an older model, darkly colored minivan.”
“The bullet hit her femoral artery?” Alain asked quietly.
“That’s right, Doc,” Dr. Reeves said.
I glanced at Alain Joy. The former SAS soldier had been recruited by Candy to act as team medic while he was serving in Afghanistan. Several foreign troops were assigned to liaise with American Special Forces units while in country which is where I’d been assigned to the unit along with my mate, Tommy O’Malley. He’d also been with the Army Ranger Wing branch of the Irish Defense Forces. But Alain was one of the first people I’dseen when I’d been rescued from hell on earth all those years ago when Tommy didn’t make it.
Before meeting Joy, I’d never put much faith in upper class, British society blokes…I could barely tolerate their posh accents but chalked it up to my upbringing in Ireland. These days, I couldn’t imagine how I’d ever felt badly of men like Alain. He wasn’t only one of my best mates but he’d kept me alive after the team pulled me out of that hellhole. Alain held my hand in the Humvee as the team drove us out of enemy territory, staying with me as they loaded me onto a helo for transportation to a military field hospital.
“Do you have a lead on Louisa Davis?” Napoleon asked, snapping me back to the present.
“She turned up half-dead the morning after the bank robbery,” Snow said. “It looks like she was bleeding out after the gunshot and was only dropped off as a last-ditch attempt to save her. She died shortly after someone found her dumped at the door of Olive View’s ER.”
Olive View was a large public hospital located in Sylmar which made sense since the robbery had also taken place at a BofA in the same north San Fernando Valley town.
“Did exterior security cameras at the hospital pick up the vehicle used to drop her off?” I asked.
Snow nodded. “Not only that, but it appears to be the same make and model of the vehicle the security guard reported as the robber’s getaway car.” Snow consulted some notes. “It’s a dark gray 2013 Ford Astro van which happens to be registered to a man named Harrison Davis.”
“Her husband?” Clifford asked.
“Yes,” Snow replied. “He married Louisa in Las Vegas in 2008.” He pointed to the sheet of paper we’d been handed out. I noted Harrison Davis’ mug shot. “Davis did ten years hard time in Corcoran for bank robbery between 2010 and 2020 and he had two cell mates while he was there.” He tapped the sheet. “One of them is John Tomasi who was also serving time for bank robbery. That’s the other man you see pictured here. His common-law wife has been identified as Helena Havrel. She’s believed to be the other bank robber.”
Candy cleared his throat as he looked out at the rest of us. “The reason Snow, Prince, and Dr. Reeves are here this morning, is because they’ve located what is believed to be the hideout for the remaining three suspects. We’re going to go in and clear the house so Snow’s team can arrest them.”
I nodded along with everyone else on my team. Candy turned to a whiteboard and began attaching black and white photos. The satellite Google images of the street showed the front of the property as well as overhead shots depicting the neighborhood of closely-spaced residential homes. One photo was time stamped only a week before, showing a gray van parked in front of the small, white house. Candy turned back and glanced at the photos, tapping one of them.
“As you can see here, the satellite image of the robber’s safehouse is circled in red. It’s located in the L.A. suburb of Reseda, a heavily populated area consisting of working people and older homes.”
“So, it’s right smack dab in the middle of families you’re sayin’,” Rex said.
Candy nodded. “That’s right. Which means we need to be extra cautious and quick when we go in to clear the house,andwe should expect the suspects to be heavily armed with automatic weapons.”
“You said you want to take the house today,” Clifford said.
“That’s right,” Snow said. “Though it’s riskier toyourteam since you can be seen in broad daylight rather than doing it under the cover of night when the suspects might be asleep, we feel the need to move on this fast.”
“No innocents have been hurt or killed during a robbery. However, with Harrison Davis’ wife killed during the last robbery, his restraint in not injuring or killing innocent people during a future robbery might very well be nonexistent,” Dr. Reeves added. “If the man is grieving, it makes him much more psychologically volatile and therefore—dangerous—to an innocent victim or bystander. We’ve all seen people experiencing fear, panic, and inadvertently getting in an aggressor’s way or try to resist when they come into a bank with heavy firepower. Under these circumstances, this type of suspect is termed an ‘extreme aggressor’.” The doctor made air quotes.
“Which is why we’re asking you to intervene in daylight,” Snow concluded.
Candy raised his eyebrows at him. “The team will do whatever it takes, Snow.” He confidently nodded at us. “After all, it’s what we’re trained for, right men?” There were muted grunts around the room. “Okay, then, let’s get to work and plan our breach.”
I grinned as everyone in the room thumped the table in front of them. I couldn’t have been prouder of the men I called brothers.
Chapter Seven
