The Getaway (Sam Archer 2) Read Free Page B

the lock on the vault clicked shut.
     
    Three hours later, a small cluster of detectives and a handful of vehicles had gathered in an almost empty parking lot across the East River in Queens . Police tape had been pulled up and around some knee-high traffic cones, cordoning off the scene, and beyond them were four blue wooden road blocks, Police, Do Not Cross printed on each in faded white lettering. In the rough square the tape and wooden roadblocks created, several experts from forensics out of the FBI’s Violent Crimes team were examining the burnt-out wreck of what used to be a NYC taxi cab.
    The carcass of the vehicle smouldered and smoked in the midday sun, the once-yellow exterior blackened and burnt, the interior melted down by the fire that had engulfed it. Fifteen yards from the car, two officers from the NYPD stood near the tape, ready to keep back any civilians who might decide to approach and take a closer look. They had been the ones who discovered the wreckage, driving their beat in their squad car nearby and noticing fire coming from the taxi parked across the lot. They’d called it in, reporting the plates whilst they approached the vehicle and put out the flames with two fire extinguishers, and to their surprise the FBI had turned up and immediately taken over. Apparently the vehicle was linked to an on-going investigation of theirs, and they wanted sole control of the crime-scene.
    Across the parking lot, a black Mercedes pulled into the lot and drove up towards the gathering, coming to a halt and parking beside the NYPD squad car. The driver killed the engine and stepped out, closing the door behind him and smoothing down his tie. His name was Todd Gerrard, and he was a Supervis ory Special Agent with the FBI.
    Gerrard was a few years past fifty but fit for his age, a benefit of his constantly hectic and busy lifestyle, a seasoned veteran in every sense of the word. He’d been around for a long time, and had arrived at hundreds of crime-scenes like this during his long career. He was tall and well-built, six two and a hair over a hundred and ninety pounds. Although he had freshly arrived in New York from D.C last summer, he’d started out in this city, literally from the first moment of his life, born and raised in Brooklyn . He’d joined the NYPD as a rookie in the early 80’s, and had stayed with the department for eleven years. After the bombing at the World Trade Center in ‘93, he’d then applied and been accepted into the FBI, and he’d been with them ever since.
    But lately everything had gone wrong. Trouble with his superiors, his marriage on the rocks and a recent demotion had meant Gerrard’s career would now never hit the heights of many of the guys he’d come up with, and he was still battling his anger about it. He’d been shifted from Washington to New York City last summer, down-graded and put in charge of a six-man Violent Crimes Unit specialising in bank robbery in the city, known simply as the Bank Robbery Task Force. He was still smarting from the humiliation. He’d been well on his way to maybe an Assistant Director or Executive Assistant Director position, but then had been busted back down to a Supervisory Special Agent, back amongst the bright-eyed kids in their twenties and thirties. The only way he was getting out of here was by breaking a major case, and he knew it. And judging from events of the past few months, that didn’t look like it was going to happen any time soon.
    Standing alone, Gerrard slid a pair of sunglasses over his nose and looked at the parking lot around him. It was pretty much empty, only a handful of cars parked in odd spaces, and it was hot now, the merciless sun beating down on the tarmac as it had done all summer. He looked to his right and saw the Manhattan skyline across the East River , sunlight reflecting off the glass windows of the buildings. They were near the water, the Queensborough Bridge looming a hundred yards over and behind them.