The Purple Haze Read Free

saw so much police presence in one place, he couldn’t be sure he wanted it anymore. “Jesus this is serious” he thought. He slowed to a jog and approached the scene. The cars all came to a halt. Two parked on the road in front of the bank, one parked at each end of the street blocking it off to any other traffic and the other vehicles assembled across from the bank. Mike ran to the car nearest to the armed response units. He ran to the men getting out. The insignia on his shoulders told him he was the inspector. “Is there anything I can do to assist?” he asked.
    “ Go to the west end of the street to help manage crowd control and redirecting traffic. We can handle this here.” Mike responded and began quickly walking to the west end of the street. As he went, he took a look around at what was happening. He saw the armed response officers, armed with the standard issue MP5 semi-automatics, moving in to create a perimeter around the building, two teams of three at the front, and one team of three heading around the back of the building to cover any possible escape path. As he looked at the front of the bank, he saw what he felt was very creepy and caused his skin to crawl slightly. A man of stocky build, dressed in a boiler suit and a very strange looking black and white symmetrical mask. He was looking out at the police, quite brazen really considering he would be facing three teams of armed response officers. He couldn't see his eyes, but he couldn't help but feel he was watching him specifically. It was under the supposed gaze of this man that he realised he wouldn't be any good in this scenario. He looked away and proceeded to the end of the street.
    At the front of the bank, Inspector Myers looked at the situation ahead. He watched the armed officers take their positions and saw the other constables escort a few straggling members of the public away from the area. He waited for the area to be clear and turned to his second in command. “What do we know, Ken?”
    “ Unfortunately, sir, we don't know anything,” replied Ken, “it seems the CCTV systems were shut down sometime between two fifty pm and three pm. We don't how many convicts, hostages or what kinds of weapons they are carrying.”
    “ OK, get me the loud speaker,” ordered Myers. Ken passed him the loud speaker. Myers looked at the bank and saw the robber in the window. He figured opening up communications now wouldn't do any harm. He brought the loud speaker to his lips. “You are surrounded. Throw down your weapons and surrender yourselves. You have no way out.” He watched as the robber backed away from the window. He turned to Ken. “What's he doing?”
    “ Don't know sir,” replied Ken. They continued to watch and saw the robber return to the window. “He's back, sir. It looks as though he's holding something.”
    Myers looked and saw the robber return carrying something. He couldn't see a gun, but he saw a white piece of paper. The robber put the paper against the window and Myers saw the words “We have hostages” written in black marker pen. “Shit,” he said aloud. “OK, Ken, get on the radio to headquarters and request a negotiator. Tell them we've got a hostage situation. Better get paramedics too.”
    At the west end of the street, Mike was carrying out the rather mundane task of crowd control. Having realised he wouldn't have been able to cope with a front line role he was feeling quite down about the situation. In fact, he was feeling downright bitter about it. The job he'd dreamed of doing for so long and now he was in the middle of it, he felt too much pressure to cope fully. He looked back over his shoulder after he heard the order to surrender over the bullhorn to see what was happening but the gathering crowd was stopping him from paying attention to the situation. He wished he could be one of the crowd and just watch, but at the same time he couldn't believe how stupid the general public actually were. When seeing