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Gage frowned. “They left their getaway car out here? How do they plan on getting away?”
“Let’s pray they don’t just plan to kill everyone inside, and then themselves.”
Gage agreed. For years he hadn’t prayed much, wasn’t raised that way, and didn’t like the idea of giving up control. He had things handled.
These days?Lord, help us. Protect the innocents in that bank.
“Take your team and get set up. One sniper on the roof of the plaza, the rest of you cover the back exit.”
“Copy that.” Gage swiped some binoculars off the table and took a look at the front window. “How many hostages?” He needed to get a look at the suspects, so he’d know who to arrest if they ran out the back.
A masked man walked past the window, toward a woman standing up in the center of the lobby.
Dark hair, wearing a business suit. Gage zoomed in on her face, which held not one ounce of fear. “She’s in on it.” Then he realized who it was. “Clare.”
McCauley turned to him. “What did you say?”
SIX
“Woman, you’re about to get yourself killed.”
Clare stared down the barrel of a gun. “I was thinking the same thing.”
She’d only come into the bank to talk with the manager, to offer for Vanguard to go over their security measures in light of apossiblethreat.
Unfortunately it seemed that threat stood in front of her now, very real.
Clare still had on her workday outfit of a skirt suit and heels, no gun. No vest. Certainly not boots, only a helmet and flak jacket. Those were the good old days. Sometimes she thought maybe she preferred life in the army to this civilian existence of nine-to-five and a fluffy pillow. Maybe she’d gone soft.
Instead of talking with the bank manager, a van had screeched to a stop outside and five men raced through the lobby doors into the bank.
“Get over there with the others or I put a bullet in your head.” He motioned with the gun.
Instead of blatantly studying him and his friends, she looked anew at the bank as she backed up to the huddle of patrons sitting on the floor against the cashier counter. Marble floor and walls, columns, colored glass in the windows. Was it supposed to look like a church? She didn’t know if that was because this was the altar they worshiped at, or if it was to fool the masses into bringing their alms. She’d had the same thought at the Smithsonian building in Washington, DC, but money instead of science was the religion here.
Clare passed the pile of electronics—phones and smartwatches on the floor. All of it smashed under their bootheels.
They’d sprayed bullets at the ceiling, demanded all hands raised so no one could trip a silent alarm, and locked the doors. Their movements had a level of efficiency to them. They all knew what they were doing, and what their role to play was.
One guy by the door, keeping guard. Two to watch over the hostages, two to head into the vault with the manager and another woman they seemed to have picked out randomly. Clare had done her best to stick out like that. When the other woman was chosen, she’d demanded to take her place. No dice.
All she’d come here to do was recon. Observe and consider that this could be a target at some point. Now she was in the middle of it.
By design?
She didn’t believe things happened arbitrarily. Otherwise she would have no hope at all that she could make up for the things she’d done. There would only be despair. Instead, she got the chance every day to work for atonement. To pay back the debts she owed. Had God given her this opportunity to do even more than that.
Was today the day she could give her life for an innocent victim? Finally wipe the slate clean.
The armed man took a couple of running steps, launched off the wall, and zigzagged back to jump up on the island a few feet away.
Clare stopped before she sat and stared.
“Listen up!” He swiped his gun across the gathering of hostages on the ground, glaring. “It won’t be long, so sit tight. And if I think anyone is trying anything, Iwillstart shooting.”
Clare lifted her hands. She wished she could pray, but that wasn’t something she’d ever done. And she didn’t plan to start now.
The guy to her left stood guard. The one by the door didn’t display an ounce of nerves despite the fact the police clearly had the building surrounded.
