Knock Out

ALSO BY CATHERINE COULTER

THE FBI THRILLERS

TailSpin
(2008)

Double Jeopardy
(2008):
The Target
and
The Edge
Double Take
(2007)

The Beginning
(2005):
The Cove
and
The Maze
Point Blank
(2005)

Blowout
(2004)

Blindside
(2003)

Eleventh Hour
(2002)

Hemlock Bay
(2001)

Riptide
(2000)

The Edge
(1999)

The Target
(1998)

The Maze
(1997)

The Cove
(1996)

To my brother-in-law Larry Horton, who has the biggest heart I’ve ever seen and kindness of spirit that’s bone-deep.

You are well loved.

-Catherine

1

“EVERYONE, SHUT UP!
All of you
—
get down and put
your faces on the floor!”
The man punctuated his order with a half-dozen shots fired into the air from a submachine gun. Chunks of ceiling plaster fell onto the marble floor. In a few seconds, everyone lay flat, no one moving a muscle, the echoes of their shocked screams thick in the air.

Savich’s first thought was
Thank God, Sean’s not here
with me.
He slipped his hand into his jacket pocket, pressed two keys on his cell phone, and remained as still as the twenty other people in the First Union Bank of Washington, D.C. He heard some sobs, but for the most part everyone lay on their stomachs in heart-racing, petrified silence, noses against the marble floor.

He heard Sherlock’s voice. “Hello? Hello?”

The man screamed, “You worker bees behind the counter, don’t even think of pressing the alarm! You—yes, you, Mr. Loan Officer— get me the bank manager, now! Now, or this asshole dies!” Savich slowly shifted his head to see Buzz Riley, the security guard, an ex-cop Savich had known for five years, with a snub-nosed .38 barrel stuck in his ear by a man maybe two inches taller than Riley was, with a lanky build and big hands that made the .38 look like a toy.

Savich knew who they were, and it wasn’t good.

The media had dubbed them the Gang of Four, and they had made a name for themselves as they zigzagged their way across Kentucky and Virginia during the past four weeks, and now they were making their debut bank robbery here in D.C. What was different about this group was that two of the four robbers were women. That, and the fact they were killers. When they burst into a bank, people died. To date, six people had been killed, all four bank security guards and two customers. Riley had to be scared out of his mind.

Another robber fired a spurt of bullets into the air that thudded against the high, old-fashioned ceiling, raining down more plaster, digging into the graceful 1930s molding, sending chunks of wood flying down.

This time there weren’t any screams, only a couple of sharp, gasping breaths, then silence. No one moved.

From the corner of his eye, Savich saw they were using Colt nine-millimeter submachine guns, deadly and fast, thirty-two rounds a clip.

Another robber, this one a woman, yelled, “Where is the manager?”

Mac Jamison—proud of his thick mustache, too heavy but just about ready to join the gym, he’d told Savich—walked slowly through the doors from the back, his hands clasped behind his head. “I’m Jamison.

I’m the manager.”

The woman said, “Think of me as your friendly Easter Bunny here to gather up my eggs,” and laughed. Like the other three, she was dressed all in black, a black ski mask covering her head and face. “I know you got your delivery from the Federal Reserve, so don’t give me any butt-stupid crap about not having any money here. Now, you and I are taking a trip to the vault and loading up.”

“But—”

“Move!” she screamed, and sprayed a dozen

bullets from her Colt, not a foot away from Jamison’s head. Savich heard a window explode. She walked right up to Jamison and poked the gun barrel in his gut.
“Now!”

One of the other robbers followed her, fanning his Colt around, whistling, of all things, covering her back.

That left the other woman and the man holding Riley around the neck. She was in his line of sight, small and in constant motion, sweeping her weapon over the employees and the bank customers. Fear poured off the rows of still bodies, lacing the air with a rancid smell. Savich lay flat on his belly at the edge of the group.

He saw her scuffed-black-booted feet coming toward him. She stopped. He felt the weight of her gaze, her sharp intake of breath. “Hey, I know who you are.”

This wasn’t a woman’s voice; this voice was young, high with excitement, a girl’s voice. She kicked him in the ribs. “Well, ain’t this my lucky day. Jeff, look at what we got. He’s that FBI guy. Remember, we saw him on TV a couple of weeks ago?” She kicked him again, harder. “Big bastard federal cop. You’re the one who brought down those rich old dorks, right?”

Jeff, the guy holding Riley, shouted, “Pay attention, kid. You’re supposed to keep your eye on all these bugs, make sure they don’t try to crawl away or do anything dumb. Mind your own. He’s not important.”

Her voice went higher, shriller. How old was she?

“Didn’t you hear me? I said he’s this hotshot FBI agent!”

“Yeah, so who cares? Flat on his belly now, isn’t he?” And Jeff laughed. For the hell of it, he kicked a woman bank employee in the leg. She flinched but didn’t make a sound.

Her voice pumped with adrenaline, she said, “Hey, jerk, you are him, aren’t you?”

Savich looked up full into her masked face. She was fine-boned, thin, probably had to stretch to make five-foot-three. He stared into her wild, excited dark eyes glittering behind the black ski mask. “Yeah,” he said,

“I’m that jerk.”

She sang out, laughing, “I got me a bona fide FBI agent, right here at my feet. What a
suuu
prize! You scared yet, big man? I’m gonna get to kill me a real-life FBI agent!”

Jeff said, “Until we’ve got our money, we’re not popping anybody.” Jeff sounded on the manic side himself, forty years old, maybe fifty, a smoker’s voice, and, like the girl, he seemed to be in perpetual motion.

Savich heard Mac Jamison yell, “No!” Then there was a single gunshot, obscenely loud in the close confines of the vault. The two robbers came running out carrying dark cloth bags stuffed with money. In a voice frenzied with manic pleasure and excitement, the girl sang, “You got my birthday present?”

The woman yelled, “I sure do, sweetie! Now, let’s get out of here. Okay, Jeff, take care of business!”

“I got me some business too!” the girl sang out, her voice jumping high and uncontrolled.

Jeff, the robber holding Riley, shouted out, “Bye-bye, dirtbag!”

Savich had a second, no more, and no choice.

He rolled into the young woman’s legs, knocking her off balance, and kicked up hard into her stomach.

She yelled in pain as she staggered backward, dropping her Colt as she waved her arms to keep her balance. As she fell, he pulled his SIG from his belt clip, rolled, and shot the man holding Riley in the middle of his forehead.

Riley ducked down fast, whirled around, shoved the man backward, grabbed his .38 right out of his hand, and opened fire at the man and woman holding the money. The woman yelled and fired back, spraying bullets everywhere, into the furniture, into the walls, shattering windows, kicking up shards of marble.

People were screaming, some trying to scramble to their feet, others curled with their arms over their heads. This wasn’t good; people would die.

“Everyone, stay down!” Savich yelled. He lunged behind a desk as bullets ripped through the computer monitor six inches above him, spraying chunks of glass into the air. A bullet struck the keyboard, kicked it into the air, and it shattered, raining shards of plastic.

Too close, too close.
He rolled to the far side, came up onto his elbows, and fired at the robber whose weapon was swinging around toward him. He shot him in the arm. The robber yelled in pain and anger, and fired back, a hot, fast dozen rounds. When the Colt’s magazine was empty, he didn’t seem to realize it at first and pulled frantically on the trigger, cursing. He threw the Colt to the floor as he ran for the front door, a sack of money over his shoulder like Santa carrying a bag of presents. He pulled a pistol out of his jacket and yelled, “Let’s get out of here, now!”

The woman screamed, “No! Jay, come back here!

Help Lissy! She’s down!” But Jay didn’t stop. She began firing again, not at Savich this time but at Jay, who was running out on her. He heard screams and yells, a crazed dissonant cacophony of sounds, male and female, saw people pressing together, their arms over their heads. He prayed as he came up fast and fired. She jerked when his bullet hit her in the side. Her curses mixed with the screams, but the bullet didn’t stop her. She was firing again, wildly, out of control. It would be a matter of seconds until people started dying. Savich fired again but missed her as she jerked to the side. Suddenly Riley shouted at her. When she whipped around toward him, Riley fired a single shot.

Her neck exploded, and blood fountained out in a huge arching spray. She dropped her weapon and the bag of money, grabbing her neck. Savich watched the blood spurt out from between her fingers. Her Colt skidded across the floor and fetched up against the tellers’ counter as she fell, gagging and keening as she choked on her own blood. The bag of money went skating the other way, hit a desk, and broke open, sending sheaves of hundred-dollar bills billowing out, fluttering down over the people on the floor. Savich saw the girl he’d kicked in the stomach elbowing her way across the floor toward the downed woman, sliding in the blood, screaming over and over, “No, no, no—this was supposed to be fun, this was our big score—”

He brought his boot down in the middle of her back, flattening her. “Stay still. It’s over.” She was crying, gasping with pain, trying to bring her legs up, but he held her still.

“Dillon!”

He turned toward the most beautiful voice he’d heard in his life, Sherlock’s voice. His foot lightened, and the young girl reached under her black sweater and jerked out a .22. He saw the flash of movement as she yelled, “Die, you bastard!” He felt the bullet split the air not an inch from his ear. He dropped his full weight flat on her and slammed his fist against her temple.

The bank alarm went off.

Savich heard another dozen shots and his heart stopped. Then, to his blessed relief, he heard Agent Ruth Warnecki scream from the now open door of the bank, “Hold your fire! He’s down, he’s down!” They’d gotten the robber who’d run out of the bank.

Agent Ollie Hamish shouted over the

pandemonium and the wildly screeching alarm,

“Okay, folks, it’s all over now. We’re FBI. Is anyone hurt?”

Savich yelled, “Ollie, the manager is in the vault.

They shot him. Riley, shut down that alarm!”

Sherlock fell to her knees beside him. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m okay.”

“What’s this?”

Savich knelt beside the girl, turned her over, and jerked off the ski mask. He looked at her young face, deathly white, mouth bloodied from biting against the pain, dark hair matted to her head. “This is one of them, Sherlock. She’s only a kid.” The girl moaned, her eyelashes fluttering. When her eyes opened, he stared down into her pain-glazed dark eyes. He leaned close.

“What’s your name?”

She spit at him.

“What’s your name?” he repeated.

The kid snarled, “I’m going to kill you, shoot you in the head, watch it explode.”

“Charming,” Sherlock said.

“I kicked her pretty hard in the stomach. She needs an ambulance.”

She was whimpering now, tears clogging in her throat, choking her, and she was saying over and over,

“Mama, Mama. I want my mama.”

“The manager’s shot in the chest,” Ollie shouted.

“I’ve got pressure on it. An ambulance is on the way.”

“Get another one,” Savich shouted.

Agent Dane Carver was helping people to their feet, patting backs, and checking for injuries, his FBI voice smooth and easy. “It’s okay now. Everyone’s okay—try to stay calm. Everyone head on over here and sit down. We’ll get everything sorted out. That’s right, breathe deeply. It’s over.”