Guardian Angels

Guardian Angels
Chapter 1 - The Bank

Captain Malloy looked up into the clear blue sky. It never ceased to
amaze him, the only day off he had booked in months and this had to go
and happen. Of course Molly had blamed him, she always did, but deep
down she knew it was his job and so she put on a brave face and let him
go without too much of a fuss. All the plans he had made, dinner for
two and a walk in the park watching the sun set, would have to wait
until their next anniversary. Well that was one thing you could say
about bank robbers, they rarely considered other peoples schedules. He
sighed and reread the plans of the bank. The walls were too thick to be
blown through and the windows were bullet proof so it looked as if his
snipers would have little to do apart from recon. The front door was
too obvious and would definitely be guarded and the back door was
reinforced steel. The only realistic way he could see into the bank was
the window from the toilets but that was too small to allow any of his
team access and breaking it would be too risky. He sighed again and
mopped his forehead. This was going to be another long day.

On the roof of a nearby building a sniper was making himself
comfortable. He blinked twice before peering through the scope on his
rifle. He slowly checked each window of the bank for any signs of
movement but visibility was poor. He reached up to the row of buttons
on the scope. He pressed the first button and the building he was
looking at dissolved in a blur of white. After a few seconds the
picture steadied itself and he looked through the scope once more. This
time however he did not see the bank, he saw brightly coloured shapes
moving around and a large rippling mass in the centre. As he fixed his
sight on the mass there was a crackling in his ear. After a couple of
seconds the crackling died down and a voice said "anything to report?"
He stared down his sight once more and said "Five terrorists all armed
with AK47 rifles. The hostages are grouped in the centre and are being
guarded by two men. The foyer is open space with little cover so the
hostages are easy prey for any of the terrorists. I would advise
extreme caution." There was a pause for a second and then "report
understood."

The heat was not so unbearable inside the bank thanks mainly to the
large air conditioners situated in the corners of the room. On any
normal day the bank would be busy now as hundreds of people hurried to
pay their bills and check their balances during their lunch hours. As
it was the bank was earily quiet. The only noise came from a woman in a
red summer dress who was wimpering quietly in the middle of the huddle
of hostages. There were only twenty or so people in the huddle mostly
middle aged business men. As the woman started to get louder the man
standing up at the edge of the group moved towards her. He was dressed
entirely in a black jumpsuit with what seemed to be an uncountable
number of pockets. He leaned towards the woman and gently whispered
almost too quietly for her to hear, "will you please be quiet, you will
upset my boss and I wouldn't want you to do that." He flashed her a
quick smile and the woman managed to stifle the whimpering using the
power of pure fear assisted considerably by the automatic rifle the man
was pointing at her.

Dan Constance was busy mentally kicking himself. Of all the days he
decided to come to the bank he had to choose the one where armed
robbers had decided it was a nice day to rob it. For the first time in
his life he was sitting on the other side of the fence. For fifteen
years Dan had been a hostage negotiator for the San Francisco police
department. He had successfully rescued over three hundred people and
had lost only four hostages in all those years. He was very proud of
his record although he occasionally still got upset about the four he
lost even though deep down he knew it wasn't really his fault. He
fidgeted in his suit trying to make himself more comfortable. Then he
smiled to himself at the irony of trying to get comfortable in a room
full of armed bank robbers. He decided to keep himself calm by doing
what he would do if he was on the outside. He scanned the layout of the
bank. This was going to be a real toughie for the SFPD, no cover and
all the hostages grouped where they could be shot at by no less than
five automatic weapons. The impression he had got from the robbers so
far had been one of utmost competence, they had controlled the hostages
quickly and quietly and they seemed well equipped and well trained. He
checked the positions of the terrorists, so far he had counted five of
them. Two were guarding the hostages probably keeping an eye out for
any have a go heroes. The third was just strolling past the group, he
seemed to be patrolling the building. Dan checked his watch and made a
mental note to check it again the next time the man walked past them.
The other two robbers were over the other side of the room huddled over
a bag of some kind, probably preparing the explosives to open the safe.
From what he had gathered one of those men was the ring leader. Dan was
pretty sure the intel he was collecting wouldn't reach the people who
needed it in time to be helpful but it kept him distracted and there
was always the chance the robbers would inadvertently release him as a
bargaining chip. Unless that happened though he was just going to have
to sit this one out. He was pretty sure he could do that but there was
something at the back of his mind making him uneasy and he couldn't
quite place his finger on it.

Jacob had patrolled the bank three times now and was starting to get
bored. When he had first been chosen for this mission he had been
energised with excitement and enthusiasm, he imagined his duties to be
important and dangerous. Instead he had been told to patrol the bank.
He had already decided it was a waste of time halfway through his first
patrol, the bank was only small and the police would have an almost
impossible task getting in, it was after all a bank. As he began
mentally preparing himself for the dullness that would constitute his
fourth patrol of the bank he heard a noise. It was barely audible
against the hum of the air conditioning but he could swear he could
hear crying. He took a step back and the sound became a fraction more
distinguishable. He looked towards what appeared to be the source. He
walked over and pressed his ear to the door of the ladies toilet. He
could definitely hear the sound now. An explosion of adrenaline hit his
system and all of a sudden he wished he could have just had an
uneventful mission after all. He mentally recapped his first patrol. He
had checked the ladies toilet but now that he came to think about it he
had not done as thorough a check as he could of. He shook slightly as
he released the safety on his rifle and braced himself. On the count of
three he would kick open the door and confront whatever was inside. He
had images of an entire police SWAT team or an elite member of the SAS
or a government assassin. He counted slowly in his head. He lifted his
leg, took a deep breath and kicked the door with all his
strength.

The door flew open quickly and Jacob was right behind it with his gun
raised. There was no immediate foe for him to attack but the sound he
heard was now clear and coming from the end cubicle. It sounded like
crying. Jacob approached the cubicle with his gun raised and conjured
up his most authoritative voice, "Whoever is in there has till the
count of three before I fill that cubicle full of holes.
One&;#8230;..Two" Jacob tightened his grip on the trigger as he
prepared to say three but as he went to do so the door to the cubicle
swung open. Inside was a young girl, no older than seventeen huddled in
a ball crying. The first thing Jacob noticed about her was her fiery
red hear that fell down to her shoulders. "Get up," he said in a less
harsh tone than before, "and stop crying."
The girl managed to lift her head and she looked directly into Jacobs
eyes. For a second Jacob could not believe how beautiful she was, then
he managed to squash that feeling down, he had always been trained
never to get too close to the hostages. The girl clambered to her feet
and wiped her eyes. As she took her hands away her eyes became fixed on
the rifle and widened with terror. Jacob noticed and lowered the gun
making sure to put the safety back on. He gestured for the girl to
leave the toilets and she reluctantly moved towards the door keeping
her eyes fixed on the gun. Jacob ushered her into the foyer and was so
distracted by trying hard not to watch the girls behind sway out of the
door way that he barely felt the breeze from the newly opened window as
he shut the door behind him.

As the girl walked across the foyer the two men huddled over the bag
looked up. The smaller of the two said something to the other and then
stood up and started to walk towards the hostages that the red haired
group was now joining. The man reached Jacob and started to talk to him
in a harsh tone not quite loud enough for the hostages to hear. After a
minute he turned around and said, "Patrol the building again and this
time make sure you do it right." He then went back over to the man with
the bag. The rest of the hostages stared at the red haired girl not
quiet sure if she was friend or foe. Then she started crying and the
hostages made their minds up, the nearest woman to her leaning over to
reassure her she would be okay. Dan was not so sure that was the case
anymore, he had just realised what was bugging him and if he was right,
they were all in a hell of a lot of trouble. He stared at the red
haired girl and wished he could do something to help her, it wasn't
fair for someone that young to be caught up in this.

Across the other side of the foyer the plan was reaching the final
stages. The laptop had accessed the necessary data and was transferring
the information via a mobile phone. Davidos looked over towards the
group of hostages and felt a sudden pang of guilt. Right now they would
be waiting for their precious police to rescue them. Unfortunately that
was not part of the plan. He did not feel to bad about killing all of
the hostages, afterall he himself would also be dead by the end of the
day along with the rest of his team. The problem was that he was the
only one that knew that, the rest just thought this was a normal bank
raid. He looked up to the man at the laptop. "Is the transaction
complete?" he asked trying to hide any feelings in his voice. "It is
finishing now. Shall I help the others?" the man replied closing the
laptop. "Yes. I will prepare the explosives for the safe. You may
choose a hostage to give to the police to make them believe we are not
animals and keep them busy."
"Any preference?"
"Someone who looks like they will make the most of the gift of life."
He replied feeling slightly better. At least one person would survive
this horror not including his wife and children providing Draco kept
his word.

As the man approached the group he eyed each one of the hostages. As he
reached them his mind was made up. He pointed to the red haired girl
who was still crying into her hands. "You. Stand up you are being
released." The other hostages looked at the red haired girl with bitter
envy as she shakily got to her feet. The man approached her and removed
a knife from his belt. "You will do exactly as I say or I will give you
to the police in pieces do you understand." As if to punctuate the
point he poked the air near the red haired girl with the knife.

Dan Constance would replay the following events over and over in his
head for many years to come. He watched with the others as the man
poked the air with the knife but he noticed something that the others
did not. The red haired girl was no longer crying. In fact she looked
as cool as ice. As the knife neared her she reached out with her left
arm almost as if she thought he was going to stab her. However the arm
did not come up to block her it moved with unbelievable speed and
caught the arm of the man holding the knife. With a sickening crack she
crunched the mans arm to his total astonishment. As the man staggered
back he dropped the knife which the red haired girl caught in her right
hand. She flicked the knife up and in one swift movement slit the
throat of the man staggering back. A thin spray of blood sprayed over
the hostages as the mans heart tried vainly to continue pumping it
around his body. As he instinctively grabbed his throat the red haired
girl reached out, unclipped the pistol from his belt, released the
safety, cocked it and fired once to centre of the mans skull. She
somehow managed to do all of this in the time it took for the other two
robbers guarding the hostages to react. As the gunshot echoed the first
of the two guys raised his rifle and struggled to remove the safety.
The red haired girl had span and was running towards him at a speed
that simply wasn't possible. She calmly shot him twice in the head
before he even had a chance to aim. However things were looking bleak
as the other man had raised his gun and looked prepared to fire. As he
pulled the trigger the red haired girl reached the wall nearest the
hostages. At first Dan thought she had misjudged and had run too fast
but then she carried on doing the impossible. She leapt up at the last
second and kicked off the wall, the bullets that contained her fate
smashing the plaster where seconds before she had just been. Before the
man had time to react the red haired girl turned in mid air and shot
him three times in the head and chest. Dan could barely believe what he
was seeing, it simply wasn't possible, yet it was happening right in
front of him. The red haired girl, still flying through the air calmly
flipped and landed on the floor in a handstand. She then followed
through into a roll, rolling up with a rifle she had just picked up
from the floor. Dan just had time to look across the other side of the
foyer before the man with the bag exploded into a mist of red. In the
space of ten seconds four out of the five bank robbers had been killed.
This didn't seem to bother the red haired girl who was running over to
the canvas bag.

From her own eyes things had happened pretty much as Dan himself had
seen them. What he didn't see but she certainly did was what was
contained in the bag. As she skidded to a halt next to the red bag she
could already sense what was inside but she had to open it anyway. As
she unzipped the bag and pulled it open the bomb she had been expecting
was indeed staring back at her. She let out a little sigh and pulled
her sleeve back to reveal a watch. She twisted the bezel on the watch
and the blue power light came on indicating the watch was ready. She
took a closer look at the bomb. It didn't look overly complicated. The
small LCD readout that read fifteen seconds was slightly worrying but
apart from that it seemed pretty standard. Unfortunately it appeared as
if the man she had just shot had chose to activate the bomb in
preference to shooting at her. In a strange way she was kind of
flattered but that didn't really help matters. She quickly traced the
decoy wire back and that left her with only two wires, the red and the
green. One would deactivate the bomb, the other would detonate it
killing everyone inside and probably a few spectators outside the bank.
Normally she would take the time to carefully trace each wire to their
origins and therefore greatly reduce the chances of picking the wrong
one. She checked the timer, only six seconds left. Well she always
liked red, it was her lucky colour anyway. She pressed her finger
against the button on the watch and let the counter tick down. There
was no point doing it now, if she was wrong she would waste at least
four seconds of perfectly good life. As the counter reached two she
wished not for the first time she could just have a normal life and
pressed the button. A thin red laser shot out of the end of the watch
and cut the red wire. She waited a split second with her eyes scrunched
shut and then when the flesh searing explosion didn't come she let out
a huge sigh of relief. It was at this moment she felt the gun press
into the back of her head.

Jacob had heard the gun shots and had come running. As he rounded the
corner into the lobby he hoped that he wouldn't be greeted by a pile of
dead hostages. The reality was a lot more disturbing. It seemed that
somehow the hostages had overpowered his comrades and killed them all.
He was just about to start shooting the hostages when he noticed the
young red haired girl he had found huddled over the bag his leader had
been huddled over. He moved over quietly putting his finger to his
mouth to stop the other hostages warning her. He was not sure if he
intended to kill her but he did intend to find out what had happened
here and stop her playing with whatever was in that bag. As he got
closer she stopped concentrating on whatever she was up to and let out
a huge sigh. He slowly pressed the barrel of his gun to the back of his
head and put his finger on the trigger.

How had she forgotten there were five terrorists? What a stupid mistake
to make. In any normal situation she would have heard him approach but
it just so happened the large bomb infront of her had momentarily
distracted her attention. She waited for a second and then prepared to
make her move. She was a fraction of a second away from spinning on the
spot and disarming him when a loud pop like a cork leaving a bottle
echoed around the room followed by the sound of the man behind her
dropping to the floor. She turned to see that most of his head was
gone. She turned back and flashed a brief smile and gave a quick wave
to the wall in the general direction of the small hole that had not
been in the wall a second ago. Then she turned and started running
towards the toilets.

It was safe to say the police outside were panicking. They were
awaiting a list of demands from the robbers when the gunshots rang out
catching them totally unprepared. As soon as the first shot rang out a
large trap door opened in the pit of Malloys stomach and that horrible
feeling that everything had gone to shit crept up on him. He tried to
call the bank but the phone was engaged. He couldn't really stand here
whilst the robbers slaughtered everyone but on the other hand they may
just be trying to scare the hostages into believing they should
co-operate in which case running in there with a SWAT team would do a
lot more harm than good. He decided to wait five minutes and if no
contact had been made by the bank robbers by then he would start to
organise his men for the almost impossible task of raiding the bank. As
the timer ticked down in his mind he got increasingly worried until
after four and a half minutes the door to the bank opened and people
started flooding out. At first his men almost started shooting but
after a second it was established these people were hostages. The
officer next to him turned, "What the hell is going on chief?" he asked
with the same puzzled look he assumed he was wearing. "I'm not too sure
son but I can't wait to find out."

I would really like to see what people think of this so if you can rate
it honestly and if I get enough interest I may put some of the next
chapters on (though I wont hold my breath!)