The SWAT Team

The SWAT Team
by Sebastian Turton

"You're late again, Wilson." growled the manager, who prefered everyone calling him that. His real name was Thomas, however.
Wilson rolled his eyes and explained to "Thomas" why he was late today, if "late" meant being twenty seconds over the required time.
"I don't care. You know what the city is like. Get up earlier." That was true. Wilson hadn't bothered setting his alarm clock. It was a wonder he even woke up before the bank opened.
Thomas then gave him the money figures for him to transfer. Wilson protested this fact since he was only a teller, but Thomas overruled him and everyone was back to work, with Wilson getting a big chunk of it. What a day to start work.

There were roughly a hundred people in the bank at this moment when a dozen people dressed in black entered from various entrances. The tallest of them, Mac, was their leader. He entered the lobby with four of his people. He was wearing a mask.
"Horse is in the house." said Mac into the earphone, quietly, but in case anyone heard him, they would have no idea what he was talking about.
Suddenly, Mac and his people drew their MP5s from underneath their jackets and began firing in the air. People were screaming like in a typical movie, panicking, not knowing what to do. The security guards were both shot down in mere seconds by more of Mac's people coming from the rear entrances.
"Get down on the ground now!" yelled Mac, waving the gun around at the gathering crowd. A few obeyed, so to speed up the process, Mac fired into the air, and everyone obeyed. "That's more like it."
Mac's "troops" sealed off the entrances and lead the remaining civilians and bank tellers to a room. The bank manager was brought before Mac. "You know the routinue, where is the money?"
"You know where." the manager simply said, he was understandably nervous which was obvious since he was shaking like mad.
"Alright, open the vaults now or I'll blow off some people's heads," said Mac, pleased with his role. This was going to be a piece of cake. As if to confirm his threat, he aimed the MP5 he was holding at Wilson, who was brought along as the hostage. "What will it be?"
"But I can't open them, I don't have the required keys." protested the manager.
"Wrong answer." Mac clamly aimed the MP5 at the manager and pull the trigger, releasing a burst of bullets that disfigured the manager. "Put him back with the others." Wilson was relieved to be alive, for now. Thomas was dead and how much mercy would they show him?

Officer Anderson halted his police cruiser next to the van the robbers had left behind. He quickly walked toward the bank where he was greeted by shots all around him. Anderson ducked behind a car and screamed into his radio for reinforcements. Whoever saw those armed men entering the bank was right. There was a robbery going on.
In barely five minutes, the entire building was surrounded. Police loaded their shotguns in anticipation of a fight. SWAT team arrived and waited to charge in. Captain French wanted a report.
"Unknown number of suspects. At least ten according to a lucky person who managed to escape the bank in time. Maybe a hundred hostages." reported Lieutenant Brown, who was putting on his bullet proof vest and speaking into the headset. "Area surrounded?"
"Area is surrounded. No one will get through unless they are invisble." said a deep voice on the radio.
"Hamson says area is tightly surrounded."
"No way out or in?" asked Captain French, slightly skecpictal.
"No way." repeated Brown.
"Any demands so far?"
Brown sighed and looked at the phone."None yet. We requested the robbers call this specfic phone if they want to negotiate."
There was a gathering crowd. Reporters had came in swarms, but police were blockading them from entering the street around the bank. Snipers were positioning themselves on buildings across the bank, so they had a clear view of the streets and the bank's roof.
"So, we're calling the....robbers inside?" asked Hamson uneasily to French and Brown.
"No choice, we haven't received a call," said French sighing,"and it is procedure. We're setting up equipment right now."

Mac looked out the window uneasily. He could see the police cars, SWAT trucks, and newsvans outside the bank, accompanied by hundreds of people blocked by a line of police officers. The cops were aiming shotguns at the bank, while others were passing assault rifles around to their comrades. Mac walked back to Joe, who was typing on a laptop connected to one of the bank's numerous computers.
"Any unseen developments?" asked Mac to Joe, who was the shortest guy of all of them.
"None, getting by the password was a lot easier than I thought. Soon, all the bank accounts here will be ours." said Joe, not bothering to look up from his laptop screen.
"How are the bank customers doing?"
Joe called up another screen and it showed all the hostages on a video camera, nervous and most likely wondering if they'd live. "Scared like hell, but not much else."
"How are the guys at the vault doing?"
Joe answered after a moment of silence, "The charges are rigged and they're set to explode when you give the command. Just press Enter and + here." Joe was pointing out to another laptop that was to send the detonation signal.
Mac nodded and was about to press Enter and + at the same time when a phone rang on a desk behind him
"Looks like our friends are impatient." he said.

Captain French made the call. He dialed the number that one of the police techs gave him and after three rings, someone answered.
"Hello," said a deep voice on the phone.
"This is Captain French of the NYPD and basicially I'm here to negotiate." said French calmly.
"Our demands are simple, we want passage out and we'll release the hostages we have." said Mac. This captain didn't waste time.
"How many hostages do you have?"
"That's a reasonable question and I'll answer it," said Mac, looking at Joe, who wrote "97" on his notepad, "We have about 97 hostages."
"97 hostages. What type of vehicle do you want?"
"A commerical bus is fine. Captain, just a warning. If any police officer attempts to enter the building, I will kill all my hostages with sharpnel grenades. Nasty."
This bank robber had a very serious voice. French knew sharpnel grenades kill people slowly. "No tricks from us, not that you'll believe me."
"Correct. You have two hours." Then the phone hanged up.
Joe was chuckling. "You make yourself sound all mysetrious. And sharpnel grenades? We only have one and I'm not even sure it works."
"Well, anything to scare them is fine by me." Then Mac typed Enter and +.

The entire building shook as the detonation destroyed the vault's blast door completely. Mac swore he thought the roof was going to fall in, but it didn't. The hostages were alarmed and now had wild imaginings about what the robbers were using the explosion for.
Joe cursed and said," You could have warned me. You might have disrupted the transfer!"
Mac found himself grining and asked," But I didn't, right?"
Joe gave in immediately, "You didn't disrupt it, luckily for you." Then he went back to typing.
Mac headed down to the vault where he found one of the black masked guys glaring at him.
"You might have killed me! Anyway, the vault is indeed open." said Frank, who was the youngest and their best expert on explosives.
Mac ignored him for a moment and walked inside. There was an endless line of gray vault boxs. "You know what to do."
Frank nodded and went to work. There was loot to take from the vault boxes.

Two hours later...
Mac found himself back in a telephone conversation with Captain French. Mac used a electronic device which made his voice sound deeper.
"Have you made a decision?" asked Mac
There was a rush of static then French said, "My superiors have ordered me to tell you that no decisions have been made."
Mac smilied, this was going exactly according to plan. "So I assume your SWAT team will be assaulting the place?"
French said nothing. The phone hanged up.
Mac ordered his people through the radios to finish their work and get onto the first floor as quickly as they can. The next few hours were going to be crucial.

Two SWAT teams, one from each SWAT truck had preped themselves for the assault. French, Brown, and Hamson were putting on bullet proof vests since they were also joining the assault.
"Position yourselves." said the SWAT commander into a headset he was wearing.
French grabbed his shotgun and followed the SWAT team who were now taking positions around the bank. Simulateously SWAT was to assault from all directions.
"Thats a go, people. Good luck." said the SWAT commander
SWAT broke open the doors with explosive charges and poured into the building, firing tear gas so hopefully the robbers would be surprised and confused by the smoke. French put on his gas mask and entered the building with three other SWAT officers. There were no lights since the SWAT commander also had the lights cut a few seconds eariler. French aimed his shotgun at the desks around and looked behind each one carefully. No one was around though.
Then there was a rush of footsteps up ahead, French looked up alarmingly and aimed the shotgun at the approaching dark shapes. It was another SWAT team. French went back to searching. He had no idea that the SWAT team he just met were the bank robbers.

Mac knew there was no way to hold off SWAT, so he had his team dress up as a SWAT team with himself as the captain when the real SWAT assaulted. He managed to get hold of the latest SWAT equipiment a few days before the robbery and quickly had copies made.
The plan went smoothly. The SWAT teams were ignoring each other and were looking for the "robbers" while Mac's "SWAT team" moved through the lobby, pretending to search. Mac then ordered the "team" to get to the fake SWAT truck that was waiting for them. Each of his men had several black bags, which were fashioned to look like standard SWAT packs. The bags were full of the items from the vault.
"Piece of cake." remarked Frank once the truck was driving off with the bank robbers and about one and a half billion dollars worth of money, diamonds, gold bars, and countless valuable antiques. What a haul.

French slammed a nearby desk, frustrated. The two SWAT teams had spent hours searching the place and admitted the robbers were gone. Along with what was in the vault. It would take days to fully check the bank, but it didn't matter, French knew the robbers had somehow escaped.
"They didn't dig underground, they didn't fly out of here, the bank is surrounded, so the only way for the robbers to escape was marching past by us." said French to Brown and Hamson, with coldness in his voice. The robbers had somehow fooled them.
"Most of the vault is empty." reported Hamson, who sounded unpleasant.
"Captain French, I have a complaint to make." said the SWAT commander.
"And what complaint is it?" asked French.
"Why the hell did a LAPD SWAT team join us?"
French was surprised. The man could see it on his face. "A LAPD SWAT team joined us?"
"Yes, and they drove away in the middle of the search process. In fact, I'll complain to LAPD headquarters." A few minutes later the SWAT commander came back, "They didn't send any team to help us." he said quietly.
"So who were..." began French, then the truth suddenly dawned on him,"They were the robbers. Right under our nose, they slipped past us with the haul."