June 16, 1991
The man stared at his blurred reflection in the steel doors, a new life awaiting him on the other
side. He faced the freight elevator of the United Bank Tower in downtown Denver, having just
paged the guards through the intercom, where he posed as the bank’s vice president. They didn’t
question the ruse, and why would they? Who else could possibly want access to the building on
Father’s Day at nine o’clock in the morning?
He listened as the gears whirred on the other side of the doors, and tightened his grip on the gun.
It’s go time.
His leg bounced as time seemed to drag. The sounds stopped, and he braced for the doors to
open.
Seconds later, they parted, revealing an older bank security guard, coffee cup in hand, not a
worry in the world until he looked down and saw the Colt Trooper pointing directly at his chest.
He dropped the coffee and reached for his baton.
“Don’t even fucking think about it,” the gunman snarled. “Swing that thing and I’ll blast your
brains all over this elevator.”
The guard—McDowell, according to the name tag clipped to his navy blue uniform
jacket—released his grip from the baton and held his hands above his head.
“Better,” the man said, looking over his shoulder to make sure no one was around. McDowell
had coffee splattered all over his pants, or maybe the dark stain was piss. His eyes bulged with
terror, hands trembling in the air. “We’re going for a ride. Do you understand?”
McDowell only quivered like he had just stepped into an ice bath.
What a chickenshit!
“I said, do you understand?!” the man shouted, stepping into the elevator, shoving the gun into
McDowell’s pudgy gut.
“Yes, sir,” McDowell said in a wavering, cracking voice.
“Good. Take me to the subbasement, and don’t get any cute ideas. This gun will be on you the
whole time.”
McDowell nodded, but didn’t move.
“Push the damn button!” the man barked, whipping McDowell across the face with the revolver.
Blood spurted from his nose while he stuck out a wobbly finger and pushed SB.
The doors finally closed, and the elevator descended.
“Give me your keycard,” the man said, having seen it clipped to McDowell’s belt.
“Please,” McDowell begged. “Please don’t kill me.”
“Give me the keycard!”
The elevator stopped, and the man pulled the trigger before the doors opened, knowing the sound
wouldn’t be heard in the guardroom on the basement level above.
McDowell collapsed to the floor, blood spreading across his chest while his arms lay lifeless by
his sides. The keycard lay pinched beneath the guard’s dead weight, so the man rolled him over
and plucked it off the belt just as the doors opened.
He jumped to the side wall and peered out, relieved to find the coast clear.
The man stepped out and turned left to the lone door next to the elevator, entering a stairwell. He
climbed up one flight to the bank’s basement level, which was host to the guardroom and vault.
He tapped the keycard on the scanner and opened the door, leading out with his firearm in front.
No one heard, he thought, once more relieved to find an empty hallway. The vault waited at the
opposite end, but he’d have to pass the guardroom first.
He crossed the hallway and strolled ahead, his baggy sport coat whispering against the concrete
walls. Cameras lined the hallway, so he needed to move quickly and with confidence. With a
little luck, he could still catch the guards daydreaming before they realized what was
happening—his disguise would definitely help.
The man was nearly jogging when he reached the guardroom’s door and threw it open, the door
banging against the wall and causing the two guards inside to jump up from their desks. He saw
another door behind the two men marked as BATTERY ROOM – CAUTION.
Both guards whipped out their batons and held them out in front.
The man moved his gun back and forth between the two, letting them know he could take them
both out within seconds. The door glided shut behind the man, and that’s when he pulled the
trigger again.
“Fuck!” the guard on the left shouted, dropping his baton as he clutched his arm.
The man shot the next guard, catching him in the shoulder and sending him tumbling backward.
“Get in the battery room!” the shooter yelled. “Hurry!”
The guard who had fallen down crawled toward the battery room’s door. The other did not, so
the man shot him again, this time in the stomach.
“Right fucking now!”
Both guards pulled themselves toward the battery room, all fight having vanished. The man had
made easy work of them and should have an even less difficult time robbing the vault.
He kept his gun fixed on the guards as they first opened the battery room door, still crawling on
the floor. The other followed at a much slower pace, bleeding from his stomach. The man kicked
this guard in the rear, forcing him face-first into the room, where his colleague grabbed his arms
and helped him in. The man stood in the doorway and shot both guards two more times in the
head. They lay dead below a row of batteries used to power the bank’s computer system.
He reloaded the gun.
The guardroom door swung open, and another guard entered. “What the hell?!”
The man spun around and fired, the first shot errant as the guard dove to the floor. The guard hid
on the other side of the desk, and threw his baton over the edge, nearly striking the man in the
head, but instead hitting the wall behind him.
“Bad fucking choice!” the man shouted, jumping on top of the desk and shooting downward. He
fired six quick rounds, and each hit the guard. The man read the guard’s name tag: Harvey.
“Sorry, Harvey,” the man said with a chuckle, reloading the revolver once more with one of the
several speedloaders he had stuffed into his coat pockets.
He hopped back down and looked at the ten monitors splayed across the front wall of the
guardroom. The vault was indeed open and had six employees inside counting and sorting cash.
Not a single one of them seemed perturbed, so he knew none of them had heard the gunfire.
Take your time, he thought. Clear the evidence.
Scanning the screens one more time, he found no other guards anywhere else in the banking area.
He was all alone with the employees.
He looked down and saw a set of bank keys, slipping them into his pockets. A two-way radio
stood on the edge of the desk, and he stuffed that into his other pocket after turning it off. The
guard logbook lay open, and he saw a note about a silent alarm going off at 9:20 A.M. from the
subbasement stairwell. Wilson Harvey had gone to check it.
He grabbed a handful of the log’s pages and ripped them out, stuffing them into the inside pocket
of his coat. “What else?” he asked the empty room, scanning the desk for any other clues that he
might have left behind. The glimmer of a shell casing caught his eye on the floor, so he spent the
next five minutes collecting each spent casing from his rampage.
After collecting the casings, he found a paper grocery bag under the desk, and tossed them into
it, bringing the bag with him to the front of the room where he ejected the video tapes for all the
active camera feeds, dropping them into the bag. He repeated this process ten times until all
footage was officially erased.
Excitement bubbled within the man. He had made it through the hardest part of this robbery, and
only had to collect his cash from the white-collar workers in the vault. He’d be home free within
the hour.
Brown bag in hand, the man scanned the guardroom behind him, a few splatters of blood soaking
into the carpet. Aside from that, he cleaned up the area nicely.
“Sorry, gentlemen,” he said. “It wasn’t personal.”
He turned and left the guardroom, butterflies fluttering in his stomach as he continued down the
hall toward the vault. He tapped the keycard to unlock the first door, and stepped in to see the
vault wide open, bright light pouring out. Two counters ran the length of the vault, and each had
three employees working quietly among themselves, pulling wads of cash out of large black
bags, and running them through a counting machine.
All six of the employees were so deep in their work, they never noticed the man creeping toward
the vault, arm extended as he held the gun. He rapped the barrel on the vault’s door. “How are
we all doing?”
A woman in the back gasped and dove to the floor. The two men closest to the entrance casually
looked over, then immediately raised their hands. The other three workers, two women and a
man, stopped what they were doing and froze, as if they thought maybe the gunman wouldn’t see
them.
“Let’s make this easy,” the man said. “And everyone can go home today. I want everyone to
close their eyes and get on the ground calmly and quietly. If I see any sudden movements, I will
shoot. If I see you reach for any hidden alarms, I will shoot.”
Everyone obliged and eased themselves downward. Some covered their eyes with their arms,
others simply squinted their eyelids shut. The man nodded toward the gentleman closest to him,
presumably the manager, as he wore a suit and tie, while everyone else had dressed more
casually for their Sunday morning in the office. “You. Keep your eyes open and load up one of
these bags with all the cash you can fit.”
The nervous manager nodded slowly and turned around to the counter he was working at,
lowering his hands cautiously toward the piles of cash. He grabbed handfuls at a time and
returned them to the black bag.
“What’s behind that door?” the man asked, pointing his gun toward another door outside the
vault’s entrance, just to the side.
“It’s a mantrap,” the manager said. “Just a different access point to the vault.” He continued
filling the bag with cash, constantly looking over his shoulder.
“Okay. I want all of you to crawl out of the vault and go behind that door. And drop your
keycards before you go in. Let’s move, people!”
They all reluctantly crawled along the floor, three of them passing by the manager, who looked
down and gulped.
“You’re all doing so good,” the man said. “Keep this up and we’ll all be on our way in no time.”
A few minutes passed while they crawled on elbows and knees toward the mantrap, each
dropping their keycards by the man’s feet as they passed him. “I only see four cards—there
should be five.”
One man started wailing. “I’m sorry, I forgot.”
“No need to cry, cupcake, just toss it this way.”
The sobbing man obliged and threw his keycard over his shoulder where it landed close enough
to the rest.
“Very good,” the man said, picking one off the floor and starting toward the mantrap. He tapped
the keycard on the panel and pushed open the door. “Wow, that’s a tight fit in there. You guys
will be okay, though. In you go.”
“You’ll never get away with this,” one woman muttered under her breath as they formed a line
and crawled into the mantrap.
“Excuse you, ma’am. I didn’t ask for your thoughts. You’ll keep your mouth shut if you know
what’s best for you.”
She said no more and entered the small space. The man backed away from the door, but kept his
revolver pointed toward it, backpedaling until he could see the manager more clearly. “How are
things going in there?”
“One bag is full, sir.”
Oh, he’s definitely a bank manager. Even talks like one.
“That’s good news. Now bring it out here, drop it on the floor, and join your friends.”
The manager did as instructed, carrying the bag in one hand while holding the other above his
head. He dropped it on the floor just outside the vault, gave a quick look up and down of the
gunman (probably to share details with the police later), and shuffled into the mantrap with the
rest of his employees.
“You all have a good day. And thank you for your cooperation.”
He pushed the mantrap’s door shut, and pulled it to confirm it wouldn’t open. Whether going in
or out of the door, a keycard was required. He pocketed the one he had already used and left the
rest on the floor.
A calming stillness filled the air as he crossed the room and picked up the bag of cash, slinging it
over his shoulder. “Money is heavy,” he said, and broke into a sprint down the hallway.
He called the freight elevator and anxiously waited for it come to the basement level. Another
guard could have been in the bathroom or on a break, and he didn’t want to stand inside this
building any longer than he needed.
When the elevator doors finally opened, he stepped in, the smell of blood and coffee blending in
a nauseating odor. He sent the elevator back up to street level.
The doors parted and revealed the parking garage, the morning sunlight visible just thirty feet
away.
“It’s now or never.” He dashed through the garage, and hooked around the corner of the garage’s
exit, sprinting down the sidewalk on Lincoln Street. He saw no pedestrians aside from a
homeless man rummaging through a nearby trashcan.
This man would get away with this crime for decades to come.
Until one day. . .
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