positions at either end of the main counter, their weapons drawn and aimed at the customers.
Krueger quickly approached the leftmost teller window. “We’ll have it all, young lady,” he said to the terrified woman, his voice calm. He dropped the barrel of his shotgun on the counter top, the metal clattering against the marble facing. Krueger shoved the weapon through the window opening until the front of the barrel was pressed against the young teller’s stomach. “Just keep calm, and you’ll live to enjoy a long and healthy life.”
The frightened woman took the canvas bag Krueger handed her and began clumsily filling it with the contents of her cash drawer. When her drawer was empty, Krueger motioned with the shotgun toward the next window in line and stepped along the outside of the counter in that direction. From behind the counter, the young woman paralleled his movement, her eyes wide with fear. They repeated the process through two more windows, emptying each cash drawer. At the last window, Krueger again smiled at her.
“You’ve done well. . Sara,” he said, reading her nametag. “Now, back away from the counter and keep your hands in sight, and you won’t get hurt.” He turned toward his accomplice stationed at the far end of the lobby and jerked his head toward the door. “Time to leave,” Krueger said to his closest associate, and the two men began to step over the prostrate customers scattered on the floor. The third man, at the far end of the counter, made his way toward the door, also.
“FBI! Drop your weapons and hit the floor!” a voice shouted from within the teller cages.
Krueger spun around to face the main counter, his shotgun swiveling in the same direction, as he sought to identify the source of the voice.
“I said drop it!” the female voice repeated in a commanding, Quantico tone.
Krueger spotted a dark-haired young woman standing behind one of the tellers’ windows, her pistol extended toward him in a double-handed stance.
A husky male voice from the far end of the bank lobby joined the chorus. “This is the FBI. The police have the bank surrounded, and there’s no escape. Now drop your weapons, get on your knees, and raise your hands.”
His gaze still riveted on the female teller, Krueger stole a quick glance at the new voice and observed a man dressed in a business suit, kneeling on the floor with a pistol drawn and leveled directly at him. For several moments, the stalemate continued, then one of Krueger’s companions turned and fired a shotgun blast at the kneeling man. Several of the customers screamed hysterically, and one woman jumped to her feet, bolting for the front door. She caught the brunt of a second blast full in the chest and sprawled backward, landing on another woman and her child who were cowering on the floor.
Reacting instantly, the female teller redirected her aim and fired two quick shots at the man who had discharged his weapon. Krueger took that opportunity to level a hurried blast toward the teller window, but his aim was low, and the pellets imbedded themselves in the front of the counter. He reached down and grabbed a female customer who was lying at his feet. Jerking her roughly upright, he locked his arm around her throat and began backing toward the entrance, still clutching the moneybag and his weapon. As he reached the door, he could see his associate lying on his back. Blood had saturated his hood and was pooling under his head, and his unseeing eyes stared at the ceiling out of the eye holes of his mask.
Krueger motioned to his second companion, who quickly joined him, and together they exited the front door. They ran around the side of the bank and dragged the hostage with them into the van, which then began to weave its way between the parked cars. Krueger stuck the shotgun out the open van door and fired into the fuel tank of a parked car, which immediately erupted in a ball of flame. Pedestrians in the parking lot began screaming and running away from the flames, hysteria spreading quickly throughout the mob of shoppers.
Four police cars, two of which had been parked near the bank on standby alert for the anticipated robbery, were now gathered at the site of the traffic accident, where the officers were busy keeping traffic away from the burning vehicles. At the sound of gunfire, seeing they had no ability to move their patrol cars through the intersection, the four officers drew their weapons and began running toward the bank.
The escaping van bounced off several cars in the driver’s frantic attempt to clear traffic and make his way to El Camino Real and the freeway entrance. Before the officers could reach the scene, the careening vehicle had negotiated the congestion and disappeared onto the freeway, the hostage still inside.
As soon as the gunmen cleared the front door, FBI Agent Nicole Bentley, who had been posing as a teller for two days, ran the length of the main counter toward where she had last seen her partner, Al Samuels. Using her arm as a fulcrum, she leaped over the locked, waist-high swinging door beside the main counter and ran toward the front door.
“Al, c’mon, if they get into the crowd, we’ll never catch them,” she shouted, glancing to where her partner had last been. Then she saw him on the floor, slumped awkwardly against the base of the customer counter, bleeding profusely from a wound in the side of his neck. She halted her pursuit and ran to him, sidestepping several customers who were trying to regain their feet now that the shooters had departed. She knelt down next to her partner.
His eyes were already beginning to glaze over. He tried to speak but could make no sound.
“It’s all right, Al, I’ll get help. Hang on,” Nicole said.
She grabbed her radio and called for paramedics, instinctively knowing it was too late. Samuels slumped lower against the counter, and Nicole sat on the floor beside him, lifting his upper body and cradling him in her lap. She tried to apply pressure to his neck, but the pulsing of blood was already beginning to slow. Helpless to prevent his slipping away, Nicole held Al Samuels, her tears blurring the vision of her partner, as he bled to death in her arms.
She sat that way for several long moments as customers held each other and gaped, traumatized by the violence that had erupted around them. Finally, two more FBI agents entered the front door and approached Nicole where she sat on the floor, leaning against the counter, cradling her dead partner. They were quickly followed by two paramedics who had originally been called to the traffic accident at the corner intersection. Nicole looked up at the men, her eyes blank, her mind uncomprehending. The senior FBI agent squatted down next to her and placed his hand on her shoulder, looking into her eyes.
“Maybe we should take him now, Nicole,” he said softly.
She pulled Al closer.
The kneeling agent turned his head and nodded toward the paramedics, who moved forward. Again, Nicole tightened her grip on Al Samuels’ body.
“It’s all right, Nicole,” he said, reaching for Al’s weapon, still clutched in the dead agent’s hand. “We’ll take care of him.”
Nicole stared down at the lifeless body of the man she had worked with daily for slightly over a year. Tears streaming down her face, she spoke in barely a whisper. “How many times have I told you, Al-that tie doesn’t go with that shirt. Oh, Al,” she said, shaking her head and sobbing, “why you, Al? Why you?”
Once clear of the Natomas area and the emergency vehicles racing down El Camino toward the multiple fires and gunshots, Krueger directed the driver of the van to turn north on Fulton Avenue and enter the Haggin Oaks Golf Course parking lot, where they stopped next to a Ford Expedition parked in a far corner of the lot. Krueger directed the driver and his remaining companion to exit the van and get into the Ford. He then climbed into the rear of the van with the hostage. He sat on the wheel-well next to the terrified woman, who lay on her back on the floor of the van, her head covered with an oily rag. Otto removed the rag, and the woman turned her head slightly, blinking her eyes and glancing up at her captor.
“I’ve got two choices, lady,” he said, brandishing his pistol near her face. “I can kill you, like those people in the bank, or I can leave you here.”
Trying to speak through her sobbing, the woman pleaded, “Oh, please,
“Now hear me good, lady. I’ve got your purse,
She nodded slowly, the tears running down her cheeks.
He continued to stare at her, then lowered his hand and ran it slowly over her face, down past her throat,
