THREE DAYS.

to DIE.

A Thriller.

JOHN AVERY.

For Julie.

Chapter 1.

Snowflakes.

At 9:30 a.m. that Friday, the Community Plaza Bank lobby was already crowded with customers, some scurrying about their business like hungry rodents, others unhurried, content to linger warm and dry, protected from the cold September rains blowing through the small coastal city.

None of them noticed when two small, olive-green canisters bounced softly on the carpet and rolled into the middle of the room. And when the grenades popped and began hissing out plumes of blue smoke, only an attentive few raised their eyebrows.

But when three armed thugs wearing white jumpsuits with matching Day-Glo accented ski masks burst through the doors, everyone noticed.

The first gunman, masked in neon-green horizontal stripes, crossed quickly to one side of the lobby and stood next to a large, marble pillar. He dropped his armload of empty duffel bags to the floor and stared back at the terrified crowd, rifle at ready.

Second through the doors, peering out through shocking-pink polka-dots, was 13-year-old Aaron Quinn. Numbed by fear, Aaron couldn't remember what to do, so he ran over and stood next to the man in neon-green.

The third gunman, in electric-blue vertical stripes under a leather fedora, moved to the center of the room and stood between the two smoke grenades. His eyes gleamed as he scanned the room, taking in every detail, spotting every nuance, his mind calculating, adjusting, tuning his plan to the reality of what he saw.

He raised his a.s.sault rifle and fired a three-round warning burst, punching a tight pattern of bullet holes in a ceiling tile. Hostages screamed and clutched each other. Aaron's ears rang, and he watched, mesmerized, as bits of white fluff drifted down through the blue smoke like the artificial snowflakes at a winter-theme dance.

The gunman tipped his fedora back slightly. "Okay, people!" he shouted, his pace rapid-fire. "We don't have a lot of time or technology. So listen up!" Wildly charismatic, the man made a very strong impression, and though they couldn't see his face, several female hostages found themselves strangely attracted to him.

"When I say 'go,' my friend and I will do the following ... to this entire f.u.c.king bank!"

Aaron felt a bolt of adrenaline arc through him and he held his breath.

The man put his rifle to his hip and fired a quick burst, cutting three loan-approval desktops neatly off. Wood chips littered the area as echoes of rifle fire faded into horrified silence.

"Do I make myself clear?" he said, and judging by the reaction, he had.

The man in neon-green walked over and stood back-to-back with him, their rifles forming a black X. Aaron scrambled over and crouched low next to them. Thick blue smoke swirled about the brightly masked trio, adding to the surrealism of the moment.

The man in electric-blue tipped his fedora forward and started the count.

"Ready ... ?"

Aaron (deaf in both ears after the first shots) covered his ears tightly with his hands.

"Set ... !"

The hostages watched, breathless.

"Go!"

The trigger men grit their teeth and fired low, burning streams of bullets, sawing everything waist high in half as they circled to their left. Hostages screamed and dove for cover as death pa.s.sed overhead in a hail of debris.

Within seconds the men completed a full circle and ceased fire. A metallic ringing sound reverberated about the lobby, then abruptly died, as dust, smoke, and the sweet smell of gunpowder filled the room.

- PART ONE -.

Aaron Quinn.

-WEDNESDAY-.

Two Days Earlier ...

Chapter 2.

All in Good Fun.

Report from the Daily Tribune, 12 March 1905:.

DOZENS DIE IN WATERFRONT CANNERY EXPLOSION.

The Alton Brothers Fish Cannery was destroyed by fire yesterday evening during a night-shift of over 200 employees. It was determined that a faulty pressure-relief valve, deemed safe by the deputy engineer, caused the cannery's coal-fired boiler to explode. The force of the blast set off a chain of secondary explosions and fires that ran through the building, causing the entire structure, along with one hundred and forty-seven trapped workers, to collapse and burn to the ground. The deputy engineer was later found dead in his home after an apparent suicide.

"Ahem!" she bellowed, using as much authority in her voice as she could muster.

Aaron Quinn's head jerked up from the table, and for a moment he thought the knives behind his eyes had severed his optic nerves. Instinctively he reached out a hand then recoiled in disgust as his fingers squished into something like warm cheese in a knit sack.

He blinked, grossed out. There in front of him, so close she blocked his view of the middle-school library like the side of a bus, stood the evening's billowy on-duty teacher.

She looked down aghast at the fold in her stomach where Aaron's fingers had blundered, then gave him a look that curled his toes and trundled back to her office, longing for the good-old-days when she would have taught the audacious punk a quick lesson in the use of hardwood.

Aaron wiped his hand on his jeans then checked the large clock on the wall across the room. 7:29 p.m. He had managed to sleep through nearly all three hours of detention.

He unzipped his sweatshirt. The air-circulator had shut down at the end of the normal school day and the library was hot and airless, as if the countless thousands of books and magazines surrounding him lived on oxygen. He did a few neck rolls to ease the tension in his shoulders, then drained his water bottle and squashed it flat.

Laid open on the table in front of him was a large, leather-bound book: Strange Disasters of the 20th Century a a collection of bizarre newspaper articles from the 1900s.

A small puddle of drool was soaking into a photograph from the article he'd been reading before he fell asleep. A gruesome image, the old photo showed the many dozens of contorted bodies that had yet to be extricated from the ashes of the 1905 cannery fire.

Aaron pulled the sleeve of his sweat-shirt down over the heel of his hand and wiped the offending spot dry, taking a moment to reread the last sentence of the article. He paused over the word suicide before closing the heavy book and returning it to its home on the shelf behind him.

He looked across to the far side of the library at his co-conspirator (seated as far from him as the proportions of the s.p.a.ce would allow), Wilson "w.i.l.l.y" Abbott, a short (shorter than Aaron, at least, who was considered short for his age), round, black kid with big hands, a blinding smile, and stout gla.s.ses. w.i.l.l.y would have exchanged Aaron's glance if he could see that far.

w.i.l.l.y lived near Aaron a one minute by bicycle a in the same crumbling neighborhood in downtown's west-side. They had met the first day of first-grade when poor little w.i.l.l.y couldn't find his cla.s.sroom. Aaron had seen the boy wandering the halls like a duckling separated from its mother and had offered to help him out, comparing his and w.i.l.l.y's schedules. "Room 5 a Mrs. White," he had read. "What do you know? We're in the same cla.s.s." Aaron liked the kid with the big teeth and the British accent, and the two started to hang out. They'd been best friends ever since.

Brrrinnnggg! The late-bell signaled the end of detention and the release of the two detainees. Aaron and w.i.l.l.y grabbed their packs and fled the library through a side door.

It was a cold, bl.u.s.tery evening outside, and to Aaron, after a long afternoon in the stuffy library, the air felt fresh and wonderful. The boys crossed the lawn by the gym in near darkness and headed for the front of the school a Aaron taking the straighter path, while w.i.l.l.y dodged around trees and hurdled bushes like one of Robin Hood's men eluding pursuit in Sherwood Forest.

"Detention sucks," w.i.l.l.y said, jumping down from the top of a high stone wall. "One lousy prank and you'd think we were a couple of blaggers whipping out Uzis in a bank lobby."

Aaron laughed, picturing the two of them, with masks and machine guns, robbing a bank like a couple of eighth-grade hooligans.

"It wasn't just a prank, you know," he said. "We ditched the whole first day of school!" He felt guilty about ditching (this being his first time), but only slightly. Each year his teachers seemed less and less interested in him, and the further he and the educational system drifted apart, the more difficult it became for him to return. So this year when w.i.l.l.y ditched the first day (as he did every year), Aaron ditched, too.

"And don't forget the forged permission slips," w.i.l.l.y added proudly, clearing a long concrete bench from end to end, a surprisingly agile move, considering the extra inches he carried around his middle.

"Oh, yeah," Aaron agreed. "Those, too." w.i.l.l.y's fake doc.u.ments hadn't worked, but it was a commendable effort.

"All in good fun," w.i.l.l.y said cheerfully.

They crossed the middle-school's broad central plaza under a golden canopy of autumn leaves, and exited through the main gate, their sneakers tapping out a random rhythm on the polished granite as they descended the wide front steps.

Across the boulevard from the middle-school stood Community Plaza Bank, a stately structure with a marble colonnade echoing a cla.s.sic Greek temple, and a pair of grand, plate-gla.s.s front doors. Community Plaza was the largest and busiest bank in the city, but neither Aaron nor w.i.l.l.y had ever been inside.

Aaron checked the huge clock mounted on its towering facade and the stabbing pain behind his eyes returned with a vengeance.

"I am so dead," he said gloomily, his throat tightening at the thought of going home and facing Tom.

w.i.l.l.y knew that Aaron's stepdad did not tolerate rebellious behavior, and that the man wasn't the least bit squeamish when it came to tough discipline.

"I'm starving," he said. "You want to get a burger?"

"Tom would love that," Aaron said bitterly. "Unlike you, I can't come and go as I please."

To w.i.l.l.y that comment felt cold, considering he had no parents at all. His mother, born and raised in England, had given birth to him at the age of fifteen while living in south London, and had never told the father. At the age of twenty, she died of alcohol poisoning, leaving w.i.l.l.y an orphan. His grieving grandparents took him in, and together they immigrated to the United States. w.i.l.l.y's father would later be awarded the Victoria Cross for bravery while serving in Iraq as a commando in the British Royal Marines, but unfortunately w.i.l.l.y never heard about this, because he and his father never met.

"Maybe tomorrow then, mate?" he said, but Aaron was lost in thought and didn't answer.

The tubular-steel bike rack was bolted to the sidewalk next to the street, its undulating pipes shaped to spell the word SCHOOL. Aaron had parked his old BMX bike in the letter H, next to the O that held w.i.l.l.y's rusty beach cruiser.

Aaron knelt and tried his lock, but it was stuck. w.i.l.l.y removed his own lock with ease, then stuffed it in his pack and pulled his bike out of the O.

Aaron gave his lock a swift kick. The lock banged hard against the bike frame, but didn't open.

"Stupid piece-of-c.r.a.p!" he yelled, giving the lock another hard kick. This time the lock opened, and he nearly broke the rack yanking his bike out of the H.

To w.i.l.l.y's surprise, Aaron looped his pack over his shoulder, swung a leg over his bike, and rudely pedaled off down the street without him.

w.i.l.l.y watched him for a moment, uncertain whether or not to follow, then set off to eat his dinner alone.

Chapter 3.

Sleeping Dogs It was completely dark as Aaron rode alone toward home. He knew he'd been cruel to his friend, leaving him like he did, and he felt awful. But he couldn't help himself. He was p.i.s.sed off at the world. Taking advantage of w.i.l.l.y's good nature was easier than being the good friend he deserved. He looked back a couple of times, hoping to see w.i.l.l.y, but there was no one there.

Suddenly he heard the unmistakable click of dog paws approaching at a full sprint. A large Rottweiler sleeping in a side alley had awakened to the tantalizing grind of bicycle tires on pavement and given chase a and it was closing on him. His heart fell into his shoes, and he wished he'd taken w.i.l.l.y up on his burger offer.

Instinctively, Aaron accelerated, but a quick look back convinced him that it was futile, and judging by the size and look of the dog, he knew he was in serious trouble.

An article he had read online flashed into his mind: It had said that in the event of a dog attack while riding a bike, dismount and use your bike as a shield, and if it came down to pure survival, to jam your arm down the attacking dog's throat, choking it to death.

I'm not sure I could do that, he thought wretchedly.

But he had no time to consider his options a the dog was upon him. He said a quick prayer, hit the brakes, leaped off his bike, and swung it around between himself and a horrible fate.

The vicious animal lunged at him repeatedly, barking its lungs out, as if its very survival depended upon its ability to catch and eat teenage boys. Aaron fought desperately, dodging the dog's enormous head, as again and again the animal thrust snarling, snapping jaws full of huge, foaming teeth through the gaps in his bike frame.

He battled on, somehow managing to keep his bike between them, until finally a after what felt like an eternity a the dog tired and just stood in the street panting. It looked at Aaron with its head c.o.c.ked, as if to say s.h.i.t, man ... I didn't expect that much fight from someone your size. Then, at last, having lost interest, it trotted off into the darkness.

For a couple of minutes Aaron couldn't move. He cowered behind his bike, soaked to the skin with sweat, his hands shaking and sticky with strings of dog snot. He struggled to get a grip on himself as the terrifying event played over and over, in exquisitely painful detail, in his mind.