Seven Silent Men by Noel; Behn

ultrasonic scanning system on the premises. That heat and space variation gadget. It’s usually accurate when it’s been thoroughly checked out. Only this one hasn’t been totally checked. The bank doesn’t officially open until the day after tomorrow. The scanner was due for one last inspection and adjustment.”
    A SWAT team, with rifles upraised, dashed past and deployed.
    â€œWe are asking you for the last time to come out and surrender,” a helmeted officer said through his electric-powered, handheld amplifier. “For the last time, come out and surrender.”
    Jessup recognized the two men behind the officer. The shorter of the pair was Ned Van Ornum, head of detectives for the Prairie Port PD. The taller man was Chief of Police Frank Santi.
    The officer with the bullhorn and Van Ornum turned to Santi. Santi, tugging at an earlobe, regarded the ground. He said something to Van Ornum. Van Ornum cocked a finger and pointed. A flak-jacketed policeman in tennis shoes rushed from cover and zigzagged across the brick street and dove forward on the wooden sidewalk below the bank’s front window, rolled on his back, training his weapon on the glass above. Moments passed. He reached up and tried the handle of the front door. It was locked. He signaled as much to Van Ornum. Van Ornum motioned the cop on the rooftop away, waved to the police in the windows above to get back … cocked his finger at the bank facade. The man on his back removed a glob of plastic from his flak jacket, slapped it to the bank’s door, stuck in a detonating pin, rolled over and ran for cover.
    The explosion was muted. The front door disintegrated. A wave of police stormed through. Then a second and third wave. The ground-level floor on the bank premises was secured within moments. Not a crook was to be found.
    Ned Van Ornum, over the objections of Frank Santi, decided to lead the assault on the basement vault room. Rigged out with a flak jacket and combat helmet and bulletproof visor, he took a shotgun and started down the steps alone, his back sliding against the wall. Sharpshooters at the head of the stairwell aimed their weapons beyond and below him. Once near the open door at the bottom of the steps, Van Ornum stopped, cocked his finger up at the battery of guns.
    The officer with the electric bullhorn moved in behind the poised sharpshooters, implored the criminals in the vault room to give up.
    No response came from the open door.
    Van Ornum crouched as low as a ski jumper at trestle top, keeping low, bounced up and down on his haunches. Once more he cocked a finger at the head of the stairs. Before the bullhorn officer could get out more than an amplified word or two, Van Ornum dove through the open door with shotgun raised. Landed on the cement floor on his elbows, ready to fire.
    The large room was empty. The burnished metal walk-in vault stood in the middle of the chamber with its huge hydraulic door securely locked.
    Chief Frank Santi and Ned Van Ornum and a robbery squad detective by the name of Hogan conferred near the vault with the bank’s manager, who said there could be no doubt someone unauthorized had violated the premises, since all the doors leading down to the vault room were opened instead of being closed as they should have been. The official pointed out that not only had all those doors been electronically locked, they were electronically programmed to remain locked until nine o’clock the next morning. Hurrying down into the sublevel chamber was the assistant bank manager, the ranking expert on ultrasonic alarm systems, who imparted, urgently, that while the vault door looked unopened, even untouched, one of the many control panel dials upstairs indicated that someone had definitely been inside the vault … could, conceivably, still be inside.
    Flak-jacketed police were rushed in to keep their machine weapons trained on the vault door. When the area engineer for the Northern