By Reason of Insanity Read Online Free PDF

islands. With one lung all shot up and a steel plate in his head, Hansun figured he didn’t have too long, and he wanted to go out in style. Next to him sat Harry Owens, waiting to race over to the armored car. Harry had awakened with a premonition of disaster, which he didn’t mention to the others when they met at eight o’clock. Before he left home he had glanced at his wife Sara, asleep in the other room. He didn’t expect to see her again.
    In the back seat Johnny Messick stared out the window. A drifter with no permanent base or allegiance, Messick was pushing thirty and worked occasionally as a short-order cook. On this day he carried a gun that he hoped would not be needed.
    Carl Hansun lit a Camel and immediately coughed. He took a second deep drag and broke into a coughing fit. “Goddam,” he muttered hoarsely, “can’t even smoke no more.” His pack was empty. He crushed the burning end on the window and snapped the cigarette in half and put the good halfback in the empty pack.
    Across twenty yards of driving rain the armored car stood motionless. Johnny Messick looked at his watch. “What’s keeping them?” he asked. No one answered him.
    Inside the building, in the darkened hallway, three men wearing butcher’s aprons had just seized the guard by surprise. In a matter of seconds one of them, Hank Green, age twenty-eight, was walking toward the exit with the guard’s keys and pistol, and the deposit bag in his hand. The other two, Don Solis, thirty-four, and his brother Lester, thirty, covered the guard at the exit door.
    When Green walked out the door the three men in the Buick held their breath. In a few moments they would know all about their future. The time was 10:27 and counting.
    Carl Hansun had planned the robbery after weeks of careful scrutiny. He had studied the routes of the armored cars, learned the routines of the guards, their timing and techniques. A steal in the central city was quickly ruled out because of traffic and tight security. What was needed was an open spot with minimum protection: a supermarket rather than a bank, a supermarket in a large shopping center. Highland Park seemed the best bet. The inside men could do their job with little chance of interference, while those in the car would go unnoticed unless needed, Everything depended on getting the driver to open the rear door for the phony guard, and Hansun planned on natural carelessness and a heavy rain to take care of that.
    In numerous run-throughs while waiting for the right day, Hansun and the others clocked the operation at ninety seconds from the time Hank Green left the building to Harry Owens driving the truck away. One minute thirty seconds.
    Roy Druski looked at his watch. What the hell was keeping Stubb? Flicking an eye at the doorway, unable to see anything clearly through the rain, he spotted Stubb coming out with the deposit bag. “About time,” he mumbled to himself. He put down the paper and waved his arm to let Stubb know he had been seen this time. Then he pressed the button to open the rear door and went back to his paper.
    As Hank Green pulled the door wide he motioned to his companions in the hall. They quickly came out, Stubb between them, each wearing a butcher’s apron. To the two men in the black sedan parked nearby, they looked like three supermarket butchers going out for a smoke. Except nobody smokes in the rain. The two men tensed, watched in amazement as the butchers jumped into the truck behind the guard. A hand quickly reached for the two-way radio.
    Inside the truck Don Solis shoved Stubb against the compartment door separating them from the driver. “Open it up,” he rasped. “Open it or I’ll kill him.” He forced his gun into Stubb’s mouth. Behind the bulletproof glass Roy Druski heard him, saw the three men, Stubb, the gun. He hesitated. Instead of his whole life flashing before him, he thought only of his being safe in the cab, with the currency bags, the big money, on the