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truck. A hubcap sailed crazily in the air.
    While the Overland backup team scrambled out of the wreck Hansun gunned the Buick and shot forward through the front row of cars and into the next lane. Turning right on two wheels, he raced the lane all the way to the exit and out of the parking lot. “We done it,” Hank Green shouted, holding up one of the money bags from the floor. “We goddam done it.”
    By the time Overland security and the police arrived, the Buick was being traded for two other cars, which promptly fled into the noonday gloom and disappeared.
    In the shopping center lot the driver of the demolished sedan was cursing himself for trying to do the job alone. He was also thanking his gods for still being alive. His partner, equally shaken but unhurt, wondered if they would be fired.
    Elsewhere ambulance attendants were lifting the body of Harry Owens onto a stretcher. One bullet had entered his right side, the other his upper right arm. Seriously wounded, he was rushed to nearby Community Hospital. Roy Druski and Fred Stubb were taken to police headquarters to tell their story, and afterward driven to Overland’s central Los Angeles office. The armored car was checked for prints after the remaining money was transferred to another team to complete the route.
    While reporters were getting details of the robbery for their metropolitan dailies, company investigators were already setting up a file on the operation, a file that would eventually be sent through an industry clearing house to every bonded money carrier and security firm in the country. Included in the report would be each specific detail of the robbery. All that would be missing were the names of the participants.
    These too would shortly be known.
    Three days after the shooting Harry Owens died in the hospital without regaining consciousness. The more serious of the two entrance wounds had traveled downward, smashing his spleen and liver. His premonition of disaster had been accurate. So was his belief that he would never see his wife Sara again.
    Officials were dismayed by Owens’ death, for they had hoped that he would lead them to his companions. The investigation settled into the routine but little was immediately learned. The guards could not identify their assailants from mug shots, which meant that the five men had no known criminal records. Nor did fingerprints from the truck and abandoned Buick match any existing ones on file. Owens hadn’t belonged to any particular gang known to police. He had been a regular patron of several bars around the city, in which he had always behaved himself well enough. His wife knew none of his friends. The search continued but what was needed was a break.
    On March 26 the break came in the form of a man who walked into a showroom in Glendale and bought a new car for three thousand dollars. The man paid cash. Elated, the salesman completed the transaction and afterward routinely reported the matter to the police, as was the custom with all large cash transactions. The man had presented his driver’s license on which were his name and address. An investigation determined that he was a drifter with no visible means of support. His name was Hank Green.
    The following day Green was taken to Los Angeles police headquarters, where he was questioned about the Overland robbery. At first adamant in his denials, Green relented when the guards made a positive identification. “You got me,” he announced finally. “Make a deal and I’ll talk.”
    Within hours the police knew everything about the armored-car hijack, including all the names: Carl Hansun, Don Solis, his younger brother Lester, and Johnny Messick. Harry Owens? “Don shot him. But he deserved it.” Why? “He told us he knew all about cars.”
    Police bulletins quickly went out, and the manhunt was on throughout California and the western states. Within two weeks three of the men were captured, Messick in San Diego and the Solis brothers in Fresno.