Writing Prompt - Help Me Get My Characters Out Of An Impossible Predicament !

I need your help !

In my response to yesterday's Mariannewest prompt, I put my characters into a really impossible predicament.

That's the problem with having a 5-minute deadline. I didn't think it through how I usually do. Silly me ! And now my characters are going to die.

So what I hope one of you wonderful people can do is come up with a story where you can save my characters' lives. There's an SBI in it for the best solution 😁

The prompt was "Don't Relax" and my response to it, the post that got these poor people into the situation in the first place, is HERE

So here's the situation;

• The teller, Inspector Chivers and Constables Smith and Jones are in the bank foyer.
• The teller is a hostage and is holding a button fixed to the desk.
• The button is linked to a massive bomb by the front door.
• The button has a strong spring, and the teller's strength won't last much longer. If she lets go of the button, the bomb goes off and everyone dies.
• If the three policemen move more than about 5 paces from where they are, motion sensors set the bomb off.
• The motion sensors also set it off if they are moved or disconnected.
• The police are ten paces from the door, and twenty from the teller.
• There is a back door to the bank (and safety) left open when the bank robbers escaped, but it is another thirty paces beyond the teller.
• The police have guns but no radios or mobile phones.
• It's set in very near future, so no weird science or magic !

Have I finally come up with a situation where all my characters inevitably die ? Can you save them ? If Smith and Jones have to be sacrificed but Chivers and the Teller live, it counts as a minor win.

To make things interesting, if no-one comes up with a solution by the end of next Monday, the teller's strength will give out and I'll write a gruesome sequel where they all die explosive deaths and their next of kin get the bad news 😁