by Tom Barber
The others returned fire, running back and taking cover behind a thick air vent duct, the wounded man staggering up and joining them.
Marquez aimed where she figured they would be and fired twice more, putting two holes in the metal duct.
Arriving on 12, Archer and Vargas sprinted down the corridor. They burst into the apartment, the refrigerator already pulled back out of the way from when they’d left. There was no time to lose. Running into the sitting room, Vargas ran over to Isabel as Archer moved to Carson, who was lying on the couch in the same position as when they’d left him.
‘C’mon, we’ve got to go!’ he said.
He pulled him forward to lift him in a fireman’s carry. Carson didn’t react.
‘C’mon, Jack.’
Nothing. His arm was limp. Slowing, Archer withdrew and looked at him, Vargas joining him and staring down at her fellow Marshal. His chest wasn’t moving anymore. His eyes were open, looking at the ceiling. For the first time since Archer had first seen him on the street, his face looked natural and relaxed.
He was gone.
‘Oh Jack,’ Vargas said, tears in her eyes, Isabel standing beside her. Vargas noticed a small amount of glitter still on his collar from earlier.
Not wasting another second, Archer grabbed the black bag and USP, running to the front door.
‘Let’s go!’
Vargas was right behind him with Isabel; they raced into the corridor and turning into the stairwell the trio began their desperate ascent up the building.
They moved up the flights quickly, but were hindered by having to go at Isabel’s pace. Although she was going as quickly as she could, it was still a lot slower than Archer and Vargas could have managed alone. They were both wounded but adrenaline and survival instinct were masking the pain and driving them on, racing up flight after flight. They didn’t waste a second clearing any of the corridors.
With the place about to blow, none of the response team would be hanging around.
They continued up, legs burning, the stairs seemingly endless, knowledge that the C4 could explode at any moment fuelling every desperate step. The deserted apartment block was quiet now, save for one sound.
They hadn’t turned off the intercom when they were down in the basement and the beeping continued, constant, monotonous, terrifying.
His legs full of lactic acid, his lungs on fire, Archer willed the noise to continue.
FORTY EIGHT
Isabel hadn’t been injured and despite being so much smaller she kept up well. However, by the time they got to 17 she was exhausted and slowing, not really aware of the terrible danger they were in. Stopping momentarily, Archer threw Vargas his M4A1, who slung it across her shoulders on the strap. He swept Isabel up and carried on, adrenaline giving him one last burst of strength, Vargas leading the way, fighting her way up.
18.
19.
20.
21.
When they staggered onto 22, they saw the man Vargas had shot earlier in the corridor up ahead. Demolishing the building would destroy the bodies; by the time CSU managed to pull an ID, if ever, Calvin and his team would be long gone. Vargas pulled open the door to the roof, taking huge breaths, pausing for a moment to recover.
Lowering Isabel, Archer pulled his USP and followed her up the stairs, Vargas taking Isabel’s hand and keeping her close as they quickly cleared the roof.
Not seeing anyone, they moved forward out towards the centre.
Shepherd and Hendricks were coming in from the south in the NYPD chopper, forty yards away.
Shepherd looked down and saw Archer on the roof. He had a dark-haired woman with him, the little girl between them. Hendricks had the Mossberg in his right hand, gripping the hand support with his left as they swept over the buildings of the Upper West Side.
‘What the hell?’ the pilot suddenly shouted.
Looking down, he and Shepherd saw the wreckage of another chopper the other side of the building. It was engulfed in flames, close to the ESU vessel that had been totalled earlier.
Ignoring it and focusing on the roof, Shepherd tapped the pilot’s shoulder and pointed.
‘Get down there!’
Standing on the roof, bloodied, bruised, battered and totally exhausted, Archer, Vargas and Isabel saw the NYPD helicopter approaching. Finally out of strength and energy, Archer moved forward, willing it closer. There was no one else up here apart from the pile of ESU bodies; the Miami cops must have already been picked up by their chopper and left.
Which meant the building would blow any moment.
‘C’mon!’
But then to his horror, the NYPD chopper suddenly veered away.
Archer shouted, waving his arms. ‘Hey! Hey! Come back!’
Watching in desperation, stranded in the middle of the roof as the chopper backed up, he suddenly froze.
Standing there, his hair and shirt billowing from the chopper’s rotors, his instincts started screaming at him.
He was being watched.
He turned slowly.
Two of the enemy and the gang member with blond dreadlocks had appeared out of nowhere. One of the Miami PD SRT cops had been hit in the shoulder, blood staining his fatigues; however, he had a LAW 66 rocket launcher resting on his other shoulder, aiming it at the NYPD chopper, the reason it had withdrawn and couldn’t get closer.
The other man had an M4A1 in his shoulder, the guy with dreadlocks a steel pistol.
The weapons were aimed straight at him, Vargas and Isabel.
FORTY NINE
Archer stared at the muzzles of the guns. The lead man also had a control switch in his left hand which he tossed to the ground angrily. Archer recognised the switch from interactions with the EOD in London; it was a detonator. The fact it had been discarded indicated the men were in no rush to leave.
They couldn’t get out of here in time themselves.
He shut down the explosives.
Beside him, the other man was tracing the NYPD chopper with the LAW, keeping it from getting any closer, his left arm hanging limp at his side. The man who’d held the switch ripped off his balaclava angrily, tossing it to the ground. Tanned and brown-haired, his face was a mask of fury and nothing but pure hatred. Beside him, Archer heard Vargas whisper Calvin. He was the SRT Master Sergeant, the leader of the response team.
‘Finally got you, bitch,’ he said to Vargas.
‘That’s what Denton thought,’ she hissed back, full of defiance.
Calvin’s eyes narrowed. ‘Where is he?’
‘Where do you think?’
Archer was beside Vargas and Isabel. His legs felt like cooked spaghetti, his vision hazy, his hearing impaired from all the explosions and gunfire.
In front of them, fifteen feet away, Calvin smiled, looking down the sights of his M4A1.
‘There was only one way this was ever going to end,’ he said, grinning.
‘Shit!’ Shepherd said from the helicopter as they veered away. ‘Get closer!’ he shouted at the pilot.
‘No friggin way,’ the lead pilot said, pointing at the man tracing their movements with the anti-tank rocket launcher. ‘He hits us with that thing, we join the chopper graveyard down there.’
Shepherd and Hendricks watched helplessly, seeing Archer, the woman and the child encircled on the roof. Swearing again and dumping the Mossberg to one side, Shepherd unclipped his belt and moved into the back, ripping open an equipment case. There was a Barrett M82 sniper rifle and ammunition inside, two magazines with ten .50 12.7x99 NATO rounds inside, huge ammunition for a powerhouse of a rifle. After 9/11, NYPD choppers were equipped with the Barretts to shoot down aircraft, which meant it would decimate the Miami cops on the roof.
He pulled it out and slapped the mag into the weapon, racking the bolt and extending the bipod legs, lying down in the cabin. He didn’t have time to sight the weapon, but prayed to God it shot straight.
‘Hover straight!’ he shouted at the pilot, as Hendricks ripped open the do
or.
‘They’ve got them!’ Marquez said, looking down the scope of the rifle in the building eighty yards downtown. There were three men, two in combats, one with dreadlocks. Archer and the woman looked like hell, covered in cuts and bloodstains, makeshift strip bandages on his arm and her leg. The angle meant she could just see the response team man’s head; he seemed to have momentarily forgotten about her. Marquez centred the crosshairs on his face. The rifle was a straight shooter; she’d nailed the fuselage on the chopper exactly where she’d aimed.
She slowed her breathing. He was talking, his head bobbing slightly, looking down the sights of a black assault rifle.
She pulled the trigger.
Click.
‘Shit,’ she said. ‘No ammo!’
Josh ran back to the dead sharpshooter, frantically searching through his pockets for spare ammunition. Marquez watched helplessly through the scope, praying she’d be in time.
‘C’mon, hurry!’
Archer looked at the three men about to kill him. Glancing at the guy with dreadlocks, Archer thought back to the street hours ago, sitting on the bench and seeing that man crossing the street intending to murder Vargas. A perfect afternoon destroyed by violence and now with so many dead as a result. Archer stared at the man’s face, trying to focus.
He felt unsteady. He felt his pistol slip and drop out of his hand, clattering to the concrete. He glanced down at it. Under his feet, the concrete was blood-stained from earlier in the night, some stray ball bearings still scattered around on the roof. He wanted to lie down. Beside him, he felt Isabel pressing against his leg, shaking.
Vargas picked up the girl, shielding her as much as she could, holding her close to her chest and turning her body from Calvin. It was futile. She knew it would be scant protection when the moment came.
‘You think you could do what you did and get away with it?’ Calvin said, his eyes boring a hole into Vargas.
‘I should ask you the same thing.’
‘You betrayed your own. Now you’re going to die, bitch.’
‘Look around, asshole,’ she said. ‘You took off your mask. Your boys are scattered all over the building. No way are you getting away with any of this.’
‘That doesn’t matter anymore. I don’t even care. I just want to watch you die.’
He paused and grinned, looking at Archer, who was staring at the ground slightly ahead of him, blood staining the lower left portion of his t-shirt.
‘Speaking of which, it looks like your friend is already on his way.’
Vargas glanced at Archer beside her; his face was pale, his eyes fixed on the ground.
But out of the corner of her eye, she noticed something else.
His right hand was inside the black bag slung across his shoulders.
FIFTY
When Archer had dropped his pistol and looked down, feeling dizzy, he’d noticed debris from the explosion earlier.
Ball bearings.
Claymore mines.
The he realised something.
He still had the black bag over his shoulder.
As Vargas had spoken to Calvin, unknowingly distracting him, Archer had slid his hand slowly into the open bag, feeling for the blasting cap already attached to the wire.
He’d found it and slowly screwed it into one of the mines, Calvin’s attention fixed on Vargas, savouring his victory and not noticing what Archer was doing.
He willed them to keep talking. Finally, the cap locked into place.
The mine was now armed.
He felt the shape of the weapon. Front Towards Enemy was on the convex side. If he got it wrong, he’d kill himself, Vargas and Isabel in an instant.
‘Time to say goodnight, bitch,’ Calvin said, hitching up his M4A1 and aiming at Vargas’ forehead.
Archer’s fingers curled around the clacker, taking the utmost care not to close it.
‘Hey Seth,’ he said.
Calvin paused. The use of his first name took him off guard.
‘Catch.’
Archer suddenly whipped the bag off his shoulder and threw it towards Calvin, who didn’t have time to step back.
It hit him in the torso and he instinctively caught it, the other two men watching with surprise.
All three saw a length of wire disappearing inside the bag, the other end connected to the detonator in Archer’s hand.
Front Towards Enemy.
Calvin looked up as realisation dawned.
Archer shielded Vargas and Isabel with his left arm and squeezed shut the clacker in his right hand as hard as he could.
The moment the Claymore inside the bag got the detonation signal, the bag whumped and the side facing Calvin exploded
They’d been standing in the shape of a triangle, him at the front. The explosion dropped the two cops and the dreadlocked guy, smashing the glass in some unbroken windows on a building immediately behind them. The ball bearings cut them to pieces, using their own weapon against them.
They fell where they stood, their weapons clattering to the roof top, killed instantly. The bag ended up in rags on the concrete, blown apart, the smoking plates of one of the mines visible through the damaged fabric. In front of it, what was left of the three men was all over the tarred concrete.
Then, suddenly, it was still.
Slowly opening her eyes, Vargas blinked, waiting for any delayed pain, Archer holding her and Isabel protectively. She looked down; she wasn’t hurt from the blast. She glanced up over Archer’s arm and saw that the men were all down, annihilated by the anti-personnel mine. The weapon was effective at up to 100 metres and Calvin had been holding the bag.
She was shielding Isabel, who had her head buried in her shoulder. Sensing it was quiet, she lifted her head an inch, opening her eyes.
Standing together, silently, the wind ruffled their clothing and hair.
‘Are we safe?’ she whispered.
‘Yes,’ Vargas said. ‘We’re safe.’
She looked up at Archer, who was staring ahead across the roof.
‘Archer.’
He didn’t reply.
‘Sam?’
Then she looked down and saw the spreading blood stain on his shirt.
The next thing he knew he was falling. He didn’t even feel the ground as he hit it but it felt comfortable when he got there.
He lay down and rested for the first time all day. It felt good, finally, after leaving the gym all those hours ago. Now he was looking up at the night sky. He couldn’t see any stars; apparently you couldn’t in New York from all the city lights.
He saw Vargas above him, kneeling, saying something, her jet black hair hanging down over her face. He examined the cuts, nicks and dirt on her cheeks and upper body; to him, they made her seem even more beautiful. She was saying something but he couldn’t hear.
As he stared up at her and realised what was happening, her voice from earlier suddenly echoed in his mind.
Is that enough for you?
Flat on his back, she and Isabel finally safe, their eyes met. As hers welled with tears, he smiled one last time.
Is that enough for you?
It is for me.
FIFTY ONE
Almost a month later, Matt Shepherd was sitting at his desk inside the Counter Terrorism Bureau on Vernon Boulevard in Queens, lost in thought and momentarily alone.
It was a Saturday morning, sun streaming in through the windows of the Department. Dressed in the Bureau-issue navy blue polo shirt and a pair of jeans, he leaned back in his seat, a cup of coffee in his hands. He had a copy of The New York Post on the desk and was looking at the top story. The last funeral for a member of the ESU team who’d died on the roof that day had just taken place. The photo was from the service. Beside it, in a linked report, was the news that the city had decided to completely renovate the Harlem apartment building on West 135. It had only taken twenty years or so.
Shepherd stared at the paper, his mind reliving the events of that night twenty seven days
ago, his emotions mixed. After they’d seen the three enemy gunmen get taken out by a sudden explosion, the pilot of the chopper carrying Shepherd and Hendricks had immediately moved in, followed shortly afterwards by more back up. The NYPD’S Bomb Disposal Team had dealt with the C4 rigged up in the bottom of the building, as well as the sea of Claymore anti-personnel mines set up by the door. Vargas’ call to Dalton had saved more than just the Marshal rescue task force’s lives; the disposal specialist said if they’d gone off, the Claymores would have killed scores of cops and detectives further back on the street. They secured the weapons and unlocked the door.
Finally, for the first time that evening, the NYPD and Marshal teams could get inside. They’d found bodies littered all over the building, some of them identified as the renegade cops, many of them not. Including the sniper Marquez and Josh had found, there’d been seventeen men involved in the plot to murder Vargas: a five-man hit-team, a ten man response team, a sniper and a drug-running pilot who’d been killed when his chopper went down beside the Hudson. Every single one of the response team and the sharpshooter were current members of the Miami-Dade PD Special Response Team, an entire unit of dirty cops. This had caused a great deal of consternation and some very awkward questions being asked from the top.
The Miami press had wanted answers for what had happened, especially details of what the stand-off inside the building was about. After review and conversation with the Florida Police Commissioner, it was decided to give them what they wanted. It would be impossible to conceal what had happened; it had all played out in full view anyway, so the decision was taken to tackle it head on and give them the facts. A press conference conducted by the heads of the Miami Dade Police Department named all twelve disgraced officers, as well as revealing their involvements in corruption and the stolen and illegal funds in their auxiliary bank accounts that were being seized as a result of an undercover officer’s diligent work. A major review was underway, involving the Senate, the highest ranks of the Department, ACU and Internal Affairs, law-abiding officers who’d interacted with the team shocked at the extent of the corruption that had been going on under their noses for so long. Extra safeguards and extensive background checks were already in place to ensure something like that could never happen again.