Nine Lives

by Tom Barber

  It was the news, still covering the attack on the stadium. A camera crew had got near the stand that took the blast. Seeing the footage of the damage shocked Sally. She’d caught glimpses of the reports all day and remembered that there’d been some kind of raid that happened earlier in the afternoon too, maybe it was all connected. For once, Sally actually felt glad that she was holed up behind this desk for the evening. She didn’t fancy being in a crowd around the city tonight, not with all these attacks going on.

  Just then, a family of four appeared through the entrance, dragging their luggage behind them as they approached the front-desk. Sally put her bottle of water away, and prepared to check them in with her practiced smile. But just as they arrived in front of her, the television screen across the foyer suddenly changed. Out of the corner of her eye, Sally saw four names and faces appear. A headline ran beneath them.

  Breaking: Four suspects remain at large. Considered extremely dangerous.

  The family were standing patiently at the desk, waiting for Sally to focus on them. The man asked her a question, but she didn’t hear what he said.

  She was staring at one of the mug-shots.

  ‘Oh my God,’ she whispered.

  In the same moment, she grabbed the telephone receiver in front of her.

  Archer was still standing by the window in the briefing room. He appeared to be watching Chalky down in the car-park, but his mind was elsewhere.

  Rivers’ response to his question earlier had confused him. Disappointing, he’d said. When word had spread of the success of the Bin Laden operation last May, the SEAL guys had been hailed as heroes, not just in the US but around the world. But Rivers seemed almost despondent when he spoke of it. Archer was baffled. As he stood alone and pondered, he noticed another figure across the car park. Shapira. She was holding a phone to her ear, talking, seemingly ignoring the cold. Archer knew a couple of the guys weren’t happy about being saddled with two extra operatives that none of them knew, but he personally didn’t mind. She’d prevented a potential catastrophe by knocking out the bomber before he could detonate the ambulance. Archer had no problem with her at all.

  Behind the young officer, Mac walked into the room, drawing a paper cup from the stand and pouring himself a coffee. He joined Archer by the window.

  ‘How you doing, lad?’ he asked. He sipped his coffee and swore. It was too hot.

  ‘Better than him,’ Archer muttered, jerking his head towards Chalky. Mac looked down into the car park at Chalky. Said nothing. A silence followed.

  ‘Can I ask you something?’ Archer asked quietly, breaking it.

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘Have you ever had any close calls? Like, really close calls? The kind of thing that he went through today with the shotgun.’

  Mac laughed, which caught the younger man off guard. ‘Arch, if I told you about each one, we’d be standing here all night.’

  He paused for a moment, thinking back. ‘When I was in the army, we were sent out on a patrol through Helmand’ he recounted. ‘I was driving the Humvee. As we went through the town, a kid ran out into the road, chasing a football. I braked. And realised it was a set-up. Some dicker with a handgun ran up across the street and fired it at my window. I was leaning forward, so it skimmed the back of my neck. Literally. I felt it touch the hairs. The poor bastard next to me wasn't so lucky. Smithy, his name was. Well it hit Smithy smack in the temple, just under his helmet.’

  Archer stayed silent.

  ‘And there's plenty more where that came from. Since I was sixteen, I've been either a soldier or a copper. Never been good at anything else. All that stuff, it’s part of the work. I figured that out a long time ago. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you can do your job properly. You know what they say, if you can't take it, you shouldn't have joined.

  Archer nodded, looked out through the glass at Chalky.

  ‘I’m worried about him.’

  ‘Of course you are,’ the older man replied. ‘He’s your mate. He almost died today. He should have died today. And he knows it. First time that happens, it changes your life. He'll get over it.’

  ‘It’s not just that,’ Archer said, lowering his voice. ‘I’m worried about his decision making. I’m afraid he’s going to get someone killed.’

  Mac sipped his coffee.

  ‘How old are you, Arch?’ he asked. That damn question again. The younger man looked into the distance through the window.

  ‘Twenty six.’

  ‘You’re young,’ said Mac. ‘Youngest guy in the Unit.’

  ‘I put my time in. I earned my spot’

  ‘Oh, you don’t need to tell me that. I was the one who selected you. Put you in my First Team with Chalky and Port. If I had a single doubt about you, I never would have picked you for my squad, believe me.’

  He paused.

  ‘But tell me, before today, have you ever been shot at?’

  Silence.

  ‘No,’ Archer said quietly.

  ‘Stabbed?’

  Archer shook his head.

  ‘Ever been near explosives?’

  Archer didn’t need to respond, they both knew the answer. Mac sipped his coffee and tapped his temple. ‘That shit, it all messes with you up here,’ he said. ‘You come within an inch of death, let me tell you, your priorities shift in an instant. The world becomes a different place. Some lads can’t handle it. They hit the bottle, or the missus. Others decide to finish where nature left off. And none of us know how we'll react until it happens.’

  He nodded at Chalky.

  ‘And some get reckless. They take stupid risks. I saw lads in Iraq try to go out on patrol without a helmet, or just walk through IED land like they were out in the park. They got lucky once and figure that they can keep doing it.’

  ‘I thought you’d have lynched him for what he did in the shopping centre,’ Archer said. ‘I was waiting for you to do it. He ignored your orders.’

  Mac looked at him. ‘You heard that phone ring, right?’

  Archer nodded, slowly.

  ‘You know what that would have done wired to the C4?’

  Archer didn’t respond.

  ‘'Cos if it had been, you and I wouldn't be standing here right now, having this conversation, Arch. They'd be mopping us up with a bucket and sponge.’ He paused. ‘Look, he acted like a complete muppet. I’m not denying that. He put himself at risk, as well as you, me and everyone on the street. He ignored my orders. But he saved my life, Arch. And yours. He took a huge risk. And somehow, it paid off. So we move on and focus on the next one, and hope that everything falls our way again.’

  Mac turned to him. ‘All the training in the world can’t prepare you for situations like that. You just make a decision and hope to God it’s the right one.’

  He drank from his coffee cup, thinking.

  ‘Look, my career’s almost over. I know that, I’ll be done soon. But you’re a young guy, Arch. You’ve got all this ahead of you. I don’t know where you’re going to go, or what you’re going to encounter. But take it from me, at some point, you’re going to come face to face with death yourself. Could be tonight. Tomorrow. Ten or twenty years from now. Shit, it might never happen. This whole little speech could be for nothing. But if it does, it’ll change you, Arch, I promise.’

  He paused.

  ‘Just don’t let it kill you.’

  Archer looked at him. As he took this in, there was a movement at the doorway. Porter suddenly appeared, moving in from the ops room. ‘Mac, we’ve got a location on Farha!’

  There was a split-second pause.

  Then every guy in the room made for the door.

  At that moment, the black Mercedes that was carrying Dominick Farha pulled into a dark airfield, somewhere in the south-west area of the city. Looking out of the window, Dominick saw a sleek, familiar private jet parked on the end of the runway, facing the tarmac stretch, ready to go. The car moved over the grass and came to a halt on the runway beside the 'plane. Faris
nodded, and the pair of them stepped out. As soon as they were outside the vehicle and shut the doors, the car did a 180 and left the field, moving back onto the road and off into the night. The field was completely empty, save for the two men and the shadow of the pilot in the cockpit of the small plane.

  It was time to get into the air.

  The steps to the jet were unfolded. The two men walked up them briskly and boarded the aircraft. Inside the jet, Dominick was surprised. There were stacks and stacks of bricks of cocaine piled neatly at the back, tightly bound and keyed. He guessed around four or five million dollars-worth. He couldn’t take his eyes off them, as Faris withdrew the steps and pulled the door to the jet tight shut, locking it. It had been a while since he’d been around so much cargo. ‘Like I said, he had business to attend to,’ said Faris, as he moved into the cabin, noticing Dominick’s reaction to the cocaine. ‘You were just the cherry on top.’

  Dominick swallowed and turned, taking a seat in the cabin directly opposite Faris. The engine to the jet started to whine, as they prepared for take-off. Dominick checked his watch. 8:20 pm.

  Three hundred and sixty five days of waiting.

  And finally, he was getting out of here.

  Inside the Departures hall of Terminal Five, the young dark-haired woman with the pregnant belly was patiently waiting, her eyes searching for any sign of Dominick. She couldn’t see him anywhere. For the briefest of moments, that nagging doubt whispered at the back of her mind again. Maybe he won’t come back. But in the same instant, she scolded herself, wracked with guilt at such a thought. Of course he’ll come back. He’s just been delayed. Looking up, she checked the time on the electronic board. 8:20 pm. Forty minutes to go.

  As she continued to search for any sign of Dominick, she caught sight of a pregnant woman with her family. She was leaning back in her seat to take some of the weight from her stomach off her back. Their eyes met. The woman smiled in understanding. We’re in this together, the smile said. The younger girl’s stomach gripped.

  She didn’t smile back.

  THIRTEEN

  At the ARU’s headquarters, Cobb reappeared in the ops room. He’d been downstairs watching his team set up an interrogation. Number Eight had been processed and placed in one of the rooms, and Frost had just joined him, ready to go to work. As he re-entered the analyst team’s area, he saw the task force wasn’t in the briefing room. Just as he was going to ask where the hell they were, Nikki approached him.

  ‘Sir, great news, we got a lead on Farha’s location.’

  ‘What?’ Cobb’s eyes widened. ‘Where?’

  ‘A Marriott hotel, outside Heathrow. The concierge was watching the news. She saw the photographs released by Downing Street. She said Farha had been a guest at the hotel, he’s been there for a couple of days under a false name apparently. Our team are on their way. Agents Rivers and Shapira went with them.’

  Cobb didn’t respond. Nikki guessed what he was thinking. ‘Why so close to the airport, sir?’ she asked. ‘You think he’s trying an escape? Or a hijack?’

  Cobb shook his head. ‘No. No chance. He wouldn’t get through the security checkpoints.’ He thought for a moment. ‘No. A hotel by the airport, it’s busy as hell. Zero routine, structure. Different faces and names every day. It’s a good place to hide out. I’m guessing he thought he’d be invisible there.’

  ‘Well, almost,’ Nikki added.

  Behind them, Crawford appeared from the stairs. Cobb sensed they were being approached and turned. He noticed the American looking into the empty briefing room, a rueful look on his face.

  ‘Something wrong?’ Cobb asked.

  ‘I need to talk to you, Director,’ the DEA agent said.

  A chorus of leather boots smacked on the marble floor of the lobby as the ARU task force rushed through the entrance to the Heathrow Marriott Hotel. Bystanders gasped and stepped back as they saw the sudden arrival of the group of armed officers. Mac led the team to the front desk as the concierge stood waiting for them. She was a young girl, in her mid-twenties, blonde and pretty. Her name-tag said her name was Sally.

  ‘You made the call?’ Mac asked, arriving by the check-in desk.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ she said. She passed him a room key over the counter. ‘Room 418. I haven’t seen him leave.’

  Mac grabbed the plastic key-card and turned to his men quickly. ‘Deakins, take Team Two. Cover the exits,’ he ordered. The officer nodded and moved off with five of the men. Mac turned to Archer, Porter and Chalky.

  ‘First Team, we’re going upstairs.’

  Without a moment’s delay, the four men ran together to the stairwell. Behind them in the lobby, Rivers and Shapira were left alone, forgotten. The sergeant had completely ignored them. Shapira felt her irritation rise, but noticed that the American didn’t seem to care. If anything, he looked kind of bored.

  ‘You want to take a look around upstairs?’ she asked him.

  He looked at her, shrugged and nodded.

  ‘Beats standing here,’ he said.

  Upstairs, a husband and wife were strolling down the corridor of the fourth floor, on their way to the lift. They were both dressed up. The man had arranged dinner for them both downstairs, a prelude to their romantic week in Rome starting with their 10am flight tomorrow morning. But they were taken aback when four police officers erupted from the stairwell beside them, sub-machine guns tucked into each man’s shoulder, their faces tense. The woman made to make a sound, but she instinctively covered her mouth as the lead police officer put a finger to his lips, looking at her.

  The couple watched as the four policemen moved swiftly but cautiously down the corridor. They came to a stop outside Room 418.

  The man closest to the door had a white key-card in his hand. He eased it slowly and gently into the lock.

  There was a soft click.

  A light on the metal panel that housed the lock flicked from red to green.

  And in that same instant, the officer pushed down hard on the handle.

  The four of them stormed into the room.

  But it was empty.

  Dominick Farha was gone.

  ‘Are you kidding me?’ asked Cobb, incredulous. He was stood in his office with Crawford. ‘You knew where he was, and you withheld that information? My team are at the hotel right now, wasting their time!’

  ‘Listen to me!’ Crawford implored, as Cobb paced back and forth before him, furious. ‘Please just stop for a moment and listen.’

  Cobb paused. He glared at the DEA agent angrily.

  ‘I shouldn’t be telling you any of this. But I am, because I trust you. Right now, the man is on his way to an airfield outside Paris. I have a team waiting there for him. His uncle will be there too.’

  Cobb was losing patience. Crawford raised his voice a hair.

  ‘Please understand how rare that is, Director. Heads of cartels do not go face-to-face for drug buys. It’s like a goddamned unicorn. My team are already in place, they’ll witness the transaction then the moment it’s done, we'll move in and apprehend them all. Dominick Farha isn’t going anywhere. We also agreed on this earlier. I warned you that the boy might get in touch with his uncle. And you agreed to hold back.’

  ‘That was then. This is now,’ Cobb said, angrily. He rubbed his face, frustrated. Sighing, he moved around his desk and sat down behind it, shaking his head. He seemed to calm down slightly.

  ‘I’ve got terrorists and bombs all over the city on one side. I’ve got the biggest drug dealer in the Middle East on the other. Why all this in one night? Jesus Christ,’ he said, pinching his brow, his body saturated with stress. Crawford nodded, staying quiet. He could see Cobb was onside, but he could also understand the torment he was going through. He had the target, he knew exactly where he was. But he couldn’t make a move on him yet.

  ‘I’ll need to talk to the Prime Minister and contact my men,’ continued Cobb. ‘They’re wasting their time at the hotel.’

  ‘But at least we know wher
e he is,’ said Crawford, gently.

  Cobb thought for a moment. He sighed.

  ‘Yeah. We do.’

  Behind the reception desk to the hotel, there was a door to a room that contained all the security monitors for cameras mounted in the building. The concierge was sitting in a chair in front of them, Fox leaning over her shoulder. Despite the array of screens, the police officer was watching one of them in particular.

  ‘Stop,’ he said. He tapped the screen. ‘There. Son of a bitch. There he is.’

  As he spoke, Archer and Chalky appeared in the doorway. Mac had already sounded off on the radio and told the rest of the team that Farha wasn’t in the hotel room.

  ‘Look at this,’ Fox said, seeing the two men arrive. The pair moved over and peered closely at the screen.

  It was a shot of the lobby. The time in the corner of the screen said 7:49 pm. Less than an hour ago. As the tape ran, all four pairs of eyes watched a man walking through the reception area towards the exit. He was dressed smartly, in an expensive-looking three piece suit. As the guy walked past the camera, he suddenly stopped for a moment, looking at something on the wall.

  ‘The television,’ the concierge said. ‘He’s watching the news.’

  The camera was mounted just above and to the right of the television monitor, so it gave a clear, front-on shot of the guy. It was Dominick Farha, no mistake. Archer looked closer, examining his appearance.

  But there was another person walking with him. A young, pregnant dark-haired woman, she couldn’t have been older than twenty.