Return Fire (Sam Archer )

by Tom Barber

  ‘What’s going on?’ Finchley asked.

  ‘Which one of you delivered the woman to the police station?’

  They looked at each other.

  ‘Me,’ Finchley said, jerking his head at Portland. ‘He was taking care of the kids.’

  Before either man could move, the woman whipped her arm around from behind her back.

  She was holding a nail gun and she fired twice, the weapon giving off two fast cracks as she put a nail through each of Finchley’s feet. The Australian screamed in pain and fell to the floor, clutching his feet and the twin nails embedded in them. As Portland jerked back, she turned the nail gun on him and held it steady, stepping forward.

  ‘Don’t move,’ she screamed at him.

  As Finchley writhed on the floor in agony, Dash knelt down and punched him in the face twice, stunning him. After taking his pistol and tossing it across the room he and Piccadilly quickly bound the man’s feet and wrists, blood leaking out from the injured man’s feet, his shouts turning into muffled moans as the duct tape was pulled tight across his mouth.

  Piccadilly hit him once again for good measure, then he and Dash dragged the bound man out of the room and into another office next door. Behind them, Portland stayed exactly where he was, looking at the nail gun aimed at his face, his hand frozen mid-way to the pistol tucked into the holster on his hip.

  ‘You failed me,’ the woman said at him, her finger poised on the trigger. ‘They were all meant to die.’

  ‘I’ll make it right,’ Portland said quickly. ‘Whatever you want me to do, I’ll do it.’

  ‘No-one at the ARU building died,’ she screamed, the nail gun shaking in her hand. ‘No-one.’

  ‘That was his fault,’ Portland shouted back in desperation. ‘They must have got the vest off her somehow before it detonated.’

  ‘Do you care what happens to him?’ she screamed.

  ‘No!’

  Shaking with anger, she kept the gun on him for a few more moments. Then she lowered it, just as Dash and Piccadilly returned from the office next door.

  ‘He’s ready for you,’ Dash said.

  ‘Good. Now get out of my sight and finish this.’

  Nodding, the two men immediately moved to the door. Portland didn’t dare move, frozen to the spot.

  ‘Go with them,’ she said quietly.

  He looked at her for a moment, then nodded and walked rapidly out of the room.

  Now alone again, the woman waited for the men to leave.

  Once they were gone, she walked out of the main office into the open space of the 12th floor and turned left, moving into another office whilst still carrying the nail gun.

  This second smaller office was still in the process of being refurbished, planks of wood ready to be planed leaning against the wall and some carpentry tools left in the corner of the room ready for Monday morning. The workmen had stacked their equipment neatly in the far corner; there were some saws and bags of nails sitting beside a rubbish bin full of discarded food wrappers and drinks cartons. This was where she’d found the nail-gun earlier, a pleasant surprise.

  The Australian ex-soldier who’d failed with the bomb vest was lying in the middle of the floor, tied up, his eyes bulging with terror when he saw the woman enter. Plastic sheets were hanging down around the room to protect the paintwork against the dust from the carpentry, but as it was the weekend none of the workers had been here today, leaving the floor completely unoccupied, much like the rest of the building.

  She shot him twice more in the legs; as he writhed in agony and moaned under the duct tape, the woman carefully laid down the nail-gun and pulled on a set of carpenter’s overalls. When that was done, she put on a white mask to cover her face, almost as if she was preparing for an operation.

  Which in a way, she was.

  Then she closed the blinds, leaving her alone with the bound and wounded man, the room darker but with just enough light to see. She turned to face him, and her eyes narrowed over the top of the mask.

  ‘As you may have heard, I don’t deal well with failure. Unluckily for you, I’m extremely disappointed. And you’re going to pay for that.’

  He watched as she picked up a power saw.

  ‘I have a particular method with these things. I like to start on the feet and work my way up an inch at a time,’ she said.

  Staring at her in terror, he saw the skin around her eyes crinkle as she smiled.

  ‘One man made it halfway up his thigh. He was a Russian though; a tough bastard. They always are. Let’s see if you can beat his record. I have a feeling you won’t.’

  Finchley watched in horror as the woman turned on the saw, his muffled screams instantly lost under the shrieking whine of the serrated blades.

  TWENTY ONE

  Across London, Archer was already on his way to Bernhardt’s address in Tottenham, making good time in Cobb’s expensive silver Mercedes. Fox and Josh had headed off a minute or so before, both armed with Glocks and Fox with an MP5, the two men taking the last remaining ARU BMW left in the car park. The other had been badly damaged in the explosion, a piece of wall falling through its roof, and the other two vehicles the task force had used to get to Brixton hadn’t been returned yet.

  Archer had needed a vehicle and Cobb’s Mercedes had immediately caught his eye. Telling himself his old boss would understand, Archer had taken the keys from the ARU Director’s desk drawer upstairs, finding them where he knew Cobb kept them and smiling when he saw the set resting on some papers beside an unopened bottle of quality Scotch. Having already armed up in the gun-cage, he’d sprinted back out to the car park and climbed inside the Mercedes, firing the engine and taking off.

  Now shifting down the street he swerved, just avoiding another car that pulled out in front of him without warning and feeling a sudden jolt of high-voltage nerves. He knew that if he even put a scratch on this thing it wouldn’t matter if anyone else was trying to take him out, Cobb would do it for them.

  As he drove on, he kept his right hand on the wheel and adjusted the ear piece hooked around his ear with his left. Whilst in the locker room by the gun-cage, Archer had pulled on a black ARU tactical vest over his black t-shirt. The bulletproof garment provided him with various tools, plastic cuffs, smoke and stun grenades and a headset consisting of an earpiece and Velcro microphone which was already strapped around his neck; the equipment was now connected to his Nokia, which was tucked inside the left breast slot of the vest, and would give him quick hands-free communication with Nikki back at HQ.

  Beside him on the passenger seat was a fully loaded Heckler and Koch MP5. Given the totally unexpected events of the day, Archer already felt more reassured to have it sitting beside him, like a workman reunited with his tools. The MP5 was his favourite sub-machine gun and although he hadn’t used one recently, he’d spent countless hours on the range with the weapon in the past. Light, portable and accurate, it could fire eight hundred rounds a minute with quick magazine changes and was the sub-machine gun of choice for most of the counter-terrorist police and paramilitary teams around the world. With a fully loaded Glock pistol also tucked into a holster clipped around his thigh and spare magazines on his tac vest, Archer was good to go and feeling ready to handle anything that came his way.

  As he paused at a red light, he checked his rear view mirror, looking for anything suspicious, either people or cars, anyone who looked as if they might be following him. Satisfied he was alone, he glanced at the clock on the dashboard; 7:51pm, fast moving on towards nineteen hours since Alice had been kidnapped.

  By a team of men who for some reason had just tried to kill every member of her search party.

  Willing the light to turn green, Archer thought back to something that had been said when he and the other NYPD detectives had arrived at Heathrow. Chalky had mentioned that Stanovich had made a ransom call demanding two million in cash, but that the Slovakian had also claimed Vargas was in the city. Given what they now knew Stanovich had clearly been u
nder duress when he made the call, but Archer was clinging onto the possibility that what he’d been instructed to say was true, a slip up by the real kidnappers, meaning Vargas really was somewhere in London.

  Taking his phone from the chest pocket of the vest, Archer scrolled for Nikki’s number and called her. He slotted the phone back into its home as the lights turned green, pushing his foot down on the accelerator as the call rang twice and was then answered.

  ‘How are you doing, Arch?’ she said, down his earpiece, the connection perfect.

  ‘I’m almost there, Nik’ he said. ‘Give me the lowdown on this guy.’

  ‘Former 2 Para Sergeant Michael Bernhardt. Thirty six years old, left the army six years ago. He saw action predominantly in the Middle East, fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. No record since he left, but if he showed up in Kabul covered in burns last year then I suspect he was probably out there working as a contractor of some sort. A lot of ex-army guys are.’

  ‘Anything since?’

  ‘Nothing of importance. And remember, we don’t know much about this man. His allegiances are unclear.’

  ‘How are Foxy and Josh doing?’

  ‘They’re almost at Beckett’s. But be careful, Arch; as I said, this man has some kind of history with Dash. You might not get a warm welcome. In fact, it could be just the opposite.’

  ‘Will do.’

  Archer ended the call and focused on the traffic ahead, now just six or seven minutes from his destination.

  Across the city, Fox and Josh had just arrived outside Beckett’s apartment building, pulling into an empty space down a side street right beside the large gate blocking the courtyard off from the road.

  Now the sun was going down, the light was matching their mood, growing darker by the minute as shadows slowly started to descend over the city. There were a couple of people on the street around them, but the place was generally quiet, the focus of activity on the High Street at the end of the road. Nevertheless, the two policemen were alert and not taking any chances, scanning everything around them as they drew to a halt.

  In a situation like this, they couldn’t be too cautious.

  As Josh examined the street then peered up at the apartment building beyond the gate, Fox called Nikki using the tablet inside the car that had synced to his phone.

  ‘How’s it going?’ Nikki asked, her voice filling the car.

  ‘We’re here,’ he said. ‘About to head up.’

  ‘I contacted the Met and explained the situation. Back-up has been dispatched just in case. Two firearms teams are on their way; they’ll be there shortly.’

  Fox glanced at Josh, who was quietly checking the chamber of his Glock.

  ‘We’re not hanging around. They can follow us up when they get here.’

  ‘OK. Be careful.’

  Fox ended the call, then reached behind him and grabbed his MP5 from the back seat.

  ‘Let’s move.’

  Stepping out of the car, Fox slammed the door and locked it; then the two men moved through the pedestrian entrance connected to the main gate securing the courtyard, heading towards the front doors of the building. There was no one else around and they moved fast, Fox scoping out some residents’ cars parked neatly in bays to their right as Josh checked over his shoulder, making sure they weren’t being followed.

  A dark haired man was leaving the building as they approached and Fox managed to catch the door just before it shut behind him. The guy didn’t even notice them, his head down as he read something on his smartphone, which was just as well considering Fox and Josh were both carrying weapons. The two policemen examined the man as they passed but he was obviously unarmed and didn’t look suspicious, just a resident heading out and totally absorbed in what he was doing.

  Turning their attention to the lobby, they saw there were two lifts to their left and a stairwell fifteen feet away to their far right. It was a smart place in a wealthy area; clearly Beckett’s family money had come in handy. There were worse places to live.

  As Josh pushed the button for the lift, Fox checked around them, his hands tight on his MP5.

  By all logical reasoning, Beckett should have been dead by now, unable to tell anyone who had locked the vest onto her and why. It was summer and a Saturday, so Fox figured Jen might have been out with her sons today, but these men would have needed to confront her somewhere they knew she’d be alone, somewhere they could easily grab her sons and strap the TNT onto her without fear of being seen or heard.

  He watched the floor indicator tick down; a moment later, one of the lifts arrived with a ding.

  Fox was a professional, and knew how he would get that sort of thing done.

  Whoever strapped the vest onto Beckett would have done it upstairs.

  Outside in the courtyard, the dark-haired man who’d been studying his phone slowed as he approached the gate.

  He was thirty four years old and American.

  And his call-sign was Notting.

  Stopping in his tracks, he turned and pushed Redial on the phone, looking back at the building.

  ‘Yeah?’ Regent said.

  ‘Two of them just walked in; black guy and a white guy. One has an MP5, the other a pistol. You in position?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I’ll follow them up and cut them off. Grange and Stockwell will be here any second too. No mistakes this time.’

  ‘Got it.’

  Hanging up, Notting walked back across the courtyard towards the building, slowing as he approached the doors. He saw as he’d expected that the two cops who’d just passed him were no longer in the lobby.

  Already on their way upstairs.

  Pulling out the analyst’s key, he opened the door then locked it behind him, rattling the handle to make sure it was sealed then breaking off the key in the lock to stop anyone else coming in or leaving.

  Turning, he checked the ticking red number display above one of the two elevators.

  2.

  3.

  4.

  He quickly moved over to the maintenance closet across the lobby, opening the door and withdrawing two items he’d placed in there earlier when he’d seen the two cops arrive. When that was done, he stepped into the other empty lift and pushed the button for 4, feeling his heart rate increase, pumping him up for what was about to happen.

  Little did the two cops upstairs know they had less than thirty seconds to live.

  TWENTY TWO

  In the other lift, the journey up to 4 was brief. Once it dinged on arrival and the doors parted, Josh and Fox stepped out, turning left onto the main corridor of the 4thfloor and clearing either side with their weapons.

  The corridor was empty and quiet. The floor was carpeted, golden lights incrementally lining the hallway, and they both saw from the apartment letters on doors in front of them that 4H would be to their right.

  Satisfied all was clear, the two men turned and started to make their way quickly towards Beckett’s apartment. However, as he walked beside Fox and gripped his Glock double handed, Josh frowned as the sequence of their arrival moments ago replayed in his head.

  Something hadn’t been right.

  Inside 4H, Regent was standing in the hallway of Beckett’s apartment, a Benelli twelve-gauge semi-automatic shotgun buried in his shoulder and aimed directly at the door.

  A thickly-bearded guy with huge forearms and hands, he’d loaded seven shells inside the twelve-gauge and the fingers of his right hand were curled around the grip, his forefinger nestled on the trigger. The Benelli was a vicious weapon that required no pumping to reload and could fire seven or eight shells with the speed of a pistol. He knew back home in the United States that it was one of the top firearms people selected for home defence, which was pretty ironic right now; weapons like this were extremely difficult to source in the UK, but men like him had all sorts of connections and friends in the kind of places that not many people liked to go.

  The apartment behind him was empty. The two kids were l
ong gone, picked up by Finchley and Portland and taken to the team’s safe-house as soon as their mother had been sent to her death. It would have been easier to kill them both once the analyst had gone, but their employer had given them strict instructions to bring the kids in alive, an insurance policy in case things went wrong.

  In hindsight, he could see that had been a sensible move; somehow, the ARU bitch had survived. Regent had heard the announcement of the explosion on the radio as he sat in the car outside the Royal Marsden with Notting and all seemed to have gone according to plan. However, the report that had followed shortly afterwards stated that although there had been a number of injuries, some of them serious, no one caught in the police station blast had been killed.

  Although that was a blow, Regent and his companions were used to adapting to a rapidly changing situation and on the positive side, the ARU’s ability to operate was now severely compromised.

  Feeling a buzz of anticipation, he kept his focus solely on the door, the weapon aimed straight at the wood. Two of the cops were on their way up, and Notting was following to block them off, the two Canadian snipers arriving any minute to make doubly sure that between them these guys didn’t make it out alive.

  The moment he heard the two men outside the door, Regent would pull the trigger and repeat until the weapon was empty.

  He grinned, settling into the Benelli.

  Once he was done, all that would be left of the two men would be pieces in the air like an old-fashioned ticker parade.

  Outside in the corridor, following a couple of steps behind Fox, Josh thought about the man they’d passed downstairs.

  There was something about the guy that was bothering him. Something Josh had noticed as they passed.

  But what the hell was it?

  He replayed the scene in his mind. As Fox had caught the door to enter the apartment building and the man walked past them, Josh had seen the man’s eyes flick up from his phone. If Josh hadn’t been looking at him, he’d have missed it.