Return Fire (Sam Archer )

by Tom Barber

  ‘Archer.’

  ‘Arch, it’s me!’ Josh said, sounding out of breath, urgency in his voice.

  ‘What’s wrong? Are you alright?’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Bernhardt’s,’ he said, as he stood in the hallway beside the former Para, who was now ready to go.

  ‘It was an ambush! Fox and I only just made it out! Get the hell out of there!’

  Before he could react, Archer suddenly heard a screech of tyres from the street outside.

  Spinning round, he checked out of the door and saw a black car coming down the street fast from the right, the windows already down and three men inside.

  Two of them saw him in the doorway.

  And a moment later, they both raised assault rifles from inside the vehicle as they slammed to a halt.

  ‘Back!’ Archer shouted, pushing Bernhardt down the hallway and kicking the door shut.

  An instant later, a barrage of assault rifle fire ripped into the front door, splinters of white wood blown into the air around them. Archer and Bernhardt scrambled back fast as the bullets chewed up the entrance but the flimsy door couldn’t withstand the barrage of gunfire and swung open, exposing Archer and Bernhardt to the street again.

  Still on the floor, Archer swung his MP5 around and fired back through the now open door at the car on the street. The three guys inside jerked down and the man behind the wheel quickly reversed out of Archer’s narrow line of fire, Archer’s bullets smashing out the front headlights and ripping more holes in the front door as the car disappeared out of view.

  Archer used those valuable seconds to get back to his feet, glancing behind him to see Bernhardt had done the same. Through the open damaged door hanging on its hinges, they both heard three car doors open and slam, the trio coming for them.

  Keeping the unarmed Bernhardt behind him and his MP5 trained on the door, Archer turned to the former soldier and looked at the closed kitchen door.

  ‘Back door!’ he said urgently.

  ‘There’s a wall!’ Bernhardt replied, staying where he was. ‘It’s too high to get over from here. We’re boxed in!’

  Outside the house, Dash, Piccadilly and Portland couldn’t believe their luck as they moved to the front entrance quickly but cautiously, none of them wanting to take a round from the blond cop’s MP5. They’d timed it to perfection, the detective bitch’s boyfriend obviously having only just arrived, Bernhardt still there with him.

  This was a golden opportunity.

  And they had to make it count.

  As his back hit the wall to the right of the door, Dash heard a noise and glancing to his left, saw the door to the immediate neighbour’s house open, a woman stepping out clearly wondering what the noise was. The moment she saw the three armed men, she jerked back inside and slammed the door, locking it behind her. She’d be straight on the phone to the police.

  They had to handle this immediately and get the hell out of here.

  Turning his attention to the entrance as another short spurt of gunfire from inside the house ripped through the remaining wood, Dash saw the door had already been half torn apart by their gunfire. Each man was carrying an AR-15 assault rifle and had spare magazines in his pockets, joining the Ruger pistol they each had in a holster tucked under their shirts.

  Pulling a stun grenade from his left pocket, Dash looked over at the two men on the other side of the entrance who raised their weapons, ready to step into the firing line.

  They’d breached many places like these over the years and knew exactly what to do.

  Dash ripped the pin; on the other side of the doorway, Portland pushed what was left of the door back with the barrel of his AR-15 and Dash tossed the grenade into the house.

  But as he did so, its twin suddenly appeared on the porch in front of them, rolling across the threshold and onto the concrete step.

  TWENTY FIVE

  Dash and Piccadilly reacted fast and protected their eyes and ears in time but the flash-bang took Portland completely by surprise, and he delayed a fraction too long covering up before it went off.

  After it detonated, he staggered back and knelt against the wall, momentarily out of the game as he tried to recover his sight and hearing. Undeterred, Dash took the lead, pushing back the remains of the flimsy, shot-up door and entering the house.

  The cop and Bernhardt weren’t in the hallway anymore. As he walked in he stared down the sights of his assault rifle, checking out an open sitting room on his left; behind him, Piccadilly continued forward towards a closed door straight ahead.

  The South African immediately put a stitched burst of gunfire diagonally across the wood and kicked it back.

  All he saw was smashed glasses and crockery.

  No sign of the two men.

  Behind him, Dash had cleared the sitting room and was now focused on the stairs, keeping his assault rifle trained on the space above.

  If in an ambush situation, try to get to higher ground.

  They were upstairs.

  In the guest bedroom at the top of the stairs, Bernhardt was struggling to open the window, the two men having locked themselves in after Archer had thrown the flash-bang from halfway up the flight, getting into the room just as another stun grenade went off below, buying them some vital seconds.

  ‘Come on!’ Archer hissed, keeping his MP5 on the closed door and standing out of the field of fire. ‘Open it!’

  ‘It’s jammed!’

  Cursing, Archer turned, moved forward and yanked at the mechanism, releasing it. Hearing a creak of a footstep on the stairs, Archer looked out of the window and saw the roof of a garden shed within jumping distance. They could use it to get to the top of the wall on the side of the house and jump into the alleyway he’d used earlier.

  Hardly ideal but their only option.

  ‘Go!’ he whispered, pushing Bernhardt forward.

  The former soldier started climbing out, jumping onto the roof of the shed then clambering up onto the wall. Looking back at the closed door, Archer didn’t waste a second, quickly manoeuvring through the window too and leaping out onto the roof of the shed with a thump that made the flimsy wooden frame shudder with the force of his landing.

  Ahead of him, Bernhardt dropped down into the alleyway and disappeared out of sight.

  Moving fast, Archer hoisted himself up onto the wall and went to follow.

  Then he suddenly heard the door to the guest bedroom smash open.

  Looking down the sights of his assault rifle, Dash saw the blond cop crouched on the wall, completely exposed.

  He pulled the trigger, firing through the open window, but the man reacted fast and leapt over the wall, the rounds just missing him by a hair’s breadth, the gunfire tearing into a tree opposite and coughing leaves and bits of bark into the air.

  Cursing, Dash didn’t waste a second. He turned and ran back down the stairs as he reloaded with a fresh magazine, Piccadilly waiting for him at the bottom of the flight as he hurtled towards him.

  ‘They went around the back!’

  Pushing Bernhardt ahead of him, who’d injured himself on landing and was struggling to move at any speed, Archer moved along the alleyway as quickly as he could to the back of the house.

  As they emerged onto the street Archer suddenly stopped dead, staring in disbelief at Cobb’s Mercedes across the road.

  There was a strip of cloth now hanging out of the fuel tank, and the lower end was alight. To their right, the youths he’d seen earlier had backed up down the street having heard the gunfire but curiosity had clearly got the better of them and they were still standing around to see what happened when the car blew.

  ‘Get back!’ Archer shouted, pushing Bernhardt to the left and watching the flames catch hold of the cloth.

  A second later the Mercedes exploded, the two men recoiling from the blast.

  Recovering first, Archer glanced back at the alleyway, knowing the gunmen would appear at any second. As he desperately looked around for some ki
nd of solution, he noticed opposite that the alleyways ran alongside every other house.

  Grabbing Bernhardt, he pulled him back into the alley adjacent to the one that ran beside this one as the car burned in front of them. Even from across the street the wave of heat from the wreckage was intense, fifty thousand pounds gone up with one strip of cloth and a lighter.

  Crouching beside Bernhardt in the second alleyway, Archer snapped back as two of the gunmen suddenly appeared, quickly joined by the third. The men were silhouetted by the fire on the street and fanned out, searching for their prey with what looked like AR-15 assault rifles.

  ‘Shit!’ he whispered. ‘Shit!’

  He and Bernhardt were stranded.

  TWENTY SIX

  Standing on the opposite side of the road from the burning car, Dash, Piccadilly and Portland quickly checked up and down the street, searching through the sights of their automatic weapons. They saw a load of frightened teenagers cowering behind a car down the street to their right, but there was no sign of Bernhardt or the cop.

  ‘Shit!’ Piccadilly said, standing in the middle and looking left and right. ‘We lost them!’

  ‘No, we didn’t,’ Dash replied, looking at the burning Mercedes, the only vehicle near Bernhardt’s house. ‘I saw that car outside the ARU HQ earlier. The cop must have come in it.’

  ‘So?’

  Doing a 360 degree turn, he scanned the road around them. ‘So they’re still here. They can’t get away.’

  Then he froze in sudden realisation.

  Turning, he sprinted back towards the alley.

  On the street the other side of the house, Archer and Bernhardt raced out of the other alleyway and up to the BMW the three gunmen had arrived in. As Archer hoped, they hadn’t locked the car, and when he jumped into the driver’s seat he saw the keys were still sitting in the ignition, the driver not bothering to take them in the rush to breach the house.

  As Bernhardt pulled the passenger door shut, Archer twisted the key and the engine burst into life. Up ahead was a cul-de-sac, so they needed to turn around to get the hell out of here.

  But before they could move, he saw the three gunmen running down the alleyway twenty feet to their left, coming straight for them.

  ‘Shit!’ Archer said, slamming the car into reverse and stamping his foot down.

  Realising he’d left the keys in their car, Dash hadn’t made it out of the alley before he heard the engine roar into life.

  With the other two hot on his heels, they sprinted out onto the street to see their BMW reversing hard down the street to their right, the blond cop behind the wheel and Bernhardt beside him.

  ‘Son of a bitch!’ Dash shouted, opening fire with his AR-15.

  ‘Get down!’ Archer shouted, gunfire ripping into the windscreen and the sun visors as he reversed, the front of the car eating the brutal onslaught of gunfire.

  As they roared backwards, Archer yanked the handbrake on and spun the wheel, swinging the car round and then taking off to his right, heading towards the exit to the next street. The gunmen had each emptied a magazine into the front of the vehicle, but the onslaught didn’t stop the BMW, the front of the vehicle riddled with bullets as they swung out onto the next street, the rear eating some rounds too as they escaped.

  Trying to put as much distance between them and the three gunmen as possible, Archer put his foot down, evening shoppers standing around uncertainly, wondering what the noise of gunfire was about.

  ‘You OK?’ he asked Bernhardt as they sped down the street.

  The former soldier didn’t answer, twisting round in his seat to check behind them.

  Archer went to speak again but then disaster struck.

  The BMW suddenly started to stall.

  He pumped the accelerator, but the engine didn’t respond and the car continued to slow. Swearing and quickly checking his rear view mirror, Archer changed down and tried to rev the engine to coax a response, but it was no good. The car drifted to a halt right there on the main street, having taken too much punishment from the AR-15s.

  Fighting with the unresponsive car, Archer checked the rear view mirror again, waiting for the three gunmen to reappear.

  He knew they’d be coming.

  ‘C’mon!’ he said, begging with the engine. ‘Not now!’

  Smoke started rising from the bullet-riddled engine.

  It wasn’t going anywhere.

  ‘Shit!’

  As soon as he’d seen the two men disappear, Dash didn’t waste any time chasing after them on foot. He’d immediately turned and headed for the house next door to Bernhardt’s, the other two following close behind as they each reloaded their assault rifles with a fresh magazine.

  Striding up the path to the front door, he shot the lock and kicked the door open. Entering the house, he quickly found the woman he’d seen at the door earlier cowering in the sitting room, talking frantically into a telephone.

  Walking over and pulling her to her feet, Dash threw her against the wall with vicious strength then stepped back, aiming his rifle straight at her. She screamed and sank to the floor, cowering against the wall in pure terror.

  ‘Where’s your car?’ Dash shouted, keeping his sights on her head.

  She didn’t reply, just whimpering in fright. He fired a burst, putting three bullets into the wall two inches from her head, and she screamed again, covering her head with her hands, looking as if she was about to pass out from fear.

  ‘Where’s your car?’ he screamed at her.

  ‘G…garage,’ she stammered.

  ‘Keys?’

  ‘My…bb...bag!’ she whispered.

  Standing beside Dash, Piccadilly saw a handbag on the floor by the sofa. Grabbing the bag, he immediately upturned it, spilling the contents all over the floor. He saw the keys lying amongst all the other paraphernalia and bent down to pick them up. As the woman started to sob hysterically, Dash stepped forward and hit her hard over the head with the butt of the assault rifle, one savage blow hard enough to knock her out cold.

  Once she slumped to the floor in an unconscious heap, Dash turned and strode back outside. As the other two joined him, all three could hear sirens approaching in the distance. The garage door was locked but Dash took it out with one burst from his AR-15 then ripped the door up. There was a Volvo parked inside, the rear window now with three bullet holes in it from the assault rifle fire.

  The trio jumped inside the car, Dash behind the wheel, and he reversed it straight out onto the street.

  A moment later he slammed the gearstick forward and the tyres screeched as they took off after the cop and Bernhardt.

  Just a single street away, Archer and Bernhardt were already out of the wrecked BMW, taking cover behind the front of the car, kneeling side by side as Archer reloaded his MP5 quickly, ripping out the empty mag and replacing it with a fresh one from his vest. He was on the left, Bernhardt on the right, and as he hit the cocking handle forward on the sub-machine gun Archer desperately looked around for an escape route.

  ‘Shit! We need another way out of here!’ he said.

  Searching around their position, Archer’s eyes were suddenly drawn to a four-storey car park to their right.

  Before he could say another word, there was a sudden squeal of tyres on tarmac in front of them.

  Looking around the BMW, Archer saw a car slide out onto the main street, a silver Volvo with the three gunmen inside.

  Recognising their previous vehicle slumped to a halt in the road, they immediately braked hard and raised their rifles.

  ‘Go!’ Archer shouted an instant later, pushing Bernhardt up and out into the street.

  The former Para took off across the road, running as fast as his ankle would allow as Archer followed behind, opening fire directly at the Volvo as he ran and unloading the entire clip.

  His gunfire tore into the front of the car, the three gunmen inside forced to duck as Archer and Bernhardt sprinted across the street, totally exposed. The magazine had thi
rty two rounds slotted inside and Archer used every single one, firing as he ran, the MP5 spitting out a stream of shell casings and buying him and Bernhardt the chance to make it across the road.

  The weapon clicked dry just as they entered the car park; a moment later, the glass of the empty ticket collector’s hut smashed out beside him from a barrage of close return fire as he and Bernhardt fled inside.

  TWENTY SEVEN

  Firing from the driver’s seat into the multi-storey car park, Dash swore then pushed open his door, Portland and Piccadilly following, all of them dusted with broken glass and pieces of the car’s interior. The street around them was now deserted, all the pedestrians and drivers of passing cars running or taking cover, and they stalked unchallenged across the road towards the car park entrance.

  Just as they were about to enter there was the sound of sirens and tyres screeching on asphalt and a Met police car suddenly appeared down the street to their left. Portland spun immediately and opened fire, aiming at the front tyres and blowing them out. The vehicle braked, the officers inside ducking down as Portland focused his gunfire on the car, Dash and Piccadilly leaving him to it and moving inside the car park.

  Stepping past the barrier and into the four-storey concrete structure, they saw the place was a sea of parked cars, scores of potential hiding places.

  Bernhardt and the blond cop had disappeared.

  Tracing with his assault rifle, Dash swore; they didn’t have time for this but they dare not let this son of a bitch escape. He and Piccadilly moved further inside, looking for any sign of movement. Portland’s gunfire continued from the street as he held off the police but Dash took no notice, focusing on the lines of cars parked in neat rows instead.

  He paused and waited, listening. The ramp behind them was the only way out of here for a vehicle; however, he realised the car park would most likely be connected to a shopping centre of some sort.