Return Fire (Sam Archer )

by Tom Barber

  It was followed immediately by the sound of running feet.

  Looking at each other and frowning, both men rose as they heard voices talking urgently in what sounded like the interrogation cell.

  Then the sound of hurried footsteps continued, coming their way.

  Suddenly, Lipton arrived in the doorway.

  ‘There you are,’ he said to Archer. ‘I think we’ve got a problem.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘There’s a delivery outside,’ he said. ‘UPS. A package’

  ‘So?’ Josh asked, pushing down his trouser leg to cover his shin.

  ‘It’s an express parcel,’ he replied, looking at Archer. ‘And it’s addressed to you, Arch.’

  THIRTY FOUR

  ‘What?’ Archer said.

  ‘It’s addressed to Sam Archer,’ Lipton said. ‘Right here, at the Unit’s address.’

  Archer looked at Josh; then, without a word, they both walked swiftly out of the room.

  As they moved down the corridor, Marquez, Nikki, Chalky and Bernhardt appeared out of the interrogation cell, clearly having been told and following the pair out of the building.

  When they made it outside through the front entrance, the group saw a courier standing behind the barrier on the other side of the car park, holding a parcel. MP5 in hand, Wilson was right there alongside the man and wasn’t letting him any closer; he was the only cop down there, the armed Met officers who’d been stationed there earlier now gone.

  Stepping past Archer, Chalky immediately pulled his Glock and ran forward into the centre of the lamp-lit car park, aiming the weapon straight at the man. Josh moved out to the left and did the same, the two pistols trained on the delivery guy.

  ‘Put it down and back away!’ Chalky ordered, fixing his sights on the driver.

  The man obeyed the command immediately, quickly lowering the box to the ground, his eyes wide with fear.

  ‘Step back from the package!’

  The man did as he was told until his back hit his van parked on the road behind him.

  ‘On your knees!’ Chalky ordered.

  The man knelt down, clearly terrified. Standing with his back to the building, the concrete under his feet stained with blood from the triage operation earlier, Archer stared at the courier twenty five yards away. He was an inoffensive-looking wiry white guy somewhere in his late twenties; he couldn’t have looked less of a threat if he’d tried.

  But it had been a day of unpleasant surprises.

  ‘Does he have ID?’ Chalky called to Wilson, who was standing with his back to his hut fifteen feet from the delivery guy’s van.

  ‘He looks OK!’

  ‘What’s the order?’ Chalky asked the courier. ‘And keep your hands up!’

  ‘Special delivery!’ the man called back, his voice shaking. ‘Came in less than an hour ago and said it had to be here by 9pm for a Detective Sam Archer. You’re my last call.’

  With Marquez stepping forward to join him, Archer checked his watch.

  It was 8:57pm.

  The driver went to wipe sweat off his brow with his arm but Chalky jerked his Glock, taking a step forward.

  ‘Don’t move!’ he bellowed. ‘Do not move!’

  ‘We need to call EOD,’ Nikki said to Archer and Marquez, joining them where the triage area had been set up earlier as Bernhardt stayed back by the front door. ‘We’ve already had two bombs go off today. This could definitely be a third.’

  As they all stared at the package and Archer went to reply, a quiet ringing sound suddenly started to echo around the car park.

  Archer, Nikki and Marquez each instinctively reached for their cell phones, Chalky and Josh glancing back in response to the sound as they kept their pistols on the scared and confused delivery man. As the other three withdrew their phones and checked the displays, they realised it was coming from somewhere else.

  ‘Yours?’ Archer called to Josh and Chalky.

  Both men shook their heads. Archer turned back to look at Bernhardt by the doors, who was watching in confused silence.

  ‘You?’

  He shook his head quickly, the ringing continuing to echo around the car park.

  ‘Where the hell is that coming from?’ Nikki said.

  ‘Wait!’ Marquez said, closing her eyes and focusing her hearing.

  The ringing continued.

  Then she turned and looked up at the blown out windows of the 1st floor above them.

  Without a word, Marquez immediately ran back into the building.

  Sprinting up onto the 1st floor, Marquez headed straight towards what had been the Operations area.

  The ringing was louder now she was closer to the source; it was coming from a replacement phone sitting on the floor, echoing eerily in the quiet abandoned space. When Archer, Fox and Josh had been away, Nikki had located a spare phone from a maintenance store on the lower floor and reconnected it up here, wanting to have her particular land-line up and running again.

  Moving towards it, feeling a slight breeze coming from the gaps in the walls of the Briefing Room to her left, Marquez reached for the receiver then suddenly paused.

  If it’s a bomb in the box, this might detonate it, she thought.

  The ringing continued.

  She waited, thinking, and looked outside through the gaps in the wall.

  The ringing continued.

  Taking a deep breath, she pushed the Loudspeaker button and took the call.

  There was a pause. Marquez waited.

  ‘Having a bad day?’ a voice suddenly asked.

  Marquez looked at the phone, surprised.

  It was a woman’s voice, which somehow she hadn’t been expecting.

  ‘Who is this?’

  ‘I take it my package just arrived?’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I want Detective Archer to go and open my gift.’

  ‘And why should he?’

  There was a pause, and some shuffling down the receiver.

  Then there was the sound of sobbing children.

  Marquez froze, the distressed sound cutting right through her.

  Beckett’s sons.

  ‘Because if he doesn’t, bad things are going to happen to these two boys. Very bad things. Detective Archer has sixty seconds before these runts lose their feet.’

  Before Marquez could reply, a screeching sound suddenly filled the receiver. The unexpected noise startled her; she tried to place it, then realised it was the sound of an electric saw. It ran for several seconds, emphasising the woman’s point, the banshee-like scream echoing around the level and chilling Marquez to the core.

  Then it slowed and stopped, replaced by the sound of muffled whimpering from the two children.

  ‘Fifty nine. Fifty eight.’

  Standing down below, waiting for Marquez, Archer saw her suddenly appear at the edge of the blown apart wall, looking down at him and Nikki.

  ‘Some woman just called!’ Marquez shouted down to them hurriedly. ‘She’s the one who sent the parcel. She’s got Beckett’s sons as hostages.’

  ‘You’re sure?’ Nikki asked.

  She nodded. ‘Yeah, I’m sure. She said you have to open the box, Arch, or she’s going to start cutting them up with a power saw. She turned it on so I could hear she wasn’t kidding. You’ve got one minute and counting to go open it.’

  He stared up at her, then back at the package, as Marquez stood there. They were out of options.

  And Beckett’s sons were about to run out of time.

  ‘Shit!’

  Archer stared over at the box, waiting for him across the car park.

  ‘She’s counting down, Arch!’ Marquez called from above, desperation in her voice as she looked at her watch. ‘You’ve got fifty seconds!’

  He stood there for a moment, Nikki staring at him, her face fearful.

  ‘What do we do?’ she asked.

  Archer didn’t reply.

  Then a beat later, he started walking towards the ba
rrier.

  He didn’t have a choice.

  Josh and Chalky were keeping their Glocks on the courier but had heard the exchange with Marquez and watched Archer walk in the gap between them, slowly approaching the parcel.

  ‘Forty five seconds!’ Marquez called from the blown-out 1st floor.

  Chalky held the Glock double-handed, watching his best friend approach the package just the other side of the barrier, apparently sent by this woman Marquez had just spoken to.

  Cursing, he stared at the box.

  Christ, I hope that bitch hasn’t seen Seven, he thought.

  THIRTY FIVE

  Bomb-disposal specialists call the approach to a potentially-explosive device the long walk and right then Archer knew exactly what they meant.

  He’d walked across the ARU car park hundreds of times in the past; the distance from the front door to the gate was only twenty five yards or so, but this time it felt like a mile as he approached the box. As he walked towards the innocuous-looking package sitting there on the concrete, his mind worked at a hundred times the speed of his feet, conjuring up all sorts of images as to what could be inside.

  Someone cruel enough to threaten to kill two children with a power saw had sent this thing.

  He suddenly pictured Vargas, smiling at him.

  Then an instant later, tied up, terrified and completely helpless.

  Oh shit.

  ‘How am I doing, Lisa?’ he shouted.

  ‘Thirty seconds!’

  Pulling a jack-knife from his tac vest, Archer stepped around the edge of the wooden barrier and popped the blade, now just ten feet from the package. By his truck, the delivery man stared at him, his hands still in the air, and to Archer’s right Wilson was beside his hut, watching silently but his eyes wide.

  Walking closer, Archer saw the box had a rectangular white label with his name and the ARU HQ’s address clearly printed on it.

  ‘Twenty five!’

  Taking a deep breath, Archer stepped up to the parcel and knelt down beside it. The parcel was a brown cube, about the size that held a large toaster, and seemed completely harmless sitting there on the ground in front of him.

  ‘Twenty!’

  Taking the knife, he drew in a deep breath then lay the blade gently against the side by some brown tape sealing the lid. He couldn’t see wires or anything that looked like a trap. He paused to listen for a moment but couldn’t hear anything either; he looked up at the terrified driver, who was watching him from his knees, his eyes bulging with fear.

  ‘How heavy was it?’ he asked.

  ‘It was light!’ the man said. ‘Really light!’

  ‘Fifteen seconds!’

  Archer nodded.

  Placing the blade at one end of the box, he cut through the tape, the knife sliding along easily as if it was cutting through butter.

  It made it all the way.

  The flaps either side lifted half an inch.

  ‘Ten! Nine!’

  The box was now open, but whatever was inside was still hidden from view.

  Archer took another deep breath and eased back the flap on the left side.

  He saw there were two more flaps horizontally underneath the top two, concealing the contents.

  ‘Five seconds, Arch!’

  From their positions around the car park, the gathered group were watching in complete silence, everyone holding their breath.

  He was out of time.

  Pulling back the third and fourth interior flaps, Archer looked inside.

  ‘What the hell?’ he whispered.

  It wasn’t a bomb.

  It wasn’t a piece of Vargas.

  It was a piece of A4 paper.

  And the sheet was folded in half.

  Reaching forward, Archer took it in his hands and opened it.

  There was a message written there, five words, neat handwriting.

  An eye for an eye.

  From her vantage point up on the damaged 1st floor, a flicker of movement caught Marquez’ attention from the building directly across the street.

  Looking over, she saw two dark figures suddenly appear in one of the large office windows.

  The moment she saw them, Marquez realised what this was.

  Archer, Chalky and Josh were totally exposed in their various positions around the car park.

  They’d all just been lured out of the building.

  Directly into firing range.

  THIRTY SIX

  ‘Get down!’ she screamed.

  At her shout, Josh and Chalky both went to turn in her direction, but a split-second later, two windows in the building opposite shattered as a pair of booming gunshots echoed across the quiet car park.

  Both men took a shotgun shell to the chest and were punched off their feet, their pistols clattering to the ground as they were hurled back onto the concrete. A second later, Nikki screamed and dived for cover with Lipton behind the nearest car to their left, following Bernhardt as blasts tore into the wall where they’d just been standing, spewing brick-dust into the air.

  As Lipton fired back at the two gunmen with his MP5, Marquez saw Josh and Chalky were both flat out on the ground, Archer taking cover, shielded by the courier’s van. Wilson was racing to join him and only just made it as two more shells ricocheted off the concrete just behind him. Drawing her own pistol, Marquez fired at the two gunmen, more in an attempt to attract their fire than in expectation of hitting them at this range.

  It worked and she took off to her left as shotgun fire ripped into the room behind her, muzzle flashes lighting up the dark windows in the building fifty yards away as the shells ripped into the open Operations area.

  From his cover behind the van beside Wilson and the terrified courier, Archer realised what Marquez was trying to do. Pulling his Glock, he moved forward to the front of the vehicle and fired up at the smashed-out windows of the office building, buying Marquez time to find cover before resuming fire.

  Squeezing off two more rounds, he looked over his shoulder and saw Josh and Chalky both laid out in the car park. Josh was writhing in pain, lying in the middle of the space like target practice.

  But Chalky was completely still.

  With Archer and Lipton firing on the two gunmen, Marquez sprinted down from the 1st floor and used the opportunity to join Nikki, Lipton and Bernhardt just outside the front building behind the car. Reloading her pistol, she looked around the side of the car; Archer was trapped behind the truck and pinned down, not able to do anything to help the two men who’d been hit. She knew it was only a matter of moments before Chalky and Josh took another shell, stranded out there in the middle of the car park.

  If they were going to survive, she had to do something.

  Looking around desperately for anything she could use as a distraction, she suddenly realised there was a lull in the assault from above.

  They’re reloading.

  ‘Cover me!’ she told Lipton, who nodded.

  Taking a deep breath, Marquez darted out from behind the car. She went straight for Josh, relying on Archer and Lipton to give her some cover fire, and they duly obliged.

  When she made it to the grounded NYPD detective, she saw he’d been hit in the lower part of the vest, his face screwed up in pain, his breathing laboured as his huge hands clutched at his stomach. Looking up at the windows, she saw the two gunmen hadn’t reappeared, not yet realising she was a sitting duck.

  She went to drag Josh but he was too heavy for her to move.

  ‘C’mon!’ she shouted. ‘You have to help me!’

  Bleeding badly, Josh half-levered himself to his feet and leaned on Marquez as they started to stagger back towards the building, Marquez expecting to take a shell herself at any second.

  Firing his last clip at the two gunmen from behind the delivery van, Archer glanced over his shoulder and saw Marquez was horribly isolated as she helped Josh back, Lipton maintaining cover fire. She’d taken advantage in the lull of fire from the building to aid Josh, but
Chalky was still out there in the middle of the car park alone. He turned to Wilson, who stepped forward to the front of the van with his own MP5, reading Archer’s mind.

  ‘Go!’ he shouted, firing up at the two gunmen with the sub-machine gun.

  A moment later Archer launched himself forward and sprinted out, running towards Chalky as Lipton and Wilson both fired up at the two windows, preventing their attackers from blasting Archer.

  He reached his best friend, who was unmoving on the ground, blood coming from his mouth, his body limp. He’d taken the shell on the upper portion of his vest, the fabric and tools there ripped apart.

  ‘Oh shit, Chalk!’ he said.

  Grabbing the shoulders of his tac vest, Archer quickly dragged him unceremoniously towards the front door of the building, Chalky’s boots scraping across the concrete as Archer moved as fast as he could. A blast smashed out a window on the car protecting Lipton to Archer’s right as they passed it but undeterred, Lipton maintained his fire as Archer focused on getting Chalky to the safety of the building.

  Up ahead, Marquez and Josh made it inside, one of the doors shattering behind them from a shotgun shell.

  ‘C’mon!’ Nikki shouted to Archer, hidden from view just inside the doors, waving him forward.

  They entered the building just as two shells hit the brickwork above his head but Archer didn’t slow, dragging his best friend down the lower corridor into the heart of the HQ and out of the line of fire as Lipton reloaded and remained where he was, defending the entrance.

  Marquez and Bernhardt carried Josh into the interrogation room, followed a moment later by Archer with Chalky, laying him down on the floor as Nikki entered the cell close behind.

  Chalky was unconscious and not moving; Nikki ran over and knelt down beside him as Marquez tended to Josh. Standing above Nikki, gunfire still echoing down the corridor, Archer stared down at his best friend’s limp and unresponsive body, then at Josh across the room, and an ice-cold rage swept through him.

  ‘Look after him!’ he told Nikki, turning and running out of the cell, heading down the corridor to the locker room.