by Tom Barber
But then more guys started to disappear. Now, eight months after this shit started, the organisation had been whittled down to virtually nothing. Bashev had never encountered anything like this; he was the one who made people disappear, not the other way around. He also knew that word was out on the street about what was happening and he was becoming a laughing stock; the Mafia leader who kept losing his men. Right now, he was so vulnerable he felt naked; it was just a matter of time before one of two things happened. The shot-callers in Moscow ordered his execution or someone made a move on this portion of Little Odessa and he didn’t want to be around when either went down.
Tonight signalled the end. Although Marat and the other men had no traceable ID, soon enough the police would track down where they’d come from. With the threat of other gangs circling, like vultures over a wounded animal, it was time to get the hell out, cut his losses and quit before he was the next one to disappear. He was well aware that running like this would be looked upon as humiliating failure, especially for a man with stars on his shoulders, but Bashev was ready to accept that loss of face if it meant he kept a pulse. He wasn’t afraid of anyone on the street, but he was dealing with something out of the ordinary here. He couldn’t fight an enemy he couldn’t see.
Continuing to push the last of the bills from the safe into his large briefcase, he glanced at the CCTV screens and suddenly stopped what he was doing.
A series of black 4x4s were pulling up outside the front of the club. The doors opened and a group of immediately recognisable figures wearing black Kevlar vests and armed with shotguns stepped out, NYPD clearly printed on the front of each vest, the white letters slightly fuzzy on the screen but still unmistakeable.
Lowering the case, he pulled the top-slide on the handgun, loading a round.
Time to go.
Outside the club, Shepherd walked forward, meeting up with Detective Massaro, who had his team in tow. Without pausing, the two men, followed by Hendricks, Marquez and Massaro’s squad strode across the street, all carrying loaded Mossberg shotguns.
With what had happened to Vargas on his mind, Shepherd’s mood was unusually dark as he approached the front of the club. The combination of the attacks on the families, Royston’s treatment of Archer and Alice’s death were all roiling around inside him, filling him with an anger that he normally kept well under control. As a leader, losing someone under his command was something he’d experienced once and vowed he’d do his utmost to prevent happening again.
Two bouncers were on the door, large men dressed in black with ear pieces tucked into their right ears, their eyes narrowing as they saw the armed detectives approaching. As one of them called it in, the other stepped forward, his eyes cold.
‘You need a warrant, policeman,’ he said, blocking Shepherd’s path, jabbing a finger in the Sergeant’s face to emphasise his point.
Walking into the man’s forefinger, which technically counted as assault, Shepherd’s arms moved up in a flash, the butt of the Mossberg hitting the side of the bouncer’s head with considerable force.
The blow caught him right behind the ear and as big as the man was, his equilibrium went for a wander, his legs turning to cooked spaghetti. As he staggered, two of Hendricks’ men quickly stepped forward, restraining and cuffing the guy before he could make any attempt to retaliate.
The other bouncer stepped forward but Marquez racked a round in her shotgun and put the Mossberg’s barrel an inch from the man’s face. He stopped in his tracks, taken aback by the look on her face; wisely, he stayed put as the remaining three members of Hendricks’ team handcuffed him, both bouncers now under control.
Shepherd swept the red rope barrier strung across the entrance out of the way; then he, Hendricks, Massaro and their teams walked into the dark, hot nightclub, Marquez following closely behind, the pounding music and heat hitting the detectives as they entered the room.
Although they were each wearing an earpiece connected to the doormen, Bashev’s last three guys hadn’t heard the warnings from outside. The music was too loud, the men frowning and pushing a finger into their other ear as they’d tried to hear what was being said.
They were spread out around the club, two downstairs, one upstairs, all three of them tense and on edge. Each was wearing a loose jacket to conceal the sub-machine gun they had on straps hanging from their shoulders.
As they scanned the people in the club, they became aware of a commotion by the entrance, just as some strobes hit.
Illuminated in the flashes, the man positioned upstairs saw armed NYPD detectives suddenly walking into the club, each carrying a shotgun, most of the people on the dance-floor completely unaware of their sudden arrival.
‘Police just arrived, sir,’ one of the men said in Russian over the radio. ‘What do we do?’
Pushing his finger into his ear, the man on the 1st floor waited.
‘Boss?’
There was no response.
Staring down at the two male and one female cops, others moving in behind them, he pulled out his MP5K and hit the cocking handle forward, racking a round.
They didn’t look as if they were here to talk.
And neither was he.
The club was full of people, slowing the three detectives’ progress as they walked forward and looked for their quarry.
Moving behind Shepherd and Hendricks, Marquez approached the dance-floor, some revellers on the squares seeing her and doing a double-take, the surprised expressions on their faces jumping in the flash of each strobe.
She checked the floor and then lifted her gaze to the floor above.
And saw a man aiming a sub-machine gun directly at her.
From inside his office, Vladimir suddenly heard gunshots followed a few seconds later by screaming, all coming from the other side of the door.
Quickly snapping his case shut, he pulled on his jacket, snatched up his loaded pistol then turned and opened the door to the cellar, a gun in one hand and millions of dollars in the briefcase held firmly in the other.
Sprinting up to the 1st floor, Marquez fought her way through the panicking clubbers towards the man she’d seen aiming the sub-machine gun at her from below. He’d fired but for some reason his aim was off, shooting high as he pulled the trigger, his rounds hitting one of the lights above her head.
When she finally reached him she saw he’d been shot in the throat, clutching the wound with both hands as he suffocated, his eyes as wide as drink coasters as he writhed on the floor, choking on his own blood.
As the man died, she suddenly heard more screams from across the club, more audible now as the music had just cut out.
Turning, she ran to the edge of the balcony and saw Hendricks scanning the crowd as Shepherd knelt by another man. He’d been shot in the head. There hadn’t been any sound of gunshots though, only from the guy behind her who’d fired just before he’d been killed.
Looking around, Marquez desperately searched for whoever was responsible.
Then she heard more screams from panicking clubbers directly under her on the ground floor and sprinted for the stairs.
With the noise muffled by the brick, Bashev ran through the dark passageway away from the club, then up another flight of stairs.
Reaching the exit, he put the case down and eased open a metal delivery hatch, glancing around him. He saw people running away from the club at the other end of the street but none of them were paying any attention to this side street, no cops anywhere in sight, no movement other than clouds of steam rising from some construction portholes to his right.
Stepping out and closing the door behind him, he walked rapidly towards his car, pushing the key fob as he approached. Several cars were parked along the street, construction vehicles, an old work truck and a white van.
Opening the vehicle, he threw the case inside, checking around him again before getting ready to climb in behind the wheel.
Suddenly he sensed a whisper of movement behind him and snapped around.
A beat too late.
FORTY ONE
Eight miles north in Queens, Archer was alone in the sitting room of his apartment, April cleaning herself up in the bathroom before they left for the safe-house in Manhattan. He’d just put fresh dressings over the cuts on his arm and chest then changed his clothes, pulling on a fresh pair of jeans and a navy blue sweater after taking off the NYPD vest he’d worn since he and Hendricks had breached Santiago’s apartment five hours ago.
With the vest resting on the couch beside him, Archer glanced at the empty space around him, the sound of the shower filling the quiet. Everywhere he looked, he saw different memories of Vargas and they wracked him with the worst guilt he’d ever felt. After all they’d been through, he’d not been there to protect her when she’d needed him most. She’d been vulnerable and alone in that hospital room. She’d survived the gunshot and the trip in the ambulance when her heart had stopped twice, but they’d somehow got to her.
Against his better judgement he’d accepted his orders, stayed away and Alice had died. For a man who spent his life protecting others, he’d failed to save the person closest to him.
Focusing his blank gaze, he glanced at the digital clock on a table to his right. 11:01pm; eleven hours until his hearing and almost definitely the end of his career in the Counter-Terrorism Bureau. When it rains, it pours, so the saying went; right now, it seemed to be a monsoon.
To his right, the bathroom door opened and April stepped out, towelling off her hair; she wasn’t wearing make-up anymore which made her look younger, just a normal pretty girl. She was wearing the clothes he’d given her, a pair of Vargas’ jeans and one of her shirts. The two women were a similar size and the garments were a good fit; Vargas had been wearing that outfit when they’d gone out to Long Island with Isabel six weeks ago.
‘Better?’ he asked, forcing his mind back to the present, the memories fading and blowing away like the sand from the beach that day.
She nodded. ‘Much. So where’s this safe-house?’
‘Across town at the West Village. You’ll be safe there. Those places are off the grid.’
‘Will you stay?’
‘For as long as I can. Royston won’t know I’m there.’
There was a brief silence.
‘I’m sorry about your girl,’ April said. ‘She sounded like a good person.’
She looked down at her new clothes.
‘I can give these back when this is over.’
Archer shook his head and forced a smile. ‘Keep them. The jeans are a bit tight on me.’
She returned the smile and a silence fell.
Outside the building on 38th Street, a heavy-set gang member called Raul Ortega whistled at one of his guys, indicating for him to go and cut off the back exit.
They’d arrived moments earlier, the order coming from the heads of the gang, the shot-callers in Rikers. The cop had had a green light put on him when he was in the prison, meaning he should never have made it out of there. Everything in the build-up had gone to plan; a guard had been distracted to ensure the guy was alone in the shower block, about the only place in the entire facility where there were no cameras.
But then it’d all gone wrong. Apparently they’d been complacent and underestimated the cop, assuming he’d be easy meat, but he’d managed to put a shiv into two of them and slice up the face of a third. Ortega was pissed; one of them had been a friend of his, who’d now have a scar across his face for the rest of his life. As a consequence, the gang members on the outside had been ordered to blast the cop, sending the message that no-one could mess with them and survive.
Four of them had just arrived, others on their way, all dressed in baggy jeans, hooded sweatshirts and carrying pistols or sub-machine guns, each eager to put this guy down to regain respect. As one of the men went round to the rear of the apartment and another started to climb up to the balcony, Ortega slid a bump key into the lock on the door to the entrance, then tapped it gently with the underside of his machine pistol, jacking it open.
He stepped inside the building, securing the lock to stop it closing. Pulling the cocking handle on his Uzi, he racked a round, thirty two of them in the magazine and one now in the chamber.
Then he started to climb the stairs.
April was in Archer’s bedroom, putting her few belongings into a brown Trader Joe’s bag. Next door in the kitchen, Archer was tucking some foodstuffs and bottles of water into a holdall, distracted and working on autopilot.
Closing the cupboard, he zipped up the bag and hooked the strap over his shoulder, ready to go. Remembering his bulletproof vest, he headed towards the sitting area where it was resting on the couch; considering how today had been going, it would be foolish not to strap it on again.
But he stopped in his tracks. The apartment was so quiet he heard a sound so faint it was almost imperceptible, one he would have missed if there had been any other noise at all.
Swinging round and forgetting about the vest, he looked for the source and found it.
His eyes focused on the door handle.
It was the sound of a key being slid very slowly into the front lock.
Then there was a click.
Hitting the key with the butt of his weapon, Ortega twisted the handle a split-second later and kicked the door back with a thump.
Moving inside, he raised his sub-machine gun as he and one of his men who’d followed him up the stairs moved into the apartment, the two men sweeping left and right, their fingers on the triggers.
Behind the kitchen counter, having ducked down a split-second before the door was kicked open, Archer cursed to himself, realising he was unarmed, his Sig confiscated and his home defence gun hidden in the bathroom.
Knowing he only had seconds before whoever it was found him, he edged around the counter that ran between the hallway and kitchen and saw two men reflected in the balcony window, each heavily built and each holding an Uzi.
Shit, shit, shit!
Thinking fast, he silently eased open a drawer next to him, inch by painful inch, praying it wouldn’t make any noise and watching the two men’s reflections as they separated and started to check the apartment.
He reached in carefully for anything in the drawer he could use as a weapon. He touched the handle of a small, sharp-bladed knife; curling his fingers around it he quietly pulled it out. He hated knives both to use and being used against him, but right now it was either that or a fish slice.
Staying low, he saw the man nearest to him was about to round the corner of the unit he was hiding behind.
He tensed, ready to spring.
But then April opened the bedroom door down the corridor.
Watching their reflections in the window, he saw the two men swing round, aiming their weapons straight at her as she dropped her bag of clothes.
‘Hey!’ Archer shouted, rearing up.
Taken by surprise, the two men twisted back round just as the Archer leapt over the counter and buried the knife in the chest of the guy closest to him.
As the man shouted in pain and his partner raised his Uzi, Archer shoved the man he’d stabbed into the other guy then dove back behind the counter as the uninjured guy pulled the trigger.
The assault from the weapon was both sudden and extremely violent, wood, plastic and brick ripped to shreds as he fired wildly. However, the guy made the classic mistake with an automatic weapon, draining the clip with just one pull in his desperation to score a hit.
As soon as the deafening fire stopped, Archer ignored the ringing in his ears and grabbed his opportunity, hurdling the counter once again and smashing into the guy just as he reloaded and cocked the gun. Archer caught hold of the man’s arms, driving them up but avoiding touching the weapon to save his hands from being burned.
‘Pendejo!’ the guy snarled, before pulling the trigger again, the rounds hitting the ceiling.
Head-butting him, Archer pushed the gun round while holding the man’s finger down on the trig
ger. The gunman took a burst, dropping as if his strings had been cut, the gun falling from his grasp as he hit the ground and joined his companion, both men dead.
With every sense on high alert, Archer kicked the front door shut, then swiftly bent down and retrieved one of the dead guys’ Uzis, the gun powder in the air filling his nostrils and stinging his eyes. Both were brown-skinned men Archer had never seen before, gang members, one with four teardrops tattooed on his face, two under each eye, and the other with inking all over his neck. Not Prizraki Russians, and definitely not Henderson or Tully.
The same inking as his attackers in Rikers.
His hearing gradually starting to return after the gunfire, Archer looked down the corridor at April to make sure she was OK.
But she wasn’t looking at him.
Alerted by the expression on her face, he spun round to see a Latino guy in jeans and a hoodie on the balcony, raising a shotgun from the other side of the glass and aiming it directly at him.
‘Move!’ Archer shouted.
As he ducked back into the kitchen and April threw herself into Isabel’s bedroom, the shotgun blast annihilated the balcony glass and Archer’s bedroom door, the guy racking the pump to load another shell. Leaning around the damaged counter, Archer fired a quick burst back, his aim far better and more controlled than the dead gang-member’s; the rounds clipped the gunman in the shoulder and knocked him to the ground, the guy dragging himself out of sight before Archer could fire again.
As Archer went to move forward after him, the front door suddenly slammed back and a heavily-built Latino guy smashed into the apartment. Archer spun and pulled the trigger but the weapon clicked dry; hurling it at the gunman which bought him a precious second, he launched himself forward, knocking the larger man off balance.