by Tom Barber
‘At least he’s out of pain,’ Foster said, patting Carson on the leg.
Helen nodded. Wrapping the needle in the tissue, she took it next door and headed for the trash. On the couch, Carson’s mouth was open, his eyes somewhere else and focusing on something nobody else could see, probably Pluto.
As Helen disappeared into the kitchen, a sound they’d all been vaguely aware of outside suddenly became much louder. Everyone in the room looked towards the window; the noise was easily heard above the humming from the street below and was increasing by the second.
It was unmistakable, familiar and totally reassuring. Standing beside Carson, Foster smiled.
‘Here comes back up.’
FOURTEEN
The helicopter pilot had approached across the Hudson River and entered Manhattan over West 100 Street. He swept over the Upper West Side and Harlem, flying fast and low over the buildings. Coming in from downtown, the helicopter slowed and hovered over the Hamilton Heights 135Street tenement block. The rotor wash blew away all the dust, dirt and trash on the rooftop, sending paper cans and other detritus swirling in all directions.
The doors were wrenched open. Five black ropes were slung out, tumbling down out of the vessel and hitting the roof.
Five figures slid down the ropes, followed by five more.
The group were dressed in grey, black and white fatigues and tactical vests, their sleeves rolled up as it was still warm, and wore black leather gloves to prevent rope burn. They descended quickly, their boots wrapped around the cord, their bags of equipment and weapons slung over their shoulders. The moment after the tenth man released the rope, the helicopter rose and pulled away, the noise of the vessel instantly decreasing.
As the chopper headed back across the River towards New Jersey, eight of the men ran for the door to the floor below.
The other two knelt down and began setting up some equipment on the roof.
On the street, everyone gathered was watching with interest. Everyone except Dalton.
He strode towards Hobbs; some of the ESU men saw the look on his face and stepped forward, keeping him back.
‘You son of a bitch!’ Dalton said. ‘I ordered you to hold back!’
Shepherd and Josh hadn’t moved. They’d both watched the chopper arrive like everyone else and were replaying in their minds what they’d just seen. Marquez had rushed twenty yards to the left, watching the helicopter flying across the Hudson and examining the vessel carefully. She headed back quickly, making eye contact with Shepherd and shook her head, concern on her face.
They’d all caught a glimpse of the figures abseiling onto the roof. They were dressed in camo fatigues, not police or Federal clothing. They were wearing balaclavas. The chopper was black and unmarked.
Something wasn’t right.
The moment the eight men made it to the 22 floor, they split up. Four went to the north stairwell, four the south and they started moving down the flights quickly.
With combat vests holding spare ammunition, a knife and several grenades, the men also had a pistol in a holster clipped to their right thigh. They were each holding a Colt M4A1 Commando carbine assault rifle, thirty 5.56 mm rounds in the magazines slotted into the underside of each weapon. A descendant of the M16, the manufacturer designed this specific variant of the rifle for special operations use and to exploit firepower capability in confined spaces where lightweight mobility, speed and violence of action rule. Each one of those circumstances was certainly ticked off the sheet given their task at hand inside the building. Unlike other sub-machine guns and assault rifles, the M4A1 didn’t have a three-round burst option. It was either safe, semi-automatic or fully automatic. Capable of unleashing anywhere from 750-900 rounds per minute, the weapon was effective at 500 to 600 metres and devastating closer. The US Rangers, Navy SEALS and the Brazilian counter-terrorist team BOPE used it with very good reason. It provided ruinous and destructive firepower at close quarters and only weighed less than six pounds.
The north stairwell team worked their way down quickly, establishing the geography of the building. On the 21 floor, two of them split away and headed down the corridor, beginning to clear the apartments one by one. The other two, including the leader, pressed on down the stairs.
On 18, a resident from an apartment a third of the way down the corridor opened his door and peered out, catching the leader’s attention as they passed in the stairwell. Without a word, the armed man moved down the hallway towards him, his compatriot beside him. Dressed in a vest and some old sweats, the guy frowned when he saw the two men in balaclavas approaching. It wasn’t unusual to see cops in the tenement block and the residents had become accustomed to it, but he noticed these two were dressed in different clothing from the usual police gear.
‘Who the hell are you?’ he asked.
‘You’re in deep shit, Hobbs,’ Dalton shouted. ‘This is a Federal operation!’
‘It wasn’t one of ours!’ Hobbs shouted back.
Dalton paused. ‘What?’
Hobbs pointed up at the building. ‘That wasn’t our chopper!’
The leader of the response team checked the interior of the apartment behind the man, then responded.
‘Police operation, sir. Stay in your apartment.’
‘You don’t look like cops.’
‘Get back in your apartment.’
‘Listen, asshole, I-’
Without another word, the leader aimed his M4A1 at the centre of the man’s torso and squeezed the trigger. One pull, six rounds. The burst tore the man’s chest apart, the bullets shredding through his body and smashing plaster from the wall the other end of the corridor. Blood sprayed onto the walls as the man collapsed to the floor, clinically dead before the third round passed through his body. His girlfriend had been inside the apartment and she ran out of the doorway, covering her mouth and screaming when she saw what had happened.
The other gunman stepped forward and put four rounds through her forehead, more blood and brains spattered to the wall, the woman slumping onto the ground and joining the dead man.
Two less people to get in their way.
Dalton had stared at Hobbs for a moment, then turned and walked away, re-joining Shepherd, Josh and Marquez, who were watching him, concerned and confused. They’d all just heard what sounded like faint automatic gunfire from inside the block.
‘What on earth is going on?’ Josh whispered, confused.
Then there were two more bursts, faint but definite, someone firing off a weapon inside. Together, the quartet looked up at the building, the Marshals behind them doing the same. The sound of the helicopter that had delivered the group was now gone.
‘Who the hell just went in there?’ Dalton said.
FIFTEEN
The ten man response team inside the West 135 apartment building were only ever meant as insurance. This whole thing should have been over before sundown.
Four US Marshals caught unawares and a kid shouldn’t have been any match for a five-man ambush with semi-automatic weapons and surprise on their side. Braeten’s team had come recommended from people in the area and had been hired with specific orders under specific circumstances. However, their work today had been amateur at best. The leader of the response team had received the call from Braeten forty minutes ago telling him that they’d failed. They’d hit one of the Marshals but not the girl, and one of their own team had been killed. The Marshals had taken cover in a building in Harlem, which the remaining four gang members had sealed off, more and more cops and Feds arriving outside with every passing minute.
However, despite this unexpected development, the leader of the group had been prepared. He was a meticulous planner, almost to the point of obsession, and had only ever made one big mistake in his life, which was the reason they were all here tonight. When they’d first located the Marshals and laid out what equipment they would need if Braeten failed, his men had thought he was being unnecessarily over-cautious. He’d acquired M4A1 assault ri
fles, pistols, grenades, Claymore mines; even C4 plastic explosive and several M72 LAW portable rocket launchers. He’d ordered a helicopter and pilot contact to join them and be available on 24/7 standby. He’d bought enough tactical gear and weaponry to hold off a military siege. However, once they’d flicked on the television and seen what was happening tonight, any criticism of his seemingly excessive preparations had evaporated.
Thanks to him, the team were now inside the building and armed to the teeth.
They were all equally invested in ending the girl’s life tonight. If she made it out of here with air in her lungs she could still talk and therefore bury all of them like they were dead men walking. And when the cops and detectives on the street got inside, they knew there was no way anyone was getting close to the Marshals and the girl again.
They had a brief window of opportunity.
And they were going to take it.
Together with one of his men, the leader passed 7, then 6, the pair sweeping their way down silently with practised efficiency. As he took point, the leader glanced down the passing corridors. He saw most of the apartments were closed but the place was pretty silent, the building a giant cavern of nooks, crannies and potential hiding places. Most of the residents seemed to be gone. But she was still here somewhere, the one person who could put them all away if she made it out alive.
A game of hide and seek with the deadliest of results.
He looked down the 6 corridor through the sights of his M4A1.
Come out, come out, wherever you are.
In the lobby, Braeten risked another check through the shattered front window as the other three men paced nervously behind him. They’d all heard distant gunshots from somewhere in the building above which had spooked the three guys on coke, the powder in their system not helping their nerves or their ability to think calmly. They were walking back and forth so much they were almost wearing a track into the floor, all three sweating from the drugs and the heat.
‘Who’s firing?’ one of them said quickly. ‘The Marshals?’
Just as Braeten was about to respond, the south stairwell door opened. All four men swung round and saw two figures in balaclavas and black, grey and white combat fatigues move into the lobby, stubby black assault rifles in each man’s shoulder. A few moments later, the same happened from the north side, two more men arriving and walking over towards them.
The quartet ended up surrounding Braeten and his team, four assault weapons aimed straight at them. For a horrible moment Braeten thought they were going to fire, but then the weapons moved elsewhere, the men checking the rest of the large lobby. As Braeten and his team watched in silence, one of the newcomers made sure the desk blocking off the entrance was secure, then swung a black holdall off his shoulder, laying it on the ground. Another reversed his rifle then used it to smash the glass of a glass cabinet beside the fire switch Braeten had pulled earlier. He pulled an axe out of the bracket and headed to the door that led to the basement, disappearing out of sight.
A third man moved over to his colleague by the door and pulled out an item from the open black holdall. It looked like a small wireless Internet hub. He turned and laid it down against the wall by the elevator, adjusting the small stick antenna. He flicked a switch on the gadget and a few seconds later a green light blinked on. Braeten noticed the man had a cylindrical weapon tucked in a holster on the back of his vest; it looked like a portable anti-tank weapon. A rocket launcher.
Braeten and his three men watched all this in silence. The newcomers moved with a fluency that was both impressive and unnerving, none of them speaking, each man doing his job in silence and with practised ease. They were also carrying some ferocious weaponry. Braeten’s instincts were telling him these were cartel guys, but he couldn’t be sure. Organisations built on drugs often employed teams like these, ex-military mercenaries used to silence witnesses and remove opposition, men who had been professionally trained to kill. Glancing at the assault rifles the newcomers were carrying, he suddenly felt severely ill-equipped with just the pistol in his hand, well aware of the fact that the only reason these men were here was because he and his team had failed. Braeten had no idea who was bankrolling this, as was usually the way with these things, but they sure as hell had some deep pockets, whoever they were. He also didn’t have a clue who these newcomers were. The balaclavas they were all were wearing meant despite the situation, that wasn’t going to change.
As he watched in silence, beside him one of his guys sniffed nervously and reached into his pocket.
Braeten caught his arm, gripping it firmly.
He got the message.
Upstairs, Archer was speaking in low tones with Shepherd. Foster’s phone, set to silent, had also flashed with an incoming call, Dalton on the other end. They’d heard gunfire from somewhere in the building a few minutes ago, but it was faint, nowhere near them. They figured it was probably one of the gunmen from the street getting nervous or trying to scare them out.
Archer was at the window, looking down, trying to make out where his boss, Josh and Marquez were in the crowd. Being on the south side, they had limited view of the east side of the street where most of the rescue effort was gathered.
He examined the cross street on the corner of 135th, but couldn’t see them.
‘Did you hear the chopper?’ Shepherd asked.
‘Yeah, we did,’ he said. ‘Was it ours, or Federal?’
‘Archer, listen to me,’ Shepherd said, urgency in his voice. ‘They aren’t-‘
Suddenly the call cut out. Archer frowned.
‘Sir? Hello? Sir?’
The call was dead. Beside him, the same thing had just happened to Foster, on the line with Dalton. Archer tried calling back but he couldn’t get through. He checked the display and saw all four bars had disappeared, no service provider.
‘Shit,’ he said. ‘Perfect. No signal.’
Foster frowned. ‘They must have disabled the cell phones.’
‘How the hell could they do that?’ Barlow asked. ‘They’re street punks.’
Foster walked over to the main phone and grabbed it off the receiver. There was no dial tone. He glanced over at the group, who were looking at him, a hint of unease creeping into the room.
‘Main line’s dead too.’
Downstairs, the man from the basement reappeared without the axe, nodding towards the man who Braeten had already identified to be the leader of the response team.
‘Outside line is cut. They’re not gonna be talking to anyone any time soon.’
‘Any other ways in down there?’
‘No, sir.’
The leader walked over towards Braeten. The two men were around the same size but with his balaclava, the response team leader was anonymous and therefore more intimidating. Braeten didn’t know if these were the guys who’d hired him or a secondary team sent in to finish the job, but he hid his unease. He wasn’t comfortable meeting his clients in person and made it a rule never to do so. It kept things professional. He also didn’t like them knowing exactly what he looked like; he was just as expendable as the guys he was hired to kill.
He looked at the man’s eyes through the eyeholes of the black balaclava, which stared straight back at him impassively. He was solidly built, broader and more thickset than Braeten and his guys. The way he was staring was pissing Braeten off.
‘Take a photo,’ Braeten said. ‘It’ll last longer.’
The man frowned. ‘What?’
Braeten instantly recognised his voice. He was the man from the original call, the man who’d hired him. The client.
‘We did our best.’
‘Is that right? Did your best include lighting up half of the Upper West Side?’
‘We almost got her.’
‘Instead you attracted the attention of every cop in Manhattan.’
‘We tagged one of their people.’
‘Is he the one I want dead?’
Braeten didn’t answer. The man kept staring
at him.
‘You knew where they were. You had an entire afternoon to get to them. But you decided to start a gunfight in the street and then get involved in a car chase across town.’
The anonymous leader shook his head.
‘I’m trying to think of a way you could have screwed this up even more. I’m struggling.’
Braeten didn’t respond. He knew the man was right, but he didn’t apologise. They maintained eye contact, like two fighters squaring off before the bell. The lobby had gone silent. Every man in the room listened to the exchange, their hands wrapped around pistol grips, fingers on triggers. The tension was palpable. If someone made the wrong move, the Marshal wouldn’t be the only gunshot man in the building.
‘The information we gave you was golden,’ the leader continued. ‘You knew where she’d be and what their movements would be. You think that sort of information is easy to come by?’
Braeten didn’t reply.
‘What more did you want? Her head on a chopping block and an axe in your hand?’
‘I’m sorry,’ Braeten said. ‘And that’s the last time I’m saying it.’
The two men stood eye to eye for a long moment.
Then the leader turned away and the room relaxed slightly. Braeten glanced at the entrance and saw one of the response team had pulled the desk back slightly and drawn a series of translucent tripwires across the front of the door. Behind the wires were five rectangular Claymore mines, anti-personnel weapons that fired hundreds of metal ball bearings. He’d placed them this side of the desk, so anyone coming in wouldn’t see them before it was too late. Braeten had seen the mines before in some Russell Crowe movie; they were activated either by tripwire or clacker and made one thing certain.
Whoever was on the wrong side when they went off would have enough holes punched through them to grate cheese.
‘So what now?’ Braeten asked the leader, making the point that he wasn’t intimidated.
