by Tom Barber
And now, they were in the deepest of shit.
Just over a year ago, a member of First Team, Hayworth, had been leaving Miami and SRT for Arizona and they’d needed a replacement. Hayworth had been a choirboy, Calvin and his team working around him for just over a year, and they were all sick of doing so. They wanted an officer who they wouldn’t need to hide everything from; it took too much time and energy so they decided to go fishing from the pool.
Out of all the current prospective candidates who’d put in applications and were accepted for SRT training school at the time, Vargas had stood out. She’d seemed legitimate; five foot four, a buck-twenty with a nice ass and a bad history. He and Denton had done extensive checks on her background but she seemed to be the real deal. She’d transferred from Orlando and had a high-ranking friend who put in a good word and got her a position at SRT school. There were rumours that she’d been investigated for racketeering, though there was nothing on the file.
She was abrasive and tough, and Calvin had been completely deceived; at her sit-down interview with the committee, he’d watched her closely. The physical aspect of their work meant there were fewer female applicants than male, but she looked hardy. She wasn’t green or unabatedly loyal to the Department like many other recruits. He’d requested she join his team and after a cautious feeling-out process, Calvin decided to test her and see if she could be trusted. If she reacted badly or refused, they’d made plans for that. However, she’d been game, not surprised at what they were up to and saying she’d keep her mouth shut if they made sure she wasn’t left out. With that, he shrugged off any remaining doubt.
It proved to be the biggest error he’d ever made.
In late November, Calvin and his team had been arrested on a night raid at each of their homes. That pint-size package of misery had buried five of Calvin’s ex-colleagues, and got every single current officer on his team brought in wearing handcuffs. It turned out the Department had been investigating a case against them for corruption and had brought in an Anti-Corruption task force from Internal Affairs to assist, more heat on the SRT First Team than the midday Florida sun. They got out on bail by the skin of their teeth, largely because of a top flight lawyer but assisted by the fact that prior to the arrests they’d all had great reputations. They’d been suspended for four months, and would remain so until the case went to trial in eleven days. Vargas had ruined a lot of lives by what she did. And if you do that, you’d better sleep with a gun under your pillow and one eye open for the rest of your life.
By the time the team realised she was the mole, Vargas had vanished; she’d left Miami, with no-one having any idea where she was. The moment he was granted bail, Calvin had set out to find her. As the collection of evidence continued, he redoubled his efforts, feeling the pressure mounting and knowing he was running out of time. He spent a lot of money attempting to track her down; he even hired a cartel team to find her and take care of the situation, but she was nowhere to be found. It wasn’t just personal; as he was interrogated and questioned, his entire record as a police officer being examined, he realised that the entire case was largely dependent on her. His precautions of keeping a clean record had paid off; without her sworn testimony, the Department couldn’t make anything stick.
However, he’d almost given up hope of finding her and resigned to his fate. Then, eight days ago, they got lucky. Ridiculously lucky, all things considered. Denton had made it home after a long-ass day of questioning by IA and switched on the television last week, flicking onto the news.
Vargas had just made a huge mistake.
He’d called Calvin who’d flicked onto the news and seen the shot. Vargas was with a security team, US Marshals or Feds, ushering a small girl into a car in what looked like Police Plaza in New York. She was in the background, but it was her. Calvin might have been under review but he still had some powerful friends. Two pay offs later he discovered that Vargas was now qualified and operating as a US Marshal until their case went to trial. She’d been transferred to a three man team protecting some kid who also had a target on her chest from an on-going case in New York.
They needed to act fast, making the most of an opportunity they never should have had. Calvin knew how much those folks made; not a great deal, especially considering the danger they were constantly exposed to. He pulled files on the agents and figured Barlow was their safest bet. As it turned out, the man was in a lot of debt, largely due to the fact that he’d recently been divorced and had been hit with some hefty maintenance payments.
The timing couldn’t have been better. When they’d put an offer on the table, he’d snatched at it and told them everything; schedules, routes, routines. Who the kid they were protecting was. What car they were driving. He did all this on the condition that he get paid first and only Vargas was taken out, none of his guys taking a hit. He didn’t know her and had no affinity with her. They could cover it up to make it look like she got caught in the crossfire trying to get the kid. It could be blamed on the Irish crew trying to get the child. Better and better.
Now they had a plan, they needed execution. Calvin had hired a hit-team one of the Miami cartels liked to use for any work they wanted carried out against New York clients who stepped out of line. Nonetheless he’d also insisted his entire team be in the area as back up, just in case the shit hit the fan. This was a one-off opportunity and the stakes were too high to just leave it all to an unknown group. He’d ordered the entire team up to New York for today, Sunday, all of them buying off alibis as Calvin used a pool of their stolen cash to obtain weapons, clothing, tactical gear and potential transportation.
He’d had to tread carefully; his phone was tapped and there were cops watching his house and following him around Miami in case he tried to run. He’d ditched them, the same as his guys, by going to a Panthers hockey game last night and disappearing into the crowd. They’d had two cars waiting for them outside; they floored it and headed up the East Coast overnight. The journey had taken twenty one hours, but they made it, holing up at their safe house in New Jersey where they found their equipment, pilot and chopper waiting. Calvin had paid damn good money for everything to be there, working anonymously with an East Coast cartel he knew of from his SRT experience. The pilot had seen all their faces, but he wouldn’t give them up; he’d been paid well, plus he was more crooked than they were.
As it turned out, all his preparation had proved more than necessary. Braeten and his team had failed. Vargas and the Marshals had taken cover in a building.
If she was going to die tonight, they were going to have to kill her themselves.
They’d geared up, choppered out and made their entry, but so far the whole operation had been a disaster. Five of his guys had been killed, along with a stack of residents inside this dump. An ESU team and pilot had been taken out, which meant there were going to be huge ramifications and consequences once this was done. And worst of all, Vargas was still breathing. Some asshole they hadn’t known about was helping her and it was clear from the body count that he knew what he was doing. What was supposed to be a simple insert, eliminate and extract was now turning into a situation quickly spiralling out of control. And if the NYPD got inside before they could gather their dead, they would be making some fascinating discoveries once CSU started fingerprinting the corpses in the combat fatigues.
Like how they were all Miami PD officers currently being investigated for corruption.
Calvin was already working out his escape. He knew that even after Vargas was killed and the fear of prosecution removed he could never go back to Miami. His five guys who’d been killed here tonight had put paid to any return. He had no family, and had over three million dollars in a private off-shore Cayman account. When the bitch was finally gone, they’d chopper out and disperse in New Jersey before the cops could get to them. The pilot worked in the drug trade; he spent his life circumnavigating the US Coastguard and dropping off cargo. He’d buy them a window of escape, however brief.
Calvin wou
ld then head north and make his way to the Canadian border. He’d be a wanted man but he knew how to disappear. Even if they put two and two together early and realised he’d organised this, they’d never find him. They’d search for him in the south first, figuring he’d head back to Florida and lay low or maybe try for Cuba or Mexico, staking out his apartment, his girlfriend’s place, any of his old haunts. Truth be told Calvin was sick of the heat; he’d lived down south his whole life. He’d go somewhere where there was no risk of anyone recognising him, and he could live off the fruits of his corruption for the rest of his life.
But none of that could happen until they took care of Vargas. Calvin cared about his men a hell of a lot. They were his brothers; she’d had a hand in killing five of them tonight. Now, it was more than personal.
He looked over at his team beside him in the corridor. They all looked tired and demoralised, and rightly so. None of this had gone to plan. And once they left here they’d have to get out of the country immediately, every man for himself.
‘So what now?’ Knight said.
‘We need to get the hell out of here,’ Spades answered. ‘We’re in so much shit, I say we call the chopper and bail. Screw Vargas.’
‘What are you, a pussy?’ Knight hissed. ‘Five of our guys died and you just want to quit?’
‘You think the Feds outside are going to wait much longer?’
‘She’s taken out half our team, asshole. Friends of yours. That alone means she has to die.’
‘If the NYPD get in, so will we.’
‘Shut up,’ Calvin ordered, as the two men confronted each other. ‘Let me think for a moment.’
Silence. He thought of his men who’d been killed; Queen, Clubs, Hearts, Pawn and Castle. Markowski, Patterson, Taylor, Gibbons and Kosick.
‘Taylor and Gibbons were taken out on 22, right?’
Knight nodded. ‘Yeah. Both took a burst to the chest.’
‘So what the hell were the Marshals doing up there?’
His men looked at each other and shrugged. ‘The roof?’ Spades suggested.
King looked over at Diamonds, who’d first discovered the two dead men with Knight. ‘You see anything up there?’
‘Nothing. Just the door to the roof. Only other thing I saw was a fire box down the corridor.’
‘Fire box?’
‘Yeah. Red thing. Stuck on the wall.’
Calvin’s eyes widened; he moved over to the building chart on the wall inside the office and traced it with his finger.
‘Holy shit.’
‘What?’ Knight asked.
‘There’s a fire phone on 22. That’s what they were doing. We missed a phone line.’
THIRTY FIVE
With Isabel between them, Archer and Vargas were in the south stairwell, just passing 13 as they made their way upstairs, Vargas clearing ahead with her M4A1, Archer doing the same behind. They’d left Carson on the couch in the apartment with his Glock and a promise they’d be back soon. The cheap heroin had worn off now and his pain was becoming more extreme once again. He’d been lucid enough to understand them, nodding at their instruction whilst gritting his teeth in pain.
As they moved up to 14, Archer checked the corridor through the window on the door. Empty. He was about to continue sweeping behind them when he noticed something out of the corner of his eye.
Someone had dumped a cardboard box on the stairwell landing ahead of them.
Suddenly, his arm shot out, past the child, grabbing Vargas by the leg.
‘Don’t move!’
Vargas froze.
He was looking down at her feet. Her body not moving a fraction, she followed his gaze.
A thread was drawn across the stairs, one end wrapped around a small nail driven into the wall, the other tied around the railing that ran up the stairwell. It was almost imperceptible, a translucent piece of wire.
Vargas’s shin was pushed right up against it, the wire bent back, about to give.
‘Don’t move, either of you,’ he repeated.
They followed the wire with their eyes. It ran directly under the cardboard box just above them resting against the wall of the stairwell. Taking the utmost care, Archer moved past Isabel, stepped over the wire and approached the box. He grasped the edges and lifted it away slowly.
Underneath was a Claymore mine. Front Towards Enemy was printed on the side facing the trio, the blasting cap attached to the tripwire.
‘Holy shit,’ Vargas said.
Vargas eased her leg back slowly, the tension on the wire loosening a touch, taking the pressure off the blasting cap. The wire unbroken, they both exhaled. They made eye contact; she gave him a shaky smile and a nod of thanks.
He went to speak.
Before he had a chance, the stairwell suddenly erupted with the sound of automatic gunfire as plaster and dust sprayed violently from the walls around them. Archer and Vargas fell to the side, taken completely off guard. As they did, Isabel stumbled, losing her balance. Vargas lunged for her, but just missed her, and the girl fell backwards.
Archer watched in horror as Isabel tumbled down the stairwell, coming to a hard jarring halt on 13. Vargas went to go after her but another burst of rapid gunfire made her recoil, keeping her where she was. They were sprayed with chalk and dust as bullets shredded the walls. Three guys in camo fatigues were working their way up the stairs. Although Archer and Vargas were now firing back , they were hampered by the fear of hitting Isabel and were forced to withdraw, being totally exposed in the stairwell. The attacking fire was too strong. The onslaught forced them to duck into 14, no other choice. The wall where they’d been standing was shredded to bits by gunfire, dust, chips of plaster and chalk falling down around the Claymore on the landing.
Risking a glance round the wall, Archer watched as one of the cops grabbed Isabel, scooping her up.
‘Vargas!’ the girl screamed, helpless.
As the man turned and ran off with her, the girl’s screaming audible in the breaks in gunfire, Archer and Vargas ducked out and fired at the other two through the gap in the middle of the long flight of stairs.
‘No!’ Vargas screamed.
Below, Isabel fought and thrashed under his arm but the guy was too strong. He disappeared down the 13 corridor and out of sight, closely followed by one of the other men. Archer and Vargas went to follow, but the third man had stayed where he was, keeping up his assault rifle fire, forcing Archer and Vargas back behind cover.
They heard Isabel’s screaming from the floor below. It was fading. The remaining gunman kept firing up on them, sensing an opportunity to end this himself. Archer went to return fire but his M4A1 clicked dry.
‘Shit!’
He snapped back, plaster spraying off the wall near him, and reached to his pocket but he was out of ammo. Beside him, Vargas was also out. He dropped the M4A1 and drew Carson’s USP from his waistband, taking off the safety. As more gunfire ripped into the wall, Archer suddenly remembered the Claymore on the landing in the stairwell.
With the gunman stalking up the stairs towards them, still firing, Archer fired off a few rounds with his USP, grabbed his empty M4A1 and moving to the edge of the corridor, hurled the assault rifle up the stairs at the tripwire.
Whilst it was still in the air, he grabbed Vargas and dove to the floor with her down the corridor.
The mine exploded; there was a thump and then hundreds of tinkles of metal ball bearings as they smashed around the stairwell. Eventually they came to a halt, some rolling down the corridor, joining Archer and Vargas on the floor.
Then suddenly, it was quiet.
The gunfire in the stairwell had stopped.
THIRTY SIX
Archer and Vargas were alone in the 14 floor corridor, chalk, dust and cordite in the air, their ears ringing, shell casings and ball bearings littering the stairs and the edges of the hallway.
The mine had done its job and annihilated the guy in the stairwell. Archer moved out from the corridor, down the flight and
retrieved the dead man’s weapon, which had clattered further down the stairs. The dead guy had one spare magazine, which Archer stuffed into the pocket of his jeans, pushing Carson’s USP into the back of his waistband with the safety on. Everything else on the gunman’s person had been destroyed; he’d taken hundreds of metal ball bearings front-on which had smashed holes in both him and his equipment. The used plates of the blown Claymore were scattered on the steps in front of him, joining the other metallic debris and the body slumped down the stairwell. The white, chipped wall behind him looked like a horror movie set.
Archer ran back up the stairs to the 14 corridor. Vargas was kneeling, tears streaming down her face as she took gasping breaths, in momentary shock. He knelt beside her, thinking fast whilst checking left and right, making sure no one else got the drop on them.
They were exposed either side of the hallway. It would only take one unexpected arrival and burst of fire to put them both down.
Vargas was sobbing, covering her mouth, tears sliding down through the dust and cuts on her face. ‘They took her,’ she whispered under her palm. ‘They took her. They’ll kill her!’
Kneeling beside her, Archer frantically searched for a solution. He was drawing blanks. He and Vargas were outnumbered, low on ammo and now the response team had Isabel. He continued to sweep back and forth, protecting them both sides whilst desperately trying to think what to do next.
Suddenly, he heard a noise from the north side and spun, the sights of the M4A1 trained down the corridor.
He walked down towards it, willing one of the response team to appear.
Nothing.
‘I know how we can end this,’ Vargas said, from behind him, still sobbing. Archer turned. She’d drawn her Glock and was holding it to her temple. Her hand was shaking, tears running down her smoke-stained face, creating small paths in the dirt and dust.
‘If I die, you two and Jack will live,’ she said, her chin quivering. ‘They’ll let you go.’
He didn’t move. Her finger was tight on the trigger, the harsh metallic barrel against her smooth skin.
