by Tom Barber
Archer stayed where he was, his hand inches from the pistol, looking at Barlow.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ he asked quietly.
‘Toss the guns,’ Barlow said. ‘Or you die.’
Archer stared into his eyes for a moment. They were wide, but in control. Knowing he had no other option, he reached around and took the USP from the back of his waistband. He had no choice. A man doesn’t have many when a loaded gun is aimed straight at him.
He threw it to the carpet, the weapon landing with a thud.
‘And the rifle.’
Archer loosened it off his shoulders and placed it down carefully, the assault rifle joining the USP, never taking his eyes off Barlow, who stared back impassively. He then pointed his weapon at the women.
‘You too, Vargas,’ he said. ‘The rifle and the pistol.’
‘Jared, what the hell are you doing?’
‘Toss the weapons.’
After a brief pause, Vargas complied. Barlow shifted his weapon back to Archer, beckoning him to move.
‘Join the others, pretty boy.’
With no alternative, Archer walked over towards the other side of the room, Barlow taking a step back so he was out of arm’s reach as Archer passed. Vargas had Isabel behind her back, protecting her. It didn’t matter though. With four unarmed people against a loaded USP, there was only going to be one winner. Through the floor, they could all hear the sound of the smashing and shouting.
It was getting louder.
It was getting nearer.
Watching Barlow closely, Archer shifted the weight to the balls of his feet, slowly, ready to pounce on him and try to knock the USP from his hand. He couldn’t shoot all four of them that quickly; it would take him time to work the trigger and aim. Barlow saw what he was doing and aimed the gun straight at him.
‘Don’t even think about it,’ he said. ‘Or you’ll be the first to die.’
‘It was you,’ Vargas said to Barlow. ‘The ambush on the street. That’s how they knew. You tipped them off.’
‘Yes. It was me.’
‘You son of a bitch.’
‘You think I had a choice?’
‘There’s always a choice.’
‘These people aren’t who you think they are.’
Pause.
‘How much do we make a year, Alice? Forty five grand? Before tax? And for this? You’ve been doing this for weeks. I’ve been doing this for years with no reward. You should see the amount they offered me. I couldn’t say no. Putting my life on the line every day for this shit? No; not anymore.’
‘You son of a bitch,’ Vargas repeated, keeping Isabel behind her.
‘I’m not going to die here. If I take you all out, they’ll leave me be.’ He focused on Vargas. ‘I didn’t want it to come to this, Alice. Really. I thought this would have been ended sooner.’
They all heard the noise of the mob getting even closer.
They were now on this corridor.
‘It was supposed to be smooth as clockwork out there on the street,’ Barlow said. ‘No-one else was meant to get hurt. Especially not Jack.’
‘And Foster. You killed him, Barlow.’
‘Bullshit.’
‘It’s your fault. You may as well have pulled the trigger yourself.’
‘Shut your mouth!’ he screamed. He shifted his gaze to Archer. ‘You had to stick your nose in and screw it up. You’re going to die for that, asshole. I hope it was worth it.’
Archer didn’t reply. He’d slid a hand behind him very slowly while Barlow had been distracted by Vargas.
He grabbed a handful of curtain and bunched his fist.
‘Anyway, I’m doing you a favour,’ Barlow said. ‘This’ll be quick. You don’t even want to think about what they’d do to you if they found you alive.’
He looked at Vargas and shook his head.
‘I’m sorry, Alice. You just weren’t cut out for this.’
Archer suddenly swept his arm across and dragged the curtain open. Pushing the others to one side, he dove to the floor.
Standing in the middle of the room, Barlow watched in bemusement, staring incredulously at him. ‘What the hell are you doing?’ he asked, chuckling. ‘You think that’s going to help?’
Then he realised. He looked up and out of the sitting room window.
His smile vanished.
Eighty yards away, Joker had seen the sudden movement in the 8th floor window.
Looking down the scope, he saw one of the Marshals standing there, a gun in his hand.
Barlow.
He was their inside man but he needed to be eliminated.
He centred the crosshairs on the man’s face and squeezed the trigger.
Barlow took the slug in the forehead, a small hole smashing through the window from the bullet, his head blowing apart. Vargas had pulled Isabel close and covered her so she missed seeing the impact, but she still screamed at the sound.
Barlow collapsed onto the carpet, spilling his weapon, and ended up splayed out in a heap on the rug. Not wasting a second and staying low, Archer belly crawled forward and dragged Carson from the sofa again. He retrieved his weapons whilst Vargas grabbed hers, keeping their heads well down and out of sight from the window.
Outside the apartment, the thumping and shouting was so loud it had to be only a few doors away.
With Carson’s USP in the back of his belt, the M4A1 in his hands, Archer crawled as fast as he could through to next door until he was out of sight of the window and then ran across the room, listening to the noise beyond the door and refrigerator. The kitchen curtains were drawn, protecting him from the sniper’s vision, but he stayed to the side just in case the shooter tried his luck. He heard a gang of people outside, shouting and smashing their way down the hallway. A dollar opportunity. The response team must have put a bounty on them and found some recruits from inside the building, doubling or tripling their numbers.
He spun and looked at the group waiting there, who’d followed his example and crawled out to the kitchen then got back to their feet, protected from the sniper’s vision by the kitchen curtains. Helen and Vargas were dragging Carson, who was supported between them, hanging limp, Isabel standing beside Vargas and looking terrified. A helpless child, an innocent nurse, a critically wounded doped-up man and a US Marshal. Behind the door, the whooping, shouting and smashing was so loud it was almost in the room with them.
‘They’re coming for us,’ he said.
Vargas lowered Carson then unslung her M4A1 and took off the safety catch, aiming the weapon at the door and keeping Isabel behind her.
‘Get back,’ she ordered.
‘Oh my God,’ Helen said, sheer terror in her eyes. ‘We’re trapped!’
TWENTY SEVEN
The horde kicked open 8H and poured inside. A black guy was lying on the couch, asleep with a bottle of whiskey on the floor beside his hand. The noise woke him and he stirred to find a gang standing over him, staring, two knives and a pistol shoved into his face. As he obviously wasn’t who they were looking for, they turned away and left him alone, searching the rest of the apartment. The guy stayed where he was, blinking, totally confused.
The pace was picking up all the time; their initial cynicism and distrust of this offer had vanished, replaced by mob fever and money lust. Twenty grand a head was a hell of a lot of cash and they all wanted a piece of it. They’d almost cleared the corridor. Although they’d encountered a few people in the apartments they’d barged into, most of them were abandoned and empty. There was no sign of the targets. They’d find them though. There was nowhere to hide. They knew their own building better than anyone else.
They piled back out of the door, heading for the apartment opposite. A big guy took the lead and didn’t hesitate, kicking the lock off 8F as hard as he could. The door was no match for him and it splintered back. There were five apartments left to search on this floor. Some of the mob decided to give them a miss and ran into the south stairwell, head
ing up to 9 and getting a head start.
As he checked 8F with the rest of the gang, Castle’s earpiece started going off. It sounded like Joker. He was shouting something, but with the noise of the gang, Castle couldn’t make out what he was saying.
‘What?’ he shouted back. ‘Say again?’
Inside 8A, Archer and Vargas checked their magazine and stepped back from the door, ready to go down firing. Behind them, Helen and Isabel stood there unprotected and terrified.
Archer flicked the firing mode to fully automatic, knowing this was it, their last stand.
C’mon, you bastards. Let’s see how many of you I can take with me.
‘Wait!’ Helen said. ‘What about the old laundry chute?’
‘What chute?’ Vargas said, not moving her aim from the door.
‘I think there’s a chute in the bathroom. It used to drop down to a laundry room somewhere below. All the apartments have them. They haven’t been used in years, but it might still be there.’
Archer ran into the bathroom and saw she was right. There was an old grille covering a chute just above floor level, to the right of the bath. He hadn’t noticed it before. He tried to rip off the cover but it wouldn’t budge. He kicked it as hard as he could twice and it loosened enough for him to get his fingers around the top. He wrenched it off, tossing it to one side.
The chute dropped down to a faint light a couple of floors down.
It was their only option other than to stay and die.
‘Let’s go!’
Behind him, Vargas and Helen carried Carson into the bathroom, shuffling in awkwardly under his weight. ‘C’mon, honey!’ Vargas said to Isabel, who followed them into the room, frightened and looking back at the front door of the apartment.
Hearing the mob so close they had to be just next door, Archer ran out of the bathroom and into the kitchen. Reaching behind the stove, he grabbed a pipe and pulled with all his might.
It ripped away from the wall.
There was a quiet hiss as gas started filling the apartment.
He snatched something resting on the counter, then sprinted back towards the sitting room, ducking low and grabbing the second thing he needed from the window sill.
Pushing his way out through the crowd, Castle ran towards 8A, Joker shouting over the radio that the group were in the 8th floor south-west apartment. The lead members of the posse saw him running and followed, scenting money and determined to be in on the kill.
One of them forced his way ahead and pounded on the door but Castle didn’t hesitate, kicking the lock hard and smashing it apart, the door giving way slightly. The men tried to barge their way in, but something was blocking from the other side. It was heavy.
Behind them, other members of the gang joined them, using their combined weight to force the door back.
Inside the bathroom, they were going down the laundry chute one by one. Helen and Isabel went first, Helen holding the girl tight in her arms. It was a diagonal drop, not too steep but enough to carry them down without any difficulty, and once they let go they slid out of sight, headed to the 6th floor.
Vargas helped Carson into the chute, a goofy, heroin-induced smile on his face, totally oblivious to what was going on and the level of danger he was in. She let him go and he slid down, disappearing. Climbing inside, she could hear smashing and shouting at the door outside.
‘Archer, let’s go!’ she hissed.
Just behind her, he locked the door. Taking one of the green grenades Vargas had stolen from one of the two gunmen upstairs, he slid the ring of the pin carefully over the door handle, then taped the grenade to the door frame with duct tape he’d grabbed from a drawer in the kitchen. The gas was already filling the apartment, flowing out from the severed pipe. He could smell it in the bathroom as it seeped under the door.
Vargas was half in the chute, holding on, waiting for him.
Outside, they heard the door smash open, the refrigerator falling down with a crash.
‘Let’s go!’
He turned and ran towards the chute. She let go and slid out of sight. Jumping inside, he pushed himself off and followed her.
Splintering their way in, the horde poured through the door into the kitchen of 8A. There were twelve of them, more arriving every second. Castle saw the door to the bathroom was shut; he smelt something in the air. He sniffed and smiled, then turned to the gang, who’d also picked up on it.
‘No guns.’
A lot of them were armed with bats and they didn’t wait, rushing into the sitting room.
‘We got something!’
Castle ran forward and saw a man slumped on the floor, blood and brains sprayed on the wall behind him. Deputy Marshal Jared Barlow, their inside man. One of the mob saw his pistol on the carpet and ran forward to claim it. Another noticed the badge on his hip and ripped it loose along with the set of handcuffs tucked in a holster beside it.
‘They’re in there,’ Joker’s voice said in Castle’s earpiece. ‘I lost sight of them!’
‘This is Bishop. I’m on my way!’
Swinging his M4A1 around to his back, Castle grabbed a knife from a rack in the kitchen and moved to the bathroom door, wanting to end this once and for all himself. One of the thugs was already reaching for the handle but Castle grabbed him by the collar and pulled him back. He moved up close to the door, listening. Smelling the gas in the air, he smiled. The Marshals thought they were being smart by rupturing the pipe but the gas meant they couldn’t use their weapons now either, otherwise the spark would kill them all. They were as good as unarmed.
And this was now fifteen on four.
He tried the handle. The door was locked.
Behind him, the mob waited expectantly, weapons in their hands, ready to finish this off and earn their money.
Castle stepped back and kicked the door as hard as he could.
Archer had just made it to the bottom of the chute, two floors down on 6. The two women and Isabel were waiting for him across the old laundry room, with Carson on the floor beside them. The ancient grille that had blocked the chute had been kicked out of the way by Helen, the first one down.
Archer landed on an old dryer pushed up against the wall under the chute. Scrambling over it, he rushed forward and covered Vargas and Isabel, diving to the floor.
‘Get down!’
The bathroom was empty. As two others followed him in, the group glanced around. Castle saw a chute in the wall to the right of the bath, the old grille that had covered it dumped to one side. Shit. They must have escaped down it.
As he stepped forward, something rolled across the floor and came to a stop by his foot.
He looked down.
Outside, Josh and Marquez were with the ESU Lieutenant when there was an enormous explosion from the 8th floor of the building.
As everyone ducked instinctively, a south-facing apartment erupted into a huge fireball, the windows blown out and fire billowing into the night, the wave of heat hitting everyone on the street, causing them to recoil. Josh shielded his face.
‘Jesus Christ!’
In the laundry room, Archer covered Vargas and Isabel as fire roared down the chute. It burst into the room, an intense ball of heat that went over their heads, all of them lying face-down on the ground with their eyes squeezed shut. The fire sucked back up the chute almost as soon as it had arrived and the building alarm erupted again, that familiar wailing siren filling the air.
The group stayed low, coughing from the smoke, the laundry room dark and hazy around them.
Upstairs, the 8th floor corridor was filled with smoke, the fire alarm going off and echoing through the building. Bishop had been running down the corridor from the north side when the explosion had happened. It had thrown him back down the hall, hitting him like a giant punch.
Staggering to his feet and blinking, he lurched his way towards the doorway of the apartment and looked at the devastation ahead of him, his ears ringing, smoke and dust stinging his eyes. The explo
sion had annihilated the interior of the apartment, the air filled with smoke, small parts of it on fire. No one was coming out. He tried to push the pressel switch on his vest but lurched to one side and vomited, dropping his assault rifle and falling to his knees. He felt as if he’d been hit by a freight train.
‘What the hell’s going on up there?’ a voice asked in his earpiece. ‘Report!’
‘They’re gone,’ Bishop said, his voice raspy, coughing and wiping his mouth with his sleeve and sucking in deep breaths as his lungs fought for air. ‘They’re gone.’
‘The targets?’
‘No. The back up.’
‘How many?’
Bishop coughed, trying to clear his head and get his bearings.
‘All of them. Castle’s dead too.’
His radio went silent.
Turning, he staggered down the corridor towards a fire extinguisher on a bracket on the wall, the fire alarm echoing around him, smoke still billowing from inside the destroyed apartment and burning the oxygen in the air.
TWENTY EIGHT
In the old laundry room on 6, the group were still coughing and recovering from the dust and smoke, which had flowed down the chute into the room and only now was withdrawing. It felt as if the explosion had rocked the entire building. The fire alarm in the corridors were still going off but suddenly went quiet, the echoes of the shrill siren reverberating in the air as the sound slowly died away.
Lifting his head and looking through the dusty haze, Archer saw rows of old washing machines and dryers standing against the walls around the room. The diagonal chute from 8A had deposited them on the east side of the building, facing all the cops on the street, the wrong side for the sniper who was firing from the south. He pushed himself to his feet then moved over to the window, risking a quick look. It was still a sea of people, cars and trucks down there, a hub of activity. Foster’s Tahoe and the car the street gunmen had pursued them in still where they’d been dumped several hours ago. Blinking and coughing, he tried to make out Shepherd, Josh and Marquez in the crowd, but couldn’t see them. Giving up, he turned back to the room.
