by Tom Barber
Pause.
‘You got four minutes to get down here, bitch. Hands up, no weapon, backing down. Surrender or we start on the kid. We’ll make it last all night. You can listen to every second.’
Pause.
‘The clock’s ticking. 3.59. 3:58.’
Vargas looked at Archer, total fear and abject hopelessness in her eyes. She blinked, tears sliding down her sooty cheeks, cutting paths through the dust.
‘I have to go.’
THIRTY SEVEN
Knight and Bishop were in the south stairwell, Braeten and his guy down the other end of the corridor in the north. Braeten was crouched just inside the 1st floor corridor, aiming up the stairwell with his pistol, hearing the leader’s voice echo around the building. Beside him, his guy kneeled, pulling out the mag of his AK and checking it was full. He slotted it back inside and aimed at the same spot as Braeten, exactly where anyone coming down the stairs would appear. Finally, hours after the shit storm on the street, they were going to finish this job. Braeten was keen to kill the woman himself, more out of hurt pride than anything else. Never in a million years would he have thought this operation would be this difficult. A shitload people had died tonight, including Hayes, but she was still alive.
But not for long.
They waited. It had been almost three minutes, but there was no sign of the female Marshal yet. Braeten smiled in anticipation; he hoped she came down this side. He’d never killed a Fed before.
‘One minute, bitch!’ the leader’s voice shouted over the intercom.
‘Time to earn your freedom,’ Braeten whispered to the man beside him, who nodded, pulling the stock and racking a round. They were ready, just waiting for the woman to appear, anticipation in their trigger fingers. She wouldn’t just leave the kid to suffer. She was a woman, full of maternal instinct and all that bullshit. They kept the sights of their weapons trained on the stairwell, their ears straining to hear any indication that she was coming down.
But no-one came.
‘Thirty seconds!’
They waited.
‘C’mon bitch,’ he whispered, preparing for a last second rush.
Nothing.
‘Ten!’
‘Nine!’
‘Eight.’
Not a damn thing.
‘Three. Two. One!’
Silence.
‘Anything?’ the leader shouted from the doorway to the office.
‘No sign,’ Braeten shouted back.
‘None here either,’ someone called from the south stairwell team down the hall.
Braeten watched the leader disappear back into the office.
‘OK, bitch, your choice. We’ll start with her fingernails. She’ll scream so loud the cops on the street will hear it.’
Down the hallway, King released the intercom and pushed his pressel switch
‘Spades, get the kid up here.’
He waited and smiled. No way could Vargas hold out with the girl screaming over the intercom and filling the hallways. He meant what he’d threatened; Vargas was going to die tonight. That was the only way this was going to end and he’d do whatever it took to ensure that happened. Once the girl’s screams started echoing down the corridors, Vargas would lose it. She’d run down, full of guilt and despair, and eat a magazine from one of his men or the hit-team on the north side. The asshole with her would die too; not because he knew anything, but because he’d stayed with her and helped kill Markowski, Patterson, Taylor, Gibbons and Kosick. He’d pay for that. Calvin knew the type from Miami; heroic pricks, full of honour. He’d had to work round assholes like that when they were assigned to his task force, people like Hayworth.
Calvin smiled again, but it faded when he realised Spades hadn’t appeared with the kid yet. He pushed down the pressel on his uniform again.
‘Spades, get up here. I’m waiting.’
He waited.
Nothing.
‘Spades, get your thumb out of your ass and respond.’
Nothing. Grabbing his M4A1, King ran to the south stairwell, joining Knight and Bishop who were still aiming up the stairwell. ‘Stay where you are,’ he ordered, running down the stairs to the lobby.
When he got there and ripped open the door, he saw Spades.
He was slumped on the floor in a limp heap, his weapon beside him.
And the girl was gone.
THIRTY EIGHT
Inside the elevator shaft, Archer and Vargas climbed as fast as they could, gripping the steel bars of the service ladder on the wall, moving up and up. On Archer’s back, Isabel clung tight like a small limpet, her eyes squeezed shut as she held onto him. The rungs of the ladder led all the way up to 22. Aside from weak light from the panels in the doors on each floor, the shaft was pretty dark save for one source of light from above, the doors on 14 which had been dragged open all the way.
Archer knew that they’d have both stairwells covered, waiting for Vargas to appear. He was never going to let her walk to her death. The tears in her eyes and the satisfaction in the voice of the man on the intercom as he described what he was going to do to the child had lit something in him, a fury he’d only ever experienced once before. When it had struck him back then, he’d beaten a man to death with a door. No mercy, no other emotion except white-hot rage.
As the voice counted down, Vargas preparing to go to her death, Archer remembered Helen’s voice from earlier when Foster had asked her about the building.
The elevator’s been busted for weeks.
With just over three minutes to go, he’d raced into an open apartment on 14 and reappeared moments later with a thick knife he’d found in the kitchen. Sprinting down the corridor to the elevator shaft, he’d worked the blade in between the doors, opening them a fraction and releasing the lock, then put his fingers into the gap and prised them all the way apart.
Tossing the blade to the floor, he looked down into the darkness, all the way to the basement.
He’d turned back to Vargas who was watching him; she realised what he was thinking.
Inside the shaft was a service ladder to the right of the doors that seemed to lead all the way down. Slinging his M4A1 over his shoulder, he’d swung onto the ladder and started to climb down rapidly, Vargas following him and doing the same. The voice on the intercom was muffled but still audible inside the elevator shaft as they headed down into the darkness.
The elevator was lodged in the basement, left there gathering dust until they got round to repairing it. That meant when they reached the bottom of the ladder and stood on the top of the elevator, they were looking directly into the lobby.
Through the dirty glass, they saw Isabel and one of the anonymous men holding her by her hair. Both of them were close to the elevator, less than six feet away.
The man had a pistol in his other hand.
But he also had his back to them.
Placing his weapons down quietly, Archer had gently released the interior lock. Then he and Vargas had each grabbed one of the manual handles fitted to the inside of the static doors and eased them open slowly. They’d slid apart easily with the locks disabled, but the cop had heard something behind him and turned.
Archer had been already been making his move. He’d hit the guy with a huge uppercut that took him completely off guard and lifted him to his toes. The force and surprise of the blow meant the man let go of both his pistol and Isabel, the punch knocking him to the floor. Archer didn’t give him a moment to recover. He’d leapt on him, clamping a hand over his mouth as Vargas moved forward and grabbed Isabel, hurrying her towards the elevator. The anonymous corrupt cop was dazed but fought back; Archer buried his forearm into the man’s throat and suffocated him, the countdown from the intercom echoing around the lobby, the man’s boots scrabbling and slapping on the floor as he thrashed and choked.
Once all movement ceased and he was sure the man was dead, Archer rose and ducked back into the elevator shaft, joining the other two, less than a minute to go. He and Vargas
had pulled the doors back and secured them. Vargas then swung both M4A1s over her shoulders and started to climb the ladder as quickly as she could. Archer knelt down, hoisting Isabel onto his back, and had started to follow her up, scaling the ladder fast, knowing it was just a matter of time before they were discovered.
Right now he was almost at 11, his body exhausted but adrenaline giving his arms more strength than he’d had in months. He glanced down and saw a small pair of arms, one across his neck, the other under his armpit. He also noticed the shirt bandage on his right bicep and remembered that first fight in Helen’s apartment hours ago.
Above him, Vargas had already made it to 12, pushing off the interior lock and dragging open the doors with the handles one by one. They weren’t going back to 14. Carson was down this hallway and they needed to get back inside the apartment with him. Vargas quickly checked the corridor and then stepped out onto the floor. The moment she did, she turned back and watched the other two, willing them closer.
‘Don’t look down, honey,’ Vargas whispered to Isabel, who was clinging to Archer’s back.
Two rungs later, he was within arm’s length. Vargas reached down and took hold of the little girl, helping her up to join her on the 12th floor corridor. Archer realised the countdown on the intercom had ended.
It had gone quiet.
Suddenly, he heard shouting and the elevator doors down below in the lobby being wrenched open.
‘Shit!’
Clenching his teeth and using every fibre of muscle in his arms and back, he raced up the remaining three rungs, hurling himself into the corridor as gunfire suddenly lit up the dark shaft, the men below firing straight up, bullets tearing into the brickwork. Knowing they couldn’t waste a second, Archer staggered to his feet. Vargas had taken Isabel’s hand and the two of them were already running down the corridor to the apartment holding Carson. Archer went to follow.
Suddenly, plaster sprayed from the wall behind him from two gunshots within a hair’s breadth of him, followed by a click as a weapon clicked dry. A man had burst from an apartment beside the elevator, a pistol in his hands, having heard the gunfire from down the elevator shaft. The slide was back, the clip empty. Archer’s hand flashed for his USP but the guy charged and smashed back him into the wall, knocking the pistol out of his hand. Turning and grappling with the guy, Archer saw he was one of the original attackers who’d jumped the Marshals on the street.
The guy was clawing at his face, trying to gouge his eyes, but Archer gripped his arms, pulled them apart and head butted him with the top of his head but didn’t have enough room to really do any damage. The man reeled but hit Archer back with a wild right hook and they smashed back into the opposite wall, the fight not clean or smooth, a life or death brawl.
Fighting to stay on his feet, Archer saw that the lift doors were open behind the man. Clutching the back of the guy’s head with his left hand, Archer fired two hard right uppercuts into his face, the man’s grip loosening enough for Archer to break free and push him back a step.
The ambusher gathered his balance and launched himself straight back.
And Archer kicked him in the chest as hard as he could.
The force of the blow knocked the guy backwards into the elevator shaft. He scrabbled in the air as he tipped back into nothing, desperately trying to save himself, but with his back to the steel lift cords, there was nothing to grab.
He plummeted down twelve floors of dark emptiness, his screams echoing in the shaft as he fell.
King and his team were still firing up the shaft when they heard the noise.
‘Get back!’
The body hit the top of the elevator hard with a hard thud, a cloud of dust punched into the air, the response team momentarily recoiling. The impact killed him instantly.
Nevertheless, Knight aimed with his M4A1 and put three rounds in his chest.
They looked closer and saw it wasn’t Vargas or the guy she was with. It was one of Braeten’s crew, his body smashed from the impact, his head lolled to the side and blood spilling out of his mouth.
‘Shit!’
Upstairs, Archer heard the man land and the burst of gunfire that followed it. Pulling the elevator doors shut and falling back against the wall, he sucked in deep breaths then scooped up his USP from the floor.
Moving forward, he ran towards Vargas, who was anxiously waiting for him in the doorway of the apartment. Once he made it inside, they pushed the door shut and locked it instantly, then dragged the refrigerator back into position before they could pause for breath.
THIRTY NINE
Reunited and safe, Vargas turned and dropped down to hug Isabel, checking her for any injuries, both of them tearful as they clung to each other. Staying low, Archer made sure the curtains were still secure, then knelt down beside them.
‘Are you OK?’ he asked Isabel.
She nodded, strands of hair clinging to her face from dried tears, her arms wrapped tightly around Vargas, not letting her go.
‘I knew you’d save me.’
Archer smiled. Seeing that she was unhurt, he rose and moved into the sitting room, approaching Carson who was lying on the couch just where they’d left him. The heroin had worn off now and his face was screwed up in pain, his Glock in his hand.
‘There…you are,’ he said, grimacing, clutching his stomach. ‘Thought…you’d left.’
‘No way,’ Archer said, placing his weapon on the floor and kneeling by the injured man. Beside him, Carson coughed.
‘Did you…get to the phone?’
Archer shook his head. ‘We ran into trouble. Long story. Put one of them down though.’
‘How…many…left?’
‘I don’t know. Still more than us.’
‘You’re…bleeding.’
Archer glanced down and saw blood on the lower left of his white t-shirt from the glass he’d taken out earlier.
The patch had grown.
‘Makes…two of us,’ Carson said, using most of his strength to force a smile.
Archer looked closer at the padding on Carson’s stomach. Rule number one with compression bandages was don’t remove them; the bottom ones had probably stuck to the wound and removing them could get the blood flowing again. They seemed to have done as good a job as they could under the circumstances. He glanced at Carson’s face. His eyes were sunken, dark rings around them from a combination of blood loss and the aftermath of the heroin. They flicked up past Archer; Vargas and Isabel had joined them.
‘Hey,’ he said. ‘You’re both a sight…for sore eyes.’
Vargas stepped forward, putting her hand to his brow. Isabel moved closer too. Carson looked at her and forced another smile.
‘I…could use…another makeover right now,’ he said to her.
‘Hang on just a bit longer, Jack,’ Vargas told him, gripping his hand. ‘Dalton and the crew will get in here soon. There’re medic teams down on the street, waiting to come in. They’ll fix you up.’
He nodded with as much conviction as he could muster.
‘Where’s Barlow?’ he asked.
Archer and Vargas glanced at each other.
‘Tell you later,’ she said.
As Archer rose, Vargas suddenly noticed the blood patch staining the lower left of Archer’s once-white t-shirt. He had his hand half-over it, but not enough to fully hide the red.
‘Hey. You’re hurt.’
He didn’t move.
‘Let me see.’
She reached for his arm and took it away gently. His palm came away red from the blood-soaked fabric.
‘Jesus,’ she said. ‘Next door. Now.’
Down on the street, Hendricks screeched to a halt as close as he could get to the barriers on the corner of West 135th Street. Jumping out of the car, he cut through the crowd and made a beeline for Shepherd, who saw him coming and stepped forward to meet him.
‘What happened?’ Shepherd asked his friend.
‘The men in there aren’t Lombardi’s
people. He had no idea the kid and the Marshals were inside.’
‘How can you know that?’
‘I put a gun to his balls and pulled back the hammer,’ Hendricks replied, looking up at the tenement block. ‘This is about something else.’
‘So someone else must want the kid dead,’ Shepherd said, thinking. ‘But who else would want to kill a seven year old girl this badly?’
Silence. The penny dropped.
‘It’s not about the kid at all, is it? They’re going after another member of the group.’
‘It must be one of the Marshals. Or Archer.’
‘Not Arch,’ Shepherd said. ‘I’ve heard what eye-witnesses from the gunfight on the street have said. It was pure coincidence he ended up in this. He was just passing by.’
‘OK, one of the other three then. One of Dalton’s team.’
‘So why the hell would someone go to all this trouble for a US Marshal?’
Both men shifted their gaze to Dalton, who was talking with his team, finalising their assault plans. Either he was lying about the girl or he hadn’t told them the full story.
But it was time for some answers.
‘Are you kidding me?’ Calvin screamed. ‘Are you kidding me?’
The men were all standing there, having gathered in the large lobby. None of them thought it wise to respond. Spades’ body was lying in a heap by the elevator doors behind them. No-one had bothered to move him. Braeten had seen one of his own guys sprawled dead on the roof of the elevator just before they secured the doors. He’d fallen to his death, Vargas or the asshole with her knocking him into the elevator shaft. Out of all his guys, he was the one he was closest to. It had put him in a foul mood.
Calvin shot his cuff and checked his watch.
‘We should have handled this two hours ago. You think the cops are just going to keep waiting outside for us to resolve this?’
‘So let’s get the hell out of here,’ Bishop said. ‘Let it go, boss. We tried. It didn’t work.’
