Return Fire (Sam Archer )

by Tom Barber

  He frowned.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Fox asked.

  Jameson tilted the screen so Brookins, Fox and Archer could see.

  ‘I wasn’t expecting this.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Payan’s dead.’

  As Fox and Brookins both frowned and peered over at the screen, Archer looked around the street again, all his instincts on high alert.

  Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a tiny hint of movement.

  A small red dot had suddenly appeared on Marquez’ chest.

  THIRTEEN

  On the 1st floor of the ARU headquarters, Chalky was standing alone inside the Briefing Room, quickly drinking a thick double espresso from the coffee machine in the corner as he waited for the machine to pour a second cup for Shepherd.

  As he waited, he felt the emptiness of the room around him, and was doing his best not to dwell on what had happened to Mason and Spitz. He’d been very good friends with the two dead officers; they were tough and decent men with whom he’d shared a great rapport. Both of them had been great characters. Mason had beaten cancer as a teenager, going on to become an elite cop and devout family man; as his thoughts turned to Spitz, Chalky smiled as he remembered when he’d been a groomsman at Spitz’ wedding last year. During the first dance with his new wife, Spitz had managed to get his foot tangled in his bride’s wedding gown. Panicking, he’d lost his balance, and they’d both tumbled off the dance-floor, taking a table with them as they fell and sending glasses and plates of food everywhere.

  His brief smile faded. Swallowing the lump in his throat Chalky finished making the coffee, channelling his emotions into a white-hot desire to take down whoever was responsible for all this.

  Stirring two sugars into Shepherd’s drink, he looked over through the open door at the Operations area in front of him. The American sergeant was standing side by side with Cobb in the tech area having just finished a brief conversation in Cobb’s office; the two men were now watching the situation unfolding at the house in Hendon.

  Draining his espresso and throwing the cup in the rubbish bin, Chalky picked up Shepherd’s steaming coffee and walked forward to the door. As he did so, he sensed movement to his right and saw Beckett, one of the analysts.

  She was coming down the corridor from the stairs.

  Chalky paused. She may have heard the bad news concerning the task force already, but he felt he should tell her what had happened to Mason, Spitz and the rest of the team, just in case. They all worked closely together and he knew she’d take the news just as hard as the rest of them.

  ‘Hey Jen,’ he said, moving out of the doorway to join her.

  Focusing on the Operations area, her attention suddenly snapped onto him and he stopped in his tracks.

  Her red-rimmed eyes were as wide as saucers, her hair slightly tangled. Her lip was trembling, sweat sheening her brow, her body shaking like a leaf in the wind.

  She looked absolutely terrified.

  ‘Jen?’

  Seeing the red dot on Marquez and realising instantly what was happening, Archer reacted a split-second before the sniper fired.

  He ducked and shoved Marquez hard, straight into Josh. A split second later, there was a whizz as a bullet missed her head by a fraction of an inch, hitting a post-box on the pavement behind her as the echo of a gunshot from somewhere followed a moment later.

  As Marquez and Josh fell to the ground and everyone froze as they heard the weapon’s report, Archer spun back to Fox and Brookins to warn them.

  To his horror, he saw Fox had a red dot on his forehead from another angle.

  ‘Get down!’ he shouted, dragging his old team-mate to the ground.

  Before they hit the concrete, there was a thump and Brookins was knocked sideways, blood spraying into the air as he was hit in the upper arm, the bullet’s trajectory going straight through where Fox’s head had been.

  As Archer and Fox hit the deck hard, hidden behind the front of an SC019 car, Archer saw Brookins drop as everyone started to dive for cover, the SCO19 officers swinging their weapons around trying to find the source of the gunfire.

  ‘Two snipers!’ Archer shouted, ducking as another round suddenly punched through the car he and Fox were using as cover, exiting just above their heads.

  ‘Jen, what’s wrong?’ Chalky asked, staring at Beckett.

  She tried to reply, her mouth working, but the words wouldn’t come out. No one else on the 1st floor had seen her yet, everyone in the tech pit concentrating on something that was going on in Hendon, some of them talking hurriedly, all of them transfixed to the feed.

  Not paying them any attention, Chalky was totally focused on Beckett. He noticed she was wearing a cream-coloured coat which was odd on such a warm evening, her hair damp with sweat.

  The coat seemed slightly bulky.

  He looked up at her and she stared back wordlessly, still unable to speak.

  Following his gut instinct, he placed the cup on the floor and stepped forward quickly, undoing the belt on the garment and drawing it open.

  The moment he parted the sides, his eyes widened in horror.

  Beckett was wearing a vest packed with TNT, hooked up to a timer counting down in constantly changing red numbers.

  00:19.

  00:18.

  00:17.

  Working the bolt on his M40A5 rifle, the Canadian sniper with the call-sign Grange focused the scope on where the group from the ARU and NYPD had been standing, but they were now out of sight, huddled down behind two cars for cover, the element of surprise gone, his chance blown.

  ‘Shit!’

  As the SCO19 officers turned in his direction, trying to locate him, he put the scope on the car just about where he figured the black NYPD detective’s head was and pulled the trigger.

  At the ARU HQ, Chalky reacted instantly, dragging the coat off her body in one fluid motion then quickly examining all sides of the bomb vest. It was black, framed by a thick metal casing that ran over her shoulders and hugged her body tight, two padlocks through slots on the metal sealing it in place.

  Bars of TNT were tightly packed all around the garment, more than enough to cause catastrophic damage and kill everyone in the room.

  00:16.

  00:15.

  He grabbed the metal frame of the vest and tried to lift it, but it was no use.

  The damn thing was firmly locked in place by the padlocks.

  ‘Just hang on!’ he told her.

  She was shaking, looking as if she was about to pass out.

  ‘Hang on!’

  Others in the room, transfixed on the feed from Hendon, heard the urgency in his voice and turned. Seeing Beckett standing there in the vest, two analysts immediately leapt to their feet in horror and backed away, causing Cobb, Shepherd and Nikki turning to swing round to see what was going on.

  Chalky didn’t pause for a second, fighting with the two thick locks on the vest while keeping his eyes on the timer.

  00:12.

  00:11.

  It was no use.

  They were locked tight.

  As everyone stayed low and SCO19 located the twin snipers and returned fire, Archer saw Marquez duck as another bullet tore through the car she and Josh were behind, missing her head by an inch and leaving a black hole in the side of the vehicle.

  As they were showered with smashed glass from another bullet, Archer realised something significant as he looked over at the pair.

  Despite SCO19’s return fire, the snipers’ own fire was concentrated purely on them.

  The NYPD sergeant Shepherd reacted first, running forward to try and help Chalky as Cobb raced across the level and ripped open the door to his office, which had bulletproof glass windows.

  ‘Everybody inside now!’

  As the analysts scrambled across the room, Chalky pulled his Glock and held onto Beckett firmly with one hand as he put the barrel against one of the locks. He fired twice, Beckett jolting and whimpering in fear from the forc
e of the shots; the bullets blew the thick padlock off and buried themselves into the far wall behind them.

  As Shepherd ripped the steel hook of the lock clear, Chalky put his Glock against the second lock and fired again, pulling the hook away after the lock dropped off.

  ‘Hurry!’ Shepherd said, as Beckett stood immobile, unable to move.

  00:07.

  00:06.

  The two men undid the clasps, loosened the vest, and quickly pulled it over Beckett’s head as fast as they could. Laying it on the floor, Shepherd grabbed Beckett as Chalky pulled the Briefing Room door shut behind them. Holding her up, the two men ran for Cobb’s office, throwing themselves through the open doorway.

  Standing beside the frame and waiting for them, Cobb shut and secured the door as soon as they were inside.

  Taking cover as bullets ripped through the window and into the room around him from the SCO19 officers who’d established his firing point, Grange was already on his way out of there.

  ‘Abort!’ he shouted to Stockwell over his cell phone as he ran for the door. ‘Abort! Get the hell out of there!’

  Going through the open bedroom door and ditching the sniper rifle, he sprinted through the empty house, out through the back door and leapt over the fence. He saw Stockwell appear from behind the back of a house at the other end of the street, and they both ran towards a car parked halfway down. Reaching it at the same time, both men climbed inside and Stockwell fired the engine, roaring off down the road in the opposite direction from the police cordon.

  ‘Shit!’ Grange shouted in frustration, as Stockwell got them out of there. ‘Shit!’

  At that moment across town, the timer on the vest hit 0:00.

  A split-second later, the entire second level of the ARU HQ exploded.

  The blast rocked the whole building, smashing out the glass on Cobb’s office, and throwing everyone inside across the room, spraying them all with fragments of bulletproof glass and debris. The force was unbelievable, like an invisible tsunami of pressure, flinging them around as if they were rag dolls, and the floor was suddenly filled with a black pungent smoke, large parts of the immediate area on fire, the windows of the Briefing Room completely smashed out.

  The lights on fire alarms on the ceiling were flashing but no one lying on the floor could hear the sirens.

  Most were unconscious.

  And no one was moving.

  Having been punched into the far wall, hitting it with incredible force before landing on the floor, Chalky opened his eyes and gasped for air. Beckett and Shepherd were both lying beside him in limp heaps. Coughing and trying to breathe through the smoke, he crawled over and checked Beckett; he saw a thick shard of bulletproof glass buried in her back, blood already staining her sweat-stained white shirt.

  Coughing again and unable to hear anything, Chalky looked around and saw no one else was moving in the smoky silence, hot blood stinging his eyes as it streamed down from a cut to his head and dripped onto the floor in front of him.

  Cobb, Shepherd and all the analysts were down.

  And the entire 1st floor of the ARU building had been destroyed.

  FOURTEEN

  Less than ten minutes later, Archer joined Marquez, Fox and Josh outside the house in Hendon, stepping back through the gap where the front door used to be and walking onto a small patch of grass to the right of the entrance.

  ‘Everyone OK?’ Archer asked as he joined the other three. They nodded; each had been nicked and cut by pieces of smashed glass from the car windows, their clothes dirtied by diving to the ground.

  All of them were well aware how close they’d come to being killed. They’d stayed down behind cover for five minutes or so until SC019 cleared the two residences where the sniper fire had come from. The officers had found two abandoned rifles, two open back doors, four dead colleagues and not a trace of either shooter. The scene had now been restored to a semblance of calm, the sudden assault on the police teams having taken everyone off guard, but the remaining SCO19 officers looked pretty grim as they guarded the street, a back-up team clearing every house in the immediate vicinity. Three ambulances had arrived earlier and Archer saw one of them suddenly take off, siren blaring as it carried Brookins to hospital; however, the other two hadn’t left yet.

  One of them was being loaded up one by one with the four dead officers before taking them to the morgue.

  ‘Jesus, Arch, I owe you a beer,’ Josh said to Archer quietly, watching the ambulance crews work.

  ‘Make it two,’ Fox added.

  Archer didn’t reply, looking at the scene around him. ‘How’s Brookins?’

  ‘Stable,’ Fox said. ‘Different story from the other four guys.’

  A short silence fell, the group watching the medical team and feeling exposed standing there in the garden.

  ‘Two shooters,’ Archer said. ‘What kind of rifles did they use?’

  ‘M40A5s; bolt action and bipod, with laser-sights. They’re already on the way to the lab for prints, but tracing the weapons will be hard. The serial number on each has been burnt off with acid.’

  ‘And they just ditched them?’ Archer said.

  Fox nodded.

  ‘What about witnesses when the snipers escaped?’

  ‘None. Street camera CCTV from around back is being checked, but the four SCO19 guys who were guarding the back entrances were all shot in the head and dumped in the kitchen of each house, keeping them out of sight.’

  ‘We didn’t hear any rifle reports before we were attacked?’

  ‘The foursome were all hit with a silenced .22 handgun; each took a single round to the head. It’s no wonder we didn’t hear anything; someone could fire a weapon like that in the same room as you and you wouldn’t hear the report.’

  Archer looked at him and thought back to the sequence.

  ‘One of the officers called in an update moments before Swan blew the front door; they must have been killed less than a minute before the attack. The two snipers moved in fast and timed it to the second.’

  ‘And the homeowners were already evacuated,’ Marquez said. ‘They killed the four officers, breached the back doors of both houses, moved up to their firing points and set up, all in the space of sixty seconds or so.’

  She paused.

  ‘Jesus. These guys were clinical.’

  ‘And they abandoned the rifles,’ Archer said. ‘That means they aren’t exactly struggling for cash or concerned about us tracing the weapons.’

  ‘Their cheeks must have touched the stock on each rifle when they aimed,’ Josh said. ‘Could have left samples of DNA.’

  ‘It’s tenuous,’ Fox said, unconvinced. ‘And if so, it could still take weeks to get a result.’

  With their backs to the house, the group all looked around the street, the light fading now the sun was disappearing over the horizon. It was a beautiful sunset, an odd contrast to the events of today, especially as at that moment two paramedics finished loading the last dead SCO19 officer inside the ambulance; once he was in, they slammed the doors and then walked to the front of the vehicle.

  ‘How the hell did you realise what was about to happen?’ Josh asked Archer.

  ‘I knew something was wrong when they said Payan was dead; it seemed almost stage-managed.’

  He glanced at Marquez.

  ‘Then I turned and saw a red dot on your chest, Lisa. Then you, Foxy.’

  ‘And they kept trying, even when we hit the ground,’ Marquez said. ‘Their fire was exclusively aimed at us. Not SCO19, or EOD.

  She paused.

  ‘Just us.’

  ‘Any sign of Alice inside?’ Josh asked Archer.

  Archer shook his head. ‘I couldn’t look thoroughly, but the team in there said no. Just Payan’s corpse.’

  As he spoke, the group became aware of a rattling sound as something was wheeled up the path; turning, they saw two paramedics from the remaining ambulance wheeling a gurney towards the house to collect Payan’s body. Watching t
hem pass and approach the entrance, Josh swore.

  ‘So now two of Vargas’ kidnappers are dead.’

  ‘You think someone betrayed them?’ Fox asked the other three.

  ‘How do you mean?’ Josh asked.

  ‘Used them to kidnap Vargas and then screwed them over? Killed them both then made off with her?’

  ‘If they did that, why go to all this trouble and put themselves at unnecessary risk?’ Marquez said, looking over at the aftermath of the sniper attack. ‘Why not just whack the two guys then disappear? Why come after us?’

  She paused.

  ‘Something about that call Payan made bothered me the moment I heard him start talking.’

  ‘Why? Fox asked.

  ‘His speech didn’t sound right.’

  ‘He’s from Bratislava and a low-life. He’s not going to speak like he lives at Downton Abbey.’

  ‘No, she’s right,’ Archer said, looking at Marquez. ‘I know what she means. I thought that exact same thing. It sounded forced. Stilted.’

  ‘Like he was under duress?’ Josh said.

  Archer nodded. ‘And Stanovich said he couldn’t put his hands up just before the apartment in Brixton blew; we all heard the recording.’

  He paused.

  ‘Someone used them to try to get to us.’

  ‘So now what the hell do we do?’ Fox asked. ‘Wait on the CCTV and hope we can ID the snipers or lift a print from the rifle?’

  ‘There’s another possible lead,’ Marquez said, looking at Archer who nodded.

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘There was a third kidnapper in Spain. Stanovich and Payan were only two of them.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘The lab. Alice busted them up and they bled at the scene before they took her away. Spanish Forensics found four different blood types and took them straight to the lab. Vargas, Stanovich and Payan were three of them.’

  Fox frowned. ‘You said Vargas drew blood from each of them?’

  Archer nodded, noticing his old colleague’s expression.

  ‘Why? You think she didn’t?’