Return Fire (Sam Archer )

by Tom Barber

  Fox glanced at the house. ‘I took a quick look inside at Payan’s body before Forensics took over.’

  ‘So?’ Josh said.

  ‘He didn’t have any marks on his face or neck other than the gunshot wound.’

  ‘Shit!’ the Middle Eastern man with the broken nose said, hitting the dashboard of the car in frustration. He was listening to a report down the other end of the phone as they sped down the street, the South African man beside him at the wheel. ‘What the hell went wrong?’

  ‘They moved just as we fired,’ Grange explained on the call. ‘The blond cop pushed the woman and black guy out of the way. We kept firing but couldn’t put them down.’

  ‘Are you kidding me? Where are you?’

  ‘Heading for the River. We already changed the plates. The cops won’t find us.’

  Beside him, the South African turned onto another street. Peering ahead, the Middle Eastern man looked into the car park of the ARU headquarters and saw flames and smoke billowing out from the destroyed upper level.

  So far, so good.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ the South African said, frowning and peering closer, the car slowing to a halt. ‘What the hell?’

  ‘What?’ the Middle Eastern man asked, interrupting his conversation on the phone.

  ‘Front door.’

  They both saw people being helped out, several being carried but others managing to walk with assistance.

  As they watched, a woman was being lifted out between two paramedics.

  Both men stared in disbelief as they recognised the female analyst they’d chosen so carefully for the bomb vest. She looked in bad shape, suspended between the two men who were supporting her, but she was obviously still alive. Given the amount of explosives that had been strapped to her, she should have been pure vapour by now.

  ‘Holy shit,’ the South African said. ‘How the hell did she survive?’

  The Middle Eastern man didn’t reply, his mood darkening by the second as he watched the woman get lowered face down onto a blanket on the ground, some waiting paramedics immediately tending to her.

  ‘Finchley and Portland must have screwed it up,’ he said quietly. ‘They didn’t lock the vest on tight enough.’

  Pausing for a moment, he closed his eyes, taking a breath to try and stay calm through a thumping headache. Then he returned his attention to the call.

  ‘Both of you, get off the street,’ he ordered. ‘Fall back to the safe-house right now and stay put until I get there. And you’d better hope the boss hasn’t seen the news.’

  A moment later, he ended the call as the South African put his foot down and they headed off down the street, taking the next right turn and leaving the burning police building behind as they disappeared out of sight.

  FIFTEEN

  In Hendon, Archer, Marquez, Josh and Fox walked past Wally into the sitting room where a four-man Forensics team was gathered around Ibrahim Payan’s corpse.

  The Slovakian was slumped forward in a chair, his arms and ankles taped to the wooden frame, the room smelling unpleasantly of sweat and the contents of his vacated bowel. Dressed in tracksuit bottoms and a sweat-stained t-shirt, blood was spattered on the white wall behind the dead man from a gunshot wound to his forehead. A solitary shell casing was lying on the carpet to the right, a small copper shape on the carpet. The investigators were taking photographs of the scene, inspecting the dead man’s body and checking for trace evidence before they moved him onto the waiting gurney to take him to the lab for analysis.

  ‘What happened, guys?’ Fox asked as they joined them.

  One of the pair who was studying Payan’s body rose and turned to the newcomers, his partner continuing her work.

  ‘Most of it’s pretty clear,’ he said. ‘Single shot to the head, from about half a foot away. Shell casing’s from a .22 handgun.’

  He knelt down, indicating the angle.

  ‘Shooter was up close. Neighbours didn’t hear a thing, so the weapon must have been suppressed. At that calibre, the shot would have been so quiet that someone upstairs in the house wouldn’t have heard it. ’

  ‘What about other wounds?’ Marquez said.

  The man lifted a gloved hand to the back of Payan’s head. ‘He suffered blunt force trauma to the back of his skull, but it didn’t draw blood. Clean blow. He’s got a bump here the size of a small egg. Whoever subdued him whacked him over the head with something then probably gagged and tied him up before he could recover.’

  He then pointed at the dead man’s mouth, touching the skin gently. As the man gently withdrew his finger, Archer saw thin white sticky strands.

  ‘There are traces of glue here from a strip of tape. He’s also got some oil residue on his lips and teeth.’

  ‘From the pistol?’ Josh asked.

  The man nodded. ‘Someone pushed the barrel into his mouth hard. No outright cuts, which meant there must have been a silencer on the weapon otherwise the sights on the pistol would have left marks on his lips and maybe damaged his teeth. But there’s oil there, which means the handgun used was suppressed and recently cleaned.’

  ‘That’s a hard weapon to acquire,’ Fox said.

  The investigator nodded. ‘Don’t get many silenced handguns on the streets in London. Whoever killed this man did a clinical job.’

  Kneeling to join the investigator, Archer tilted his head and peered up at Payan’s face. The dead Slovakian’s eyes were still open, his body slack and held to the chair by the binds. Fox was right. He didn’t have a broken nose or black eyes, and no scratch marks or any sign of damage to his face or neck; nothing that would have drawn blood.

  Rising, he looked at the bump on the back of Payan’s shaved head; he saw the lump, but no cut. He turned to the investigator. ‘Could a fist or elbow have inflicted this?’

  ‘No way. You’d break bones hitting someone there that hard. It was something heavy but with a flat edge, like a piece of wood. Anything sharper would have cut him open.’

  ‘They jumped her whilst she was asleep,’ Marquez said, reading his mind. ‘She wouldn’t have had a chance to grab a weapon that heavy to fend them off.’

  ‘Are there any other wounds on his body?’ Josh asked.

  The man nodded. ‘We found something else. But it’s weird. Look at this.’

  Still on one knee, the man gently slid up the sleeve of Payan’s tracksuit top with his gloved hands, all the way past the elbow.

  ‘See?’ he said, pointing to Payan’s right forearm.

  The group saw there were two puncture wounds on a prominent vein on his arm, an inch below his bicep. There were a couple of trickles of dried blood on the pale skin over an old tattoo, the rivulets crossing each other.

  ‘Twin needle marks,’ Marquez said. ‘Was he using?’

  The investigator shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. There’re no other track marks on either arm or between his toes. I read his file on the way here; although he has a history of cocaine abuse, there was no record of any heroin use or any other injectable substance.’

  ‘Could the killer have drugged him?’ Josh asked. ‘To keep him quiet?’

  ‘It’s very possible. He’s a big guy, and wouldn’t have been easy to transport once he came round from the blow to the head. When we get him to the lab, we can check his blood and run some tests.’

  ‘Two puncture marks,’ Archer said. ‘Not one.’

  ‘Whoever injected him may have been sloppy,’ the investigator said. ‘Had to puncture the vein twice to inject him.’

  Marquez shook her head. ‘Whoever did this killed four SCO19 officers silently then came with an inch of adding us to that list. These people aren’t sloppy.’

  Archer nodded, studying the needle marks.

  ‘Could one of these punctures have been to take a blood sample?’ he asked.

  The investigator frowned. ‘A blood sample? Why?’

  ‘Someone obviously popped a needle in him twice. Say the first time was to drug him and the other wa
s to take blood. Is that a possibility?’

  The man shrugged. ‘I suppose. But unless it’s some kind of fetish for the killer, I don’t know why anyone would do that. I guess this man could have a rare blood type which could potentially be worth a small amount of money. Not worth going to all this trouble though.’

  Still on one knee beside Payan, Archer glanced up at the others.

  All three realised what he was thinking.

  ‘Hold on,’ Josh said. ‘You think someone planted his blood at the villa?’

  Archer nodded. ‘And they planted him here for us. As bait for the snipers.’

  Before anyone could comment, there was a sudden commotion in the hallway by the front door as someone ran into the house.

  ‘Fox?’ a voice called. ‘Ryan Fox?’

  ‘Yeah?’ Fox shouted, turning towards the door.

  A SCO19 officer ran into the living room; as he rose, Archer saw from the name tag on his tac vest that it was Swan, the man who’d blown the front door off earlier.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Fox asked.

  ‘We’re picking up a report from something across town,’ Swan said. ‘You need to see this.’

  He moved across the living room, switching on the television. Picking up the remote from on top of the screen, he switched it to BBC News 24 then stepped back. Everyone in the room paused in what they were doing, and watched as two latest Breaking News headlines scrolled under the two newsreaders in the studio. One of them was running with what had just happened here in Hendon.

  But it was the other that caught everyone’s attention.

  Breaking News: London counter-terrorist police headquarters hit by bomb blast.

  Many casualties from explosion.

  The moment he read it, Archer’s blood ran cold. As everyone else stared at the screen, he looked back at Payan.

  They planted him here, his mind echoed.

  As bait.

  SIXTEEN

  Given some slightly lighter traffic, Fox got the group back to the ARU HQ in almost half the time it had taken them to get to Hendon, and they could see the smoke in the distance well before they got within sight of the building.

  As the car made a final turn and sped down the street towards the now cordoned-off area, the first sight that greeted them was a car park full of ambulances, along with two fire engines and eight or nine busy paramedics tending to the injured in what looked like a makeshift triage post outside the front of the building. The place was a hive of activity, the upper floor of the HQ still burning in parts as the two fire crews tackled the flames inside.

  Everyone in the car sat in stunned silence as they pulled up outside. Half an hour ago, there hadn’t been so much as a crack in a window here.

  Now the upper half of the building was virtually destroyed.

  The front barrier was already lifted, presumably to allow emergency personnel in and out of the car park, with two armed Met police officers stationed there as a nod to security. After Fox and the others showed them their ID, the officers let them through and Fox parked in an empty space well away from the triage point; a moment later, everyone jumped out of the car and quickly moved towards the front of the building.

  Marquez and Josh spotted Shepherd who was being wheeled on a gurney towards a waiting ambulance and immediately ran over to him. He was unconscious, blood staining the side of his head; just beyond him was Cobb, who Fox headed for. The ARU Director was also out cold and strapped onto another gurney following closely behind Shepherd’s, his head in a brace, his suit burned and stained with blood.

  Staying by the car, Archer didn’t move, staring at the scene around him.

  The upper level of the ARU base had been severely damaged by an explosion; all the windows had been blown out and large sections of the upper wall were missing, revealing the interior of the 1st floor. Through the gaps he could see fire-fighters inside the Briefing Room and Operations working a hose, the smoke starting to lose its intensity as they got the flames under control. By the front doors, he was relieved to see Lipton and Wilson were unhurt, presumably because they’d been at their posts away from the Operations floor; they were moving around the injured, offering reassurance where they could but both looking totally shocked by what had happened.

  Rapidly scanning the hive of activity for Chalky, Archer felt another moment of relief as he spotted him sitting on the kerb away to the left all by himself, no paramedic with him. He was holding a white bandage to the back of his head, staring straight ahead with an unfocused gaze. His forehead and cheeks were stained with smoke and blood, as were his navy blue polo shirt and light blue jeans.

  Archer immediately ran over and dropped to one knee beside his friend. Chalky slowly turned his head to look at him. Up close, Archer saw that the side of his face was cut and scratched from pieces of glass. However, judging by the devastation around him, he’d got off lightly.

  ‘You’re back,’ Chalky said quietly.

  Asking him if he was OK was a redundant question, so Archer just held his shoulder and looked him over, noting that other than the wound to his head and some other small cuts on his face, arms and body, he looked in much better shape than most of the others.

  ‘What the hell happened, Chalk?’ he asked. ‘Who did this?’

  ‘Beckett,’ he said quietly. ‘Wearing a vest.’

  ‘A vest? Like a bomb vest?’

  ‘Yeah. A vest.’

  ‘Was she already in the building?’

  ‘She…arrived late. I saw her. Something was wrong.’

  He paused.

  ‘She was scared.’

  Chalky paused again, trying to gather his jumbled thoughts.

  ‘It was…locked onto her.’

  ‘The vest?’

  He nodded, talking slowly.

  ‘Locked onto her,’ he repeated. ‘Metal frame. Two…padlocks. I shot them off.’

  As Chalky paused, switching hands to hold the blood-stained bandage to the back of his head, Archer looked over at Beckett, who was lying face down twenty feet away with two paramedics tending to her. Fox was kneeling beside her, talking with her quietly and holding her blood-stained hand. Although Archer hadn’t known her for long before he left, they’d got on well enough and he’d liked her; she’d started working at the Unit six months before his departure and he knew Nikki rated her highly, regarding her as one of her best analysts. He also remembered her work area had been decorated with photos of her twin sons who’d been around eight or nine years old at the time, her pride and joy.

  No way would she have done something like this by choice.

  ‘I’m going to go talk to her,’ he told Chalky, who didn’t respond. Patting his friend’s shoulder again, Archer rose, moving over quickly to join Fox, passing a paramedic on the way who was heading straight for Chalky to check up on him.

  Archer knelt beside Beckett, the opposite side from Fox who was now talking quietly with the paramedic treating her. The wounded analyst was lying with her face turned towards Archer; she was still conscious, blood staining her face, her clothes singed and her hair matted and tangled.

  ‘Who did this, Jen?’ he asked her quietly.

  She paused.

  ‘Two men.’

  ‘They put the vest on you?’

  She nodded slowly, her lip trembling.

  ‘If I didn’t, they were…they…’

  Tears welled in her eyes.

  She blinked, causing them to spill down her face onto the blanket under her right cheek.

  The man tending to her interrupted his conversation with Fox and shifted his attention to Archer.

  ‘Hey. Leave the questions for later.’

  ‘What were they going to do, Jen?’ Archer continued, ignoring the man.

  ‘My sons,’ she whispered. ‘They were…going…to…kill them.’

  ‘Who were these men?’ Archer asked.

  ‘I don’t...know. But…they sounded…’

  ‘They sounded like what?’

  ‘
Australian.’

  Archer paused. So did Beckett, blinking slowly as whatever the paramedics had given her for the pain kicked in.

  ‘And they have my boys,’ she whispered.

  ‘I’ll get them back.’

  As he spoke, a gurney was rolled over and after lifting her carefully onto it she was wheeled away towards the back of a waiting ambulance. Rising, Fox and Archer watched her go, Beckett’s words echoing in Archer’s mind.

  They sounded Australian.

  And they have my boys.

  Turning, he saw Nikki being patched up by a paramedic as she sat on the kerb near the front entrance. One of her arms was in a sling, her face screwed up in pain as the medic gently felt her shoulder, trying to assess the damage. Beyond her, Marquez was standing with Josh as they stared at the devastation around them. As Fox moved off to talk with Lipton and Wilson, Archer headed over to Nikki quickly, kneeling beside her, Josh stepping forward to join him as Marquez pulled her cell phone and turned away to make a call.

  To his relief, Archer could immediately tell from Nikki’s eyes that she was focused and with it, not half-concussed like Chalky or badly wounded like Beckett. She’d lost her glasses, her hair was tousled and she had two small cuts on her left cheek as well as the busted-up shoulder but apart from that she looked OK, and as alert as ever.

  ‘Still with us?’ he asked.

  ‘Just about,’ she replied, making eye contact with him. ‘Glad you’re back.’

  Without her glasses, she looked different, more vulnerable somehow. He saw her glance over to her right as the ambulance carrying Beckett moved off, headed for the exit. Her eyes followed it out of the car park.

  ‘Did she tell you what happened?’ she asked.

  He nodded. ‘Two men locked a bomb vest onto her. Said if she didn’t do as they instructed they were going to kill her kids.’

  ‘A locked bomb vest?’ Josh said. ‘How did they get it off?’

  ‘Chalky shot off the locks,’ Nikki said. ‘He, Shepherd and Jen just made it into Cobb’s office where we’d all taken cover before it detonated.’

  ‘She thinks they were Australian,’ Archer added.

  ‘Australian?’ Nikki repeated, frowning. ‘Why the hell would two Aussies want to strap a bomb to her?’