Return Fire (Sam Archer )

by Tom Barber

  Taking two steps forward, keeping her assault rifle trained on the door, she snapped the handle back and kicked it open with her bare foot.

  Two boys were lying on the floor, trussed up just as she’d been earlier, their eyes wide with terror as she burst in. Quickly checking the small office space, she ran forward towards them, using the knife she’d stabbed the man upstairs with to cut away their binds.

  ‘Stay quiet!’ she whispered, removing their gags as gently as she could.

  They both nodded, signs of tears dried on their faces, but did as they were told.

  Hearing a noise, Vargas dropped the knife and suddenly whirled around, grabbing her assault rifle and aiming it at the lifts outside in the main floor.

  She waited.

  No one came.

  Vargas paused for a moment, then turned back and saw how scared the two boys were; putting the AR-15 down, she hugged them both, one of them starting to sob quietly, holding onto her tightly. She held onto the boys for a moment longer then released them, looking at each in turn and putting her finger to her lips. Once they both nodded, understanding, Vargas picked up the assault rifle, turned and led the way cautiously out of the office, the two boys following right behind her.

  Clearing the open plan space, she quickly headed towards the stairs, turning to make sure the boys were with her. She wanted to use the lift but the number display above each meant she might as well shout here I am to anyone hunting her.

  One of them was on 25, the other a floor above her on 16.

  She could still hear the sounds of gunfire coming from somewhere above; she desperately wanted to get up there to help Archer, but she couldn’t go up, not now she had two boys with her.

  Backing up from the stairwell, she stood still for a moment, trying to work out the best plan of action.

  But in that short time, she never saw the lift from 16 move down a floor and arrive behind her.

  On 25, Stockwell ducked as the blond cop let off his own stream in his direction then saw him make a run for the stairwell door, smashing it open and racing through it as Stockwell fired back, spraying bits of wood and plaster into the air around the doorframe.

  As he stood up to follow, he saw Covent slumped in a bloody heap by one of the cubicles.

  ‘Son of a bitch!’ he shouted, immediately sprinting towards the door after the cop.

  The Canadian sniper kept his assault rifle in his shoulder as he went through the door, immediately starting down the stairs seeing as they were on the top floor and with nowhere to go but down.

  It was the last mistake he ever made.

  Archer guessed the gunman would expect him to go downstairs and so had stood behind the door, waiting for it to open.

  Now behind the mercenary as the door closed, he fired with the MP5, hitting him as he moved down the stairs, killing him instantly. Going down the flight would be what ninety nine per cent of people would have done, but Archer had had some recent experience of building warfare.

  The gunfire echoed all the way down the stairwell as the guy hit the deck, instantly telegraphing Archer’s location. Reloading fast by reversing the double-taped magazine in the MP5, Archer pulled his phone and pushed Redial, tucking it back into the slot, taking deep breaths and keeping his MP5 trained on the gap in the stairwell, waiting for anyone else to appear as blood started to pool out from the dead gunman’s body slumped half a flight below.

  The call connected.

  ‘Where are you?’ he asked quietly, sucking in oxygen, watching the gap in the stairs. ‘Alice?’

  ‘I’m on floor 17,’ she said after a pause, her voice slightly strained.

  He paused for a moment.

  ‘Hang on,’ he told her. ‘I’m coming.’

  Hanging up, Archer moved forward, stepping over the dead mercenary, and headed down the stairs.

  On 15, Dash grinned after the call ended, looking at Portland who had his pistol to the woman’s head as he gripped her hair from behind, the two boys standing there helpless beside her. Once they’d found Aldgate and Wood’s bodies upstairs, they figured the woman would move downstairs and had arrived on 15 to find her standing right in front of them with her back to the lift, the two brats beside her.

  With the bitch under Portland’s control, her AR-15 dropped to the floor, Dash ran for the stairwell, ripping open the door and disappearing into the flight.

  Archer was on his way to 17.

  Little did he know what would be waiting for him.

  Watching in desperation, Vargas went to shout but the big man guarding her hit her over the head with the side of the pistol, staggering and dazing her slightly, the two boys beside her whimpering in fear.

  Archer was walking right into a trap.

  FIFTY FOUR

  Moving out into the stairwell, Dash paused for a moment, listening.

  He couldn’t hear footsteps on the stairs above him, but he knew Archer was coming.

  Moving up to 17 quickly, keeping to the walls so he couldn’t be seen from above, Dash slid inside the prepared torture floor quietly, taking up a position the other side of the door so he would be shielded when it opened.

  Aiming his rifle at the wood, he grinned. Although he knew his mother had always preferred Dominick, Dash and his older brother had been close and he’d been just as pissed as Talia about his death; he was going to enjoy this.

  As he waited, he quickly pulled his cell and called Talia, holding his assault rifle with his right hand and the phone with his left.

  ‘What the hell is going on up there?’ she said. ‘I can hear gunfire.’

  ‘Archer’s here,’ he whispered. ‘He came by chopper.’

  ‘Bring him to me.’

  ‘I’m on 17,’ Dash whispered, focusing on the door. ‘Check your camera; I’ll put him down then we can have some fun. Payback time. Piccadilly’s holding off the cops downstairs. We can use the chopper later.’

  He ended the call, hitching his assault rifle and focusing on the door.

  The previous cases in Sam Archer’s file had suggested that he was impossible to put down.

  But that luck of his had just run out.

  On the 3rd floor, Piccadilly had already opened fire through one of the windows on the police cars that had gathered below in the front courtyard. The officers had been caught by surprise and had quickly ducked for cover as the South African opened up with the rifle, but he still managed to hit two of them.

  Watching them go down and the others scatter, he saw a black truck approaching. It turned into the car park below and he saw SCO19 printed on the side, the other main counter-terrorist police unit in London. Grange and Stockwell had killed four of their officers earlier in the day, so they’d no doubt be in the mood for revenge.

  They could bring it on.

  Reloading, Piccadilly, or former SA Army Sergeant Danny Heydrich, aimed at the truck and fired, blowing out two of its tyres just to make a point.

  No one was coming in to save Archer or his girl.

  Just inside 17, Dash waited for the door to open, aiming his assault rifle where Archer’s legs would be.

  He strained his ears, listening for the sound of his footsteps.

  Nothing.

  Suddenly, however, he heard a strange sound coming from the stairwell.

  He frowned, trying to work out what it was.

  Then he looked down.

  Smoke started to seep under the door.

  It swirled into the open space around him, forcing him to cover his mouth with his left hand.

  Focusing on the door, he waited.

  But it didn’t open.

  Losing his patience and guessing this was some kind of trick, Dash reached for the handle and eased the door open carefully, allowing more of the smoke to pour into the room.

  Moving cautiously around the door and tracing with his weapon, trying to figure out where the smoke was coming from, Dash felt it wash over him, the black stuff rendering him momentarily blind.

  Blinking h
ard and trying to clear his vision, he looked for Archer.

  Suddenly, the building fire alarm system kicked in, the noise shrill and distracting as it echoed through the building. Stepping forward, Dash moved out into the flight, peering up the stairwell and aiming his rifle where he expected Archer to appear.

  Then he felt the muzzle of a gun jam into his neck from his right.

  ‘Drop the gun,’ Archer ordered, his MP5 under the man’s ear.

  Dash didn’t react.

  ‘Drop it,’ Archer repeated, pushing the sub-machine gun harder into his neck. The man complied; through the smoke from the grenade Archer had set off he saw it was Dash, Dominick Farha’s brother. Archer had known immediately from Vargas’ voice on the phone and the way she spoke that something was up and he’d been right.

  It had been a trap.

  He’d ripped off a smoke grenade in the stairwell to conceal himself and confuse the enemy then had moved down the stairs fast, taking up a position below the 17th floor door; just as before, he’d guessed which way any gunmen hiding inside would turn once they opened the door. And he’d been correct

  Archer pushed Dash onto the 17th floor, checking left and right through the smoke for any more of the mercenaries.

  Then Dash made his move.

  He jerked the gun free from his neck, using his left arm to smack it out of Archer’s hands as he fired, then immediately went for the suppressed Ruger on his hip. As he grabbed it, Archer hit him with a hard uppercut, forcing the bigger man to drop the gun; dazed and full of fury, Dash grabbed Archer by the throat and propelled him back, slamming him into the wall by the 17th floor stairwell door which had closed beside them.

  His eyes burning from the smoke, the fire alarms echoing around the building, Archer pulled at the guy’s forearm but it was like a forklift was holding him in place and squeezing his throat. He needed to work for a joint lock or chokehold to take him out, but he was pinned to the wall, unable to move or breathe. Feeling the walls closing in, his oxygen running out, Archer kicked out as hard as he could in a last ditch attempt and managed to hit Dash in the groin.

  The Afghani former soldier shouted in pain, letting go. Archer threw a hard right hand that smashed into Dash’s jaw, mashing his teeth against his lips, and in the same movement ducked low, tackling Dash back onto the floor. Moving like lightning, Archer hooked his right arm behind Dash’s head, threaded his right forearm across his throat then put his right hand on his left bicep and tipped Dash onto his side, tightening the squeeze in a D’Arce choke.

  Caught before he could react, Dash tried to struggle out, but he was trapped. Archer gritted his teeth and applied as much pressure as he could, blood leaking from a cut under his right eye. As he choked Dash towards unconsciousness, a red light mounted on the ceiling above a table to his right suddenly caught his eye.

  It was attached to something big and metallic that resembled a bee’s nest. Archer blinked, blood staining the side of his face.

  It was the biggest nail-bomb he’d ever seen.

  And there was a small webcam stuck right beside it.

  On 12, having stayed where she was as Dash’s team hunted down Vargas and Archer, Talia stared at her laptop screen, the detonator for the device resting on the desk by her right hand.

  She’d seen the two men enter the room, but nothing had gone as expected, a brutal fight now ending with Archer having the upper hand. Looking at the two men on the screen, she could see Archer staring at the camera beside the bomb she’d planned for him to beg her to detonate after she’d worked on him on the table below.

  The detonator was beside her hand on the desk. She could kill him right now.

  But if she did, her remaining son would get caught in the blast.

  Staring at the nail-bomb and the red light, Archer released the half-conscious Dash, not taking his eyes off the lethal device. He rose and quickly yanked the dazed mercenary to his feet, holding him in front of him by his collar, then pulled a jack-knife from his ARU tac vest and put the blade to Dash’s throat.

  He stared at the camera, the floor around them empty and silent.

  Now upright, he glanced through the smoke at the bare wood workman’s table to their right.

  He saw a number of wickedly sharp metal tools laid on the surface alongside some duct tape, syringes and strips of cloth, makeshift tourniquets.

  A power saw was there too.

  It was a torture spot. His torture spot.

  Looking up at the camera beside the nail-bomb, he stared into the lens.

  Reaching for the detonator, Talia quivered with rage as she stared at the screen, her finger beside the button.

  Archer had the knife to her son’s throat, holding him in front of him. According to the Met police report, Dominick had done just the same with someone else before this man had shot him in the head, a complete role reversal.

  She saw Dash staring at the camera, bloodied but confident, knowing his mother was watching.

  Archer didn’t move, staring at the camera and the huge nail-bomb with the glowing red light beside it. Dash tried to struggle out of his grip but Archer added extra pressure to the knife to his throat, keeping him still.

  Archer then started to slowly back away from the nail-bomb towards the door, taking Dash with him, keeping his eyes on the light.

  Down below, Talia screamed in frustration and fury as she made her decision.

  Archer was fifteen feet from the stairwell door, the fire alarms shrill and constant.

  Then the light on the nail-bomb suddenly turned yellow.

  FIFTY FIVE

  Two floors down, Vargas and the two boys heard the explosion through the fire alarms, taking them completely by surprise as the noise reverberated around the building. Vargas instinctively recoiled, but then felt the big mercenary’s hand clumping in her hair, impassive and threatening as he held her in place.

  ‘Your boyfriend just died,’ the man holding the gun to her head whispered into her ear, his accent Australian. ‘And you’re about to join him, bitch.’

  She didn’t move, his words sinking in.

  Archer’s dead, she thought.

  Archer’s dead.

  As the man holding the gun flicked off the safety, Vargas suddenly felt one of the boys slide something into her hand.

  The knife.

  He must have picked it up earlier after she cut their binds.

  The mercenary hadn’t noticed the movement, not paying any attention to the two little boys who were no threat to him. Vargas flipped the knife open and carefully reversed it in her hand.

  A moment later, she suddenly stabbed backwards as hard as she could.

  The blade jammed straight into the man’s groin and he screamed in pain, instantly releasing her and staggering back with the knife embedded where his thigh joined his torso. Not hesitating for a second, Vargas grabbed her assault rifle from the floor, tossed it into the lift, then clutched the two boys’ hands and pulled them after it, hitting the button for the ground floor.

  She pushed them both to the side, covering them as the doors started to close.

  Clutching his groin, the man staggered round and fired with his pistol, but the bullets hit the far wall of the lift, Vargas keeping the boys back out of the line of fire as the doors shut.

  Reeling in pain from the stab wound, Portland pulled the knife from his leg, blood flowing from the wound.

  ‘Bitch!’ he shouted, throwing the knife to one side and stumbling towards the stairwell. As he did so, he pulled his phone, needing to call the others downstairs to get them to push the button and stop the lift.

  ‘Yeah?’ Piccadilly said.

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘3rd floor keeping the cops back. Where the hell is that alarm coming from?’

  Portland ripped open the door to the stairwell, lifting the phone to his ear and waving smoke out of his face, his thigh on fire from pain.

  ‘Forget that. Listen, the bitch is on her way do-’

  S
hooting the man in the chest with a burst from his MP5, Archer watched him take the burst and get thumped back, falling to the floor. He was unharmed from the nail-bomb but the cut under his eye from his fight with Dash was leaking blood as he carried his MP5 with the last clip inside, Dash’s suppressed Ruger 22/45 shoved into the holster on his thigh.

  When the light had turned yellow he’d instantly dropped his knife, spun Dash round to face him and threw himself backwards, dragging the other man down with him. As they’d hit the floor Archer had tucked his knees under Dash and gripped his collar hard to hold him in place.

  Dash’s eyes had suddenly widened in realisation.

  And a split-second later, the nail-bomb detonated.

  The blast had destroyed everything in the room, raining nails down with lethal force onto tables and chairs, the deadly hail annihilating furniture, penetrating the walls, the floor, everything; nothing escaped.

  Archer had been underneath Dash, gripping the inside collar of his shirt as hard as he was clenching his eyes shut, his knees bunched up against the man’s chest.

  He’d waited for pain, but it never came.

  Then he’d opened his eyes and looked up at the mercenary through the smoke.

  He’d gone totally limp, blood leaking out of the side of his mouth. Archer had loosened his grip on the man’s collar and Dash had immediately sagged to one side, slumping down face first, a dead weight. As Archer eased himself out from under him and rolled to his feet, his Converse crunching on pieces of debris, he saw that Dash had scores of thick nails protruding from the back of his body and head.

  He’d been killed instantly.

  Looking grimly up at the camera through the smoke, knowing who’d be watching, Archer had turned and retrieved his MP5, running out onto the stairs and heading downstairs. After checking 16 and finding two dead bodies, he’d been on his way to 15 when the door to the floor had suddenly opened and one of the guys who’d ambushed him at Bernhardt’s had staggered out through the smoke, talking on his phone and bleeding from a wound to his thigh.