Return Fire (Sam Archer )

by Tom Barber

  She looked like something out of a nightmare.

  Her face, arms and body had been hideously burned by the bleach. Several thick black nails were buried in her left side, drawing blood.

  One was also embedded through the side of her left eye.

  Standing there, Vargas beside him, Archer stared at Talia. Her skin still burning from the boiling chemicals, with her pistol pointed right at them, Talia stared straight back, blood leaking from the nail jutting out of the side of her eye. She must have been in excruciating pain; how she was still standing was beyond comprehension. The guy next door must have partially shielded her from the blast.

  ‘You said earlier that this was the last thing my son ever saw,’ she hissed at Archer, aiming the Ruger directly at him. ‘I guess as you said, we really have come full circle.’

  She hawked and spat blood and saliva at him, the bleach burning into her skin as Archer braced himself, ready to launch himself forward with his back against the wall. Pistols could miss; his vest had already absorbed three rounds from the Ruger and if he moved fast he could get to her before she could put him down. However, keeping the pistol on him Talia suddenly knelt down and scooped up the AR-15 Archer had dropped, tossing the Ruger to one side, the bleach on the weapon immediately burning into her hands.

  And Archer knew he was going to die.

  Now just six feet from the pair, Talia lifted the assault rifle into her shoulder and put the sights on Archer’s forehead. From this range with an automatic weapon, it was a done deal.

  ‘Just do me one favour,’ she said, aiming at his head. ‘When you see Dominick, tell him who sent you.’

  ‘Tell him yourself,’ another voice suddenly added.

  Keeping the AR-15 on Archer and Vargas, Talia’s head swung round in shock.

  And propped up in the stairwell door with Archer’s Glock in his hand, Chalky pulled the trigger and shot her between the eyes.

  The moment she took the round, Talia was thumped backwards, the assault rifle flying out of her hands as the bullet hit her right in the middle of the forehead. As the rear of her head blew apart, she fell to the floor in a heap, the single gunshot echoing down the stairwell behind Chalky.

  Then everything was quiet.

  Staring at her dead body, Vargas beside him, Archer stood still against the far wall for a moment, absorbing what had just happened.

  Then he looked over at his best friend, who lowered the gun and slumped down to the floor in the doorframe.

  Archer quickly moved over to him, Vargas going to Talia and kicking the weapons near her away.

  ‘Christ, am I glad to see you,’ Archer said, dropping to his knee by his friend.

  ‘Thought you’d end up…needing some help,’ Chalky said, his face pale from blood loss.

  He turned his attention to Vargas as she joined them, forcing a smile.

  ‘Finally we meet. Now I see…why he’s gone to…all this trouble.’

  She smiled back as she knelt down and gripped his free hand. Archer turned his attention to Chalky’s arm and the makeshift bandage he’d tied on earlier which had slipped down.

  Adjusting it, he looked at his friend and smiled.

  ‘You left it pretty bloody late, didn’t you?’

  ‘You know I like…to make an entrance,’ Chalky replied, grinning weakly.

  Turning, Archer looked over at Talia Farha’s dead body, the mother of the first man he’d ever had to kill. As he did so, the trio heard distant shouts of police from down the stairwell, back-up finally here.

  He looked back at his friend. ‘Thanks, Chalk.’

  ‘After what you did for me…earlier…I guess now…we’re even,’ Chalky said.

  With smoke still swirling around the office floor, the three of them waited there by the stairwell door for back-up, finally out of danger, Dash, Talia and their entire team gone.

  ‘Yeah,’ Archer said. ‘I guess we are.’

  FIFTY NINE

  Three days later, the sun had just come up on a bright July Tuesday morning in London. A patched up Director Tim Cobb was standing on the far side of the car park outside the ARU’s HQ, watching a team set to work ripping apart the upper floor of the burnt out building. Porter, Shifty and two of the other guys were standing beside him, all watching the men work in silence.

  They all looked as if they’d been in a war, which in a way they had. Although Mason and Spitz had died, Porter and the other guys had been standing a bit further back, which had saved their lives. All the surviving task force officers had needed to have nails removed from their bodies, the wounds cleaned and bandaged, and all had wanted to be released from care immediately, thinking the operation was still on-going. Cobb had done the same of course, demanding the hospital discharge him, but quietened when he was informed that it was over; he’d suffered cuts to his face and body and still had a mild concussion, but was otherwise OK.

  As they recovered in hospital all day Sunday and yesterday, the men had been updated on everything that had happened in the time since they’d been put out of action. They’d been stunned to discover the person behind all this death and destruction had been the mother of Dominick Farha, a man most of the ARU team remembered very well. Once SCO19 had cleared the building on the South Bank, they’d found the bodies of eight more mercenaries and a legendary female mujahedeen fighter called Talia Farha who’d been on a number of wanted lists of several countries for a long time.

  Once their prints were run, it turned out five of the dead men were presumed to have died already in previous conflicts and the others had all dropped off the radar long ago, soldiers of fortune whose luck this time had finally run out. They were wanted men with a variety of nationalities; the UK, US, Canada, Afghanistan, Australia and South Africa. It quickly became apparent that Talia Farha had used several other aliases over the years; given the sophistication of the operation and the secrecy the entire group had operated under it wasn’t surprising that someone as good as Nikki hadn’t been able to identify who they were until it was almost too late.

  In the extensive debriefing since Saturday, the Met had pieced together exactly why 3rd Grade Detective Alice Vargas had been kidnapped and why the attacks on their Unit and the NYPD team had followed. The abduction had never been about Vargas’ past, but Archer’s; laying a false trail had been a master stroke, luring the ARU and NYPD teams together and then unleashing the two bomb blasts and sniper attack to kill them all.

  Months of planning had gone into the efforts to wipe out the entire ARU squad and the NYPD team, saving the man himself for last, the man who’d shot her son.

  However, like many before her, Talia Farha had underestimated Archer.

  And she’d paid the ultimate price.

  Given the meticulous preparation and execution, Cobb and co knew they were lucky to have lost only two men but nevertheless, Talia, Dash and their team had all but destroyed the ARU HQ as well as several cars and had left a bloodbath inside the office building by the Thames, parts of which had only just been approaching the end of a long renovation.

  Considering what they’d been up against, losing two of their people and four SCO19 officers was tragic but they knew it very easily could have been so much worse. The six who’d handled the operation when everyone else had gone down had truly outdone themselves. Stanovich, Payan and a guard inside the South Bank building which the mercenaries had used as a base were the other casualties of the day, but only one of them would be mourned.

  Watching the demo crew work, Cobb smiled, proud of the way his team had handled affairs after he’d been injured and put out of action; he was particularly proud of Nikki, who’d stayed on despite having a broken collarbone and being shot. Her car had been totalled too, blown up in some kind of Molotov cocktail to kill two of the mercenaries, but Cobb figured she had a pretty fair case with the insurance company.

  As a workman dislodged some masonry, the last piece of the Briefing Room wall crumbled away, falling to the concrete below in a cloud of
dust. The five men all watched it drop in silence.

  ‘To be fair, I never did like the colour scheme,’ Shifty suddenly said.

  As one, the group all turned to look at him.

  After a pointed silence Porter spoke.

  ‘Guess we’re going to have to relocate for the next few months.’

  Watching the men ahead work, Cobb nodded, then suddenly frowned.

  Still thinking about Nikki’s insurance case for her car, he shifted his attention from the building to the car park, looking left and right.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ he said.

  ‘What’s wrong, sir?’ Porter asked.

  ‘Where the hell is my Mercedes?’

  *

  Across the city, Archer took his boarding pass from the woman behind the check-in desk at Heathrow Terminal 5 and thanked her. Dressed in a clean pair of blue jeans and a grey t-shirt, he had a new pair of sunglasses resting on his head that he’d had to remove when she checked his passport.

  He noticed her looking at the black eye he was now sporting after being hit by Dash.

  ‘What happened?’ she asked, smiling curiously at him and looking at the shiner.

  ‘Saturday was a rough night.’

  Her smiled faded, her look of interest changing to something more like disapproval, but before she could reply, he gave her a broad smile and turned away.

  Scooping up his bag, he walked towards Josh, Marquez, Shepherd, Vargas and Chalky, who were standing there waiting for him, Vargas stepping towards him.

  Now fully complete again, the NYPD team was heading home.

  ‘All done?’ Shepherd asked, as Archer joined them and put his arm around Vargas. Shepherd had a bandage around his head from a bad cut after the explosion from Beckett’s bomb vest, but apart from that he was fully recovered.

  Archer nodded. ‘Club Class, here we come. I could get used to this.’

  ‘Joys of the Bureau’s budget,’ Marquez said to Chalky.

  As he smiled and went to respond, he felt his cell phone go off and pulled it out, reading a new message. He looked up at Archer and smiled.

  ‘Uh oh. You’re in deep shit.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s Port. Apparently Cobb just found out what you did to his Mercedes; said it’s just as well you’re leaving the country. If you stand outside, you might be able to hear him shouting from here.’

  ‘What did you do to his Mercedes?’ Shepherd asked, looking at him.

  ‘I’ll tell you on the plane, sir,’ Archer said, checking their Departure time on the board above.

  Confused but leaving it for the flight, Shepherd then turned to Chalky, offering his hand.

  ‘Thank you for everything you and your colleagues did for us. I won’t forget it.’

  Chalky shook it. ‘Pleasure. Glad it worked out and you’re all safe.’

  Marquez stepped forward and hugged him, then Josh offered his hand.

  ‘I’ll see you soon,’ he said, as Chalky shook it.

  Turning to Vargas, Chalky went to shake her hand but she stepped forward and hugged him too.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  ‘You too,’ he said quietly.

  ‘For what?’

  He didn’t reply. A moment later, the group gathered their things and moved off towards the security points, giving Archer and Chalky a chance to say goodbye.

  The two friends stood there facing each other; then Archer chuckled.

  ‘It’s just as well I’m leaving. Most people don’t ever get blown up, shot and have their heart stop in their entire lifetime, let alone all in one day.’

  ‘Piss off. Lucky bastard. I go through all that and you only get a black eye.’

  Archer looked down at himself.

  ‘Shit, you’re right,’ he said, genuinely surprised. ‘I didn’t end up in hospital.’

  ‘Don’t speak too soon. You’re not on the plane yet.’

  Archer laughed.

  There was a pause as they stood together in the large hall.

  ‘Christ, I’m getting sick of these goodbyes,’ Chalky said.

  ‘Yeah; me too.’

  ‘When are you gonna come back?’

  ‘Some point again this year.’

  ‘No, I mean really come back.’

  Archer paused. ‘Not yet, mate. I’ve got a good going thing over there.’

  Chalky nodded, watching the rest of Archer’s team walking towards the security checkpoints, their backs to him.

  ‘Yeah; you do.’

  Archer glanced at his friend and smiled. Then the two friends hugged quickly, and stepped back.

  ‘Enough of that,’ Chalky said. ‘Don’t want people getting the wrong idea.’

  Archer laughed. ‘I’ll be back again before you know it. I promise.’

  ‘Don’t hurry. Need about twelve months to recover from this visit.’

  Archer grinned then turned and headed for the security points, his team standing there waiting for him. As he watched him go, Chalky smiled.

  Make it soon, Arch, he thought.

  Re-joining the rest of the NYPD group, Archer and the team walked towards the checks, handing over their boarding passes and passports one by one. Josh, Shepherd and Marquez went through first as Archer and Vargas waited behind, Archer’s arm around her shoulder and her own arm around his waist. Neither of them had needed to apologise to one another since they made it out of the office building, their fight from last week long forgotten. Sitting there with her and Chalky on the 12th floor as they waited for back-up to arrive, Archer had also realised that all of his choking claustrophobia and fears from that night in Harlem were gone, banished.

  And he had a feeling that now his nightmares were gone for good too.

  ‘Ready to go back?’ he asked Vargas, looking down at her.

  ‘I can’t wait,’ she said, looking up at him. ‘But can I ask a favour?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Let’s never go into a tall building together ever again.’

  He laughed. ‘Deal.’

  After she kissed him, Vargas then went through the checkpoint, Archer the last to go. He stepped forward, offering his boarding pass and passport.

  As the official behind the desk took them, he opened Archer’s passport and glanced up but then paused, seeing Archer’s black eye.

  ‘Someone hit you?’ he asked.

  He nodded. ‘Afraid so.’

  ‘Looks like you came off second best, mate.’

  Archer shook his head and grinned.

  ‘Not really. You should see the other guy.’

  THE END

  ###

  About the author:

  Born in Sydney, Australia and raised in England and Brunei, Tom Barber has always had a passion for writing and story-telling. It took him to Nottingham University, England, where he graduated in 2009 with a 2:1 BA Hons in English Studies. Post-graduation, Tom followed this by moving to New York City and completing the 2 Year Meisner Acting training programme at The William Esper Studio, furthering his love of acting and screen-writing.

  Upon his return to the UK in late 2011, Tom set to work on his debut novel, Nine Lives, which has since become a five-star rated Amazon UK Kindle hit. The following books in the series, The Getaway, Blackout, Silent Night and One Way have been equally successful, garnering five-star reviews in the US and the UK.

  Return Fire is the sixth novel in the Sam Archer series.

  For updates on all new releases

  Follow @TomBarberBooks.

  Table of Contents

  Copyright:

  other books

  Dedication

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVEN
TEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY ONE

  TWENTY TWO

  TWENTY THREE

  TWENTY FOUR

  TWENTY FIVE

  TWENTY SIX

  TWENTY SEVEN

  TWENTY EIGHT

  TWENTY NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY ONE

  THIRTY TWO

  THIRTY THREE

  THIRTY FOUR

  THIRTY FIVE

  THIRTY SIX

  THIRTY SEVEN

  THIRTY EIGHT

  THIRTY NINE

  FORTY

  FORTY ONE

  FORTY TWO

  FORTY THREE

  FORTY FOUR

  FORTY FIVE

  FORTY SIX

  FORTY SEVEN

  FORTY EIGHT

  FORTY NINE

  FIFTY

  FIFTY ONE

  FIFTY TWO

  FIFTY THREE

  FIFTY FOUR

  FIFTY FIVE

  FIFTY SIX

  FIFTY SEVEN

  FIFTY EIGHT

  FIFTY NINE

  About the author: