The Getaway (Sam Archer 2)

by Barber, Tom

It was from Sanderson, the FBI Assistant Director. Cobb must have given him the number. He had a deep voice, a neutral American accent, non-regional. He said he’d just arrived in town and it was around 5 am, and that he was going to get his head down for a few hours then would meet at 10 am wherever Archer wanted. The message ended. Archer appreciated the gesture. Sanderson and Cobb must have been good friends, or he must have really owed Cobb to drive up here so late at night. Right now, he and Katic needed all the help they could get, and Sanderson was the perfect man to help them. Archer tried to call him back, but there was no answer. He let it ring through to the answering machine and left a message, telling the man to meet him on the 8th Floor Marriott Hotel bar at 10. He hung up and took out the battery again, then moved back into the room.

  Katic and Jessie were still asleep. Archer grabbed a pen and paper from the desk by the television and scribbled Gone to meet FBI A.D. Back soon x on the pad, just under the red hotel logo, address and contact details. He laid it on the couch where he had been sleeping and grabbed his navy-blue over-coat. Swinging it over his shoulders, he checked the chamber on the Sig by pulling back the top-slide gently. He saw the copper-coloured gleam of a bullet in the pipe, confirming it was loaded. He made sure the safety was on, and tucked the gun into the pocket of his coat. He grabbed the key-card, and taking the latch off the door, quietly slipped out of the room, pulling the door shut behind him as softly as he could.

  He stood in the corridor, still for a moment, checking each side. The place was pretty quiet. Down the far end, he saw a family of five troop out of a room and make their way towards the elevators. He waited where he was, watching them. The father of the group pushed the button and they stepped into one of the capsules and the doors shut, probably headed upstairs for the restaurant on the 48th Floor and a view of the Manhattan morning as they enjoyed a Sunday morning breakfast. Archer walked down the corridor. The coat’s deep pockets meant he could look like he had his hands stuffed in there, but actually was holding a pistol in his right hand. It meant he could be armed and ready to fire, and if Siletti and O’Hara got the drop on him he would have something of his own to answer with. The odds were already stacked against him but the Sig would even the playing field if he got cornered.

  Arriving by the elevators, he pushed a button with an arrow facing down printed on the white panel, and a set of doors opened instantly behind him. He walked over and stepped inside and pushed the button for 8. After a brief pause, the doors slid shut and the capsule moved down.

  He looked out of the glass behind him and saw the lobby far below, gradually increasing in size as the elevator took him down thirteen levels. Looking down, he realised any guests who were afraid of heights would probably leave this hotel more stressed than when they arrived. It certainly was an overwhelming view, a clever and artistic design, but not for sufferers of vertigo, that was for sure.

  A few seconds later the elevator arrived on 8, and once the doors opened, Archer stepped out. Suddenly, it was far busier around him. He saw the giant bar was straight ahead of him, the rest of the 8th floor a concourse with shops and conference rooms. There were people passing him from each direction and he joined the flow, moving up a couple of steps and entering the large bar area.

  The bar was big. Very big. It occupied about a third of the entire 8th floor. It was split into two halves. The floor on this side was all polished marble, dark green with white swirls and whorls. To his immediate left was the main bar itself. It was circular, surrounded by a series of white chairs, televisions mounted above the rows and rows of different liquor bottles, showing the news headlines and weather reports for the day. He was glad to see that neither his face nor any mention of the Garden heist was on the screen. But some footage and a headline suddenly flicked onto the television that made him stop in his tracks.

  It was a breaking news report. The screen was showing images from outside the Trump Hotel, sometime last night, lots of lights from both an ambulance and cameras flashing in the night as a black body-bag was wheeled out of the front entrance on a gurney, down the steps and into a waiting ambulance. He glanced at the headline under the footage.

  FBI Special Agent found murdered in Trump Hotel.

  He swallowed. He realised the report only made reference to Parker’s body, not Lock’s or Gerrard’s, which meant either no one had found the other two yet or Siletti and O’Hara had disposed of the bodies. He remembered what was in the trunk of Siletti’s car, the power saw, plastic bags and bricks, and shuddered. He thought of Gerry, his father’s old friend, and swallowed down his anger. He pictured the two men in his head, and made a silent promise. For them, he’d make sure Siletti and O’Hara would pay for everything they’d done.

  Averting his gaze from the television, Archer saw that there were stools placed all the way around the circular bar with no one sitting on them yet. 9.30 am was a bit too early to start drinking. He walked on over the marble floor, past tables and chairs with the occasional person or pair sat there, drinking coffee, reading papers, or chatting with partners or colleagues. As he walked, Archer saw ten yards ahead that the marble suddenly changed into a carpeted area, the second portion of the bar. This place was busier. He saw a lot of businessmen and women in suits, engaged in meetings, drinking cups of coffee and discussing documents or proposals placed on the tables in front of them. Up ahead were long glass windows that ran all the way across the walls revealing the heart of Times Square. From where he was standing, Archer could see the tops of the billboards and advertisements below. McDonalds, Mamma Mia, Chicago and M+M’s.

  The place was a good spot for meeting someone, especially in Archer’s case. It had a number of escape routes, and he would see trouble coming from a mile away. Anyhow, he wasn’t concerned about Sanderson. He had Cobb’s seal of approval and that was enough. He just didn’t want to turn and find Siletti and O’Hara standing there, trying to corner him off. There were a lot of people around and he didn’t want to have to pull the Sig and start firing.

  He walked through the seating area and took up an empty chair to the left and near the window, side-on so he could both see the room and also couldn’t be approached from behind. A waitress walked over from the bar and he asked her for a cup of tea. She nodded and moved away, stifling a smile at the combination of his request and English accent. Watching her go, he glanced over his left shoulder into Times Square and looked at a clock on one of the screens. It told him the time was 9:45 am.

  He looked back into the bar and the direction from which he’d just come, but couldn’t see anyone who looked as if they could be Sanderson or an FBI Assistant Director. With the Sig held in his hand, hidden in his pocket, he leant back in the chair and waited.

  He’d be here soon enough.

  Ten minutes later, he clocked Sanderson from about sixty yards away. He was in his fifties, probably once fit but moving from the field to behind a desk had added some extra pounds to his waistline. He looked surprisingly fresh for a guy who’d been driving all night, but that was the way it was with people as high up as he was in the food chain. For men like him and Cobb, sleep was a luxury in the way that coffee and caffeine were a necessity. He was dressed in a black suit, white shirt and blue tie, smartly cut hair that had once been brown but was now turning grey. He made Archer immediately too, and headed over. Archer rose to greet him, but looked behind the man at the same time. No one had followed him.

  Sanderson offered his hand. Archer let the Sig drop in his pocket and pulled his own hand, shaking it.

  ‘Bobby Sanderson.’

  ‘Sam Archer.’

  ‘Yeah, I knew your father. I’m sorry about what happened to him.’

  Archer nodded.

  ‘Anyway, Let’s take a seat,’ Sanderson said.

  The waitress from the bar approached again, having seen Sanderson arrive, and he ordered coffee, black, no sugar, no milk. Once she was gone, he turned back to Archer.

  ‘Right. From the start, tell me everything. I already heard
it from Timmy, but I want to hear it first hand from you.’

  It took Archer ten minutes or so. He gave Sanderson every detail, as he had with Cobb earlier. He paused towards the beginning as the waitress returned with Sanderson’s coffee, but then he told him everything that had happened from the moment he got the call in London to them sitting right here, across from each other at the table.

  Once he'd finished, he looked at Sanderson, gauging his response. The FBI Assistant Director didn’t move, looking straight back at him. Then he spoke.

  ‘Two words,’ he said. ‘Holy. Shit.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘First of all, do not say a word to another person about anything you just told me. Understand?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I mean it kid. I’m saying that for your own good. I’m an old friend of Timmy’s, but there are a lot of people out there who wouldn’t care if you end up locked in a jail cell for the rest of your life. Or worse. The FBI has to maintain its image. I don’t need to tell you how damaging this could be if word got out to the public.’

  Archer nodded. ‘It stays with me. You have my word.’

  ‘I’ll need more than that,’ he said. ‘But we’ll deal with that later.’

  He drank from his coffee.

  ‘I manage the Security Division,’ he explained. ‘But after Timmy called me last night, I pulled the files on the team up here. Their individual folders, the case files, the reports, the whole lot. I saw your father was sent up here to investigate.’

  ‘Yeah. It got him killed. That’s why I got involved. And they whacked Parker for sure. Most likely Lock and Gerry too.’

  Sanderson thought for a moment, then swore.

  ‘This doesn’t shock me as it should. People in Washington have been keeping a close eye on this team for a while. Let’s just say they haven’t been conducting themselves in a low-key manner. Before you lost contact with Agent Gerrard, did he tell you what he did to get sent here?’

  Archer frowned, then shook his head.

  ‘He mentioned he’d had some kind of demotion. That’s all.’

  Sanderson snorted.

  ‘That’s one way of putting it. He struck an EAD.

  ‘EAD?’

  ‘Executive Assistant Director.’

  ‘He punched him?’

  Sanderson nodded.

  ‘Luckily for him, the guy was an old acquaintance. It wasn’t a play fight either. He sucker-punched him. Knocked him out cold.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘The guy was having an affair with Gerrard’s wife.’

  Archer paused.

  ‘Wow.’

  ‘Exactly. The guy he struck, Jankowski, admitted that he deserved it, which saved Gerrard’s career. But the people above him didn’t see it that way. You don’t hit a senior agent ever, no matter what the provocation. They didn’t fire Gerrard but they threw the book at him. He was demoted and sent here to take over the Bank Robbery team. Doesn’t seem like a demotion, but trust me, this was a job no one wanted to take. A poisoned chalice, if you will. Like walking the plank.’

  Sanderson sipped his coffee. There was a pause.

  ‘So what’s the plan?’ Archer asked. ‘Can we close this thing out?’

  ‘Before that, there’s something else I haven’t mentioned,’ Sanderson said. ‘I read the case-file. The latest report from your father was crucial. He had good news.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He said he had proof that someone in the Bank Robbery Task Force team was on the other side. Someone who wasn’t Agent Gerrard.’

  ‘Great. What kind of proof?’

  ‘Photographic.’

  Archer sat forward, interested.

  ‘Shit, that’s perfect.’

  ‘He didn’t want to reveal over the phone what exactly was in the shots. He wanted to deliver it in person back in D.C, face-to-face. He was due to return the night he was killed.’

  Archer thought for a moment.

  ‘Siletti and O’Hara must have found out somehow,’ he said.

  ‘Or Sean Farrell. I listened to the recording of the phone-call your father made to his superiors. He said this was enough proof to take them all down for good, everyone involved.’

  Archer shook his head. ‘It wasn’t Farrell.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Because my father left his service weapon at his apartment the night he was murdered. If he was meeting with Farrell, he never would have gone unarmed. And Farrell told me himself he’d never killed anyone from the FBI. He said it would be crazy to. He’s not stupid. He knew that if he did, the entire damn Bureau would jump on him.’

  Sanderson thought for a moment.

  ‘OK, so we have to assume Siletti and O’Hara are in those photographs. But there are problems. You try and pin anything on the two of them from Katic’s apartment, they’ll just claim they were trying to detain two fugitives from the Garden heist. You put hands on Siletti prior to that, so he’ll also claim he was trying to arrest you for assaulting a Federal agent. Lock, Parker and Gerrard will have been killed with stolen weapons so the ballistics will draw a blank. We need hard, substantial proof. We need the camera your father used.

  ‘The investigating team couldn’t find it?’

  ‘No. Not according to the report. Or if not the camera, then the memory card instead. Unless the bad guys stole it after they killed him.’

  Archer thought, then his eyes widened.

  ‘Oh shit.’

  Sanderson looked at him. ‘What? What is it?’

  ‘I know where the memory card is.’

  Across the city inside Jim Archer’s third floor apartment in Astoria, Billy Regan leaned back in a chair, a sawn-off shotgun resting on another chair in front of him, his fingers curled around the grip. He’d placed another chair just ahead so the barrel of the weapon was resting on the back, aiming straight at the door.

  He was positioned just to the right. Whenever the door opened, whoever was the other side would push it forward and step straight into Regan’s firing line. They wouldn’t have time to react. They’d be mincemeat in a second.

  He took a draw on a cigarette in his mouth and exhaled.

  He was looking forward to this.

  He’d known something was up with that English prick ever since Farrell had brought him on board. And it was a miracle that was he was still sitting here and wasn’t in jail. After they’d loaded the first half of the money from the stash room into the cop car, he’d been headed back inside the stadium with Ortiz when they’d turned and seen the car suddenly speed off from the kerb, moving off down 33rd Street and into the night, almost a million of their dollars in the trunk.

  He’d ditched them. The son of a bitch ditched them.

  After a brief second of hesitation and disbelief, watching the car disappearing into the distance, Regan had grabbed a radio from his pocket and pushed the button.

  ‘Abort,’ he said into the receiver, once, clearly. ‘Walk away.’

  Down below, Farrell was still inside the money room, clearing out the last two lockers of dollar bills, but had heard this over his radio. After pausing and gritting his teeth, fighting the urge to keep going, he dropped the stack of cash in his hand, stepped over the two tied-up and gagged guards and walked straight out of the room, closing it behind him with his gloved hand and locking it. He’d been back up on the street in less than forty seconds, swearing under his breath, as angry as he’d ever been in his life. He moved out of the 33rd Street exit, but Regan and Ortiz weren’t there. They’d already split. They’d agreed before the job that if they got jammed up they’d separate and meet back at the gym in Queens, whenever they could get there later in the night.

  Farrell had walked east, moving fast, putting distance between himself and the scene of the botched heist. He was absolutely livid. He’d walked down into Penn Station and got on the next train out of the area. Half an hour later, the three of them were inside the concealed brick room through the hidden door in th
e gym, and all three were furious. The English guy had screwed them, played Farrell like a fool, and walked off with almost a million dollars in the back of the car. Carmen lost the plot, smashing two chairs to pieces and shouting long streams of expletives in Spanish as Farrell tried to breathe and think clearly across the room. A career heist, the finish line in sight, ended because the English guy screwed them.

  Farrell had pulled his phone from his pocket and called him, threatening him, in the vain hope he’d give something away and they could find out where he was with the cash. Farrell’s premature departure meant they’d had to abandon a huge chunk of their money, a large portion of their pot of gold. When Regan had made the call over the radio, Farrell was loading up a sixth bag. Each one was holding about four hundred thousand. They just left behind 2.4 million, dollars that had been packed and waiting in his hands. Now it would be safely locked up again. They’d blown it.

  Inside the apartment, Regan leaned back in his chair and shook his head, drawing on the cigarette in the corner of his lips. Once they’d all calmed down, they realised that they’d been able to walk out clean and that they hadn’t been sprung on by the NYPD or the FBI. They had also each made it off Manhattan and to the gym, so at least they hadn’t been duped by an undercover cop or a fed. At least the English asshole wasn’t working for the cops. Once they’d cooled and started to think rationally again, Farrell had outlined each of their next moves.

  First of all, they figured the Brit would cut and run. It would be suicidal of him to hang around the city, so Farrell reckoned he’d try to get the money out, split it up, maybe through a Cayman Islands bank account, then get out of the country as fast as he could or jump in a car and get out of the city. One small blessing was that Farrell had kept the details of the Flushing job confidential, not telling the asshole a word of their plan. He didn’t know anything important about their plan of attack on the truck, where it would take place and how. The journey from the Tennis Center up into Long Island to the Chase financial headquarters would take around eighty minutes and that was one long stretch of road. He had no idea where or when they would try, or if they even still would.