One Way (Sam Archer 5) (28 page)

FORTY NINE

Archer stared at the muzzles of the guns. The lead man also had a control switch in his left hand which he tossed to the ground angrily. Archer recognised the switch from interactions with the EOD in London; it was a detonator. The fact it had been discarded indicated the men were in no rush to leave.

They couldn’t get out of here in time themselves.

He shut down the explosives.

Beside him, the other man was tracing the NYPD chopper with the LAW, keeping it from getting any closer, his left arm hanging limp at his side. The man who’d held the switch ripped off his balaclava angrily, tossing it to the ground. Tanned and brown-haired, his face was a mask of fury and nothing but pure hatred. Beside him, Archer heard Vargas whisper
Calvin
. He was the SRT Master Sergeant, the leader of the response team.

‘Finally got you, bitch,’ he said to Vargas.

‘That’s what Denton thought,’ she hissed back, full of defiance.

Calvin’s eyes narrowed. ‘Where is he?’

‘Where do you think?’

Archer was beside Vargas and Isabel. His legs felt like cooked spaghetti, his vision hazy, his hearing impaired from all the explosions and gunfire.

In front of them, fifteen feet away, Calvin smiled, looking down the sights of his M4A1.

‘There was only one way this was ever going to end,’ he said, grinning.

‘Shit!’ Shepherd said from the helicopter as they veered away.
‘Get closer!’
he shouted at the pilot.

‘No friggin way,’
the lead pilot said, pointing at the man tracing their movements with the anti-tank rocket launcher
. ‘He hits us with that thing, we join the chopper graveyard down there.’

Shepherd and Hendricks watched helplessly, seeing Archer, the woman and the child encircled on the roof. Swearing again and dumping the Mossberg to one side, Shepherd unclipped his belt and moved into the back, ripping open an equipment case. There was a Barrett M82 sniper rifle and ammunition inside, two magazines with ten .50 12.7x99 NATO rounds inside, huge ammunition for a powerhouse of a rifle. After 9/11, NYPD choppers were equipped with the Barretts to shoot down aircraft, which meant it would decimate the Miami cops on the roof.

He pulled it out and slapped the mag into the weapon, racking the bolt and extending the bipod legs, lying down in the cabin. He didn’t have time to sight the weapon, but prayed to God it shot straight.

‘Hover straight!’
he shouted at the pilot, as Hendricks ripped open the door.

‘They’ve got them!’ Marquez said, looking down the scope of the rifle in the building eighty yards downtown. There were three men, two in combats, one with dreadlocks. Archer and the woman looked like hell, covered in cuts and bloodstains, makeshift strip bandages on his arm and her leg. The angle meant she could just see the response team man’s head; he seemed to have momentarily forgotten about her. Marquez centred the crosshairs on his face. The rifle was a straight shooter; she’d nailed the fuselage on the chopper exactly where she’d aimed.

She slowed her breathing. He was talking, his head bobbing slightly, looking down the sights of a black assault rifle.

She pulled the trigger.

Click.

‘Shit,’ she said. ‘No ammo!’

Josh ran back to the dead sharpshooter, frantically searching through his pockets for spare ammunition. Marquez watched helplessly through the scope, praying she’d be in time.

‘C’mon, hurry!’

Archer looked at the three men about to kill him. Glancing at the guy with dreadlocks, Archer thought back to the street hours ago, sitting on the bench and seeing that man crossing the street intending to murder Vargas. A perfect afternoon destroyed by violence and now with so many dead as a result. Archer stared at the man’s face, trying to focus.

He felt unsteady. He felt his pistol slip and drop out of his hand, clattering to the concrete. He glanced down at it. Under his feet, the concrete was blood-stained from earlier in the night, some stray ball bearings still scattered around on the roof. He wanted to lie down. Beside him, he felt Isabel pressing against his leg, shaking.

Vargas picked up the girl, shielding her as much as she could, holding her close to her chest and turning her body from Calvin. It was futile. She knew it would be scant protection when the moment came.

‘You think you could do what you did and get away with it?’ Calvin said, his eyes boring a hole into Vargas.

‘I should ask you the same thing.’

‘You betrayed your own. Now you’re going to die, bitch.’

‘Look around, asshole,’ she said. ‘You took off your mask. Your boys are scattered all over the building. No way are you getting away with any of this.’

‘That doesn’t matter anymore. I don’t even care. I just want to watch you die.’

He paused and grinned, looking at Archer, who was staring at the ground slightly ahead of him, blood staining the lower left portion of his t-shirt.

‘Speaking of which, it looks like your friend is already on his way.’

Vargas glanced at Archer beside her; his face was pale, his eyes fixed on the ground.

But out of the corner of her eye, she noticed something else.

His right hand was inside the black bag slung across his shoulders.

FIFTY

When Archer had dropped his pistol and looked down, feeling dizzy, he’d noticed debris from the explosion earlier
.

Ball bearings.

Claymore mines.

The he realised something.

He still had the black bag over his shoulder.

As Vargas had spoken to Calvin, unknowingly distracting him, Archer had slid his hand slowly into the open bag, feeling for the blasting cap already attached to the wire.

He’d found it and slowly screwed it into one of the mines, Calvin’s attention fixed on Vargas, savouring his victory and not noticing what Archer was doing.

He willed them to keep talking. Finally, the cap locked into place.

The mine was now armed.

He felt the shape of the weapon.
Front Towards Enemy
was on the convex side. If he got it wrong, he’d kill himself, Vargas and Isabel in an instant.

‘Time to say goodnight, bitch,’ Calvin said, hitching up his M4A1 and aiming at Vargas’ forehead.

Archer’s fingers curled around the clacker, taking the utmost care not to close it.

‘Hey Seth,’ he said.

Calvin paused. The use of his first name took him off guard.

‘Catch.’

Archer suddenly whipped the bag off his shoulder and threw it towards Calvin, who didn’t have time to step back.

It hit him in the torso and he instinctively caught it, the other two men watching with surprise.

All three saw a length of wire disappearing inside the bag, the other end connected to the detonator in Archer’s hand.

Front Towards Enemy.

Calvin looked up as realisation dawned.

Archer shielded Vargas and Isabel with his left arm and squeezed shut the clacker in his right hand as hard as he could.

The moment the Claymore inside the bag got the detonation signal, the bag
whumped
and the side facing Calvin exploded

They’d been standing in the shape of a triangle, him at the front. The explosion dropped the two cops and the dreadlocked guy, smashing the glass in some unbroken windows on a building immediately behind them. The ball bearings cut them to pieces, using their own weapon against them.

They fell where they stood, their weapons clattering to the roof top, killed instantly. The bag ended up in rags on the concrete, blown apart, the smoking plates of one of the mines visible through the damaged fabric. In front of it, what was left of the three men was all over the tarred concrete.

Then, suddenly, it was still.

Slowly opening her eyes, Vargas blinked, waiting for any delayed pain, Archer holding her and Isabel protectively. She looked down; she wasn’t hurt from the blast. She glanced up over Archer’s arm and saw that the men were all down, annihilated by the anti-personnel mine. The weapon was effective at up to 100 metres and Calvin had been holding the bag.

She was shielding Isabel, who had her head buried in her shoulder. Sensing it was quiet, she lifted her head an inch, opening her eyes.

Standing together, silently, the wind ruffled their clothing and hair.

‘Are we safe?’
she whispered.

‘Yes,’
Vargas said.
‘We’re safe.’

She looked up at Archer, who was staring ahead across the roof.

‘Archer.’

He didn’t reply.

‘Sam?’

Then she looked down and saw the spreading blood stain on his shirt.

The next thing he knew he was falling. He didn’t even feel the ground as he hit it but it felt comfortable when he got there.

He lay down and rested for the first time all day. It felt good, finally, after leaving the gym all those hours ago. Now he was looking up at the night sky. He couldn’t see any stars; apparently you couldn’t in New York from all the city lights.

He saw Vargas above him, kneeling, saying something, her jet black hair hanging down over her face. He examined the cuts, nicks and dirt on her cheeks and upper body; to him, they made her seem even more beautiful. She was saying something but he couldn’t hear.

As he stared up at her and realised what was happening, her voice from earlier suddenly echoed in his mind.

Is that enough for you?

Flat on his back,
she and Isabel finally safe, their eyes met. As hers welled with tears, he smiled one last time.

Is that enough for you?

It is for me.

FIFTY ONE

Almost a month later, Matt Shepherd was sitting at his desk inside the Counter Terrorism Bureau on Vernon Boulevard in Queens, lost in thought and momentarily alone.

It was a Saturday morning, sun streaming in through the windows of the Department. Dressed in the Bureau-issue navy blue polo shirt and a pair of jeans, he leaned back in his seat, a cup of coffee in his hands. He had a copy of
The New York Post
on the desk and was looking at the top story. The last funeral for a member of the ESU team who’d died on the roof that day had just taken place. The photo was from the service. Beside it, in a linked report, was the news that the city had decided to completely renovate the Harlem apartment building on West 135
th
. It had only taken twenty years or so.

Shepherd stared at the paper, his mind reliving the events of that night twenty seven days ago, his emotions mixed. After they’d seen the three enemy gunmen get taken out by a sudden explosion, the pilot of the chopper carrying Shepherd and Hendricks had immediately moved in, followed shortly afterwards by more back up. The NYPD’S Bomb Disposal Team had dealt with the C4 rigged up in the bottom of the building, as well as the sea of Claymore anti-personnel mines set up by the door. Vargas’ call to Dalton had saved more than just the Marshal rescue task force’s lives; the disposal specialist said if they’d gone off, the Claymores would have killed scores of cops and detectives further back on the street. They secured the weapons and unlocked the door.

Finally, for the first time that evening, the NYPD and Marshal teams could get inside. They’d found bodies littered all over the building, some of them identified as the renegade cops, many of them not. Including the sniper Marquez and Josh had found, there’d been seventeen men involved in the plot to murder Vargas: a five-man hit-team, a ten man response team, a sniper and a drug-running pilot who’d been killed when his chopper went down beside the Hudson. Every single one of the response team and the sharpshooter were current members of the Miami-Dade PD Special Response Team, an entire unit of dirty cops. This had caused a great deal of consternation and some very awkward questions being asked from the top.

The Miami press had wanted answers for what had happened, especially details of what the stand-off inside the building was about. After review and conversation with the Florida Police Commissioner, it was decided to give them what they wanted. It would be impossible to conceal what had happened; it had all played out in full view anyway, so the decision was taken to tackle it head on and give them the facts. A press conference conducted by the heads of the Miami Dade Police Department named all twelve disgraced officers, as well as revealing their involvements in corruption and the stolen and illegal funds in their auxiliary bank accounts that were being seized as a result of an undercover officer’s diligent work. A major review was underway, involving the Senate, the highest ranks of the Department, ACU and Internal Affairs, law-abiding officers who’d interacted with the team shocked at the extent of the corruption that had been going on under their noses for so long. Extra safeguards and extensive background checks were already in place to ensure something like that could never happen again.

He sensed someone approach and turned. Josh walked over to his desk, joining him, holding a foam cup of tea. He was dressed in the same outfit as Shepherd, his pistol and badge on his hip.

‘Morning sir.’

‘Morning.’

‘Everything alright?’

‘Yeah. I guess. All things considered.’

Josh saw the paper on the desk. He tapped it. ‘Did you see page 4?’

Shepherd nodded. ‘I did.’

With the case against Mike Lombardi and his crew ironclad, one of his men had come forward two days before trial and said he’d testify against the others in exchange for a reduced sentence in a secure facility out of the State. Called Luca, he’d taken to the stand with two black eyes and a broken nose. Rumour had it an NYPD Sergeant and close friend of Shepherd’s had been responsible, but there was no proof. Luca was so desperate to escape serious time, he let it go. Shepherd had watched from the back of the court and listened as Luca gave his testimony.

Apparently, Lombardi had been looking for a chance to make his move for a while. It had needed meticulous planning, no witnesses, no-one left alive to talk. The East Hampton gathering had been the perfect opportunity. As family, Mike had been invited to the party but had politely declined, setting up an alibi and secretly arranging with three of his most trusted men, with the promise of significant financial reward and roles in his new organisation, to take out the entire group. He’d already sounded these guys out about a potential takeover; all of them were on board.

It was time for the old guard to move on.

The job couldn’t have gone more smoothly. Gino’s villa was pretty secluded, located beside the beach. They’d come in from the water and walked right into the house, Gino and the family pleasantly surprised to see them. Each man was carrying a gift, parcels wrapped under their arms.

They’d walked in and then opened fire.

Hosing the entire group had taken just over a minute. The first ten had gone down before they even knew what was happening; Mike had fired through the package and dropped five of them himself. They were armed with silenced sub-machine guns packed with ammunition from weapons they’d lifted from some of Devaney’s muscle, and they annihilated the entire family. They’d found two more upstairs, both women who were unarmed, one of them with a phone in her hand about to dial 911. They’d been taken care of, killed where they stood. When it was done, the men checked they hadn’t left anything incriminating or anyone alive. Satisfied, they’d taken to their boat and left.

Their alibis in place, the murder weapons dismantled and dropped in the sea, Mike had been at home that night when he got the expected knock on the door. A blue and white had taken him to the local Precinct and he’d used all his acting skills, feigning horror and anguish at the atrocity. There was only one group of suspects he was told, and they were bringing them in. Casings had already been found with prints from the Devaney crew; if they could prove the hits were ordered, they could send down Frankie Devaney himself. Four weeks later, seemingly recovering from his grief, Mike started to assert control over the family operation. Too soon, and the cops would smell a rat. Too late, someone else would take his shot. Everything was in place; everything had been accounted for.

Save one thing.

The girl.

Luca said Mike had attended the funerals for his family; they’d had two joint services, nineteen caskets eventually going into the ground, all of them different sizes for the men, women and children killed that afternoon. However, Mike’s hit list had included twenty names; standing there in his suit at the second of the two funerals, the priest talking, he suddenly realised there was a coffin missing and started to panic.

Who did we miss?

Mike had been quick to realise who it was: his seven year old half-sister, Isabel, the youngest member of the family, the apple of her father’s eye who’d been an unplanned surprise to them all when Gino’s wife had announced she was pregnant again at the age of forty three. Isabel’s coffin wasn’t there. He’d checked with his guys if they remembered capping her off, but none of them could.
She probably wasn’t at the villa,
he told himself.
She was at a friend’s place. The police have her in protective custody in case the Devaneys try to finish the job.
His suspicions were confirmed two weeks ago when he caught a news bulletin of the girl being ushered towards a car in DC; she was alive. He didn’t order any moves on her though; they’d wasted everyone at the villa and checked every room. She didn’t see anything.

How wrong they were.

Shepherd chuckled, remembering Mike and his crew’s face when the child was brought in as a witness. The Court had to provide a box for her to stand on so the jury could see her as she gave her testimony which she gave clearly, her high pitched little voice condemning them to a life inside. Four weeks on from the building siege, the child was recovering but still had a long path ahead of her. She’d seen more violence in the past few weeks or so than most people experienced in their entire lives. Nevertheless, with Vargas sitting near Shepherd and smiling at her reassuringly, the girl had told the courtroom what she’d seen that day and had unhesitatingly identified her brother and his crew as the shooters.

Game, set, match.

It was one of the worst acts of violence committed in living memory by a New York crime family. Although he had nothing to do with what happened at the building on West 135
th
, Mike Lombardi and his team, save for Luca, received several life sentences each on nineteen counts of murder. The story on page 4 was to do with them; apparently, there had been some kind of incident at Riker’s yesterday involving four new inmates during yard time. An investigation was underway, but no murder weapons had been found and apparently no-one had seen who jumped them. Mike Lombardi and his team were out of the picture for good. Street justice, if ever such a thing was appropriate. Here, it definitely was. You reap what you sow.

Shepherd and Josh stood there in silence, the building around them at work but not busy, the weekend shift putting in their time. Looking at the paper, the same person came to mind, someone who should have been standing there beside them.

Shepherd rose. ‘C’mon. We’ve got work to do. Franklin’s got a new op for us. And I’ve finally found a replacement for Jorgensen.’

‘Really?’ Josh said, intrigued.

‘You, me and Marquez will lay out the audit first upstairs. They’ll meet us all in the city later and you can make introductions.’

He rose, patting Josh on the shoulder as he passed. Josh looked down at the newspaper’s headline for a few moments. Then he turned and followed Shepherd up a metal flight of stairs leading to some Conference Rooms used for briefings on the floor above.

Marquez was already in there, waiting for them with Rach, an analyst. She nodded to the two men as they both took a seat. Shepherd was damn proud of her; it turned out she’d had a hunch that the response team had a sharpshooter. Josh had joined her but lost patience and left her to it, thinking she was imagining things. However, she’d found a rifle soon after he left, just before she had a gun pulled on her from behind. The sniper was about to shoot, but Josh had returned just before he pulled the trigger and dropped him. Apparently on his way out Josh had noticed something leaking out from a store closet in the stairwell. Pulling open the door, he’d found the dead body of the guard from the front desk inside. She was right. There was a sniper there.

Marquez had used the dead man’s rifle to put down the enemy chopper as it came in from the Hudson. If she hadn’t, the building would have been detonated. Once again, his team had outdone themselves. And he had a feeling their new fifth member would fit right in.

‘Morning Rach,’ Shepherd said, settling into his chair.

‘Morning sir.’

‘So what do you have for us?’

‘Checkmate.’

Vargas examined the chess board in front of her. Her opponent was right; she’d lost all her pieces and the King was done. Across the small circular table in Bryant Park 42
nd
Street, Isabel reached over and knocked it over.

‘You win,’ Vargas said, smiling ruefully. She’d allowed it to happen, but managed to look suitably crestfallen.

Across the table, Isabel grinned back. She went to respond but something caught her attention over Vargas’ shoulder. Vargas turned and saw another small girl waving at them. She was with what had to be her parents on the lawn, the adults taking a seat and enjoying the sun.

‘Do you know her?’ she asked Isabel.

She nodded keenly. ‘Can I say hi?’

‘Go for it.’

Isabel was already off her seat, running over and hugging her friend. Moments later, the two girls were doing cartwheels and handstands on the lawn, getting rid of some of their seemingly limitless energy. Vargas leaned back in her chair and watched.

Now they were approaching the end of April, the good weather was here to stay and the city looked spectacular. She still had a small bandage over her eyebrow and was walking with a limp from the shrapnel wound to her thigh, but other than that she was in pretty good shape, the other bumps, cuts and bruises all but healed. She’d had some minor heart palpitations as a result of the electric shock she’d sustained, but the doctor told her those would settle and pass with time. However, psychologically she felt much better. She now knew for a fact that everyone involved in the corruption in the Miami PD Special Response Team was either dead or in jail. For the first time since she could remember, she wasn’t undercover or looking over her shoulder, worrying if the guys she busted had found her.

Surviving the ordeal on the street and inside the building had earned her a hell of a lot of respect in the Marshals service as well as in the Miami-Dade Police Department, especially considering she’d not only kept her witness alive but had also taken down the four gang members and the ten-man response team with Archer’s help. Isabel had made the stand and buried her brother and his crew. They were all going away for several life sentences. Mike Lombardi had been picked up on Monday morning having been found handcuffed to a chair inside an NYPD safe-house in Midtown. He was shouting and hollering that a dark-haired cop had put a gun to his balls and assaulted some of his people at their bar in Tribeca. He’d kept up the complaints all the way to the stand, but no-one took any notice and Isabel’s testimony finished him. As it turned out, he had more than a few enemies inside. Reports had come through that he and his four friends hadn’t made it past their second night; Gino Lombardi’s influence had reached out from beyond the grave and for some men, you didn’t need to share the same blood to be considered family.