One Way (Sam Archer 5) (3 page)

Turning from the shutters, he opened a bottle of water and took a sip. Staying hydrated in the field was important, although too much fluid intake meant bathroom breaks and moments of vulnerability. Given his days in the military and on long patrols, Foster had it down to a science. He could sip on water all day and only have to use the bathroom once in the evening, a skill which was especially vital for witness protection. Turning his back for just one instant was an opportunity for someone to get to the target. Foster knew the kind of people they were dealing with on this particular operation.

They were the type who would only need seconds to get the job done.

The 3
rd
floor Central Park-facing apartment he was standing in had been hired out by the DOJ. He looked at the four other people in the room with him, each keeping themselves occupied. Two of them were his men, US Deputy Marshals Jack Carson and Jared Barlow. Carson was sitting at the kitchen table facing Foster, Barlow across the room to the left and opening up a brown bag of fast food he’d just picked up from down the street. Both of them had a shoulder holster holding a Glock and a pancake holster on their right hip carrying a Heckler and Koch USP and two spare clips.

Foster had worked with Carson for five years and Barlow for four. Being together much of the time meant he’d got to know the two men as if they were family; he knew them inside out. Like any family, they shared some similarities and many differences. Both men were in their early thirties and now unmarried, both were dark-featured, handsome guys and both were pretty damn good at what they did. However, their temperaments were polar opposites, just like the positive and negative signs on a battery. Carson was a light-hearted guy, never slow to crack a joke or a smile, able to lighten the mood on any occasion no matter how serious. Barlow had a much sourer disposition and complained like a landlord with late rent, but Foster didn’t suffer fools. He wouldn’t have had him around unless he could get shit done which is why he was on his team.

Nevertheless, Foster had pulled Barlow to one side about a month ago and told him his attitude needed to change; interestingly, the talk seemed to have had an effect. On this operation he’d been much better, even making a few jokes which had been followed by periods of complete silence, Foster and Carson staring at him, stunned. The jokes hadn’t been funny but hell, for him it was a start.

The trio had either chased down on their own or assisted on 998 warrants and had protected 17 State witnesses from some of the most dangerous people not only in the United States, but also from abroad. Many of the people the Marshals service guarded were involved in the drug trade in some capacity, and the cartels they were betraying would go to hideously violent lengths to ensure their silence. Foster, Carson and Barlow were all in impressive physical shape; they knew how each other thought and how they would each react to a situation, like an NFL quarterback who could pass a ball to his wide receivers without even looking. Hesitation equalled death in their world. Foster couldn’t work with someone he couldn’t totally rely on. For that reason alone, he’d let Barlow complain as he so often liked to do before he’d sorted out his act. He’d stick with a guy he could trust implicitly over someone he didn’t know well ten times out of ten, even if the guy in question could be a pain in the ass.

As the thought crossed his mind, he flicked his eyes over to the third member of his group. She was female, twenty seven years old, with black hair, brown eyes and tanned light brown skin. She was carrying one handgun, not two.

Her name was Deputy Marshal Alice Vargas.

On operations like this, Foster, Carson and Barlow always worked as a three and none of them felt any real empathy towards the newcomer. When he’d been presented with this case, Foster had flat out refused to take on an extra Marshal; to work on a job of this nature you needed to know and trust the team beside you one hundred per cent. One mistake or lapse in judgement could get everyone killed and none of them felt like being saddled with extra weight, especially a hundred and eighteen pound inexperienced woman still in her twenties.

After doing some digging around, Foster had discovered she was also fresh out of the Marshals Academy, which he really wasn’t happy with; not on a task like this.
It’s too soon for her,
he told his superior, Deputy Supervisor James Dalton. He’d been vehement in his opposition. Many people would have viewed Foster’s attitude as abrasive and unnecessarily hostile but he’d spent his entire adult life either in the army being shot at or chasing down some of the most wanted criminals in the country. It didn’t encourage the warm and fuzzy approach and he sure as hell wasn’t going to risk people’s lives by sparing this girl’s feelings. Trust and experience were like solid gold in these parts.

Hurt feelings could recover. Hurt physical bodies, not so much.

He’d aired his concerns and displeasure at Vargas joining his team when he’d been assigned the case but he’d been told bluntly to shut up and put up. Given the person they were protecting, Dalton felt a female presence was mandatory and ordered Foster to deal with it and ask no further questions.

He shifted his gaze from Vargas and looked over at the last member of the group. She was a seven year old girl named Jennifer who was sitting at the table playing with Carson and Vargas, her feet hanging down from the chair and swinging as she concentrated. Spending prolonged time with some witnesses was like having a tooth gradually pulled, but Foster had spent the last eight days with the girl and had been surprised to find it wasn’t the chore he expected. Some people were born more resilient than others and despite being a kid, the girl certainly had that strength of spirit in spades. She didn’t whine, she didn’t complain and she’d adjusted to her new situation quickly. She was only upset occasionally, and that was where Vargas stepped in, comforting her and distracting her, calming the child down.

He watched her playing, using some kind of make-up as she painted Carson’s face with a brush. She seemed happy enough.
I wonder what’s going on under the surface though,
he thought. Foster had witnessed post-traumatic stress disorder a number of times. He’d suffered a bout of it himself after his first tour in the Gulf in ’91, and was something that had taken all of his mental strength to defeat. He’d learned early how dangerous and unforgettably gruesome life could be on the frontline and he knew a number of soldiers, some of them good friends of his, who’d returned from combat and never shaken that thousand-yard stare, a look only people who’d witnessed some terrible things possessed.

He recognised the tell-tale signs; often they could be delayed, triggered by the strangest of things, but so far the disorder hadn’t seemed to have manifested itself in the girl. Children’s imaginations meant they could often filter things in a way adults couldn’t, protecting them and cushioning them from the brutal realities of life. Foster had four kids himself, all boys, who were grown up now and living their own lives. He liked children; they were innocent. Having spent most of his life engaged with people who represented the worst side of human nature, he found a child’s perspective of the world refreshing. Untainted. Honest.

As the thought crossed his mind, his eyes narrowed. The same couldn’t be said for the people hunting her.

She’d been placed in protective custody as a standard precaution, but particular measures were being taken on this operation considering who she was. There was bound to be a large street bounty on her head and there would be people out there right now trying to claim it. However, Foster had the upper hand. He, his team and the girl could be in any city in the United States and the five boroughs of New York City alone covered 468 square miles, with over eight million people living in them. It was conceivable that the men after the child had guessed Foster wouldn’t want to travel too far and would go to ground, remaining in their own back yard. However, Manhattan was a big place, full of tall buildings and apartment complexes with a sea of people, not to mention the possibility that they could be hiding out somewhere in The Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn or Staten Island. A concrete maze of potential hiding places. One small girl amongst eight million people; a true needle in a haystack. If you knew what you were doing, it was pretty easy to hide out in New York.

If you were as experienced as Foster, you could just disappear.

Across the room, sitting in his chair, Barlow had finished some fries and was now eating a burger out of a greasy wrapper, his leg jiggling out of boredom and pent-up energy, not enjoying being cooped up inside. They were all dressed in casual clothes, jeans, t-shirts and shirts to cover the holsters on their hips and around their shoulders. Vargas was sitting beside the child and talking with her while she worked on Carson. Something she said made the girl giggle. Even though he didn’t know or fully trust her, Foster had to admit that having the woman as part of his team for the last eight days had been helpful. She’d struck up a real rapport with the child in a way neither he nor Barlow or Carson could have done. She was also in charge of the girl’s medication; Jennifer was epileptic and needed to take some tablets each morning and night, a process Vargas ensured happened right on schedule.

She’d stepped out earlier to collect some things from CVS to entertain the kid and the girl was now using whatever Vargas had picked up on Carson, giving him a makeover. Across the table, he had his eyes closed, patiently waiting as she applied makeup to his face, her brow furrowed in concentration. Foster shook his head and hid a smile; Carson looked ridiculous, the small powdery brush catching in the stubble on his cheeks, glitter around his eyes. However, it was keeping the child occupied so he didn’t intrude or say anything. Considering everything she’d been through in the past few weeks, any moment she was happy was a good one.

He shot his cuff and checked his Tag.
1745.
They were due to drive to a safe house in Spokane, Virginia shortly, getting the girl out of the city. They’d only been in New York for the past three days but despite it being a great place to go to ground, Foster had a bad feeling in his gut which life and experience had taught him to never ignore. He was looking forward to getting out of Manhattan; it was probably safe here, but it was claustrophobic and was also the stomping ground of the men who would be hunting the girl. According to official protocol, Foster and his team were scheduled to head to a DOJ place in Baltimore tonight but Foster was calling an audible and taking the girl to a safe house no-one other than he knew about. Aside from the fact there had been leaks inside the Service before and people had been killed as a result, this was the first time in his career that Foster had protected a child; it was making him extra cautious. He often did this, going off grid with a witness.

That was why he was so good at his job. That was why he’d survived for so long.

Apart from Carson and Barlow, he didn’t trust anybody.

In a car on the Park-side of the street below, two men sat side by side in the front seats in silence, facing uptown. Dressed in baggy jeans and loose tops, they were both armed with steel handguns, held low against their thighs, full magazines slotted into the base of each weapon.

The guy behind the wheel was lean, brown-skinned and tall, with thick blond dreadlocks hanging down his back and over his shoulders. He was currently the lead suspect in three city homicides without sufficient evidence to charge, and had committed almost a dozen others that the NYPD had no idea he was connected to.

He was the leader. His name was Braeten.

He didn’t view himself as a murderer per se. He was more of a problem solver, willing to do work that others couldn’t either out of fear, or for moral reasons. He didn’t suffer from either, so if you wanted someone gone, he and his four other guys would make it happen for the right price. He’d been hired by a variety of clients in the past; city gangs, the Mob, cartels. Even a businessman who was screwing some guy’s wife and wanted her husband out of the picture for good. New York was a city built on competition, money and greed, which meant there would
always be a call for teams like Braeten’s. Somewhere in the five boroughs, there was always someone who wanted someone else killed.

That was where Braeten and his crew came in.

He’d have preferred to get this particular job done indoors, out of sight and at close quarters. Manhattan was always crawling with cops and the people they were dealing with here were trained professionals, armed and more than prepared. They also needed surprise on their side; trying to force entry against this group wouldn’t work. They’d be ready for that. Also, they’d be checking the street constantly. If Braeten and his crew walked into the apartment building they might as well ring ahead and schedule an appointment.

He’d settled on an ambush in the street. Not ideal, but the best they could do given the circumstances and timescale. They’d have to get it done hard and fast, and be gone before the pigs showed up. Eye witnesses would be plentiful but Braeten was planning to lay low and get out of New York for a while anyway. He could certainly afford it now after the down-payment he’d received for this gig.

He glanced at the pistol in his hand, resting against his thigh. He’d wanted some heavier fire power, something automatic like an Uzi or an assault rifle, but he’d only been called twenty four hours ago which had left him little time to sufficiently prepare. Even from a short distance, handguns required aim and precision; considering three of his team were prolific cocaine abusers, they’d have to get up close and personal to be accurate. Normally, that wasn’t a problem, the killings taking place in tight proximity, often with a blade or a bat or a length of wire. This time, however, it could well be.