Return Fire (Sam Archer ) (11 page)

EIGHTEEN

Across London, the two men who’d strapped the explosives to Stanovich and killed Payan were standing side by side inside a dark 12
th
floor office in front of their employer.

They were nervous and on edge which was an unusual feeling for them both, but they’d messed up badly in the last hour and knew their employer didn’t deal well with failure.
The Middle Eastern man on the right with the burn scars and broken nose was known as Holloway today; he was also the man who’d led the kidnap last night in the Spanish town. Breaching the villa had been easy enough, scaling the side of the house quickly with two of his men and reaching the balcony of the room where the bitch was staying. They’d been about to go in and take her, but had heard her get out of bed, open the bedroom door and move off downstairs. He and his men had used the opportunity to enter the bedroom and hide out in her bathroom.

Waiting for her to return.

The hard part done, they’d heard her re-enter the room a minute later and go back to bed, but the three men stayed where they were for a while, letting her drift back to sleep.

Then they’d moved in.

Holloway had assumed she’d be easy prey but the bitch had fought like a wildcat, breaking his nose with her elbow and opening it up like a geyser as he, Covent and Wood had struggled to restrain her. None of them had anticipated such determined resistance and it had resulted in his blood leaking all over the sheets and floor as the men with him finally gagged and tied up the woman, Wood hitting her over the head to daze her, the blow drawing blood.

As soon as she was bound and under control, Holloway knew they had to get the hell out of there; the woman had made a lot of noise. With no time to spare and too much of his blood on the sheets and floor to get rid of quickly if at all, he’d scattered Stanovich and Payan’s samples as planned then left, heading to Malaga and a private jet their employer had hired.

Standing in front of that employer in the office, he silently cursed himself for his carelessness. He’d assumed that the NYPD detective would be easy to subdue, but he should have taken into account that she’d be well-trained and would have been versed in self-defence; as a result of that complacency, his blood had been left in the room and he knew that a half-competent Forensics team would soon be able to pull an ID.

That could be a big problem.

Beside him stood the South African who was known today as Piccadilly; he was Holloway’s second-in-command and a clever son of a bitch, the three-pronged attack on the ARU and NYPD search operation his idea. However, he was remaining silent too, carefully watching the woman in front of them as she leaned back against the front of a desk.

Holloway and Piccadilly were both tough, hardened killers but their employer was a legend. Propped against the wood, her hands behind her back, she was only five foot two and dwarfed by the two men in front of her but nonetheless easily dominated the room. Every inch of her small frame emanated
pure confidence, power and menace. She had hard brown eyes, dark hair streaked with silver and lined skin that was as tough as leather from years of exposure to hot sun. Both men knew all about her reputation and how she handled people who crossed her.

She wasn’t someone to disappoint.

A laptop on the desk beside her was closed, but the light on it was glowing green which meant it was switched on.

Possibly meaning she knew from a news website what had happened.

‘I just saw the news,’ she said quietly, answering Holloway’s silent question. ‘On the internet.’

Shit.

‘Three separate incidents were dominating the headlines. Two bomb attacks and a sniper ambush in Hendon.’

She paused.

‘The report said only two ARU officers died in Brixton. But the rest are still alive and have been taken to hospital.’

Pause.

‘Apparently no one died at the police station in the blast. And four men were killed in Hendon, yet none of them were the targets.’

She spoke slowly, emphasising the words.

‘Explain yourselves.’

‘The rest of them are down and not operational,’ Holloway said, focusing on the few positives. ‘Their intelligence floor was wrecked. They’re out of the game.’

‘Only two are dead.’

‘So far,’ Piccadilly said.

Pause.

She didn’t move, continuing to look at the two men in turn.

‘How badly are the rest wounded?’ she asked.

‘We don’t know.’

‘What happened in Hendon?’

‘A group of them headed over there, just as we expected. Grange and Stockwell were in place, but they missed.’

‘They missed?’ she repeated, staring at him.

Silence.

‘I’d assumed I was spending all this money employing professionals, not a bunch of girl guides,’ she said. ‘And I’m struggling to understand how anyone could have survived the bomb at the police headquarters.’

‘So are we. Finchley and Portland screwed up,’ Holloway continued, eager to shift the blame off themselves. ‘They put the explosives on the bitch and delivered her, but someone inside must have managed to pull the vest off. They can’t have locked it on properly.’

‘So where are Finchley and Portland now?’

‘Upstairs; with Covent, Wood and Camden.’

The woman thought for a moment. ‘How many of the search operation are still standing?’

‘I’d say five or six. Grange said there were three NYPD cops and one ARU guy on the street in Hendon. Possibly a couple more from their base.’

‘They’re going to be looking for the missing detective. And if the analyst survived, she might describe the men who put the vest on her. That’s not helpful.’

She flicked her cold dark gaze onto Holloway. He saw her eyes focusing on his broken nose.

‘And you bled at the scene.’

He paused. ‘She put up more of a fight than we expected.’

The woman studied him for a moment, almost as if she was deciding his fate.

‘I suppose I should have allowed for this,’ she said eventually. ‘They’re trained after all. Apparently I underestimated them and overestimated you. Wiping them all out within an hour was obviously too much to ask.’

She kept staring at Holloway.

‘But we both know what’s on your file. If they have your blood, they’ll soon find out who you are.’

‘But that might work in our favour.’

She waited. ‘How.’

‘Like you said, we’ve both seen my file.’

Holloway smiled.

‘And that means I know where they’ll be going next.’

NINETEEN

‘So two anonymous Australian men forced Beckett to wear the vest,’ Josh said, still inside the interrogation cell with the rest of the group minus Marquez. ‘They used her kids as a threat, which means they must have apprehended them at home or coming out of school.’

‘Not school,’ Fox said. ‘It’s a Saturday.’

Thinking, Archer turned to Nikki. ‘Is Beckett married?’

‘Separated. Husband left four years ago. He lives in Germany.’

‘She wasn’t here earlier but the rest of your team was. Was that planned?’

‘Yes. Today was one of her two days off a week. My staff’s free days are on a rota system.’

‘So she’s a single mother with two kids on her day off from work,’ Archer said. ‘A smart choice. Out of everyone who worked here, she’d be one of the best targets to choose. Easy to coerce using her kids and no one would notice her absence as it was her day off. She could walk in here without being challenged whenever she liked.’

‘And confronting her at home would be pretty easy,’ Josh said. ‘These people clearly did their homework. They’d know she’d be alone, no husband, no boyfriend. Hell, no one around to interfere.’

‘I’ve got her address,’ Nikki said, twisting the laptop with her good hand and showing the screen to the group. ‘She lives in an apartment building off High Street Kensington.’

Archer looked at her, surprised. ‘That’s an expensive area.’

‘Her family are well-off.’

‘Someone needs to head over there to check it out,’ he said, turning to the others. ‘See if these Australians left any sort of trace or if they ditched the boys once Beckett did what they asked. They could still be there.’

‘I’ll do it,’ Fox said, stepping forward and peering at the map on the screen.

‘I’ll come with you,’ Josh said.

As Fox noted down the address, the door to the interrogation cell opened and Marquez stepped back into the room, tucking her phone into her pocket and shutting the door.

‘That was Detective Travis in Madrid,’ she said. ‘He had good news.’

‘Which is?’ Archer asked.

‘A match came through for the fourth blood sample from the villa.’

‘Who?’ Josh asked.

‘Former Staff-Sergeant Dashnan Sahar; goes by the name Dash according to the notes on the file. Ex-grunt; was a commando in the Afghan National Army for six years.’

‘Record?’ Archer asked.

‘Pretty good. His service career ended several years ago, but Travis said there’s nothing on file to suggest he was any sort of trouble-maker. He did his time then left and appears to have dropped off the radar. Nothing’s been heard from him since.’

‘What does this guy look like?’ Fox asked.

‘Travis said Spanish police have sent his file through,’ she said to Nikki. ‘But that explains why it took longer to find. He’s not an ex-con; he’s ex-military.’

Turning her laptop back to face her, Nikki typed as fast as she could with one hand but it took her longer than usual; the group waited as she worked.

A few moments later, she tapped two more keys and nodded.

‘Here we go.’

She turned the laptop round and they all moved forward to get a closer look at the screen.

The photo was an official army one and they saw a brown-skinned man with jet black hair and dark eyes wearing a green beret and looking straight at the camera. He looked professional and tough, his black hair neatly combed and his face stern. Glancing at his vital statistics, Archer saw the man was six foot three and two hundred and ten pounds.

‘Big guy,’ he said.

Beside him, Josh frowned. ‘So what the hell does he want with Vargas?’

‘Are you sure there isn’t any more information since he left?’ Archer asked. ‘Anything at all we can use? We need to find this son of a bitch.’

Nikki spun the laptop. ‘Give me a sec.’

She worked away with her good hand, peering closely at the screen. The group waited.

‘His military file is done and dusted, but there’s something else here.’

‘What is it?’ Marquez asked.

Nikki double-clicked the mouse. ‘A medical report from a hospital in Kabul. Dated February last year, seventeen months ago.’

‘A medical report?’ Fox repeated. ‘What does it say?’

‘He spent several months having treatment after being brought in suffering from severe burns,’ she read. ‘Seventy per cent apparently. Another guy came in with him at the same time with similar injuries. He was a Brit. Former Sergeant Michael Bernhardt; ex 2 Para.’

‘Where does this other guy live?’ Archer asked. ‘In the UK?’

She tapped some keys, searching the man’s name through all the databases.

‘Apparently,’ she said. ‘He’s been out of the army for six years; worked for a private firm called
Shields Security
afterwards for half a year but that’s the last entry on his file. Last known address is in Tottenham.’

‘Photo?’ Archer asked.

Nikki turned the laptop and the group saw another photo, a blond man who could only ever have been a soldier, square faced and with hard eyes.

‘He’s not the one we want, but he’s a start,’ Nikki said. ‘And if these guys were brought into hospital together both suffering burn wounds, it could well mean they were involved in the same incident.’

‘Not necessarily,’ Josh said. ‘The hospital was in Afghanistan’s capital. Maybe they were two strangers caught up in a bomb blast?’

‘So where were all the other victims,’ Archer said, shaking his head. ‘Two ex-soldiers with no documented history for at least the past four years.’

He nodded at the screen.

‘These two knew each other.’

‘Bernhardt lives pretty close by,’ Nikki said. ‘If we can find him, he might be able to throw some light on what’s going on here. It’s a long shot, but it’s all we’ve got.’

Archer nodded. ‘I’ll go over to his place and check him out.’

‘Me too,’ Marquez said.

Archer shook his head, turning to her. ‘You need to stay here, Lisa.’

She looked at him, surprised and indignant. ‘Are you kidding me? Why?’

‘Because those snipers know they missed. And it’s almost certain that they’ll be coming back to finish the job.’ He looked at Chalky, who was still quiet and slightly out of it. ‘He isn’t ready for that yet.’

‘We’ve got Wilson and Lipton,’ Nikki said.

‘With all due respect, that might not be enough.’

Marquez thought for a moment and then sighed and nodded.

‘OK. But if they do try again, what am I supposed to use to defend us, a nightstick?’

Before Archer could reply, Nikki reached forward and opened the folder she’d brought down from Cobb’s office. A moment later she slid some documents she’d extracted from the file across the table.

‘These are official authorisations,’ she said. ‘Take a look.’

As Josh, Archer and Marquez each stepped forward and checked the documents, Archer scanned his copy. There were two pages stapled together, the back page with a notary seal and a signature on a dotted line, a space left for another below.

‘Cobb has already signed them. We’re a paramilitary unit; in times of extreme crisis, we have the power to authorise weapons use for whoever we want, and this situation most certainly qualifies.’

‘These are kosher?’ Archer asked.

‘Completely. Cobb drew them up when he found out you were coming, just in case. And don’t forget the Prime Minister ordered the formation of this Unit. He gave Cobb wide-ranging powers. You’re covered.’

That sealed it. Fox pulled a pen from his pocket, passing it to Josh, and they each took turns to sign their own named document. When that was done, Fox opened the door and turned right, Josh and Marquez close behind as they headed down the corridor straight towards the gun-cage. Passing his signed form back to Nikki, who slotted them into the folder, Archer looked over at Chalky, who’d been uncharacteristically quiet throughout the conversation, just sitting and listening to the exchanges.

‘You’d better stay here too for the moment, Chalk.’

He nodded. ‘Will do.’

Turning, Archer headed for the door.

It was time to start fighting back.