Return Fire (Sam Archer ) (14 page)

TWENTY FOUR

In Tottenham moments earlier, Archer had pulled to a halt on the street at the back of Michael Bernhardt’s house. Switching off the engine he looked up at the property to his right, a small semi-detached place, two floors and possibly with an attic for a third.

It was in a residential area, not on the high street, and was relatively quiet save for a group of youths gathered on the pavement a few doors down, several on bikes, all of them in tracksuits and hoodies.
As it was now 8pm the light had almost faded for the day, the city slowly taking on a shroud of darkness that would only be broken by street and house lights.

Archer glanced at the kids and saw they were drinking, two with cans of beer and another passing a bottle of vodka around. They whistled and shouted at a couple of women across the street who ignored them; one of the youths hurled an empty bottle in their direction which smashed on the pavement and the two women scurried for safety as the youths laughed and jeered.

Grabbing his MP5 from the passenger seat, Archer climbed out of the Mercedes, slammed the door and locked the vehicle; then keeping the sub-machine gun on the right side of his body, he headed towards a side alley leading to the front of the houses on the other side of the street. As he crossed the road, the group of teenagers immediately spotted him in the police vest; one of them wolf-whistled, two others shouting insults, full of false bravado from the booze. Turning his head to look at them as he approached the alley, Archer’s eyes narrowed, but he ignored them and focused on the task ahead.

He had bigger fish to fry tonight.

Moving down the narrow path, he slowed when he reached the other end, checking each way to make sure no-one was lying in wait. Seeing the road was clear, he walked out onto the street in front of the house. Heading to the front door, he quickly knocked twice, stepping to one side and examining the street around him again.

It was all quiet.

Vargas’ kidnap, the sniper attack and the two explosions in the past few hours had left him on edge, especially given that he had almost no idea who was responsible for all this and where they were likely to strike next. All he currently knew was that an Afghan National Army ex-soldier called Dash was one of them, and the man who lived here had suffered the same burn wounds as him at the same time last year.

As he took the safety off his MP5 and waited for Bernhardt to answer, Vargas flashed into his mind again.

Just hang on Alice
,
he thought, glancing over his shoulder at the quiet street and feeling the seconds constantly tick by.

He went to knock again but then heard movement inside the property.

‘Who is it?’
a voice called.

‘Police,’ Archer said, standing to one side with the sub-machine gun on the door. ‘I need to talk to you, sir.’

He waited, his finger on the trigger and standing to the side of the door.

After a long pause, it opened.

A man somewhere in his early forties stood in the doorway looking at Archer and the MP5 in his hands. His appearance was extraordinary; he had brown hair, stubble on his cheeks over pale, patchy skin, but he’d obviously suffered severe burns on his face, arms and neck at one time, the skin gelatinous and translucent like thin baking paper.

He looked startling but Archer’s surprise was distilled by scanning him for any sign of a weapon.

He seemed clean.

‘Michael Bernhardt?’

‘That’s me,’ he said. ‘Who the hell are you?’

‘My name’s Sam Archer. I’m an NYPD detective working a case here.’

‘Mind lowering that thing?’ Bernhardt said, looking at the MP5, which although resting in Archer’s hands was pointed at Bernhardt’s navel.

Archer nodded, moving his aim off the man but keeping his finger on the trigger.

‘I need to talk to you about someone, sir.’

‘Who?’

‘Dashnan Sahar. According to our files you and he had some…interaction last year,’ he said, focusing on the man’s face and avoiding reference to his burns.

A
s he said Dash’s name, he saw a quick glimmer of recognition.

‘So you do know him.’

Bernhardt nodded. ‘I knew him. But what’s this about?’

‘It’s a long story,’ Archer said, glancing over his shoulder quickly and feeling exposed. ‘And I need you to come with me right now.’

‘You got ID?’

Archer nodded, withdrawing his NYPD badge with his left hand and showing it to the man. Bernhardt peered at it and frowned again.

‘You have no jurisdiction here. Is this a joke?’

‘No, it’s not. You can confirm my credentials back at our HQ. I’ll explain on the way.’

‘We can talk here.’

‘It might not be safe,’ Archer said. ‘And we need to go right now.’

Bernhardt stayed where he was, frowning. ‘Are you messing with me?’

‘No, I’m not.’

The urgency in Archer’s words, the fact he was carrying a weapon and his serious manner finally spurred a response. After looking at him closely for a moment, Bernhardt relented and nodded.

‘OK, I’m intrigued. I’ll come. Give me two seconds to fetch my phone and lock up.’

As he headed back inside, Archer walked forward and kept eyes on the former soldier, not wanting to let him out his sight in case he changed his mind or tried something if he was somehow involved in what was going on. Bernhardt was aware of his presence but didn’t say anything, locking the back door and pocketing a Samsung from the kitchen counter before grabbing a shirt on the way as he walked back towards the front door.

Standing there in the hallway as the man approached him, Archer suddenly felt his phone purr in his vest. Using his hand’s free mic and earpiece, he pushed
Answer.

‘Archer.
’

‘Arch, it’s me!’
Josh said, sounding out of breath, urgency in his voice.

‘What’s wrong? Are you alright?’

‘Where are you?’

‘Bernhardt’s,’ he said, as he stood in the hallway beside the former Para, who was now ready to go.

‘It was an ambush! Fox and I only just made it out! Get the hell out of there!’

Before he could react, Archer suddenly heard a screech of tyres from the street outside.

Spinning round, he checked out of the door and saw a black car coming down the street fast from the right, the windows already down and three men inside.

Two of them saw him in the doorway.

And a moment later, they both raised assault rifles from inside the vehicle as they slammed to a halt.

‘Back!’
Archer shouted, pushing Bernhardt down the hallway and kicking the door shut.

An instant later, a barrage of assault rifle fire ripped into the front door, splinters of white wood blown into the air around them. Archer and Bernhardt scrambled back fast as the bullets chewed up the entrance but the flimsy door couldn’t withstand the barrage of gunfire and swung open, exposing Archer and Bernhardt to the street again.

Still on the floor, Archer swung his MP5 around and fired back through the now open door at the car on the street. The three guys inside jerked down and the man behind the wheel quickly reversed out of Archer’s narrow line of fire, Archer’s bullets smashing out the front headlights and ripping more holes in the front door as the car disappeared out of view.

Archer used those valuable seconds to get back to his feet, glancing behind him to see Bernhardt had done the same. Through the open damaged door hanging on its hinges, they both heard three car doors open and slam, the trio coming for them.

Keeping the unarmed Bernhardt behind him and his MP5 trained on the door, Archer turned to the former soldier and looked at the closed kitchen door.

‘Back door!’ he said urgently.

‘There’s a wall!’ Bernhardt replied, staying where he was. ‘It’s too high to get over from here. We’re boxed in!’

Outside the house, Dash, Piccadilly and Portland couldn’t believe their luck as they moved to the front entrance quickly but cautiously, none of them wanting to take a round from the blond cop’s MP5. They’d timed it to perfection, the detective bitch’s boyfriend obviously having only just arrived, Bernhardt still there with him.

This was a golden opportunity.

And they had to make it count.

As his back hit the wall to the right of the door, Dash heard a noise and glancing to his left, saw the door to the immediate neighbour’s house open, a woman stepping out clearly wondering what the noise was. The moment she saw the three armed men, she jerked back inside and slammed the door, locking it behind her. She’d be straight on the phone to the police.

They had to handle this immediately and get the hell out of here.

Turning his attention to the entrance as another short spurt of gunfire from inside the house ripped through the remaining wood, Dash saw the door had already been half torn apart by their gunfire. Each man was carrying an AR-15 assault rifle and had spare magazines in his pockets, joining the Ruger pistol they each had in a holster tucked under their shirts.

Pulling a stun grenade from his left pocket, Dash looked over at the two men on the other side of the entrance who raised their weapons, ready to step into the firing line.

They’d breached many places like these over the years and knew exactly what to do.

Dash ripped the pin; on the other side of the doorway, Portland pushed what was left of the door back with the barrel of his AR-15 and Dash tossed the grenade into the house.

But as he did so, its twin suddenly appeared on the porch in front of them, rolling across the threshold and onto the concrete step.

TWENTY FIVE

Dash and Piccadilly reacted fast and protected their eyes and ears in time but the flash-bang took Portland completely by surprise, and he delayed a fraction too long covering up before it went off.

After it detonated, he staggered back and knelt against the wall, momentarily out of the game as he tried to recover his sight and hearing. Undeterred, Dash took the lead,
pushing back the remains of the flimsy, shot-up door and entering the house.

The cop and Bernhardt weren’t in the hallway
anymore. As he walked in he stared down the sights of his assault rifle, checking out an open sitting room on his left; behind him, Piccadilly continued forward towards a closed door straight ahead.

The South African immediately put a stitched burst of gunfire diagonally across the wood and kicked it back.

All he saw was smashed glasses and crockery.

No sign of the two men.

Behind him, Dash had cleared the sitting room and was now focused on the stairs, keeping his assault rifle trained on the space above.

If in an ambush situation, try to get to higher ground.

They were upstairs.

In the guest bedroom at the top of the stairs, Bernhardt was struggling to open the window, the two men having locked themselves in after Archer had thrown the flash-bang from halfway up the flight, getting into the room just as another stun grenade went off below, buying them some vital seconds.

‘Come on!’
Archer hissed, keeping his MP5 on the closed door and standing out of the field of fire.
‘Open it!’

‘It’s jammed!’

Cursing, Archer turned, moved forward and yanked at the mechanism, releasing it. Hearing a creak of a footstep on the stairs, Archer looked out of the window and saw the roof of a garden shed within jumping distance. They could use it to get to the top of the wall on the side of the house and jump into the alleyway he’d used earlier.

Hardly ideal but their only option.

‘Go!’
he whispered, pushing Bernhardt forward.

The former soldier started climbing out, jumping onto the roof of the shed then clambering up onto the wall. Looking back at the closed door, Archer didn’t waste a second, quickly manoeuvring through the window too and leaping out onto the roof of the shed with a
thump
that made the flimsy wooden frame shudder with the force of his landing.

Ahead of him, Bernhardt dropped down into the alleyway and disappeared out of sight.

Moving fast, Archer hoisted himself up onto the wall and went to follow.

Then he suddenly heard the door to the guest bedroom smash open.

Looking down the sights of his assault rifle, Dash saw the blond cop crouched on
the wall, completely exposed.

He pulled the trigger, firing through the open window, but the man reacted fast and leapt over the wall, the rounds just missing him by a hair’s breadth, the gunfire tearing into a tree opposite and coughing leaves and bits of bark into the air.

Cursing, Dash didn’t waste a second. He turned and ran back down the stairs as he reloaded with a fresh magazine, Piccadilly waiting for him at the bottom of the flight as he hurtled towards him.

‘They went around the back!’

Pushing Bernhardt ahead of him, who’d injured himself on landing and was struggling to move at any speed, Archer moved along the alleyway as quickly as he could to the back of the house.

As they emerged onto the stree
t Archer suddenly stopped dead, staring in disbelief at Cobb’s Mercedes across the road.

There was a strip of cloth now hanging out of the fuel tank, and the low
er end was alight. To their right, the youths he’d seen earlier had backed up down the street having heard the gunfire but curiosity had clearly got the better of them and they were still standing around to see what happened when the car blew.

‘Get back!’
Archer shouted, pushing Bernhardt to the left and watching the flames catch hold of the cloth.

A second later the Mercedes exploded, the two men recoiling from the blast.

Recovering first, Archer glanced back at the alleyway, knowing the gunmen would appear at any second. As he desperately looked around for some kind of solution, he noticed opposite that the alleyways ran alongside every other house.

Grabbing Bernhardt, he pulled him back into the alley adjacent to the one that ran beside this one as the car burned in front of them. Even from across the street the wave of heat from the wreckage was intense, fifty thousand pounds gone up with one strip of cloth and a lighter.

Crouching beside Bernhardt in the second alleyway, Archer snapped back as two of the gunmen suddenly appeared, quickly joined by the third. The men were silhouetted by the fire on the street and fanned out, searching for their prey with what looked like AR-15 assault rifles.

‘Shit!’
he whispered.
‘Shit!’

He and Bernhardt were stranded.