The Getaway (Sam Archer 2) (29 page)

Soon enough they arrived on 21 with a
ding
, and the doors opened to reveal the 21
st
floor. They walked down the corridor, headed for 21 G, having been directed by the receptionist. They arrived outside the door and Katic pushed the card in the lock. It clicked and a small light on the panel turned from red to green and they moved inside, Archer push
ed
the door shut behind them and pull
ed
over the latch. If someone the other side really wanted to get in, the locks wouldn’t hold, but it would buy them an extra few seconds and whoever was on the other side would make a hell of a lot of noise breaking in. The room was freshly cleaned, the bed sheets neat and white and smooth, and the bathroom was spotless. Katic led her daughter to the bed and dumped their bags there. She gave the girl a hug and kiss then moved to the bathroom, switching on the bath t
aps, and
started to run
Jessie a bath.

As water splashed from the taps into the
bathtub
, she
came back out and joined Archer
who was looking out of the window, checking the view. She walked past him, and slid open the door to the balcony, beckoning him to join her. He did so and she slid it shut, out of earshot from the child who was watching the television, the remote in her hand. Up here they could hear honks
from
horns down below and the light whisper of the wind blowing across them.

‘Jesus Christ Archer. What the hell is going on?’ she said quietly, standing in front of him.

‘As we drove away, I saw who was on the fire escape. It was Siletti and another guy. Red hair, looked older, in his forties.’

She looked a
t him.

‘You’re sure?’

‘Positive.’

‘Oh shit. That’s O’Hara.’ She sat down in a white chair behind the table on the balcony and ran her fingers through her hair. ‘Jesus Christ, him too?’

‘Where does Lock live?’ Archer asked her. ‘The sixth guy on the team.’

‘He’s in
Brooklyn
. I tried him earlier, when you and Jessie were talking in my apartment. He wasn’t picking up.’

Archer didn’t speak. He watched Katic start piecing things together, putting together the jigsaw. He said nothing, letting her mind work
,
undis
tracted.

‘This is all starting to make sense,’ she said. ‘It was around November last year when we started bringing Farrell an
d his team in for questioning.
We worked them one-by-one, trying to sweat them out or coerce some information. We were a new team so everyone was keen to prove themselves and be the one to make a breakthrough. But they got to know our faces, our names, our personalities. We weren’t working as a cohesive unit, given the competitiveness between us, so there were cracks there.’

She pa
used.

‘Suppose Siletti and O’Hara meet with Farrell one-on-one, far away from our offices at the Plaza. Remind him about all the heat that’s coming his way. Suggest they strike up a deal. He agrees. The two feds talk Farrell through what to look for and where the Task Force is focusing their attention, and promise to stall the investigation as much as they can. In return, Farrell gives them a slice of the profits so they all get something from the deal.’

She shook her head and looked up at him.

‘What do you think?’ she asked.

Archer looked down at her. ‘I think they both know that Farrell and his team are planning to skip town tomorrow. I think they’re planning to leave too. And now they’re tying up all the loose ends. Parker might have known something, or Siletti thought he might, so that was enough for them to kill him. Gerrard too. And Lock. Not taking a single chance.’

Katic l
ooked up at him.

‘You think?’

‘He’s not answering his cell phone. How does it look?’

‘So they are the ones who killed your father. Jesus, Archer, it was them. It had to be.’

He took a
seat and thought for a moment.

‘Yeah. I guess it was,’ he said. ‘I’m an idiot. All this time, I was looking at Farrell and his team, but they had nothing to do with it.’

‘You said that Siletti and O’Hara will know Farrell is leaving tomorrow?’

‘I’m sure. They would have sweated Gerry for everything he knew before they greased him. They’ll know that Farrell and his crew are going after the truck tomorrow and their plan of escape.’

‘After tonight, you think Farrell will still try?’

Archer nodded.

‘Tonight was their first ever failure. This time tomorrow they’ll be gone from this city forever. They’ll never come back here. They are definitely going to try. They’re too greedy. The risk will be worth the reward.’

‘What about the bodies? Parker? And Gerrard? And Lock? There will be a big investigation. Huge. That’s three feds waxed in one night.’

‘That won’t matter. They’ll disappear. They’ll either take out Farrell and his crew and steal their money and their transport or hitch a ride with them. They wouldn’t start killing everyone on the team unless they knew for sure they were never coming back here. They have it all worked out.’

He paused.

‘But there are two problems. Three, actually.’

‘What are they?’

‘You, me and Jessie. They can’t leave with us still alive. At any moment you or I could go to the cops or contact people in
Washington
. They’ll be tearing the city a
part right now looking for us.’

There was a pause as they both absorbed everything that had just been said. Down below, the sounds of the city provided a familiar background noise, a total contrast to the random and unexpected events of the evening.

And somewhere down there, two violent men
were
prowling the streets with guns, searching for them, desperate to kill them.

‘So what now? What do we do?’ Katic asked. ‘We need to go higher up. We need help from D.C. We have to talk to someone before they track us down.’

‘We need to stay here for the night,’ Archer replied, looking over the balcony down at Times Square. ‘We go back out there, we might not come back. And I’m a fugitive remember? The entire NYPD is after me too, not just those two. I’m staying put, with a gun pointed at that door till morning.’

‘We can’t just sit here, Archer. They’ll find us sooner or later. We need to tell someone about this.’

Archer thought for a moment.

He’d tr
usted Gerrard, and he was gone.

Katic had trusted Siletti, and
it had almost got them killed.

Their next move had to be perfectly played. Because sooner or later, they
were going to run out of luck.

And if they trusted the wrong person, all three of them would die.

‘OK.’

She looked up at him. ‘OK what?’

‘I know who we can call.’

‘Who?’

‘He’s on our side, I guarantee
. I’ll be right back,’ he said.

He slid open the door, moving past the girl who was engrossed in a T.V show on the screen, and over to the door. He realised the taps on the bath were still running, so he stepped inside the bathroom first and twisted them off. Walking to the main door, he pulled back the latched lock and steppi
ng outside, shut it behind him.

Outside in the corridor, he c
hecked both ways. It was quiet.

He pulled his phone from his pocket and dialled a number, walking towards the end of the corridor, checking to ma
ke sure no one else was around.

It rang four times.

On the fifth, someone answered.

‘Hello?’

‘It’s Archer,’ he said. Pause. ‘I’m in deep shit. I need your help.’

There was a pause.

Archer checked left and right down the corridor, his fingers curled around the grip of the 9mm Sig in his right pocket. He heard a rustling down the phone, and light footsteps as the man on the other end moved out of his bedro
om.

He heard a door open, then close, and a click as a light was switched on.

And the voice spoke again from the other end.

‘OK, Archer. Tell me what’s going on,’
Director Cobb said.

SEVENTEEN

It took Archer about fifteen minutes to explain his predicament. The
United Kingdom
was five hours ahead, so he’d woken Cobb at just past 5 am
London
time. But in about ten seconds, from the moment he picked up the phone to walking into the next room and speaking again, the Director of the ARU had all his faculties and was awake and alert. Like most powerful people in
senior
government and security positions, the time of day was just a series of numbers. It didn’t matter. If there was a problem, they were awake and ready to deal with it in seconds.

Cobb listened closely as Archer explained the situation. He told him everything, leaving nothing out. The first meeting with Gerrard. His subsequent involvement with Farrell. Their successful series of bank robberies and armoured truck heists, and their planned final getaway. The Garden heist. And everything that had happened since. Siletti double-crossing them, the damning evidence in his trunk. Parker’s dead body and Gerrard’s disappearance. O’Hara joining Siletti and coming after the three of them at Katic’s ap
artment.

Archer finished and took a moment’s breath, checking the corridor around him for any activity as he had been the entire phone call. He was
standing
at the end, by the stairwell, but no one else was around. He’d been speaking quietly, so there was no risk of anyone in rooms nearby catching what he was saying.

‘I didn’t know who else to call, sir,’ he added, aware that he had interrupted his sleep. ‘We didn’t know who to contact higher up. We have no idea who is involved. And right now, I’m a damn fugitive anyway.’

‘OK. Stay calm,’
Cobb said, thinking coolly and logically, not questioning a single word of what Archer just told him.
‘I have a friend in the FBI. He’s a solid guy. I worked with him on a joint operation a while ago when I was still at MI5. He’s high up now, an Assistant Director. His name’s Sanderson. I’ll call him, and tell him everything you just told me. You said you stored the money in the trunk of the car?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Good. If anyone finds it and reports it, it will pass through the NYPD and th
ey’ll return it straight away.’

He paused.

‘Jesus Christ Archer, you’re supposed to be on holiday.’

‘I know, sir. I’m sorry. Someone involved in this killed my father. I had to try to find out who it was.’

There was a pause.

‘I understand,’
Cobb said. ‘
But this Siletti guy could be a problem. He sounds like a smart man. If his story checks out and he’s covered any traces of his involvement, you could be in some deep shit. You beat him up. The FBI won’t like that, not on their turf. If he has half a brain, he’ll have killed Parker, Lock and Gerrard with a stolen weapon so any ballistics fingerprinting will draw a blank. You need solid proof against this guy. He’ll have made a mistake somewhere. You just need to find out where.’

The line went quie
t as he thought for a moment.

‘Could you get a signed testimony from Farrell?’
Cobb asked.

‘He’s planning to leave the city forever tomorrow. If we could get something, we’d need to bring him in in the next twenty four hours or he’s gone, forever. And he isn’t the type to go down quietly. He told me he’s never going back to jail. He’d most likely get shot and killed if he got cornered.’

There was a pause. Archer checked up and down the corridor, the phone in his left hand, the Sig still in his right in the pocket of the coat.

‘OK. Stay near the phone,’
Cobb said.
‘I’ll get in touch with Sanderson and call you back. Where are you?’

‘Marriott.
Times Square
. Same joint you put me up in, sir.’

‘Did you switch rooms?’

‘Yes, sir. False name, claiming wit sec. No one knows we’re here.’

‘Good. Lay low, son. Don’t move. Stay where you are. I’ll call you back soon.’

‘Yes, sir. Thank you.’

And the call ended.

Archer pushed the phone back into his pocket, then walked down the corridor towards their room. He checked either side, then pulled the key-card from his pocket and eased it into the slot, letting himself back into the room.

At the moment Cobb ended the call, two men in suits were on their way up in one of the elevators in the hotel. They’d left their shotguns in the back of the car they’d arrived in, but both had pistols in shoulder holsters hidden under their jackets. The weapons were stolen HK USP 9mm’s, tape over the trigger and grip, and each had a black suppressor screwed onto the barrel to lower the sound an
d report of the weapons firing.