The Getaway (Sam Archer 2) (7 page)

The walk took him about two minutes and he occasionally checked
over his shoulder
to assure
that he hadn’t been picked up again. As he approached 7
th
, he began to pass a Starbucks coffee shop immediately to his left. After he arrived on the corner of 35
th
and 7
th
, he took the cap off his head and looked around. He saw a young black kid walking past, his fingers tapping on some buttons as he played some kind of video game.

‘Hey, kid.’

The
boy stopped and looked at him.

‘Want a free hat?’ he asked, offering it to him.

The kid looked at him, unsure, then took the cap. He looked at it, checking it out, turning it side-to-side. It was a dark-blue peaked baseball cap, the Yankees team logo on the front, a silver
N
and
Y
on top of each other. He nodded approvingly, then looked up at Archer.

‘You for real?’

Archer nodded. T
he kid pulled it over his head.

‘Thanks man,’ he said.

‘No problem.’

And with that, the kid walked off, returning his attention to the video game in his hands, the cap on his head. Archer watched him go, then turned and pulled open the door to the Starbucks, ducking inside.

The coffee shop was moderately full, light jazz music flowing from the speakers, the ambience relaxed and quiet. The early morning mayhem of customers grabbing a drink before work had lessened slightly, and although there was a medium-length queue for the counter, the place was pretty chilled compared to the
streets outside. People were si
t
ting
around the coffee shop, some tapping into netbooks and laptops or reading newspapers, others chatting with friends
and enjoying
their
drinks.

Archer looked across the room and saw a middle-aged man in a smart suit sitting alone near the window. He had sunglasses over his eyes, but he was looking straight at him. He had two large drinks in front of him on the table, and he picked up the one on the right, taking a sip. Archer saw this and ignoring the queue for the counter, moved straight towards the guy. He took a seat across from h
im, pulling off his sunglasses.

Removing his own sunglasses, Supervisory Special Agent Todd Gerrard of the FBI pushed
a
cup of tea across the table
towards him
.

‘Good news,’ Archer said, checking back over his shoulder.

‘What?’ Gerrard asked.

‘I think I’m in.’

FOUR

It
had all started four days ago.

Back across the Atlantic in
London
, Friday morning had begun like any other typical Friday morning for Archer. He’d woken up at 6 am, headed out the door for a 45 minute gym session, returned, showered, then took the Underground to his police station in
North London
, the Armed Response Unit, for 8:30 am sharp. He’d signed in at the front desk, then headed straight upstairs to their team briefing room to report in with the rest of the team and grab a cup of tea. He saved time every morning by not having to worry about breakfast. He didn’t have any semblance of an appetite in the morning, and the tea was just about all his stomac
h could cope with until lunch.

The Armed Response Unit operated in two halves. The first half was an analyst team, who gathered intelligence and information from inside these headquarters, and the second was an armed ten-man task force, who used that information out in the field when they were called upon in a crisis. The two teams worked in synergy with each other, and during the last eighteen months, despite being a relatively new squad, the ARU had become the premier response and counter-terrorist team in the city. Archer was the youngest man on the task force, just turned twenty seven, but the events of the past eight months meant his age and relative inexperience was no longer the talking
point it had been in the past.

The Unit’s headquarters was a two-floored building. The lower level contained locker rooms and interrogation and holding cells for any suspects that were brought in, whilst the upper level consisted of an operations area to the right, where the intelligence team worked behind high-tech computers and monitors, and a briefing room to the left, which the task force used as their base. That morning, Archer had jogged up the steps and joined the other officers in the briefing room, pouring a cup of tea and grabbing a newspaper someone had brought in. To an outsider it would have
seemed like a pretty good job.

But the work wasn’t always this smooth.

Almost nine months ago, a nine-man terrorist cell had waged war on the city on New Year’s Eve, with thousands of people gathered all over London for the New Year celebrations. One of the terrorists had managed to get past security at a Premiership football match and had detonated a devastating quantity of home-made explosives hidden under his clothes, killing over a hundred and fifty people and injuring many more. That had triggered a series of events that unfolded over the next twenty four hours like some kind of nightmare. There had been a number of attempted further bombings, double-crosses, links to a drug cartel in the
Middle East
and a shooting in
Trafalgar Square
. The DEA, the American Drugs Enforcement Administration, had also become involved, and the ARU team had suddenly found themselves right in the middle of the action, thousands of people’s lives depending on them. The Prime Minister had ordered the Unit to be formed after the disastrous riots that had swept across the
United Kingdom
in the summer of 2011, and that night of chaos on New Year’s Eve had been a true baptism of fire for the newly-formed squad.

Prior to those chaotic twenty four hours at the end of last year, 2012 had been pretty quiet. But since then, it was as if the events of that New Year’s Eve had opened some kind of floodgates. Every week now something was going down that needed the Unit’s attention, things the public mostly never knew about, threats and attempted terrorist acts that would devastate the city if they were successful. The Unit had been set up by the Prime Minister to offer a no-nonsense response to any potential threat, f
oreign or domestic, to the city
and the ten-man task force gathered every morning inside the briefing room at their headquarters with no idea what the d
ay or week ahead held in store.

However, a benefit of all this trouble meant the entire ARU detail had been through some hellacious experiences together which had strengthened their cohesion. When the squad had been formed at the beginning of last year, the PM had demanded that the team be one that would last into the future, long after his tenure at
10 Downing Street
had ended. As a consequence, the Unit was a blend of hardened experienced officers and some younger counterparts who would take over once the older officers had moved on. A few of them had been comparatively untested the year before, including Archer, but now they were an experienced outfit that any terrorist would be wise to take very seriously. When people in the city were in t
rouble, they called the police.

When the police were in trouble, they called the ARU.

Inside the briefing room
Archer had just sat down in an empty chair alongside some of the other men when a dark-haired young woman appeared at the door. Her name was Nikki, the only person in the building who was referred to by her first name. She was head of the intelligence team that worked next door. Archer had known her for a long time. They’d started out at the Hammersmith and Fulham Police Station across the city, and were old friends, both the same age. It had even been romantic once, something no one else in the Unit knew about aside from the two of them, but that had fizzled out
as so often happened with a relationship in a working environment
.

‘Arch?’ she said.

He looked up.

‘Cobb wants to speak to you.’

Archer paused, then nodded and rose, folding the new
spaper in half and leaving it on the empty seat
. He glanced at hi
s best friend Chalky, who was sit
t
ing
beside him, alr
eady eyeing the free newspaper.

‘I’m
reading that,’ Archer told him.

Chalky nodded, but the blond man heard a rustle behind him as his friend
immediately swiped it up
. He shook his head and walked out of the room, heading towards Cobb’s office.

Cobb was Director of the Armed Response Unit, the man responsible for taking charge and ownership for the entire detail. He was a good man and an even better leader. The run-in with the terrorist cell during the winter had strengthened the bond between everyone involved in the squad, and especially in their collective gratitude for Cobb’s leadership. Everyone who worked here had respected Cobb before, but now they viewed him as a necessity, the perfect man for his role. Cool, collected and dependable, he was one of those people w
ho was born to take charge as if
it was in his DNA, a quality you couldn’t teach. Archer had never worked with Cobb in the field, but he knew if it ever came to that, he’d follow him through fi
re in a heartbeat if he had to.

Cobb’s office was located across the level, overlooking the operations room and his tech team. The walls to the room were made of transparent glass, so Archer saw his boss sitting at his desk, waiting for him, dark-brown features over a black suit and white shirt with navy-blue tie. Cobb saw the younger man coming, and beckoned him inside. Archer pushed the door open, stepping into the office and letting it
close behind him.

‘Morning sir.’

‘Good morning.’

Archer noticed immediately from the expression on the Cobb’s face th
at something was bothering him.

‘Something wrong?’ he asked.

Cobb paused, then motioned to a ch
air the other side of his desk.

‘Take a seat.’

Archer sat.

He saw Cobb take a deep breath. Whatever was coming next didn’t loo
k like it was going to be good.

‘I’m afraid I have some bad news. I just got a call from an FBI detective in
New York
twenty minutes ago,’ he said, slowly. ‘He told me the NYPD found a body last night in a parking lot in
Queens
.’

Pause.

‘It was your father.’

Archer looked at him, still, silent. He didn’t re
act, didn’t blink, didn’t move.

A long silence fo
llowed as he absorbed the news.

‘I’m sorry Arch,’ Cobb added.

Archer swallowed and
felt light-headed. Surreal. As if this was all
a dream, and soon he’d blink and wake up. Across the table, Cobb sat still, a compassionate look on his dark-featured face, waiting for the life-altering news to sink in a little deeper. He had lost his own father five years ago, and understood how hearing the news for the first time felt.

‘How did he die?’ Archer asked, his mouth dry.

Cobb looked across the desk at him. He seemed about to speak, but held back.

‘How did he die?’ Archer asked again, reading Cobb’s hesitance. ‘C’mon, sir, I can handle it.’

Cobb nodded.
So be it.

‘He was shot from behind. Point blank. A single shotgun round to the head. He died instantly, so he wouldn’t have known anything about it.’

Archer didn’t respond. He felt
dazed
. But against his will, his mind started conjuring images from what Cobb h
ad just told him. Awful images.

A shotgun
round to the head, from behind.

Not an accident.

Not a freak occurrence.

A cold, calculated execution.

Someone murdered him.

C
obb continued, talking quietly.

‘I want you to take the week off,’ he said.
‘Compassionate leave.’

He pushed a printed p
iece of paper across the table.

‘I booked you on a flight to
New York
from Heathrow. It leaves later on this afternoon. The Bureau have organised the funeral and it
’s taking place tomorrow
so you don’t have to worry about setting anything up. I just want you to be there. To…say goodbye.’

Archer looked up at him, his mind reeling, a thousand thoughts rushing around his head, all jarring for attention. He didn’t resp
ond. Cobb nodded and continued.

‘I also booked you into a hotel. The Marriott Marquis.
Times Square
. It’s a good spot. I’ve been there before myself. Stay there until you come back.’

‘Sir, I can’t accept that.’