The Getaway (Sam Archer 2) (8 page)

‘I’m not asking you to. It’s an order. Besides, it’s on the Unit’s funds. Marked down as necessary expenses. The Prime Minister told me to handle our budget at my own discretion and that’s exactly what I’m doing.’

Archer paused and tracked back mentally in their conversation. He blinked and frowned. He was confused, and about more
than just his father’s murder.

‘You said the Bureau, sir?’

Cobb nodded.

‘That doesn’t make sense,’ Archer continued. ‘My father’s a- I mean
he was
- a sergeant in the NYPD. The FBI wouldn’t organise a funeral for him. Why would they? The cops and the feds hate each other.’

Cobb fr
owned, then read Archer’s face.

‘When was the last time you spoke with him?’ he asked.

‘Not for a long time.’

‘So you didn’t know
?’

‘Know what, sir?’

‘He was a
Federal
agent. A Special Agent-in-Charge. Been with them for the last two years. Your father wasn’t a cop, Archer. He was working for the FBI.’

Archer and Cobb sat in silence for a few more minutes, Archer absorbing everything he’d just been told. Then he scooped up the flight ticket, thanked Cobb and returned to the briefing room, still stunned. The other officers could see immediately something was wrong, and once quiet word spread about what had happened, they all sat there with him in the room, providing company. All ten of them sat there
silently.
No one left. No one knew what to say. But that didn’t matter. Some of them had been in the younger man’s situation before. They knew that just providing company was enough at that mo
ment. It was all they could do.

Archer had sat in his chair without moving for half an hour, just staring straight ahead. Then his head had started to clear and he’d said his short goodbyes, heading downstairs for his unexpected week off. He made a pit-stop at his apartment in Angel, grabbing his passport, packing a bag and grabbing a black suit and shoes from the closet for the funeral. He locked the door to his apartment, stepped out onto the street, hailed a cab and went straight to the airport.

Cobb had booked him on a British Airways flight, which meant he was leaving from Heathrow Terminal Five. As he paid the taxi fare and walked into the huge glass building, he realised that the last time he’d been here, he’d been face to face with a suicide bomber on New Year’s Eve. She’d been a young girl, no older than twenty, but with bricks of C4 plastic explosive packed into her clothes, concealed as a baby bump. Archer had been the first man at the scene to locate and confront her before she was shot and killed just in time by another officer.

He walked across the Departures Hall and checked in at the British Airways desk. His flight was leaving at 2 pm, around three hours from now, direct from Heathrow to JFK. Cobb had booked him a seat in
Club
Class, which he hadn’t needed to do, but Archer appreciated the gesture. He had no luggage to check, just a carry-on and his suit, and he moved through the security checkpoints without a problem and headed straight for the Gate as soo
n as it came up on the screens.

The next three hours felt like the shortest of his life. He’d taken a seat facing the airfield and had been staring out of the window one moment, lost in thought, staring at all the planes on the tarmac. When he finally looked away and checked the time, he realised they had already
opened boarding for the plane.

Three hours, gone in what seemed like a second.

London Heathrow to New York JFK was about a seven hour flight, and all seven seemed to pass by almost as fast. This was the first time Archer had ever flown
Club
Class in his life, and he could instantly see w
hy people paid the extra money.

The seats had been arranged in pairs, one seat facing the rear of the plane, one facing the front, and they were separated by a screen that you could pull up for some privacy. Archer didn’t need to use the scree
n, seeing as there was no one si
t
ting
beside him, but he pulled it up anyway. He had a seat by the window, no one close to him, and the chair was wide and comfortable.
It seemed
he could press a button to make
the seat slide
back and turn into a bed if he wanted to. But during those seven hours he didn’t drink a drop of fluid, nor eat a mouthful of food, nor watch a second of any movie. He just sat still, silent, staring at the sky outside the window, watching the wispy white clouds as they drifted past, high above the
Atlantic Ocean
far below.

This whole thing just felt like some big dream. He’d woken up this morning expecting just another day at the office. Planning what he was going to do over the weekend. Instead, he’d discovered someone had murdered his father and he was now on his way to
New York
for a week-long
compassionate leave, put up in one of the nicest hotels in
Manhattan
. Maybe he was still asleep. Maybe
he’d
suddenly
wake up.

He closed his eyes
, then opened them again.

No luck.

He was still on the plane.

This was all real.

He shook his head and glanced away from the window, pulling down the screen next to him and looking at the people occupying the other seats in the cabin. Most of them looked like businessmen and women, probably for whom this trip was a mundane routine or a necessary part of their corporate lifestyle. He saw several tapping into laptops and netbooks and writing and reading documents they’d need for meetings that would take place later at some point or which had already happened. There were also several seats which were empty, but none of the flight attendants had made an effort to upgrade anyone. He figured that only happened in random occurrences or in an ideal world in the movies. He pictured everyone farther down the cabin
jammed
together in Economy, arm-to-arm
with strangers
, uncomfortable and counting the minutes till the plane landed. One thing was for sure, the extra money for a
Club
Class ticket was well worth it.

Towards the end of the flight, the blue water of the ocean far below changed into the greenery of the American East Coast, and half an hour later they landed smoothly at
New York
’s
John
F
Kennedy
International
Airport
. Once the plane had rolled to a stop and parked and the light for the seatbelt in the cabin dinged off, Archer had grabbed his bag and suit from the overhead lockers then disembarked, quickly navigating his way through immigration and through baggage claim to the exit. His father was an American, so his son had dual citizenship. It meant he could live anywhere in the
United States
and the
United Kingdom
whenever he pleased with no immigration problems, but at that moment it also meant that he could avoid the growing line of people gathering at the non-American immigration line. Walking towards one of the desks for American citizens, he breathed a sigh of relief as he saw the long line of non-Americans increasing by the minute. He’d been in that queue in other countries, and they were going to be standing there for a while.

After his passport was checked and stamped, he thanked the woman behind the desk and walked through Customs out into the Arrivals hall. There was the usual crowd gathered behind the cordon, drivers holding name-signs or family members
eagerly
waiting for loved ones or friends to appear, but he made his way past them all and headed to an ATM on the right, pushing his credit card into the slot and withdrawing sixty bucks. That done, he turned and foll
owed the sign for the Airtrain.

The Airtrain was an over-ground service, connecting JFK to the city’s MTA subway system and Archer rode it over to Sutphin Boulevard, a hub of a station on the east side of Queens. The time here was five hours behind the U.K, so it was still only early afternoon, and the weather was beautiful, the sun shining over the sea of houses and buildings across
Queens
, the air warm and summery.

Inside the train, Archer stood still, looking out
of
the window, the sun
shining down on him through the glass
as he gazed out.

It was a beautiful day.

One that his
father would never get to see.

At Sutphin, he bought a Metrocard for the subway and got onto an E train, which would head west through Queens and pass under the East River into
Manhattan
. It would take him all the way to
Times Square
, and the Marriott Hotel Cobb had booked him into. Archer sat alone on one of the blue benches, his bag beside him, one of only three people in the carriage, the other two sat down the other end, far away from him. They were underground, but the lights inside the carriage showed Archer’s features in the glass window across the carriage and he looked at his reflection. He took most of his looks from his mother, but the one characteristic he’d inherited from his
father were piercing blue eyes.

He stared into them in the window across the train, and saw his father staring back.

Someone murdered him
echoed in his mind.

And the train rumbled on towards the city.

*

The funeral had taken place the next day, Saturday, in a picturesque green graveyard across the East River in
Queens
. Seeing as his father had died in the line of service, the whole thing had already been organised and paid for by the Bureau, and there was a good turnout, lots of people he didn’t recognise,
a couple he did. Archer was stan
d
ing
in his black suit, white shirt and black tie at the front of those gathered, looking over at the polished brown coffin held by levers over the freshly dug grave. He was the only family member present. High above, the sun was shining, not a single cloud in the sky. It was another beautiful day, a strange contrast to his mood.
Hollywood
liked to make it rain in situations like this, to match the mood or the lead character’s feelings. Life, however, ofte
n wasn’t that black and white.

The clergyman conducting the service began a final prayer and those gathered bowed their heads. Archer kept his head up, still staring at the polished wooden coffin, a series of bouquets of white flowers resting on the lacquered wood, small envelopes tucked amongst the flowers with personal notes written to Special-Agent-in-Charge James Archer. Looking at the coffin, his son pictured him inside. He hadn’t seen him in over a decade, but here they were, ten feet from each other, the last time they would ever be in such close proximity. He swallowed, as the clergyman approached the end of the prayer.

He suddenly sensed someone watching him. He looked up and saw a woman with dark-brown hair standing the other side of the freshly-dug grave. She was about his age, attractive and dressed in a dark work suit, but was staring at him with a strange look on her face. If anything, she looked tense. Worried. Conce
rned. Maybe a mix of all three.

They held each other’s gaze, brown eyes on blue, but that look of conce
rn on her face didn’t diminish.

If anyt
hing, she looked almost scared.

Maybe she and Dad were friends
, he thought. Probably colleagues in the Bureau. She looked the type.

Once the service had ended, Archer had taken one last look at the coffin, then turned and walked away. He moved slowly over the grass, headed towards the old gates that led out of the graveyard. He’d hailed a taxi here, and planned to head back into
Manhattan
. Someone had told him earlier that there was some kind of wake planned, but he wasn’t going to go. Right n
ow, he just wanted to be alone.

But a voice called quietly from behind him, cutting
into his thoughts and solitude.

‘Sam.’

He turned, and saw a man he hadn’t seen in over a decade approaching him, dressed in a black suit and tie over a white shirt. His name was Todd Gerrard, but all his friends called him Gerry. He and James Archer had been close friends, having come up in the NYPD together in the 80’s when the city was nowhere near as safe for a cop as it was now. Judging by his suit and demeanour, Gerry had moved on to bigger things. Archer noted streaks of grey in his brown hair, but he still looked in g
ood nick, lean-faced and alert.

‘Hey Gerry,’ Archer said. ‘It’s been a while.’

Gerrard offered his hand, and the younger man shook it,
as other mourners passed them.

‘Damn it’s good to see you kid,’ he said.
‘I didn’t think you’d make it.’

Archer shrugged.

‘Here I am.’

Gerrard glanced around. ‘Where’s your sister?’