Green Light (Sam Archer 7) (36 page)

‘
I know where they’ll be going. Follow my instructions and
you’ll find them. I’m sending back-up; do whatever you have to do
to bring them in. Understood?’

‘
Copy that,’ the man said, turning towards the squad car as
Marquez and Massaro watched in confusion, the other three
clambering to their feet and moving unsteadily towards their
vehicles.

‘
I don’t think they’re going anywhere in a hurry,’ Massaro
said.

FORTY THREE

When
Bashev came to, the first thing that hit his senses was the sound
of running water.

Opening
his eyes, blinking to clear his vision, he saw he was lying in the
white-walled bathroom of an apartment he didn’t recognise. There
was a strip of duct tape pulled tight across his mouth. He tried to
move his arms, but realised they were bound behind his back,
tightly zipped plasti-cuffs digging into his wrists.

Turning
his head, he saw two men dressed in white overalls pouring liquid
into a bathtub from canisters, a blonde woman sitting on a chair
watching them.

The
moment he saw her, Bashev blinked again, trying to focus, convinced
he was seeing a ghost.

But as
his vision cleared and he stared at her in disbelief, his blood
turned to ice; he knew now that he was in seriously deep
shit.

After a
few moments the two men straightened, putting down the canisters
they’d just emptied; then the woman spoke.

‘
You need to get over there right now. They’ll arrive any
minute.’

‘
The Mexicans didn’t get it done?’

‘
No. But you will. Do them both. We don’t need her.’

As the pair left the room, the Russian
vor
continued to stare at the woman,
still unable to believe it was her. Once the other two were gone,
she rose and walked forward until she was standing over
him.

‘
Hi honey,’ she said. ‘Did you miss me?’

With the
duct tape over his mouth, Bashev couldn’t have replied even if he’d
wanted to. Suddenly, everything that had been happening to his men
over the past few months made sense.

He
stared up at her, his stomach starting to churn with fear as the
woman knelt down and looked him directly in the eyes. Then she
reached into a pocket and pulled out a butterfly knife. She flicked
her wrist, the blade snapping out, and stabbed down hard into his
leg. Bashev jerked and screamed in pain, the sound muffled under
his gag. As he stared down in horror at the knife jutting from his
thigh, the woman twisted the blade slowly, Bashev continuing to
scream under his gag as the wound opened.

‘
It won’t close now. I’d say you have about an hour before you
die from blood loss. But as much as I’d enjoy watching you die
slowly I don’t have time to wait, so we’d better speed this up.
You’re going in that tub alive but I can’t have you thrashing
around.’

Pulling
a silenced pistol, she racked a round and pushed him over onto his
side.

‘
You should have broken my wrists, you son of a bitch,’ she
told him, aiming the gun at his lower back.

Across
the city, Shepherd and Hendricks were just approaching the address
of the West Village safe-house, Shepherd’s concern for Archer
getting them there in almost record time.

Pulling
to a halt in the West Village street, the two men stepped out of
the car, Shepherd double-checking the address on his cell phone. As
Hendricks went to the back of the Ford, opened the trunk and
retrieved their shotguns, Shepherd looked around for any sign of
Archer. He couldn’t see his Ford but then again from the sound of
what had happened in Queens, the car may well have taken some
gunfire so Archer wouldn’t want to draw any unnecessary attention
and would probably have parked it in the basement or somewhere else
out of sight.

After
Hendricks slammed the trunk shut, he tossed Shepherd one of two
Mossbergs, and the two men approached the building, Shepherd
gaining them access on the key pad by using a six digit code Ethan
had texted him earlier. It had no residents at the moment, the
conversion of the building from office space to apartments only
just having been completed. The NYPD had taken advantage of that,
buying one of the apartments as soon as it became available as a
secure new safe-house.

Once inside, Shepherd eased the door shut behind him and the
two men made their way up the stairs, moving fast, the building
eerily quiet. Arriving outside the 4
^th
floor apartment, Shepherd
knocked on the door.

‘
Arch? It’s Shepherd and Hendricks.’

Nothing.

‘
Arch?’

Shepherd
looked at Hendricks, who tried the door. It was locked. Stepping
back, he smashed it open and the two men entered the
apartment.

It was
empty.

‘
Shit; he didn’t make it yet,’ Shepherd said, pulling his cell.
As he went to dial Archer’s number, they both heard the sound of
vehicles pulling up outside, the quick screech of tyres followed by
the noise of car doors opening and closing.

Both men
moved quickly to the window, expecting to see the blond detective
and the escort getting out of his car.

However,
instead they saw a team of officers in protective combat gear and
helmets carrying assault rifles stepping out of black 4x4
Escalades, gathering in a group outside the building.

It was
ESU, the NYPD’s SWAT team.

His
phone to his ear, Shepherd glanced at Hendricks. ‘Back-up. They got
here fast.’

Hendricks didn’t reply. Swinging away from the window, he
looked around the room then strode quickly towards the NYPD radio
found in each safe-house, switched it on and re-tuned the
frequency.

‘
ESU 2 in position.’

‘
Ethan, it’s me,’ Shepherd said, turning and starting to head
towards the door. ‘I need you to trace the GPS on Archer’s car for
me.’

However,
before he could reach the door Hendricks caught him by the arm,
stopping him.

‘
What is it?’ Shepherd asked.

‘
Suspects are armed and extremely dangerous,’
a voice over the radio said, replying for
Hendricks.
‘Use whatever force necessary.
Both men have assaulted NYPD officers.’

Shepherd
stared at the radio, frowning. ‘What the hell?’

The two
men looked at each other.

Then
they suddenly realised what was happening.

Outside
the building, Sergeant Michael Hicks gave the thumbs up and his
team moved forward. Quickly keying in the six digit code, the ten
man team flowed inside, heading immediately for the
stairs.

Hicks had been an officer in ESU 2 until six months ago when
the entire ESU 1 team had been killed in an operation uptown in
Harlem that had gone badly wrong; the team had been replaced and
Hicks promoted to Sergeant to command it. The promotion had been
bittersweet due to the circumstances; as a consequence, those who
perpetrated cop-on-cop violence now ranked alongside rapists and
child molesters as far as he was concerned, and these bastards had
just put down four 114
^th
officers as well as assaulting a
lieutenant.

Third in line, Hicks nodded to his point man and they took the
stairs, the ten armed men moving quickly and quietly up towards the
4
^th
floor.

‘
Son of a bitch!’ Shepherd said inside 4D, staring at Hendricks
incredulously. ‘He sent an entire ESU team after us? What bullshit
did he tell them?’

‘
You said Archer’s on his way here?’

‘
If he even makes it. Ethan said he had people after him when
he fled Astoria. We have to find him before that gang does. He’s
protecting the girl with no back-up.’

‘
You heard the radio. These boys are here to take us in; we’ll
be taken downtown and held until God knows when.’

Shepherd
looked at his colleague and closest friend as they both realised
their minimal options.

‘
That’s not going to happen,’ Shepherd said quietly.

Hendricks nodded. ‘No. It’s not.’

The two
men continued to look at each other for a moment, both
understanding the potential consequences of what they were about to
do.

Then
they moved.

As
Shepherd headed to the door, ending the call to Ethan and holding
his Mossberg, Hendricks traced the wall, looking for the fuse box
to the apartment. Finding it in a wall cupboard to the left of the
entrance, he aimed his shotgun above the box.

He
pulled the trigger, the Mossberg booming, the air filled with
plaster and pieces of debris as three thick cables were
exposed.

Racking
the pump he fired again; a moment later the power cut out in the
building, shrouding the place in darkness.

FORTY FOUR

On the stairwell between the 2
^nd
and 3
^rd
floors, the ESU
1
^st
team
heard the two gunshots a moment before they were suddenly plunged
into darkness.

Despite
being caught off-guard, they reacted quickly, flicking on the
flashlights attached to the end of their assault rifles before
continuing to move up the stairs, the light breaking up the gloom,
particles of dust visible in their beams. They all shared Hicks’
view of people who perpetrated violence on cops and would have no
issue putting these two bastards down, badges or not.

Arriving
on the fourth floor, Hicks motioned to two of his men to continue
to the floors above, to check each one in case the two sergeants
had seen them arrive and moved up.

As the
two officers continued upwards, the eight remaining members of the
ESU team moved down the corridor, four of them continuing past the
apartment to cover the stairs at the other end.

Coming
to a halt outside the apartment, Hicks took point, seeing the door
was slightly ajar.

Raising
his foot, he kicked it back hard and snapped his AR-15 up into the
aim.

The two members of the team sent upstairs arrived on the
5
^th
floor, following Hicks’ orders to carry out a
sweep.

Easing
their way out of the stairwell, they moved quietly into the long
corridor, tracing as they walked, the building quiet.

Then
they heard a low whistle immediately behind them.

Both men
snapped round, straight into the stocks of two shotguns that
smashed into their goggles, rocking their heads back and knocking
one of them clean out. As he dropped, stunned, Hendricks ripped the
AR15 out of the man’s hands, but the officer’s finger was already
off the trigger. His companion staggered from the blow from
Shepherd and managed to regain his balance, but before he had time
to react, Shepherd restrained him in a needle and thread choke,
quickly rendering the officer unconscious.

Once he
was out Shepherd lowered him to the ground carefully. The two
sergeants used the downed officers’ own zip-tie handcuffs to
restrain them then kicked their weapons out of reach, Hendricks
taking a couple of stun grenades from the front of one man’s
uniform.

They
suddenly froze as they heard someone coming up the
stairwell.

‘
Shit!’
Shepherd whispered, he and
Hendricks taking off for the stairwell at the other end of the
corridor. Just as they made it to the stairs, a light suddenly
appeared from behind them.

‘
Freeze!’
a voice bellowed.

Shepherd
and Hendricks dived into the stairwell a split-second before the
ESU officers fired, the stitched burst from their weapons missing
the pair by a fraction of an inch.

Racing
after them, the four men almost fell over their two unconscious
colleagues on the floor.

‘
Suspects sighted!’ the lead man radioed to Hicks as he bent to
check the two men. ‘East stairwell, 5
^th
floor. Siler and Morris are
down.’

‘
Dead?’
Hicks asked.

‘
Out cold,’ he said, feeling a pulse in both men before
rising.

Continuing to the end of the corridor, the four officers
snapped out into the stairwell, finding the place shrouded in thick
black smoke, pumping out of a smoke grenade somewhere on the floor
and filling the stairwell.

‘
I can’t see shit!’ the lead officer reported to
Hicks.

‘
Stay there. We’re on our way.’

Releasing the pressel on his radio after making the
transmission, Hicks led the three remaining ESU officers down the
corridor, the men moving quickly towards the stairs, smoke flowing
down the stairwell and into the corridor.

As his
point man arrived by the stairwell door, Hicks suddenly clicked his
fingers, his men snapping back. Bellick had gone quiet.