Green Light (Sam Archer 7) (8 page)

He was
locked up inside Rikers Island, the city’s biggest prison and the
second largest in the country.

An
unarmed police detective.

Surrounded by the some of the most dangerous criminals in New
York State.

Lowering herself down the last rungs of the fire escape
ladder, April hung for a moment then dropped onto a large metal
garbage receptacle with a
thump
. Sliding off the edge and
landing on the ground, she hurried down the small side alley then
paused when she reached the end, looking cautiously round the
wall.

As she
watched, she saw the door to her apartment building on her right
suddenly open and two figures in white overalls and Yankee caps
hurry out, looking left and right, clearly searching for
someone.

She
jerked back before they spotted her and thought for a moment, her
back to the wall, her heart-pounding.

She
stayed where she was for a few more seconds.

Then she
turned and ran down the alley in the opposite direction, exiting at
the other end and taking off down the street as fast as she
could.

EIGHT

Ten
miles away, dressed in the orange Department Of Justice overalls
and white shoes that all inmates were required to wear, Archer
watched as the gate to the busy prison yard buzzed and then opened
in front of him, his heart thumping and his mouth dry.

‘
Move, pretty boy,’ the guard behind him said, drawing his
baton. ‘Rec time.’

With
inmates already in the yard turning to watch and no choice other
than to do as he was told, Archer walked forward and immediately
felt the clock on his life start ticking.

The last
four weeks had unfolded like a slow-moving nightmare but this
current predicament was beyond anything he could have expected, all
triggered by that night in the car park when Leann Casey, Vargas
and he had been shot. Help had arrived minutes after the shooting
and treatment on Alice had started immediately. Archer had sat with
her in the ambulance and watched as the medical team fought
frantically to save her, her heart stopping twice on the way to the
hospital. She’d clung to life by a fingernail, Archer not leaving
her side until she was out of immediate danger, Josh taking care of
Isabel.

Once the
medics said that she was going to pull through, followed a short
time later by a call from Shepherd telling Archer he needed him
back on duty at the Bureau, he’d reluctantly left her in the care
of the two guards and the medical team. He, Shepherd, Josh and
Marquez had waited anxiously for any updates from Homicide,
becoming increasingly frustrated when constantly told the
investigation was still in progress.

Last Saturday, eight days ago, their patience had finally run
out and they’d headed over to the 114
^th
to try and get some answers.
The Precinct boss, Lieutenant Royston, had been both arrogant and
uncooperative, in the end ordering them to leave. Shepherd had done
his best to reason with the man, but it had been hopeless. He
wouldn’t listen.

Realising they weren’t getting anywhere, they’d headed for
the door, but just as Archer had been walking past Royston the
Lieutenant had made a derogatory comment about Vargas.

It’d
been like holding a flame to a box packed with tinder.

Before
he could stop himself Archer laid the son of a bitch out, firing
off a vicious right hook that had taken the fat Lieutenant
completely unawares, knocking him out cold. Archer had been
suspended immediately, his badge and gun confiscated, and was
banned from every police Precinct in the city. His hearing was due
for tomorrow morning, Monday, but he knew that was just a
formality. He was going to be demoted out of Shepherd’s team and he
knew it. He’d be lucky if they didn’t bust him out to some middle
of nowhere beat in Staten Island.

But it
had also meant that now he had nothing to lose.

Josh had called on Thursday, saying Homicide had finally come
through and found the shooters. Finding it all a bit convenient,
Archer had broken the rules by contacting a friend at the
114
^th
and persuaded her to pull a copy of the case files for him,
the first time he’d seen them since the shooting. After noticing
something that didn’t ring true, he’d decided to pay Karen Casey a
visit late Friday afternoon, thinking she might be able to shed
some light on who might have wanted to kill her daughter. She’d
been cold, distant and edgy at first, the atmosphere only changing
when she accidentally dropped a china cup from a high shelf on the
floor, smashing it to pieces. After a pause Archer had bent down
and cleaned it up without a word, which seemed to thaw her
frostiness towards him.

After
that, she’d opened up but hadn’t told him anything that wasn’t
already in the file. Then, just as he was leaving the building he’d
found four cops waiting for him on the street, taking him down
right outside Karen Casey’s apartment building. Royston’s
handiwork, no doubt; no-one else could have moved in on him that
fast.

The son of a bitch must have had me watched,
Archer had quickly realised.

He was waiting for any excuse and I gave it to him on a
plate.

He’d
been cuffed and arrested on harassment charges, which was complete
bullshit. He’d been pissed off but not worried, expecting to be
taken to the station and released after he made a call to Shepherd
and explained what had happened.

However,
he hadn’t been given that opportunity; he’d spent the rest of
Friday and all day Saturday in the Precinct. Then late last night,
officers had come to his cell, saying he was being transferred
until his hearing on Monday due to overcrowding at the East Village
Precinct.

Instead
of another police station, they’d brought him here.

The
moment Archer realised where he was headed, he’d understood just
how badly he’d screwed up and why other detectives had warned him
to watch his back after his suspension. As punishment for getting
Rach to access the case-file and then speaking to Karen Casey, let
alone the humiliation of getting flattened by Archer in front of
his subordinates, the fat Lieutenant had pulled some strings and
arranged for Archer to be admitted to Rikers for a weekend
stay.

And this
place wasn’t exactly a country retreat.

As the
gate locked behind him, Archer continued to walk forward, keeping
his shoulders back and staring straight ahead, ignoring some
cat-calls and wolf-whistles. From the moment a fresh inmate arrives
in any prison, the cycle begins; existing inmates look for ink, ask
about background, assess the newcomer physically to judge where
he’d fit into the pecking order. Until now, Archer had only ever
seen it from the other side.

As he
moved forward into the heart of the yard, he realised word hadn’t
got out yet that he was an NYPD detective. If it had, he’d have
known about it already. Putting a cop inside a jail for the weekend
was like throwing meat to a pack of starving wolves and Archer had
realised last night when he’d been locked in his single-man SHU
cell that because he was suspended, Royston could dump him in here
with no real consequences. Whether this was teaching him a lesson
or exacting the ultimate revenge was irrelevant.

The
reality was he was here until tomorrow morning and he knew he’d be
lucky to make it that long.

Straight
ahead of him were some empty bleachers which he made a bee-line
for, avoiding eye contact with anyone and maintaining a totally
blank expression despite the adrenaline pumping through his veins.
Arriving at the wooden slats, he stepped up and took a seat on the
second row, relieved to have his back to the fence and his eyes
covering the yard.

It was
sunny but chilly, the DOJ overalls providing scant protection
against the cold wind and he shivered, goose-bumps appearing on his
forearms as he rested them on his knees. The yard in front of him
was about the size of half a football field, all concrete with
razor wire on the high walls, a basketball court and two free
weights sets. The ball game was shirts against skins, the torsos of
the men not wearing vests or overalls adorned with scars and
tattoos, all thickly muscled and all intimidating.

Taking a
quick glance around, Archer was relieved to see most of the
activities had resumed but he was aware of several pairs of eyes
still fixed on him. He’d already noticed the different races were
keeping to themselves, the white boys over on the left with a load
of weights, the black guys playing ball, the Latinos using another
set of weights on the right. One particularly large and
intimidating Mexican guy over there was sitting on a bench staring
straight at Archer, so many plates on the barbell racked behind him
they were bending the bar.

A guy
next to him leaned down and whispered something, the larger man
nodding as he studied Archer sitting alone on the bleachers
opposite.

Keeping
his face blank, Archer felt a jolt of nerves run through him. If
one whisper about who he really was spread around this place it
would be a feeding frenzy, outnumbered hundreds to one; he’d get
torn apart. Luckily he hadn’t shaved for a couple of days and his
hair was overdue a trip to the barber so he didn’t stand out quite
as much as he normally would, but time was running out and he knew
it.

As he
glanced around the prison yard, the sun going down behind him, he
pictured Shepherd, Marquez and Josh out there enjoying their
weekends with no idea that he was in here.

C’mon, guys,
he silently willed,
feeling eyes upon him and sensing danger building with every
second.

Get me the hell out of here.

‘
Answer, goddammit!’
Marquez shouted,
swearing as she waited for her call to Rikers to be answered. She’d
been put on hold, the clock ticking as Josh burned it
uptown.

‘
Hello?’

‘
This is Detective Lisa Marquez, NYPD, acting on Department
orders,’ she said quickly. ‘I need you to pull one of your
overnighters right now. I don’t know which facility he’s in but
he’s on site.’

‘
Name?’

‘
Detective Sam Archer, Counter-Terrorism Bureau.’

As
Archer sat on the bleachers, a whistle suddenly echoed around the
yard. It immediately ended the activities, the inmates trudging
back towards the gate, guards shouting orders as the men formed an
orderly line, the ball abandoned on the concrete, slowly rolling to
a stop. Archer had only just caught the end of rec time and he
smiled; he’d survived.

Staying
by the bleachers and ignoring the shouts of several guards for him
to move, he waited until most of the other men had gone, joining
the back of the line to avoid the possibility of someone getting
the drop on him. As he edged slowly forward towards the door, he
noticed several of the Latinos looking back at him. He certainly
seemed to have caught their attention

‘
Move it!’
a guard ordered, the gates
ahead buzzing and the inmates walking slowly into the building. As
Archer moved into the prison, looking forward to heading towards
the safety of his one-man SHU block cell, the line ahead deviated
to the left instead, down another cleanly-scrubbed corridor with
grills covering the windows.

As the
inmates in front of him walked on, Archer suddenly stopped, one of
the guards bringing up the rear bumping into him from
behind.

‘
I thought we were going back to cells.’

‘
It’s 6 o’clock, princess. Shower time.’

‘
I’m good, but thanks.’

The guard’s hand moved to the baton, pulling it out, the metal
making a quiet
whish
as it slid out of the leather. ‘This isn’t a hotel, asshole.
And that wasn’t a request.’

As he
spoke, the man suddenly hit him hard in the gut with the baton,
causing Archer to gasp with pain and double over.

‘
You don’t move right now, I’ll put you in Gen-Pop after chow
and let feeding time commence,’ the guard said. ‘You’ve already
made some fans.’

Straightening and looking at the man, Archer waited for a
moment then walked forward, his heart beginning to thump overtime
with adrenaline. In that moment all thoughts of his police team,
Isabel and Vargas vanished.

His sole
focus was on staying alive for the next ten minutes.

NINE

When in
a hostile environment, a human being is hard-wired to seek
protection. If the threat is because of the elements, they search
for a way to ward off the cold or heat; if the threat is physical,
they seek cover or a weapon to fend off an attack.

But as
he stripped down outside those prison showers, his heartbeat going
like a rock-band’s drum solo at the end of a world tour, Archer
knew that he’d have none of those things in the block next door.
He’d been in extreme levels of danger before; falling out of a
plane without a chute, jumping off a twenty two storey balcony onto
another, dumping a body sewn up with explosives down a manhole
seconds before detonation.