Return Fire (Sam Archer ) (28 page)

FIFTY FIVE

Two floors down, Vargas and the two boys heard the explosion through the fire alarms, taking them completely by surprise as the noise reverberated around the building. Vargas instinctively recoiled, but then felt the big mercenary’s hand clumping in her hair, impassive and threatening as he held her in place.

‘Your boyfriend just died,’
the man holding the gun to her head whispered into her ear, his accent Australian. ‘And you’re about to join him, bitch.’

She didn’t move, his words sinking in.

Archer’s dead
, she thought.

Archer’s dead.

As the man holding the gun flicked off the safety, Vargas suddenly felt one of the boys slide something into her hand.

The knife.

He must have picked it up earlier after she cut their binds.

The mercenary hadn’t noticed the movement, not paying any attention to the two little boys who were no threat to him. Vargas flipped the knife open and carefully reversed it in her hand.

A moment later, she suddenly stabbed backwards as hard as she could.

The blade jammed straight into the man’s groin and he screamed in pain, instantly releasing her and staggering back with the knife embedded where his thigh joined his torso. Not hesitating for a second, Vargas grabbed her assault rifle from the floor, tossed it into the lift, then clutched the two boys’ hands and pulled them after it, hitting the button for the ground floor.

She pushed them both to the side, covering them as the doors started to close.

Clutching his groin, the man staggered round and fired with his pistol, but the bullets hit the far wall of the lift, Vargas keeping the boys back out of
the line of fire as the doors shut.

Reeling in pain from the stab wound, Portland pulled the knife from his leg, blood flowing from the wound.

‘Bitch!’
he shouted, throwing the knife to one side and stumbling towards the stairwell. As he did so, he pulled his phone, needing to call the others downstairs to get them to push the button and stop the lift.

‘Yeah?’
Piccadilly said.

‘Where are you?’

‘3
rd
floor keeping the cops back. Where the hell is that alarm coming from?’

Portland ripped open the door to the stairwell, lifting the phone to his
ear and waving smoke out of his face, his thigh on fire from pain.

‘Forget that. Listen, the bitch is on her way do-’

Shooting the man in the chest with a burst from his MP5, Archer watched him
take the burst and get thumped back, falling to the floor. He was unharmed from the nail-bomb but the cut under his eye from his fight with Dash was leaking blood as he carried his MP5 with the last clip inside, Dash’s suppressed Ruger 22/45 shoved into the holster on his thigh.

When the light had turned yellow he’d instantly dropped his knife, spun Dash round to face him and threw himself backwards, dragging the other man down with him. As they’d hit the floor Archer had tucked his knees under Dash and gripped his co
llar hard to hold him in place.

Dash’s eyes had suddenly widened in realisation.

And a split-second later, the nail-bomb detonated.

The blast had destroyed everything in the room, raining nails down with lethal force onto tables and chairs, the deadly hail annihilating furniture, penetrating the walls, the floor, everything; nothing escaped.

Archer had been underneath Dash, gripping the inside collar of his shirt as hard as he was clenching his eyes shut, his knees bunched up against the man’s chest.

He’d waited for pain, but it never came.

Then he’d opened his eyes and looked up at the mercenary through the smoke.

He’d gone totally limp, blood leaking out of the side of his mouth. Archer had loosened his grip on the man’s collar and Dash had immediately sagged to one side, slumping down face first, a dead weight. As Archer eased himself out from under him and rolled to his feet, his Converse crunching on pieces of
debris, he saw that Dash had scores of thick nails protruding from the back of his body and head.

He’d been killed instantly.

Looking grimly up at the camera through the smoke, knowing who’d be watching, Archer had turned and retrieved his MP5, running out onto the stairs and heading downstairs. After checking 16 and finding two dead bodies, he’d been on his way to 15 when the door to the floor had suddenly opened and one of the guys who’d ambushed him at Bernhardt’s had staggered out through the smoke, talking on his phone and bleeding from a wound to his thigh.

Archer had fired instantly, watching the man take the rounds and fall to the floor. Not wasting a second, he jumped over the man and edged out onto 15, clearing the space.

But Vargas wasn’t there.

He pulled his phone and called her, waiting, but she wasn’t picking up.
Shit!
He thought, sucking in air, looking around the deserted, quiet dark office floor as blood leaked down the side of his face.

He turned and looked at the two lifts, checking the digital displays above.

Where the hell is she?

Piccadilly was still on 3, having just taken Portland’s call and pausing for a moment from firing on the arriving police below. The call had ended mid-conversation, cut off from the sound of gunfire, but Piccadilly had heard enough.

He was by a maintenance access box, which he opened and pulled a switch, killing the fire alarm which was driving him nuts, the
building suddenly quiet again. Turning, Piccadilly saw one of the lifts ticking down towards them and pushed the button, stepping back with the assault rifle and aiming it directly at the doors.

It arrived, and the doors parted.

A second later, he unloaded with the assault rifle, the bullets ripping into the cart as he emptied the clip.

Once it clicked dry, he stopped and looked.

There was no one there.

Unknown to the South African mercenary, the lift had made one stop on its way from 15 to 3.

On the 12
th
floor.

This office floor looked to be almost completed, the floor carpeted, the walls painted. Vargas was standing very still, looking straight ahead, her AR15 still in her hands but staring out of the corner of her eye at the nail-gun which was aimed at the side of her head.

‘Drop it,’ the woman holding it said quietly.

Vargas didn’t move.

The nail-gun suddenly swept down, aimed at one of the boy’s heads.

‘OK,OK,’ Vargas said, tossing the assault rifle forward. ‘But let them go. I’m the one you want.’

Pause.

‘Very well.’

Vargas looked down at the two boys. ‘Go!’

They didn’t move.

‘Go! Use the stairs!’

They stared at her for a moment then took off, running to the stairwell doors and disappearing out of sight, the frame swinging back behind them.

Now alone with the woman, Vargas watched her walk round in front of her, the nail gun trained on her face.

She saw she was older, somewhere in her
late fifties or early sixties, and short but incredibly menacing.

Vargas had never seen her before.

‘Who are you?’ she asked.

‘Someone who wants you to die.’

Vargas didn’t reply.

‘I’ve been trying to decide all day when to kill you,’ the woman said, the nail-gun trained on Vargas. ‘And I’m glad I waited. Now you’re going to die in front of him. Call him.’

‘He’s already dead.’

‘No. He isn’t.’

Vargas didn’t move but felt a sudden surge of hope.

‘Last chance. You do this, you get a few more minutes of life.’

Knowing she had no other option, Vargas withdrew her phone, and went to push
Redial.

‘No need for that,’ a familiar voice suddenly said from her right.

FIFTY SIX

Turning, the two women saw Archer standing in the doorway to the stairs.

Blood leaking down the side of his face from the cut under his left eye, he moved forward, his MP5 in his shoulder, aimed straight at Talia as she kept the nail gun trained on Vargas. When he’d been standing on 15, he’d seen one of the lifts stop on the 12
th
floor before it continued below, and guessed Vargas could be here. Out of the corner of his vision, he saw the hope on her face.

It was the first time he and Alice had been together since she left New York last week after their fight.

But this was no time for a reunion.

His sights on the older woman’s chin, his finger on the trigger, Archer didn’t take his eyes off Talia Farha.

She looked to be somewhere in her late fifties or early sixties, her skin wrinkled and leathered, her dark hair streaked with silver.

She was small but her lack of height was more than compensated for by her intimidating presence.

She stared at him with hard eyes that glittered with venom. Her two dead sons had been killers, but just by looking at this woman he could tell that her spawn had only been a pale imitation of the original.

As she kept the nail-gun trained on Vargas but stared at Archer, he had a sudden flashback to two years ago. He’d looked into those same obsidian eyes just before he shot her son through one of them.

‘Guess we’ve come full circle,’ he said, keeping his MP5 on her. ‘This was the last thing your kid ever saw too.’

‘Don’t you dare mention him,’ she snarled, the nail-gun rock steady and still aimed at Vargas.

‘You shouldn’t have come after me,’ he told her. ‘I never would have known you existed.’

‘You shot my son.’

‘Considering what he did, he got off easy.’

‘I’m going to kill you.’

‘I can’t see that happening,’ he said, his MP5 trained on her, his finger white on the trigger.

‘You shoot me, I blast your girlfriend,’ Talia said, her nail gun still aimed at Vargas’ head but her eyes on Archer.
‘Drop your gun.’

Archer stopped, eight feet from her
, his MP5 trained on her chin. The office space was rectangular, no cover nearby save for the stairwell behind him and the door to a second office to his immediate right.

And Talia had the nail-gun pointed up close at Vargas’ head.

‘I’m going to start with your toes,’ she hissed at Archer. ‘Then your fingers. Then your lower legs and arms to the elbow. I’ll cut out your eyes and your tongue. I’ll give you shots of adrenaline to keep you alive.’

Archer went to reply but then he saw her eyes suddenly flick to the lifts to his left.

One of them had just arrived.

Instinctively, Archer followed her glance for a split second.

But by the time his attention swung back to Talia, she’d already pulled the trigger.

Anticipating the move, Vargas was already on her way down as Talia ducked and fired, the nail missing her by a hair’s breadth.

Archer fired a second later, hitting Talia in the arm and knocking her around in a pirouette to the floor as the lift doors began to open. Pushing herself back to her feet, Vargas ran towards Archer as a blond man with an AR-15 appeared out of the lift.

Archer saw he was the last member of the trio who’d attacked him at Bernhardt’s house with Dash and the other guy, both now dead upstairs. The man saw Archer turning his MP5 onto him and threw himself back into the lift as Archer fired, the bullets tearing into the space where he’d just been standing as Talia clutched her wounded arm then reached for the nail-gun beside her on the floor.

Grabbing Vargas’ hand, Archer turned and took off through the door to the office immediately to their right, kicking it shut behind them. A moment later, gunfire ripped into the wood, spraying pieces into the air as the pair threw themselves to the floor inside the other room.

As Archer rolled and fired back through the door, buying him and Vargas a few seconds, Vargas froze and stared around her in horror.

Firing again, Archer glanced at her then followed her eyes.

Workmen had left plastic sheets covering the walls.

But i
nstead of sawdust they were liberally spattered with blood.

There were pieces of a human being shoved in a he
ap across the room. Beside it was a body, a man missing the lower half of each leg below his knees, pints of blood having leaked out and covering the floor, partially dried and sweet to smell. It was the most sickening and stomach-churning thing he’d ever seen, even outdoing a scene her son had left the police in the bathroom of a house they raided the day before Archer shot him.

Swallowing, Vargas looked at Archer, horror written all over her face, and their attention quickly snapped back to the door as more gunfire ripped into it.

Archer went to return fire, but then his MP5 clicked dry.

Cursing and tossing it to one side, he drew Dash’s pistol.

Outside, Piccadilly was covering the door. Clutching her wounded arm, which was hanging uselessly by her side, Talia moved over and joined him, holding out her uninjured hand as Piccadilly passed her his Ruger.

As she took the weapon, Talia felt a surge of sheer anticipation.

Archer and his girlfriend were next door.

And they were trapped.