This man was a US Marshal.
‘Is there a room we can use?’ he asked quietly.
She nodded, staying silent. He turned to the dark-haired woman. ‘Vargas, get the girl.’ He shifted his attention to the uninjured man. ‘Barlow, watch the door.’ Both of them nodded. Easing Carson’s head off her lap and carefully lowering it to the floor, the woman called Vargas rose and took the child’s hand as the grey-haired man holstered his.44 and bent down, gripping Carson’s armpits.
Archer stepped forward and took hold of the man’s legs, not waiting to be asked. Together the two of them heaved him up and following the blonde homeowner, carried him through a door to the right.
They entered a sitting room, which looked drab and dreary. There was a TV on a stand in the corner, a couch, several armchairs and a few lamps dotted around on small tables. There were also some photo frames containing the standard family snaps and a few ornaments on a bookshelf fixed to the wall. The floor was carpeted but the place had definitely seen better days. The homeowner rushed off, retrieving some towels from the bathroom then returning, and threw them over the couch in an attempt to protect it from any blood.
The two men placed Carson down carefully on the cushions. He was whimpering in agony, drawing ragged breaths as the blood continued to seep sluggishly from the wound to his stomach. Across the room, Vargas was sitting with the girl, distracting her and keeping her turned away from the gunshot man bleeding on the couch as they both caught their breath and recovered from what had just happened. Once he’d deposited Carson, the big grey-haired US Marshal ducked back next door. Following him to the doorway, Archer watched as he reached behind a refrigerator, unplugging it, then dragged it in front of the door as quickly and quietly as he could, forming a makeshift barrier. If someone wanted to get in it wouldn’t stop them, but the improvised blockade would buy them all a few valuable extra seconds.
Once the refrigerator was in place, the Marshal stepped back and headed back to the sitting room, passing the other uninjured man, who’d kept his weapon trained on the door the entire time.
‘Barlow, in here.’
He followed and joined the others in the sitting room.
Once Barlow was inside, the grey-haired man shut the door.
In the south stairwell beside the 4th floor, Braeten ended the call as the other three gunmen reappeared from above. The sounds of shouts and music coming from apartments in the building echoed around them, the long funnelled flight of stairs carrying the noise from above. Several residents had stuck their heads out of east-side facing apartments on the 4th floor moments ago, the same as had happened on 5, having heard the gunshots from out on the street and the noise inside the building. Braeten had ignored them, focusing on the call, giving a complete update on what had just happened to his client the other end of the line and not enjoying it at all.
Pocketing the cell phone, he turned to his guys.
‘Anything?’
They shook their heads. ‘They disappeared,’ one of them said, talking fast. He sniffed and looked up the stairwell.
‘Not for long,’ Braeten said, reloading his pistol with a fresh clip, letting the empty magazine fall to the floor. ‘Back up is on the way.’
‘What? Who?’
He pulled the slide. ‘The clients. They’re sending help.’
One of them went to speak but they heard the sound of sirens from the street outside. The four men paused momentarily, looking at each other.
Then they took off down the stairs back to the ground floor.
The first call to the NYPD’s emergency hotline had occurred less than thirty seconds after the initial shots were fired on West 89th. Officers already in the area had either heard the weapons’ reports and were already on their way, or had been ordered to the scene immediately by Dispatch, their phone lines suddenly inundated with crisis calls. By the time any of them made it to the scene, the Tahoe and the pursuit car were already racing away through the streets, heading uptown through the Upper West and on into Harlem. The two cars had carved through three different NYPD areas, which meant there were now scores of blue and white NYPD vehicles converging from all directions on the scene from the 24th, 26th and 30th Precincts. Jurisdiction was collective here; these assholes had opened fire on the street in one of the safest neighbourhoods in the city. Right now, it was open season.
The squad cars were all arriving outside the tenement on West 135th around the same time, lights flashing and sirens wailing as they screeched to a halt. The officers immediately saw the two abandoned cars from the chase, both of them shot up with all the doors open. One of the vehicles was a black Tahoe which had slammed into a fire hydrant on the corner, water spraying up high into the air.
Beside it, the front door of a tenement block was hanging open, the lock smashed, bits of chalk and brickwork scattered in front of it.
Some of the arriving officers pulled their side-arms and immediately positioned themselves behind their cars, covering colleagues who were quickly pushing curious members of the public back and securing the area.
Suddenly one of the cops went down with a shout of pain as a gunshot echoed around the street.
He clutched his thigh as two more shots hit the police car behind him.
The cops ducked down behind cover as more gunfire erupted from the entrance of the building, muzzle flashes lighting up the street. One of the officers crawled around the side of his car and managed to drag his injured partner back, bullets ripping into the vehicle, smashing glass and riddling the blue and white with holes. The rate of fire suddenly went up a hundred notches, the terrifying echo of an assault rifle filling the Avenue as bullets shredded into the cop cars, showering the officers ducked behind with glass and shrapnel.
Pulling open the door of his vehicle, the officer who’d saved his partner reached inside and grabbed both the Mossberg riot gun from its position between the front seats and the radio receiver, jerking as the window above his head was blown out.
Beside him, the wounded cop lay to one side, clutching his leg in agony as other officers started to return fire at whoever was shooting from inside the entrance of the building.
SEVEN
Upstairs, the group in the apartment heard the shots. Seeing as they were on the south-east side, their view of the front of the building was limited. They looked down from the window and saw a series of NYPD cop cars pulled up in the street, others screeching into position as the officers took cover from gunfire that ripped into their vehicles.
They watched as the cops fired back, the street transformed into another violent battle with them as onlookers this time instead of participants. The barrelling sound of the AK-47 echoed above the other gunshots as they watched the side of a squad car get shredded to pieces by the rifle, the officers behind crowding down for cover.
‘Jesus,’ Barlow said. ‘It’s World War Three down there. These guys aren’t backing down.’
Beside him, Archer observed the activity below but didn’t speak. The grey-haired Marshal studied the street for moment through the same window, then turned and moved over to the couch.
Carson was lying there twisting in pain, blood all over the front of his shirt and hands, the sinews of his neck pronounced and visible as he gritted his teeth. The big man knelt down but couldn’t check the wound due to the blood and Carson’s hands covering it. Behind him, the blonde resident stepped forward.
‘Let me look at him,’ she said, the first words she’d spoken since they’d barged in. The grey-haired man turned, about to refuse. ‘I’m a nurse,’ she said. ‘Let me look at him.’
Hearing that, the man relented and stepped back, allowing her to examine Carson. He shifted his attention to Archer, who’d turned from the window, studying him, the next problem on his mental checklist.