‘Who are you?’ he asked.
‘Sam Archer. NYPD.’
‘Division?’
‘Counter Terrorism.’
‘Rank?’
‘Detective. 3rd Grade.’
The Marshal looked at his waist. ‘Where’s your badge and piece?’
‘At home. I’m off duty. Just came from the gym.’
Pause. The man looked at him for a long moment, weighing him up. ‘I saw you. Before it went down. You were on the bench by the Park. What were you doing?’
‘Relaxing after a workout. Having a drink.’
‘Why’d you help?’
‘It’s my job. Wouldn’t you?’
The Marshal continued to look at him closely. After a long pause, he nodded.
‘I’m Foster,’ he said, offering his hand. ‘First name John. Thank you for what you did. Looks like we’re stuck together for the time being.’
Archer stepped forward and shook it. Foster jabbed a finger towards the window at the uninjured man, who was still watching the action down on the street, his pistol still clutched in his right hand.
‘That’s Barlow. The guy on the couch is Carson.’ He pointed to the dark-haired woman, who was sitting with the girl, holding her close. ‘That’s Vargas. They’re all my people.’
Archer nodded a greeting to them, which Vargas returned. Barlow ignored him.
‘What now, John?’ he asked Foster instead. ‘The cops are keeping the gunmen busy.’
‘Now they get annihilated,’ he said, taking out his cell phone and dialling a number.
He walked forward and peered out of the window again, the gunfight between the cops and the four men continuing unabated. He watched as an arriving NYPD squad car was ripped apart, automatic gunfire smashing into it, a brutal onslaught, the windows and fender smashing, the lights on the roof torn to pieces. Whoever was armed with the assault rifle sure as hell had plenty of spare ammunition and seriously bad intentions to go with it.
‘Dalton, it’s me,’ Foster said into the cell, once the call connected. ‘We’ve got a situation here.’
The noise of the initial gunfight had attracted the attention of a number of residents in the building. The full-on war that was going out there right now got scores of them coming out of their apartments.
Some were going downstairs to see what was happening but quickly retreated when they saw the quartet in the lobby ducked down by the windows and firing at police outside. Many of them weren’t as surprised as might have been expected; this part of Harlem wasn’t the most savoury place in Manhattan and shootings weren’t uncommon around here.
However, this still looked pretty heavy and most of them decided to stay out of it, heading back up the stairs as quickly as they’d come down.
The guy with the AK stepped in front of the smashed window and squeezed off an entire magazine, shell casings spraying from the ejection port, everyone on the street pinned down. When the rifle clicked dry, he ducked back and reloaded, pulling another from the bag over his shoulder, the barrel of the weapon smoking. He’d brought more than a couple of spares. Last night, after Braeten told them about the job, he’d spoken with the guy he sourced his weapons from. The man had offered him an AK-47 and seven extended magazines; it had been already used in a gang shooting in the Bronx, and he was keen to get it off his hands. They agreed on five hundred bucks for the lot. Right now, that decision was proving to have been a worthwhile investment. None of the pigs outside had that kind of firepower at their disposal.
Standing behind him and seeing some onlookers on the stairs, Braeten wracked his brains, considering their next best move. He looked around the lobby, thinking.
Then his eyes settled on something which gave him an idea.
Upstairs, Foster was in the corner of the sitting room, talking on the phone quietly while constantly checking the situation on the street below. The homeowner was tending to Carson, his back arching in pain from the gunshot wound. Across the room, Barlow watched them every now and then, switching his attention back and forth from Carson to the street. Vargas had just stepped outside the room with the girl to avoid her watching the gunshot wounded man and further upsetting her. Knowing he could do nothing else to help him either right now, Archer followed and joined them in the kitchen.
He used the moment to check the layout of the apartment. It was a relatively small, compact place. He’d just stepped out of the sitting room, positioned on the right of the apartment, and was now in the kitchen; to the left was a bathroom, the door open through which he could see a tiled wall and bathtub, some bottles and a bar of soap sitting in a cluster on the side of the tub.
To his right, the little girl was sitting on the edge of the kitchen table as Vargas poured her a glass of water from the sink across the room. She walked forward and passed it to the girl, watching her drink and keeping close tabs on her. Given it was the first moment of calm in a while, Archer used the opportunity to get a good look at the female Marshal.
She was petite, dark-featured and slim, with jet black hair and hazel eyes. She was dressed in a white top and black jeans; she’d been wearing a cream-coloured shirt when he’d first seen her down on the street but it had been used in the Tahoe to staunch the blood flow from the wound to Carson’s gut. She had what looked like a Glock 22 in a holster on her hip beside her badge, cuffs and two spare clips, a small black satchel bag resting beside them with the strap over her opposite shoulder. He’d noticed Foster, Barlow and Carson all had two guns, whereas she only had one. She was extremely attractive and looked young, in her late twenties, but there was definitely a layer of steel underneath all that beauty. There would have to be for her to qualify as a US Marshal; their training programme and day-to-day work were notoriously hard. She was calm, focusing on the child and didn’t seem overly worried about their current predicament. There was definitely more to this woman than first met the eye. He figured there would be a few guys out there somewhere who’d learnt that the hard way.
Switching his attention to the little girl, he smiled. She had similar colouring to Vargas but Archer guessed they weren’t related. They didn’t look sufficiently alike, not to mention that Vargas wouldn’t be bringing her daughter on operations. She looked maybe six or seven, dressed in a black t-shirt and jeans, white sneakers on her feet with the laces double-tied. Her presence here was confusing and raised a number of questions in his mind, but for the moment he left them alone.
The child took another sip of water from the glass, then looked over at him.
‘What’s your name?’ he asked her.
She flicked a glance at Vargas.
‘Jennifer,’ she said, after a moment’s hesitation. Her eyes were red rimmed with tears and she kept glancing at the sitting room door, Carson’s occasional groans of pain audible through the thin wall.
‘I’m Archer,’ he said, trying to distract her. ‘You’re being very brave.’
She sniffed and nodded but didn’t respond.
The sitting room door beside them opened and Foster appeared; he glanced back over his shoulder.
‘Barlow, watch Jack.’
Closing the door, he walked forward and approached the girl. ‘Are you OK?’
She nodded, looking up at the huge man, who dwarfed her.
‘What’s the situation?’ Vargas asked.
‘I called Dalton and told him what happened. He’d already seen it on the tube and is on his way.’ He looked at Archer. ‘Agency task force. Ten or twenty strong task force. They’ll be here within half an hour. They’ll get us out quickly.’
He stepped forward and glanced out of the kitchen window, looking down at the street again. The gunfight between the cops and the gunmen who’d ambushed Foster and his team had lessened in severity slightly, but it was still going on, occasional shots fired, everyone still taking cover. It was a sea of blue and red flashing lights down there, officers behind vehicles with handguns and Mossbergs aimed at the entrance of the building, none of them risking coming anywhere closer.