Dropping his gym bag by the door, Josh followed the trio into the kitchen and kissed his wife Michelle. She was standing by the cooker in the midst of preparing dinner, but had paused in her work, watching the television, a big metal spoon in her hand.
‘Have you seen this?’ she said.
‘What’s that?’ Josh said, going to the refrigerator and grabbing a bottle of water.
‘This. Josh, look.’
He turned and examined the screen. The shots were of a tenement block somewhere in the city, a male reporter giving an update, scores of cops and detectives visible behind him, crouched behind NYPD vehicles. Josh scanned the headline.
Breaking News: Gunfight and car chase on Upper West Side. Four men occupy Harlem building on West 135th and fire at NYPD officers arriving at scene. At least one officer injured.
‘What the hell?’ Josh said, frowning and looking closer.
‘Apparently one of the gunmen got shot in the street. They hit a cop too.’
‘Jesus. What’s it about?’
Before she could reply, the cell phone in his pocket started ringing. Watching the screen, he pulled it from his pocket and answered it, not looking at the display and keeping his eyes on the television.
‘Yeah?’
‘It’s me,’ Archer said.
‘Hey. You watching the news?’
‘Not right now. So you’re not going to believe this…’
ELEVEN
Down in the lobby of the building, the four gunmen had sealed and barricaded the front door. Smashing their way in earlier had annihilated the lock, so they’d improvised. Whilst Braeten and the man with the Kalashnikov held the entrance and continued to herd the stragglers still appearing from the stairwells out through the door, the other two went upstairs and came back with a thick, heavy desk from a maintenance office on the 1st floor. Shoving out the remaining residents, they’d shut the door and rammed the desk up against it.
The residents who’d responded to the fire alarm had mostly all been evacuated, the majority completely overwhelmed when they saw the scores of cop cars and weapons trained on the entrance as they were hustled out of the door. However, a few latecomers had only just arrived in the lobby, wanting to get out too. Braeten gave them a simple choice; go back upstairs and stay in your apartment or I’ll shoot you. The pistol he’d aimed at them had been persuasive and they hadn’t needed to be told twice.
Now the stragglers had disappeared back up the stairs, the lobby was empty apart from the four gunmen. The fire alarm had done its job and they weren’t going to open up for anyone else; no-one was getting in or out.
Braeten peered around the edge of the broken window beside the door and checked out the scores of NYPD squad cars. Officers were aiming directly at them over the front of their cars or from behind their doors, some with pistols, many with shotguns.
One of his other men joined him, taking a look.
‘Jesus Christ. Every cop in Manhattan is out there,’ he said, echoing Braeten’s thoughts. ‘How the hell are we going to get out of here?’
Braeten didn’t reply, stepping back from the door. The other two guys were leaning against the wall beside the elevator and taking a moment’s respite. The guy with the AK-47 pulled a bag of coke from his pocket, his eyes already wide, his t-shirt ringed with sweat from the muggy night air. Braeten lost his cool.
‘How the hell did you all miss?’ he said. ‘We had clear shots. They had no idea we were coming.’
‘We put one down,’ one of them said.
‘No, dumbass, Hayes put him down. Now he’s dead.’
None of them responded. Braeten swore, frustrated, and shook his head.
‘Shit,’ he said. ‘This is bad.’
‘We emptied the building out,’ the guy with the Kalashnikov said. ‘So let’s start looking.’
‘There are four of us,’ Braeten fumed, turning on him. ‘They could be anywhere in this place. And you think the pigs are gonna wait outside all night so we can take a look around?’
‘They can’t hide out forever, and one of them is hit. You said back up is on the way. They’ll take care of it.’
Braeten didn’t respond. And maybe take care of us, he thought. They were in deep, deep shit and it was getting worse by the minute. He looked at the idiot with the bag of cocaine, his temper worsening by the second.
‘Don’t do that when they get here,’ he said. ‘Not if you want to survive tonight.’
It took Archer and Foster much less time to head back to the 5th floor then it had taken to get up to the roof. Moving down gave them a far greater advantage than coming in from below, standard tactical philosophy, and having confirmed the roof was clear they both wanted to get out of sight and re-join the rest of the group. They used the south stairwell this time to give them a complete picture of the geography of the building, which was very straightforward and just as Helen had described. They moved quickly, and this time didn’t encounter anyone on their way.
Once Vargas let them into the apartment and they’d shifted the refrigerator back into position, they all reassembled in the sitting room.
‘Any trouble?’ Vargas asked Archer, as Foster knelt down to check on Carson.
He shook his head.
‘We passed some residents heading out. Most of them seem to be gone, but a few are still here. The roof’s clear.’
‘The gunmen?’
‘No sign of them. They’ll be downstairs, guarding the lobby.’
On the sofa, Carson coughed and groaned, blood around his lips. He was trying not to make too much noise but he was in excruciating pain. Some towels and Vargas’s shirt had been packed on his stomach to try and staunch the bleeding but he was in agony, grabbing Foster’s arm as he gritted his teeth. Foster looked down at his wounded Marshal and gripped his arm back.
‘Hang on, Jack. Just hang on a bit longer. Dalton will be here any minute. Then we’ll get you to a doctor.’
Carson didn’t reply, nodding weakly, coughing. Foster watched him for a few seconds longer, then rose. Helen motioned with her head and he joined her by the window, Carson’s groans filling the room.
‘Forget any minute. He needs a doctor right now,’ she said quietly. ‘He’s losing too much blood.’
‘We can’t go anywhere yet. We need to stay here until help arrives. We try to get him out, there’ll be more than one of us bleeding.’
‘He doesn’t have much time.’
‘He’ll have to hang on.’
‘He needs an IV and surgery to get the bullet out.’
‘He’ll have to wait.’
Helen shook her head, frustrated. ‘Listen to me. Have you been shot before?’
‘Occasionally.’
‘Was it ever in the gut?’
Foster paused; he shook his head. ‘No.’
‘Try to imagine the most excruciating pain you’ve ever been in. Then double it. Then you’ll have a vague idea of what every second is like for him right now.’
‘We can’t leave yet.’ He pointed at Jennifer. ‘Her safety is my priority. Jack’s tough. He’ll make it.’
She exhaled sharply, exasperated. He wasn’t going to budge.
‘Well if we can’t leave, he needs pain relief,’ she said.
‘Oh, right. You happen to have any morphine handy?’ Barlow asked sarcastically, from across the room.
‘No. I don’t,’ she fired back, turning to him. ‘Excuse me for trying to think of a solution.’
‘Do you have anything we could give him?’ Foster asked.
She shrugged. ‘I wasn’t exactly expecting this. All I have is a first aid kit, some cough syrup and some band aids.’
‘Marvellous,’ Barlow muttered.
‘No, there is something,’ Archer said from the window.