The other gunman stepped forward and put four rounds through her forehead, more blood and brains spattered to the wall, the woman slumping onto the ground and joining the dead man.
Two less people to get in their way.
Dalton had stared at Hobbs for a moment, then turned and walked away, re-joining Shepherd, Josh and Marquez, who were watching him, concerned and confused. They’d all just heard what sounded like faint automatic gunfire from inside the block.
‘What on earth is going on?’ Josh whispered, confused.
Then there were two more bursts, faint but definite, someone firing off a weapon inside. Together, the quartet looked up at the building, the Marshals behind them doing the same. The sound of the helicopter that had delivered the group was now gone.
‘Who the hell just went in there?’ Dalton said.
FIFTEEN
The ten man response team inside the West 135th apartment building were only ever meant as insurance. This whole thing should have been over before sundown.
Four US Marshals caught unawares and a kid shouldn’t have been any match for a five-man ambush with semi-automatic weapons and surprise on their side. Braeten’s team had come recommended from people in the area and had been hired with specific orders under specific circumstances. However, their work today had been amateur at best. The leader of the response team had received the call from Braeten forty minutes ago telling him that they’d failed. They’d hit one of the Marshals but not the girl, and one of their own team had been killed. The Marshals had taken cover in a building in Harlem, which the remaining four gang members had sealed off, more and more cops and Feds arriving outside with every passing minute.
However, despite this unexpected development, the leader of the group had been prepared. He was a meticulous planner, almost to the point of obsession, and had only ever made one big mistake in his life, which was the reason they were all here tonight. When they’d first located the Marshals and laid out what equipment they would need if Braeten failed, his men had thought he was being unnecessarily over-cautious. He’d acquired M4A1 assault rifles, pistols, grenades, Claymore mines; even C4 plastic explosive and several M72 LAW portable rocket launchers. He’d ordered a helicopter and pilot contact to join them and be available on 24/7 standby. He’d bought enough tactical gear and weaponry to hold off a military siege. However, once they’d flicked on the television and seen what was happening tonight, any criticism of his seemingly excessive preparations had evaporated.
Thanks to him, the team were now inside the building and armed to the teeth.
They were all equally invested in ending the girl’s life tonight. If she made it out of here with air in her lungs she could still talk and therefore bury all of them like they were dead men walking. And when the cops and detectives on the street got inside, they knew there was no way anyone was getting close to the Marshals and the girl again.
They had a brief window of opportunity.
And they were going to take it.
Together with one of his men, the leader passed 7, then 6, the pair sweeping their way down silently with practised efficiency. As he took point, the leader glanced down the passing corridors. He saw most of the apartments were closed but the place was pretty silent, the building a giant cavern of nooks, crannies and potential hiding places. Most of the residents seemed to be gone. But she was still here somewhere, the one person who could put them all away if she made it out alive.
A game of hide and seek with the deadliest of results.
He looked down the 6th corridor through the sights of his M4A1.
Come out, come out, wherever you are.
In the lobby, Braeten risked another check through the shattered front window as the other three men paced nervously behind him. They’d all heard distant gunshots from somewhere in the building above which had spooked the three guys on coke, the powder in their system not helping their nerves or their ability to think calmly. They were walking back and forth so much they were almost wearing a track into the floor, all three sweating from the drugs and the heat.
‘Who’s firing?’ one of them said quickly. ‘The Marshals?’
Just as Braeten was about to respond, the south stairwell door opened. All four men swung round and saw two figures in balaclavas and black, grey and white combat fatigues move into the lobby, stubby black assault rifles in each man’s shoulder. A few moments later, the same happened from the north side, two more men arriving and walking over towards them.
The quartet ended up surrounding Braeten and his team, four assault weapons aimed straight at them. For a horrible moment Braeten thought they were going to fire, but then the weapons moved elsewhere, the men checking the rest of the large lobby. As Braeten and his team watched in silence, one of the newcomers made sure the desk blocking off the entrance was secure, then swung a black holdall off his shoulder, laying it on the ground. Another reversed his rifle then used it to smash the glass of a glass cabinet beside the fire switch Braeten had pulled earlier. He pulled an axe out of the bracket and headed to the door that led to the basement, disappearing out of sight.
A third man moved over to his colleague by the door and pulled out an item from the open black holdall. It looked like a small wireless Internet hub. He turned and laid it down against the wall by the elevator, adjusting the small stick antenna. He flicked a switch on the gadget and a few seconds later a green light blinked on. Braeten noticed the man had a cylindrical weapon tucked in a holster on the back of his vest; it looked like a portable anti-tank weapon. A rocket launcher.
Braeten and his three men watched all this in silence. The newcomers moved with a fluency that was both impressive and unnerving, none of them speaking, each man doing his job in silence and with practised ease. They were also carrying some ferocious weaponry. Braeten’s instincts were telling him these were cartel guys, but he couldn’t be sure. Organisations built on drugs often employed teams like these, ex-military mercenaries used to silence witnesses and remove opposition, men who had been professionally trained to kill. Glancing at the assault rifles the newcomers were carrying, he suddenly felt severely ill-equipped with just the pistol in his hand, well aware of the fact that the only reason these men were here was because he and his team had failed. Braeten had no idea who was bankrolling this, as was usually the way with these things, but they sure as hell had some deep pockets, whoever they were. He also didn’t have a clue who these newcomers were. The balaclavas they were all were wearing meant despite the situation, that wasn’t going to change.
As he watched in silence, beside him one of his guys sniffed nervously and reached into his pocket.
Braeten caught his arm, gripping it firmly.
He got the message.
Upstairs, Archer was speaking in low tones with Shepherd. Foster’s phone, set to silent, had also flashed with an incoming call, Dalton on the other end. They’d heard gunfire from somewhere in the building a few minutes ago, but it was faint, nowhere near them. They figured it was probably one of the gunmen from the street getting nervous or trying to scare them out.
Archer was at the window, looking down, trying to make out where his boss, Josh and Marquez were in the crowd. Being on the south side, they had limited view of the east side of the street where most of the rescue effort was gathered.
He examined the cross street on the corner of 135th, but couldn’t see them.
‘Did you hear the chopper?’ Shepherd asked.
‘Yeah, we did,’ he said. ‘Was it ours, or Federal?’
‘Archer, listen to me,’ Shepherd said, urgency in his voice. ‘They aren’t-‘