Examining the scene without saying a word, the armed men then checked out the rest of the apartment. To the right, one of the US Marshals was slumped against the sitting room wall, half his head blown onto the plaster behind him. They recognised him as Foster, the leader of the group, a giant of a man. Although the other Marshals had escaped, at least this guy was now out of the picture. When they’d acquired the tip and extensive information on the Marshals team, they’d examined Foster’s jacket and known he was going to be one hell of a challenge. The man was a goddamn terminator, military trained and survivor of numerous gunshot wounds and full-on sieges and conflicts from his time in the army. However, a bullet to the head had solved that problem. Six feet four inches and over two hundred and ten pounds of expert soldier they wouldn’t need to deal with anymore. Their main human obstacle tonight was now out of the way. That was the only bit of good news.
Knight pushed the switch on his uniform, looking at the three dead men. ‘This is Knight. I’m on 5 with Bishop.’
‘Report,’ King said, still in the lobby. ‘Is the girl dead?’
‘No. Clubs and Queen are.’
Pause. Knight could picture how the news was being received.
‘How?’
‘Shot. Their weapons are gone.’
Silence.
‘Foster bought it too. Joker tagged him.’
‘The girl?’
‘She’s not here. They escaped.’
There was a long pause. Knight noticed some bloodied towels and rags on the couch, some of them dragged to the floor. The injured Marshal must have been there.
‘Find her. Check the rest of the floor. They can’t have gone far.’
‘The bodies?’
‘We’ll deal with them later.’
Knight released the switch, then looked at the two dead men, Markowski and Patterson. When the call signs had been assigned, much laughter had been had at the expense of Markowski being allocated the name Queen. He hadn’t been amused, seeing as he was probably the toughest and surliest member of the group, built like a fridge-freezer and with a sense of humour as cold as the icebox. Knight looked down at his colleague; his head was laid to the side, showing a glimpse of a huge ugly exit wound on his face from the bullet that killed him. Turning, he moved to the window and drew open the curtains. There was a small bullet hole there in the window.
‘Joker, what the hell happened?’ he asked, pushing his pressel.
‘Clubs went down; I didn’t see how. I had a shot at the woman. I took it but she moved at the last second.’
Knight looked out at the other building eighty yards south, trying to gauge where exactly Joker was.
‘I hit Queen instead. I apologise, everyone. It’s on me.’
Pause.
‘Doesn’t matter,’ King’s voice said, overhearing the transmission. ‘We do what it takes tonight. He’d want the rest of us to get this shit done regardless. Stay focused and find her.’
Knight nodded, and turned to Bishop, who was standing behind him. During this exchange, he’d checked out the bathroom. The wall had been annihilated by gunfire, many of the tiles smashed, half-pieces and fragments left clinging to the plaster.
‘They just took this up a notch. So let’s find them and use this to redecorate,’ he said, patting his M4A1. Bishop nodded without a word.
Taking a last look at their two dead colleagues, the two men moved back to the door.
Down on the street, they’d all heard the sudden automatic gunfire erupt from inside the building. It had ended as quickly as it had started and no-one had any idea what the hell was going on in there.
The sudden and unexpected arrival of the unmarked chopper and the team abseiling onto the roof had delayed the Marshals’ approach and severely complicated things. They had no idea who these newcomers were and what kind of weaponry they had. Despite his team’s willingness to proceed, Dalton needed to fully assess the changed situation before sending them in, so he ordered the task force to hold back for the time being. They knew the lobby would be guarded, controlling the only entrance, so a front-on entry was still a last case resort. Carson had already been hit tonight; no more Marshals were getting dropped on his watch as long as he could help it.
Standing beside Josh near the Marshals team, Shepherd looked up at the building, filled with trepidation. The automatic gunfire was raising all sorts of questions, the potential answers to which were worrying him considerably. His call with Archer had cut out before he could tell him about the arrival of the anonymous men in the chopper.
From the sounds of things, they’d already encountered each other.
‘What the hell is going on in there?’ he muttered in frustration.
To his left, Josh didn’t reply.
As they looked up at the building, Marquez walked over quickly and re-joined them, a brown file in her hand which she passed over to Shepherd.
‘CSU just sent this over, sir. They pulled an ID on the guy who got shot in the street when they ambushed the Marshals.’ Shepherd took the folder, opening it. ‘His name is Marlon Hayes,’ she said, as he read. ‘20 years old, born and raised in Harlem. Mother died HIV, father unknown.’
‘Priors?’
‘Usual shit. Nothing major. Never done time aside from a stint in juvenile hall. But get this; he’s a joint suspect in three unsolved homicides. Detectives from SID have him down as being a gun for hire, part of a five man team. They do wet work for people who don’t want to get their hands dirty. Basically, a street thug and a killer. Shoot first, ask questions later.’
Shepherd examined the man’s file. ‘So he was paid to do this job. It wasn’t personal.’
She nodded. ‘Witnesses say there were four other men shooting down on the Marshals. Must be the rest of that suspect crew. The numbers make sense.’
‘Files?’
‘Already being drawn. We’ll have them any minute.’
Shepherd nodded.
‘OK, but who hired them?’ Josh asked.
Marquez shrugged. ‘Whoever they are, someone sure wants Dalton’s witness dead.’
‘OK, so who the hell is this witness?’
Shepherd turned and looked at Dalton, who was standing with his team, talking with his people.
‘Only one way to find out.’
EIGHTEEN
Inside the bathroom in apartment 8A, Archer was sitting on the edge of the bathtub, which was set against the far wall and on a raised level from the rest of the floor. Helen’s had been the same; it must have been the building design, some half-hearted attempt at style long ago, or maybe just so cockroaches couldn’t climb into the tub without really earning it. He’d swept an old stained shower curtain out of the way, which was gathered to his right. It might have been white once, but now had a depressing brown tinge like everything else inside the place. Glancing around the room, it seemed whoever the homeowner was, they weren’t overly concerned with hygiene. The bathroom had definitely seen better days, like the rest of the building. It needed a good clean, a few layers of paint or just a demo crew to clear it out and start over.
Still wearing his white t-shirt, he’d removed his red and white flannel over-shirt and had it resting on his lap. A naked light bulb hung from the ceiling, throwing a stark and unforgiving light over everything in the room. In front of him, Vargas was kneeling on the step, examining the knife wound on his arm, the two of them alone, everyone else next door. Beside him, his M4A1 rested against the porcelain bath, the safety on.
His adrenaline had dropped and he felt nauseous. It had happened scores of times before, the inevitable response to a life-threatening situation, his body pumping the hormone into his bloodstream in an effort to keep him alive. That wasn’t the first gunfight he’d been in and he knew it wouldn’t be the last, but it had been a relatively long time since someone had tried to kill him and his body had reacted instantly to the stress.