Opening a bottle of water and taking a drink, he watched as Josh slapped an extra plate on each side of the barbell, slid on the clips, then moved around to the bench and lay back. He unracked the bar as if there was nothing on it and started pushing out repetitions, each one controlled and smooth. Archer stayed where he was, watching; Josh didn’t need a spot. He’d recently recovered from an injury himself, a gunshot wound to his arm. Josh had always looked as if he’d started life with a barbell in his crib but the bullet he’d taken had forced him to lay off the iron for a while. He’d been hitting it ferociously since he got the green light from the doctor six weeks ago and now looked even bigger than he had before he took the round.
Josh’s recovery was ahead of Archer’s, so he’d already been working on the street for six weeks, but truth be told it didn’t feel right unless Archer was beside him. He was almost as keen for his partner to return as the man was himself. Archer had been off his feet once before when he’d broken his ankle a couple of years ago, at the end of an operation back in the UK when he was a cop in the Armed Response Unit, the premier counter-terrorist task force in London. Back then every day off duty had felt like a week, tedious and boring as hell. This time around had been no different.
Finishing his set, Josh racked the barbell and sat up. Archer suddenly felt a cough coming on and hacked a few times, a deep chesty noise that came straight from the lungs and resonated around the gym, the last remnants of his chest infection. Physical exertion still brought it out every now and then.
A personal trainer nearby paused to look over but Josh caught his eye. The man turned back to his client.
‘The cough still bothering you?’ Josh asked.
Archer shrugged. ‘Not like it used to. How’s the arm, Popeye?’
Josh looked down. There was a white scar from the 9mm round, a small silver crescent moon. ‘Pretty good,’ he said, flexing his considerable bicep. Archer rolled his eyes and coughed again. The trainer looked over again, and this time couldn’t bite his tongue.
‘C’mon man, this is a gym, not the infirmary,’ he said. ‘Don’t come here sick.’
Another look from Josh sent him a clear message. Archer wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his t-shirt as Josh rose from the bench and walked over to sit beside him, drinking from his own bottle of water. The two men watched the activity in the gym. Behind them the late afternoon sun poured in through the windows, warming their backs and lighting up the room with a golden glow.
‘So is Chalky coming back any time soon?’ Josh asked.
Archer grinned. ‘I hope not, for both our sakes. I think once a year is enough.’
Chalky was Archer’s best friend and an old police teammate in London at the Armed Response Unit. When Archer’s ankle was fresh on the mend from the break in December, his friend had shown up on New Year’s Eve, unannounced and totally out of the blue. Having never been to the States, he’d insisted on Archer and Josh showing him the city that weekend and they’d ended up partying for almost 72 hours straight.
With Archer’s ankle newly immobilised in a cast, Chalky, by means known only to himself, had got his hands on a wheelchair which he’d used to ferry Archer around the bars in the Village. The leader of their five-man detail at the Bureau, Sergeant Matt Shepherd, had been keeping close tabs on the pair’s recovery, insisting they eat well, rest up and slowly build their strength. Both of them had agreed they would never mention that particular New Year’s weekend to him. Fortunately for the sake of their health and Josh’s marriage, Chalky’s trip had been a brief one and he’d returned to the UK, threatening to return in the not too distant future. Nevertheless, both men were sad to see him go. He was definitely a one-off.
Archer smiled, thinking of his friend and those three days of mayhem. Beside him, Josh drained his water then looked at the bottle.
‘Big day tomorrow.’
Archer nodded. ‘I’m nervous. Is that bad?’
‘No. No way. Nerves keep us focused. How long has it been, three months?’
Archer nodded. ‘Feels like three years.’
He drank some more water as Josh checked his watch.
‘Shit, I need to go pick up the kids,’ he said. ‘Their movie will be ending soon.’
‘Which one was it?’
‘The new Disney film. Something about a fish. I expect I’m going to hear all about it; ask me again tomorrow and I’ll recite the plot.’
Archer grinned, but felt another cough building. He noted the snarky personal trainer watching him, waiting for it to happen.
‘Let’s get out of here.’
Not far downtown, a tall, grey-haired man peered out of a window through a small gap in a set of shutters. He was on the 3rd floor of an apartment building on Central Park West, just off West 89th Street. He scanned the area below for anything suspect with a practised and experienced eye.
Activity in the street was routine, cars passing each way, pedestrians enjoying the warm weather, many of them wandering in and out of the Park.
He searched for anyone who seemed suspicious, anyone who looked nervous or out of place. There were always tell-tale signs if you knew what to look out for.
But there was nothing.
Everything seemed fine.
His name was John Foster. Fifty five years old, he was a Chief Deputy US Marshal for the United States Department of Justice. Foster was built like an oak door, six foot four and with the sinewy but thick muscle that only a lifetime of physical activity gives a person. Born and bred in Oklahoma, Foster had grown up on a busy farm and consequently had developed two things: an impeccable work ethic, and a desire to see the world outside of Shawnee. His father had served in the 101st Airborne during the Second World War and his stories from his time in Normandy had painted a picture of a world far beyond the State borders of Oklahoma.
They’d had a direct effect; before his time working for the Department of Justice, Foster had served in the US Army for twenty two years, completing tours in Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia and in Gulf One and Two, the Middle Eastern heat giving him a baked leanness that he’d never lost, even since he mustered out. He’d entered the Army as a twenty two year old Private and left a forty four year old Major. He’d been shot almost as many times as he’d been divorced and he was one of the best and most respected guys the DOJ had at their disposal.
The US Marshals service was the oldest Federal law enforcement office in the United States, created way back in 1789. With almost five thousand employees spread out across the country, the Marshals performed a variety of vital tasks, such as hunting down and apprehending wanted fugitives, transporting Federal prisoners, protecting endangered witnesses and managing assets seized from criminal enterprises. Their success rate was outstanding; in 2012, they captured over thirty six thousand Federal fugitives and cleared over thirty nine thousand felony warrants. In eleven years, Foster had either on his own, or with a squad, apprehended over 4,000 criminals on the run, most of them armed and extremely dangerous. Add the captures to his time in the Army and it was one hell of a resume Foster had.
However, the clock on his career was ticking. Mandatory retirement age for a Federal Marshal was fifty seven. Well aware that he was twenty two months away from that particular milestone, Foster knew many guys his age in the Service were either already retired or very much looking forward to it, a chance to put their feet up and go on long vacations, finally fully enjoy a life outside work and reap the rewards of their well-padded pension funds. But Foster would never willingly retire, not until they packed up his desk for him and marched him out of the DOJ Headquarters or lowered him into the ground inside a wooden box. He’d spent his life facing off against an enemy, from his early days in the school yard in Shawnee, through the plains of the Middle East, all the way to the last eleven years as a US Marshal.