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‘Hard to say. It’s smoky as shit over there. I dropped Barlow. He’s gone. But they were all in there just before the posse showed up.’

‘Maybe they went up in the blast?’ Spades suggested.

King looked at Knight, who was tracing the building chart on the wall beside the elevator with his finger. ‘East-side 6 is a large laundry room,’ he said. ‘It’s connected to all the apartments on the 8th floor.’

The men looked at each other.

Without another word, King took off towards the south stairwell.

The rest of the team and Braeten followed, sprinting after him up the stairs.

‘They killed her entire family?’ Hendricks said, incredulous, Shepherd equally surprised beside him. Dalton nodded. Another burst of gunfire from inside the building had shaken his resolve and finally loosened his tongue. He’d just filled Shepherd and Hendricks in quickly on who exactly ‘Jennifer’ really was.

‘If the child had been killed, we never would have known,’ he continued. ‘It was a master stroke. Hell, it took us a while to be convinced ourselves; the detectives figured the girl might be suffering from PTSD. But then we realised the plan made perfect sense; Lombardi and Devaney control 99 per cent of illegal activity down there in Nolita and Tribeca. If Devaney’s people are out of the picture, Mike Lombardi plays the grieving son and can take over without any competition.’

‘And he tracked her down. That’s what this is about.’ Hendricks looked up at the tenement block. ‘Is he inside?’

‘No idea.’

Hendricks shook his head. ‘This level of organisation. Premeditation. Weapons. Tactics. They had no idea this would end up in this particular building, yet they were able to react almost immediately with that kind of firepower and entry. These are some seriously dangerous people.’

Neither Shepherd nor Dalton responded.

‘So where are our guys right now?’ Hendricks asked.

They looked up at the building. ‘We don’t know,’ Dalton said. ‘We don’t even know if they’re still alive.’

He stared at the smashed windows on the south side 8th floor apartment, smoke still drifting out and up.

‘But if they are, I pray to God those men don’t know where they are either.’

Inside the laundry room, the remaining members of the group were sitting by the south-side wall, Archer and Vargas on the outside ready to protect Helen, Carson and Isabel between them. All of them were sooty and covered in nicks, cuts and scratches, battered and bruised. However, they were still alive. Considering what they were up against and what they’d been through, that was a hell of an achievement.

Archer and Vargas had dragged a protective shield of the heavy washers and dryers in front of them to offer some kind of barricade in case the response team found them. Their exit point was a fire door leading to the south stairwell to their immediate left inside their barrier, which could only be opened this side. There was another door across the room, connected to the main 6th floor corridor. If the enemy came, that would be their point of entry. The west and north side of the walls were lined with grille-covered chutes at intervals, under which large baskets would have been placed once upon a time to catch the laundry. It was an ancient design, almost a relic. God only knew how long it had been since this building was renovated. After all the gunfire and explosions tonight, the solution would probably be a wrecking ball.

Carson was starting to groan, filling the quiet. Helen knelt down to check and comfort him. She looked up at Archer and Vargas, concerned.

‘The heroin is wearing off,’ she said. ‘He needed to be out of here an hour ago.’

‘What do we do? Should we dope him up again?’ Vargas said, looking at Archer.

He went to speak but stopped, hearing something.

There was a clanging from the chute they’d come down on the other side of the room. Archer and Vargas looked over their barrier of old machines.

A black shape suddenly dropped down into the room.

It bounced on the floor and rolled towards them.

A grenade.

THIRTY

Archer and Vargas reacted within that initial half-second, diving back for cover, taking Isabel down with them.

Their makeshift barrier saved their lives as the grenade exploded.

The sound was deafening, taking all of their senses and smashing them to pieces. The blast destroyed some of the washers, shrapnel and chunks of metal flying through the air, a few machines knocked over, others closer to the blast completely totalled.

Archer had covered Isabel’s ears with his hands so his had been unprotected and the effect was catastrophic. It felt like the grenade had gone off inside his head.

Suddenly, everything was silent, like an interlude.

Releasing the girl’s ears and seeing her move, confirming she was OK, Archer shook his head to try and clear it, the room as quiet as a church in prayer. The air was thick with dust and smoke, stinging his eyes. He’d dropped his M4A1 in the blast and saw it a few feet away, beside some rubble and pieces of washer. It was lying by the wall.

I need that, he thought.

He staggered to his feet, stumbling and falling back, wet liquid on his face. It felt like water; maybe a pipe had ruptured in the explosion.

He touched his cheek and his hand came away red.

Not water.

A grenade, Sam.

They know we’re here.

They’re coming.

Reeling, he made it to the wall and scooped up his M4A1. He turned and tried to aim at the doorway, falling into a wrecked dryer, blinking dust from his eyes, swaying as his brain frantically tried to recalibrate. Beside him, Vargas was still gathering her senses, trying to get to her feet but only having managing to get to her hands and knees. He saw a trickle of blood coming from her ear.

Through the haze, two figures suddenly appeared in the main doorway, looming out of the smoke and dust. Archer went to fire but stopped when he saw a small figure to his right, standing still, staring at the two men.

Isabel.

He’d turned his back for a second and she’d gone. She was disorientated, and had stepped out from behind their protective barrier, walking right into the enemy’s firing line.

The two men saw her. They had black assault rifles in their hands, inevitably full magazines inside, enough ammo to take on a squad of cops, let alone an unprotected seven year old child. Two figures from a nightmare, black masks over their faces, guns in their hands.

That’s it.

It’s over.

She’s gone.

The two men stared at the girl. They lifted their rifles.

Then aimed them directly at Archer

They opened fire and noise in the room came back. Archer had already flung himself down as the bullets tore into the wall and machines, spraying more pieces of metal and chalk into the air. Vargas swung her M4A1 forward and started to fire back through the gloom. Her aim was poor, her senses still affected by the blast, but it was enough to force the two men to duck behind the door in the hallway and buy Archer several vital seconds.

As Vargas kept her barrage up, he moved out from behind his cover and ran across the room, grabbing Isabel, scooping her up and taking her back with him, her screaming lost in the gunfire and smoke as Vargas emptied a magazine into the doorway, adrenaline speeding up the return of her faculties as she fought the muzzle climb, shell casings spraying out of the ejection port.

Pushing Isabel behind him, Archer took over the counter-firing as Vargas reloaded fast, slapping another clip into the weapon. The two guys on the other side of the door did their best to return fire, but they didn’t have a chance to engage them properly as Archer kept up the onslaught, keeping them pinned down.