Blackout (Sam Archer 3), page 7
Seconds later, two men in balaclavas ran into view dressed all in black, fearsome assault rifles in their gloved hands. They quickly scanned the level and saw the tech team huddled together inside the office through the glass. One of the armed men ran forward and grabbed the handle to the office, pulling on it as hard as he could repeatedly and violently, locking eyes filled with hatred with Cobb through the glass. But the door wouldn’t budge. It was locked tight. The man shouted something in a foreign language and stepped back to join the other man, both of them raising their AK-47s.
‘Take cover!’ Cobb said, pushing his team down behind his desk.
And the two men opened fire.
When the ARU headquarters had been built, Cobb’s office had been made of standard, toughened safety glass. Not enough to stop a bullet but perfectly adequate for the walls of an office. However, after an unexpected incident a year and a half ago when a terrorist had confronted someone from the building outside in the parking lot, Cobb had ordered the glass be refitted with bulletproof panes instead.
And at that moment, that decision saved every one of his tech team's lives, as well as his own.
The two AK-47s were on fully automatic. The bullets hammered into the glass, the savage echoing of close automatic gunfire and chipping glass filling the air, the bright muzzle flash from each rifle blinding and terrifying the tech team cowering inside. But the bulletproof glass did its job. Each bullet left a blurred white splodge and sharp jagged ripple around it on the reinforced windows as the glass withstood the onslaught. If it had been normal safety glass, everyone inside would have been torn apart by the gunfire in seconds. Cobb's intuition and sense of caution had saved every one of them from certain death.
Outside, each gunman's magazine clicked dry and one of them screamed a curse, running forward and hammering at the glass with the butt of his rifle repeatedly, trying everything in his power to smash it, screaming and shouting in a foreign language. Meanwhile, his partner suddenly paused, raising his head, then ran into the briefing room and looked out of the window. He shouted something back to his friend and the other man joined him, both of them peering down into the car park. They both reloaded by reversing the clips in the AK, slapping the fresh mags into the weapons, and without hesitation the two of them opened fire out of the windows. Unlike Cobb’s office, the windows in the briefing room weren’t bulletproof, and the rounds shredded the glass to pieces, the lethal hail of bullets and glass smashing down at the three ARU cars pulling up outside the building down below.
‘Jesus Christ!’ Fox shouted, as a spray of bullets hit the front of their car, riddling the bonnet, smashing the front headlights. Porter pulled on the handbrake and turned to the side as the gunfire smashed into the 4x4 Ford, the vehicle skidding to a halt.
The moment Nikki had whispered in terror down the phone and Dr Keith's voice had told the car that the incident at the Embassy was a hoax, Archer had put two-and-two together and realised this whole thing was a set-up. He'd shouted at Porter to get back to HQ as fast as possible, that this was a decoy. Porter hadn’t needed to be told twice, pulling a U turn in the street and racing back to headquarters, the other two cars following closely as he gave the order over the radio. They had roared back into the parking lot to the sounds of gunfire coming from inside their own station, seeing two harsh muzzle-flashes on the upper level, and then were met by a brutal barrage of automatic rifle fire as they sped forwards towards the entrance.
Down below, Archer was first out of the car. He pushed open his door, rolling out and moving to the side of the 4x4, and went to shoot back with his MP5. However, one of the two gunmen above saw him and directed his relentless fire at the blond officer, pinning Archer down, the bullets smashing into the car, blowing out the tyres. They were like sitting ducks down here, in the worst position possible, taking fire from an enemy from a far superior vantage point. As he huddled behind the rear tyre, Chalky and Fox beside him, Archer realised that at least the car was stopping the bullets, which meant they weren't Teflon-coated cop killers as they were known on the street. If they had been, the officers would have been mere target practice, and the entire squad would have been mown down within thirty seconds.
The two gunmen had the height advantage, but the numbers advantage of the ARU squad allowed them to start to establish return fire. They were trained to make sure each bullet was accountable, but if they followed that ruling here they would be decimated. All rules had gone out the window. It was kill or be killed. The building was in the middle of a business area and the harsh sounds of the rifle fire hung in the air, echoing off the glass buildings around them, the two men above continuing their brutal onslaught.
Most of Second Team were forced to take cover, but from their position behind the lead car Chalky and Porter managed to start firing back. The cars were being shredded by the bullets from the AKs, all the windows now smashed, the sounds of bullets hitting metal and glass and the tinkle of spent shell-casings as they showered to the concrete adding to the constant harsh barrelling echo of the gunfire. Chalky aimed over the back of the car with his MP5 and fired, hitting one of the two men in the shoulder. The guy shouted in pain and fell back, the Kalashnikov knocked out of his hands as he dropped out of sight. Beside him, the other man saw this and immediately retaliated, emptying his magazine in a merciless rage, shouting abuse behind the muzzle flash. Once it clicked dry, he turned and disappeared back into the room.
'Move up!' Porter immediately bellowed.
Deakins was leading Second Team to the doors, but then the wounded man suddenly reappeared at the window, his AK-47 back in his hands, ready to resume firing. Fox fired back and hit him again, smacking the guy back out of sight before he had a chance to aim and pull the trigger.
To the left, Archer was thinking about the whereabouts of the second gunman and took off across the car park, running to the left, headed around the building, his boots crunching on fragments of smashed glass and empty shell casings as he sprinted across the parking lot.
‘Fire exit!’ he shouted.
Porter, Fox and Chalky knew where he was going and the three of them were already following close behind. They sprinted around the building then slowed, all four of their weapons tight to the shoulder and in the aim.
Archer was the first man to reach the corner. He whipped round the corner of the brickwork, his MP5 aimed straight down the building and whoever might be standing there. But all he saw was a smoking Kalashnikov on the ground, jammed in the doorway of the emergency exit, the air stinking of cordite and oil from the hot weapon. Archer ran over to it, then swore and looked around. The back of the ARU's headquarters didn't have the same space as the parking lot at the front, and surrounding buildings and streets were only fifteen yards away.
He looked over, seeing frightened pedestrians across the street, most of them looking back at him from behind makeshift cover, but there was no sign of the gunman dressed in black.
He was gone.
Meanwhile, Second Team had entered the building the other side, moving into the reception area. Leading the squad, Deakins saw bloodstains on the wall and spotted Clark's body slumped on the ground behind the desk. Feeling his throat tighten, Deakins held his finger on the trigger, and led his team up the stairs.
On the second floor, the six-man squad moved cautiously down the corridor towards the ops room, the men silent, each with his forefinger on the trigger of his MP5.
Deakins glanced to the right and saw the terrified tech team huddled in Cobb’s office, the glass on the windows damaged from gunfire but still intact, Cobb standing in front of his people. Deakins nodded to Cobb and keeping his MP5 in the aim, turned left into the briefing room.
The wounded gunman was writhing on the ground, two bullets in his shoulder, blood spattered on the floor behind him. He was lying amongst the debris of empty cartridges, smashed glass, spilt coffee, and scattered polystyrene cups and newspapers. His Kalashnikov was lying out of reach across the floor, the barrel smoking, but Deakins saw the man had a pistol in his hand, a Beretta 92.
‘Drop it!’ Deakins said, his MP5 in his shoulder, the hair-trigger on the man’s masked face. ‘Drop it!’
Coughing, blood pooling under him, the man shouted something at him in a foreign language and spat a mixture of blood and saliva at Deakins through the mouth-hole of his balaclava.
Then he put the Beretta to his head and pulled the trigger.
NINE
An hour later, Archer finished making three strong cups of coffee and stepping past a group of forensics detectives in white uniforms, carried them out of the briefing room. He walked into the operations area and passed the cups to three members of the tech team, who were sitting together, their eyes wide, many of them nauseous from shock and spent adrenaline. They all took the drinks without responding and he stood over them protectively, his MP5 slung over his shoulder. Turning, he looked at the scene around him. It was one of utter devastation.
The briefing room was a sea of smashed glass, empty shell casings, spilt tea and coffee, and bloodstains. To his left, the glass on Cobb's office windows, despite being irreparably damaged, was still fully intact. It had done its job, saving the life of everyone who had been on the level. A forensics team had arrived, snapping photographs of the crime scene and zipped the corpse of the gunman who had shot himself up in a body-bag, dumping him on a gurney. They'd wheeled him outside to their van and the vehicle was already headed to their lab. The team had also bagged and sealed the man's two weapons and magazines and were now taking every shell casing from the ground which they would run for prints and DNA to try to trace the weapons and the two men who had fired them. Outside, a pair of their detectives were examining the car the two men had arrived in. They had run the plates through the DMV and Met log, and it had come up listed as stolen less than two days ago. Across the parking lot several news-teams and a small crowd who had gathered behind some police tape that had been drawn across the entrance, were being held back by Met policemen.
Detectives from CID and MI5 had arrived, having seen the news reports and offered their services, but Cobb had dismissed them all politely, saying this would be an internal investigation. The Prime Minister had contacted Cobb, checking if they were all OK, but for now no-one really had any answers. They all knew any possible clues lay with the dead body at the lab along with anything traceable on the weapons and casings.
There had been another body-bag in the van alongside the dead gunman, containing the body of Clark. He was headed straight to the morgue, killed by the three gunshots to his sternum and upper chest. Thinking of the young officer, Archer shook his head angrily. He was only twenty six, and would have been defenceless when the two gunmen stormed the entrance downstairs.
In one way the Unit had been incredibly lucky.
But in another, they had paid the heaviest of prices.
Turning, he saw Nikki sitting alone by her desk, a cup of coffee in her hands, a blanket around her shoulders. He walked over and took a seat beside her in an empty chair, making sure the MP5 around his shoulder was tucked out of the way. They sat there side-by-side in silence, Nikki watching the forensics team sweeping up next door. Archer turned to her.
‘You OK?’
‘That was too close,' she said quietly, her eyes wide and looking ahead, watching the forensics team next door. They had bagged and tagged the last shell casing and were now starting to clean the blood and brains from the second gunman off the floor, the acrid smell of bleach and disinfectant drifting into the ops room. 'Who the hell were those guys?’
‘I don’t know. But we’ll find out. Soon.’
Pause.
‘I feel sick.’
‘That’s the adrenaline. It’ll pass.’
She shook her head, her hands trembling from the shock. He looked down and saw ripples in the coffee from the tremors in her hands, like the shockwaves on the glass of Cobb’s office.
‘Little taste of what you guys go through in the field,’ she said, forcing a smile.
He put his arm around her protectively and she leaned into him.
‘That was too close,’ she said again.
‘Jesus Christ, that was close,’ Fox said, side by side with Cobb, Chalky and Porter across the room. The three of them were examining the damaged glass on the exterior of Cobb’s office, well over a hundred white marks surrounded by jagged ripples.
Fox turned to Cobb.
‘Best decision you ever made, sir.'
'Not enough for Officer Clark though, was it?'
The three officers stayed silent.
'Are you OK, sir?' Porter asked.
‘I’m fine,' Cobb said. 'I just want some damn answers. Somebody's going to pay dearly for this. And I don't mean with money.’
As the three men nodded in agreement, Porter looked at Fox and Chalky and suddenly realised they were all still armed.
‘Sir, I’m sorry. I’ll get the men to stow their weapons.’
Cobb shook his head and turned to him.
‘No. I’m changing the protocol. Until we find out who those men were, I want every officer in the building armed at all times. That means Glock and MP5s, everywhere you go, spare mags in your pouches, all of you in full uniform with mic and earpiece. If one of the tech team goes downstairs to use the toilet, I want one of you with them in the next stall.’
The men nodded.
‘Yes sir.’
‘What did the Prime Minister say?’ Chalky asked.
‘Like the rest of us, he wanted to know what the hell had happened and what this was about,’ Cobb said. ‘He said our entire team should consider relocating to MI5 temporarily until we find out what's going on and where those two came from.’
‘Are we leaving?’ Chalky asked.
Cobb shook his head, looking at the damaged glass in front of him.
‘No. This is our home. We’re not going anywhere.’
He turned to Porter, his face hard. Cobb's tech team may have been in shock, but he was in full control.
‘I want Second Team guarding downstairs on rotation. Both entrances, armed and alert. No one gets in without bulletproof ID, and no one stows their weapons in the gun-cage until I say so. Clear?’
‘Yes, sir,' Porter said. 'I’ll tell Deakins.’
He walked off, turning the corner and headed down the corridor. Fox, Chalky and Cobb were left in a line, the three of them still looking at the damaged glass. From the outside, it looked as if someone had shot it repeatedly with a paintball gun filled with white balls, the white spots surrounded by spider-webs of broken glass from the shockwave of each bullet from the Kalashnikovs. Cobb reached over and touched one of them, feeling the sharp edges of the glass on his fingertip.
‘What the hell was this all about?'’ he muttered.
It took the lone surviving gunman about an hour to make it across town to the command post. He was no longer dressed in black. He and his partner had arrived outside the police station wearing civilian trousers and sweaters underneath their black combat fatigues for when the job was done. But once he was out of sight down a side alley and a sufficient distance from the police station, he’d pulled off his outfit and thrown it away with the balaclava he'd already removed. He'd been forced to leave his Kalashnikov at the scene. No way could he run through London with that in his hands. But he’d pulled the Beretta from its holster and tucked it into his belt under his sweater, and had then made his way across the city back to the safe-house.
It was located on the eighth floor of a newly built office building. Rentals on each floor weren't due to start for another couple of weeks, so the ten storey building was completely empty and a perfect position for an anonymous command post. The man ducked in through the lobby and took the stairs rather than the lift, running up them two at a time. When he arrived on the eighth floor, he moved across the corridor and pushed open the door to a large room, a long, wide office, panting hard from the exertion.
The room was dark, almost pitch black, all the curtains drawn, and in the darkness he saw the large figure of his leader, sitting alone. In front of him there were two televisions, one tuned to CNN and the other to BBC World. The BBC screen was already showing footage from the ruined police station. The big man by the screens turned and looked at the newcomer, his face and body dark, just the whites of his eyes visible in the darkness.
There was a pause.
‘You're alone,’ he said, in a foreign language.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Where is Crow?’ he asked quietly.
‘They shot him, sir,’ the man said. ‘We failed. The man had bulletproof-glass as his office walls. We tried but we couldn’t get to him.’
Silence. The leader of the group sat silently, staring at him. The surviving gunman tried to return his gaze, but failed as his leader looked straight into his eyes, his hulking figure silhouetted from the glare of the televisions behind him.
‘Then why are you still standing there. You know what to do.’
The gunman looked at him, then swallowed and nodded. ‘Yes, sir.’
With that he saluted, and turned and walked back out of the room.
The leader didn't see the salute. He had already turned his attention back to the televisions and the list.
Across the city at Grosvenor Square, the wailing sirens at the US Embassy had been silenced, and word had spread that the threat was just a false alarm. People were already moving back into the building, the HAZMAT team packing up their equipment and climbing back into their white vans, departing one after the other. The crowds of Agency workers were relieved, none more so than the unfortunate male analyst who had opened the package. They all headed back inside, returning to their desks and the work that had been so suddenly interrupted.
False alarms like this happened from time to time. Most were actually organised by someone from the Agency and used as an audit to test emergency protocols. On this occasion the building had emptied in a matter of minutes, so those in charge of the evacuation procedures were relieved, mostly because it had been a false alarm but also because of the speed at which the building had been cleared. They wouldn't suffer any reprimands for slow reaction times or disorganisation. The staff were well drilled.
_preview.jpg)
