Tom Barber - One Way

He glanced down and noticed a wedding ring on her finger for the first time.

‘You’re married.’

‘I was. He left me,’ she said, looking down and twisting the ring between her thumb and forefinger. The unthinking way she did it indicated she’d done it many times before. ‘It happened almost five years ago. I should take this off. But I guess I keep hoping he’ll come back.’

Silence.

‘He was a financial planner; he used to work late. One night I went to the office to surprise him and found him there with his secretary doing everything but working. Real cliche, right? Turned out he’d been having an affair with her for over a year. A few days later, he didn’t come home. Just never came back; left all his belongings. He’d quit his job and run off with her, leaving me and our son behind. The boy was only sixteen. I didn’t know how to cope.’

She shook her head.

‘We used to live downtown, in Chelsea. Real nice place. But once he left I couldn’t afford to pay rent and was forced out. I had to keep working at the hospital of course. The only place I found that I could afford was up here.’

Pause. She looked at him.

‘I was watching you earlier. I know you saw the bottle of whiskey.’ Archer didn’t respond. ‘When you’ve got no-one and you live in a place like this, you sure as hell need something to take your mind off it. That’s why I started drinking. But I took it out on my boy. He didn’t deserve that. He hated it up here, and blamed it on me. His Dad still called and saw him every now then. He never did with me. Somehow it ended up all being my fault.’

‘So where’s your son?’

‘When he was eighteen he packed his things and left. The last time we spoke, he told me he never wanted to see me again. He said I’d ruined his life.’

She blinked, the fear and emotion of the day threatening to overwhelm her.

‘He hates me.’

‘I doubt that,’ Archer said. ‘When was the last time you called him?’

‘Two years. He lives in Pittsburgh. I kept trying but he wouldn’t answer so I gave up.’

‘When we make it out of here, try him again.’

‘He won’t pick up.’

‘I bet he will. He might even be watching this on the television and thinking about you right now. I bet he misses you as much as you miss him.’

She paused.

‘ When we make it out of here? You make it sound like a certainty.’

He nodded.

‘We’re not dying in here. Not tonight.’

She sniffed, and wiped her eyes. ‘You seem so sure.’ Pause. ‘It shouldn’t take something like this to make me call him.’

‘If there’s anything positive to come out of this, maybe that’s what it is.’

There was a pause; the police lights down below continued to flash through the curtains. The lighting in the apartment was low. They could hear murmuring from next door, but other than that the room was quiet.

‘What’s his name?’ Archer asked.

‘Peter.’

He went to reply but stopped. She noticed.

‘What?’

Archer didn’t move.

‘What’s wrong?’

He’d frozen.

‘Listen.’

Helen paused.

She heard something too.

‘What the hell is that?’

Two floors down, the main group was almost twenty strong, men with money and violence on their minds. They were moving down 6, smashing their way into every apartment, searching for the group, kicking doors open and rampaging through rooms like a whirlwind of violence. They were armed with an assortment of handguns and knives; several had bats. A couple of them would only need their bare hands. On the 5th floor, two of them had stumbled upon the smoky scene of the first exchange between the balaclava-clad men and the group they were hunting. One of them had stolen Foster’s.44 and his badge which he was carrying almost as a cruel irony. His buddy had taken the Glock.

Pockets of them were searching the rooms, trying to get the jump on each other and find the group first, working at an increasingly frenzied pace, determined to get their hands on the money and more than willing to kill for it.

A deadly, fired-up mob, working their way up the building floor by floor.

Apartment by apartment.

Upstairs, Archer and Helen were listening, trying to make sense of what they were hearing. Faint noise was coming from below, what sounded like thudding, thumping and shouting.

It was getting increasingly louder.

‘What the hell is that? ’ Helen said quietly.

The door to the sitting room opened. Vargas appeared, Isabel holding her hand. ‘What’s that noise?’

Suddenly, Archer realised what it was. The two women saw it dawn on his face. ‘Oh shit.’

‘What?’

‘We need to move! Now!’

He raced into the sitting room, followed by the others. Carson was on the couch, doped up, still staring at the ceiling with his mouth open. Slinging the M4A1 over his shoulder, Archer ran over to him, and reached behind him to pull him up, the wounded Marshal limp from the drugs in his bloodstream.

‘Barlow, help me out,’ Archer said. ‘We need to move upstairs now!’

Barlow didn’t respond.

‘Barlow? Let’s go. There’re people com-’

He turned. Across the room, Barlow still had his pistol in his hand.

But it was aimed at Vargas, Helen and Isabel.

Archer didn’t react at first. Disbelief accounted for that.

Then his hand slid for the USP in his belt.

‘No, you don’t,’ Barlow said, swinging his pistol towards him. ‘Toss it to the carpet. And the rifle. Now. One move from you Vargas and he dies.’

Archer stayed where he was, his hand inches from the pistol, looking at Barlow.

‘What the hell are you doing?’ he asked quietly.

‘Toss the guns,’ Barlow said. ‘Or you die.’

Archer stared into his eyes for a moment. They were wide, but in control. Knowing he had no other option, he reached around and took the USP from the back of his waistband. He had no choice. A man doesn’t have many when a loaded gun is aimed straight at him.

He threw it to the carpet, the weapon landing with a thud .

‘And the rifle.’

Archer loosened it off his shoulders and placed it down carefully, the assault rifle joining the USP, never taking his eyes off Barlow, who stared back impassively. He then pointed his weapon at the women.

‘You too, Vargas,’ he said. ‘The rifle and the pistol.’

‘Jared, what the hell are you doing?’

‘Toss the weapons.’

After a brief pause, Vargas complied. Barlow shifted his weapon back to Archer, beckoning him to move.

‘Join the others, pretty boy.’

With no alternative, Archer walked over towards the other side of the room, Barlow taking a step back so he was out of arm’s reach as Archer passed. Vargas had Isabel behind her back, protecting her. It didn’t matter though. With four unarmed people against a loaded USP, there was only going to be one winner. Through the floor, they could all hear the sound of the smashing and shouting.

It was getting louder.

It was getting nearer.

Watching Barlow closely, Archer shifted the weight to the balls of his feet, slowly, ready to pounce on him and try to knock the USP from his hand. He couldn’t shoot all four of them that quickly; it would take him time to work the trigger and aim. Barlow saw what he was doing and aimed the gun straight at him.

‘Don’t even think about it,’ he said. ‘Or you’ll be the first to die.’

‘It was you,’ Vargas said to Barlow. ‘The ambush on the street. That’s how they knew. You tipped them off.’

‘Yes. It was me.’

‘You son of a bitch.’

‘You think I had a choice?’