Tom Barber - One Way

It ripped away from the wall.

There was a quiet hiss as gas started filling the apartment.

He snatched something resting on the counter, then sprinted back towards the sitting room, ducking low and grabbing the second thing he needed from the window sill.

Pushing his way out through the crowd, Castle ran towards 8A, Joker shouting over the radio that the group were in the 8th floor south-west apartment. The lead members of the posse saw him running and followed, scenting money and determined to be in on the kill.

One of them forced his way ahead and pounded on the door but Castle didn’t hesitate, kicking the lock hard and smashing it apart, the door giving way slightly. The men tried to barge their way in, but something was blocking from the other side. It was heavy.

Behind them, other members of the gang joined them, using their combined weight to force the door back.

Inside the bathroom, they were going down the laundry chute one by one. Helen and Isabel went first, Helen holding the girl tight in her arms. It was a diagonal drop, not too steep but enough to carry them down without any difficulty, and once they let go they slid out of sight, headed to the 6th floor.

Vargas helped Carson into the chute, a goofy, heroin-induced smile on his face, totally oblivious to what was going on and the level of danger he was in. She let him go and he slid down, disappearing. Climbing inside, she could hear smashing and shouting at the door outside.

‘Archer, let’s go!’ she hissed.

Just behind her, he locked the door. Taking one of the green grenades Vargas had stolen from one of the two gunmen upstairs, he slid the ring of the pin carefully over the door handle, then taped the grenade to the door frame with duct tape he’d grabbed from a drawer in the kitchen. The gas was already filling the apartment, flowing out from the severed pipe. He could smell it in the bathroom as it seeped under the door.

Vargas was half in the chute, holding on, waiting for him.

Outside, they heard the door smash open, the refrigerator falling down with a crash.

‘Let’s go!’

He turned and ran towards the chute. She let go and slid out of sight. Jumping inside, he pushed himself off and followed her.

Splintering their way in, the horde poured through the door into the kitchen of 8A. There were twelve of them, more arriving every second. Castle saw the door to the bathroom was shut; he smelt something in the air. He sniffed and smiled, then turned to the gang, who’d also picked up on it.

‘No guns.’

A lot of them were armed with bats and they didn’t wait, rushing into the sitting room.

‘We got something!’

Castle ran forward and saw a man slumped on the floor, blood and brains sprayed on the wall behind him. Deputy Marshal Jared Barlow, their inside man. One of the mob saw his pistol on the carpet and ran forward to claim it. Another noticed the badge on his hip and ripped it loose along with the set of handcuffs tucked in a holster beside it.

‘They’re in there,’ Joker’s voice said in Castle’s earpiece. ‘I lost sight of them!’

‘This is Bishop. I’m on my way!’

Swinging his M4A1 around to his back, Castle grabbed a knife from a rack in the kitchen and moved to the bathroom door, wanting to end this once and for all himself. One of the thugs was already reaching for the handle but Castle grabbed him by the collar and pulled him back. He moved up close to the door, listening. Smelling the gas in the air, he smiled. The Marshals thought they were being smart by rupturing the pipe but the gas meant they couldn’t use their weapons now either, otherwise the spark would kill them all. They were as good as unarmed.

And this was now fifteen on four.

He tried the handle. The door was locked.

Behind him, the mob waited expectantly, weapons in their hands, ready to finish this off and earn their money.

Castle stepped back and kicked the door as hard as he could.

Archer had just made it to the bottom of the chute, two floors down on 6. The two women and Isabel were waiting for him across the old laundry room, with Carson on the floor beside them. The ancient grille that had blocked the chute had been kicked out of the way by Helen, the first one down.

Archer landed on an old dryer pushed up against the wall under the chute. Scrambling over it, he rushed forward and covered Vargas and Isabel, diving to the floor.

‘Get down!’

The bathroom was empty. As two others followed him in, the group glanced around. Castle saw a chute in the wall to the right of the bath, the old grille that had covered it dumped to one side. Shit. They must have escaped down it.

As he stepped forward, something rolled across the floor and came to a stop by his foot.

He looked down.

Outside, Josh and Marquez were with the ESU Lieutenant when there was an enormous explosion from the 8th floor of the building.

As everyone ducked instinctively, a south-facing apartment erupted into a huge fireball, the windows blown out and fire billowing into the night, the wave of heat hitting everyone on the street, causing them to recoil. Josh shielded his face.

‘Jesus Christ!’

In the laundry room, Archer covered Vargas and Isabel as fire roared down the chute. It burst into the room, an intense ball of heat that went over their heads, all of them lying face-down on the ground with their eyes squeezed shut. The fire sucked back up the chute almost as soon as it had arrived and the building alarm erupted again, that familiar wailing siren filling the air.

The group stayed low, coughing from the smoke, the laundry room dark and hazy around them.

Upstairs, the 8th floor corridor was filled with smoke, the fire alarm going off and echoing through the building. Bishop had been running down the corridor from the north side when the explosion had happened. It had thrown him back down the hall, hitting him like a giant punch.

Staggering to his feet and blinking, he lurched his way towards the doorway of the apartment and looked at the devastation ahead of him, his ears ringing, smoke and dust stinging his eyes. The explosion had annihilated the interior of the apartment, the air filled with smoke, small parts of it on fire. No one was coming out. He tried to push the pressel switch on his vest but lurched to one side and vomited, dropping his assault rifle and falling to his knees. He felt as if he’d been hit by a freight train.

‘What the hell’s going on up there?’ a voice asked in his earpiece. ‘Report!’

‘They’re gone,’ Bishop said, his voice raspy, coughing and wiping his mouth with his sleeve and sucking in deep breaths as his lungs fought for air. ‘They’re gone.’

‘The targets?’

‘No. The back up.’

‘How many?’

Bishop coughed, trying to clear his head and get his bearings.

‘All of them. Castle’s dead too.’

His radio went silent.

Turning, he staggered down the corridor towards a fire extinguisher on a bracket on the wall, the fire alarm echoing around him, smoke still billowing from inside the destroyed apartment and burning the oxygen in the air.

In the old laundry room on 6, the group were still coughing and recovering from the dust and smoke, which had flowed down the chute into the room and only now was withdrawing. It felt as if the explosion had rocked the entire building. The fire alarm in the corridors were still going off but suddenly went quiet, the echoes of the shrill siren reverberating in the air as the sound slowly died away.

Lifting his head and looking through the dusty haze, Archer saw rows of old washing machines and dryers standing against the walls around the room. The diagonal chute from 8A had deposited them on the east side of the building, facing all the cops on the street, the wrong side for the sniper who was firing from the south. He pushed himself to his feet then moved over to the window, risking a quick look. It was still a sea of people, cars and trucks down there, a hub of activity. Foster’s Tahoe and the car the street gunmen had pursued them in still where they’d been dumped several hours ago. Blinking and coughing, he tried to make out Shepherd, Josh and Marquez in the crowd, but couldn’t see them. Giving up, he turned back to the room.