Tom Barber - One Way

‘So what now?’ Knight said.

‘We need to get the hell out of here,’ Spades answered. ‘We’re in so much shit, I say we call the chopper and bail. Screw Vargas.’

‘What are you, a pussy?’ Knight hissed. ‘Five of our guys died and you just want to quit?’

‘You think the Feds outside are going to wait much longer?’

‘She’s taken out half our team, asshole. Friends of yours. That alone means she has to die.’

‘If the NYPD get in, so will we.’

‘Shut up,’ Calvin ordered, as the two men confronted each other. ‘Let me think for a moment.’

Silence. He thought of his men who’d been killed; Queen, Clubs, Hearts, Pawn and Castle. Markowski, Patterson, Taylor, Gibbons and Kosick.

‘Taylor and Gibbons were taken out on 22, right?’

Knight nodded. ‘Yeah. Both took a burst to the chest.’

‘So what the hell were the Marshals doing up there?’

His men looked at each other and shrugged. ‘The roof?’ Spades suggested.

King looked over at Diamonds, who’d first discovered the two dead men with Knight. ‘You see anything up there?’

‘Nothing. Just the door to the roof. Only other thing I saw was a fire box down the corridor.’

‘Fire box?’

‘Yeah. Red thing. Stuck on the wall.’

Calvin’s eyes widened; he moved over to the building chart on the wall inside the office and traced it with his finger.

‘Holy shit.’

‘What?’ Knight asked.

‘There’s a fire phone on 22. That’s what they were doing. We missed a phone line.’

With Isabel between them, Archer and Vargas were in the south stairwell, just passing 13 as they made their way upstairs, Vargas clearing ahead with her M4A1, Archer doing the same behind. They’d left Carson on the couch in the apartment with his Glock and a promise they’d be back soon. The cheap heroin had worn off now and his pain was becoming more extreme once again. He’d been lucid enough to understand them, nodding at their instruction whilst gritting his teeth in pain.

As they moved up to 14, Archer checked the corridor through the window on the door. Empty. He was about to continue sweeping behind them when he noticed something out of the corner of his eye.

Someone had dumped a cardboard box on the stairwell landing ahead of them.

Suddenly, his arm shot out, past the child, grabbing Vargas by the leg.

‘Don’t move!’

Vargas froze.

He was looking down at her feet. Her body not moving a fraction, she followed his gaze.

A thread was drawn across the stairs, one end wrapped around a small nail driven into the wall, the other tied around the railing that ran up the stairwell. It was almost imperceptible, a translucent piece of wire.

Vargas’s shin was pushed right up against it, the wire bent back, about to give.

‘Don’t move, either of you,’ he repeated.

They followed the wire with their eyes. It ran directly under the cardboard box just above them resting against the wall of the stairwell. Taking the utmost care, Archer moved past Isabel, stepped over the wire and approached the box. He grasped the edges and lifted it away slowly.

Underneath was a Claymore mine. Front Towards Enemy was printed on the side facing the trio, the blasting cap attached to the tripwire.

‘Holy shit,’ Vargas said.

Vargas eased her leg back slowly, the tension on the wire loosening a touch, taking the pressure off the blasting cap. The wire unbroken, they both exhaled. They made eye contact; she gave him a shaky smile and a nod of thanks.

He went to speak.

Before he had a chance, the stairwell suddenly erupted with the sound of automatic gunfire as plaster and dust sprayed violently from the walls around them. Archer and Vargas fell to the side, taken completely off guard. As they did, Isabel stumbled, losing her balance. Vargas lunged for her, but just missed her, and the girl fell backwards.

Archer watched in horror as Isabel tumbled down the stairwell, coming to a hard jarring halt on 13. Vargas went to go after her but another burst of rapid gunfire made her recoil, keeping her where she was. They were sprayed with chalk and dust as bullets shredded the walls. Three guys in camo fatigues were working their way up the stairs. Although Archer and Vargas were now firing back, they were hampered by the fear of hitting Isabel and were forced to withdraw, being totally exposed in the stairwell. The attacking fire was too strong. The onslaught forced them to duck into 14, no other choice. The wall where they’d been standing was shredded to bits by gunfire, dust, chips of plaster and chalk falling down around the Claymore on the landing.

Risking a glance round the wall, Archer watched as one of the cops grabbed Isabel, scooping her up.

‘Vargas!’ the girl screamed, helpless.

As the man turned and ran off with her, the girl’s screaming audible in the breaks in gunfire, Archer and Vargas ducked out and fired at the other two through the gap in the middle of the long flight of stairs.

‘No!’ Vargas screamed.

Below, Isabel fought and thrashed under his arm but the guy was too strong. He disappeared down the 13th corridor and out of sight, closely followed by one of the other men. Archer and Vargas went to follow, but the third man had stayed where he was, keeping up his assault rifle fire, forcing Archer and Vargas back behind cover.

They heard Isabel’s screaming from the floor below. It was fading. The remaining gunman kept firing up on them, sensing an opportunity to end this himself. Archer went to return fire but his M4A1 clicked dry.

‘Shit!’

He snapped back, plaster spraying off the wall near him, and reached to his pocket but he was out of ammo. Beside him, Vargas was also out. He dropped the M4A1 and drew Carson’s USP from his waistband, taking off the safety. As more gunfire ripped into the wall, Archer suddenly remembered the Claymore on the landing in the stairwell.

With the gunman stalking up the stairs towards them, still firing, Archer fired off a few rounds with his USP, grabbed his empty M4A1 and moving to the edge of the corridor, hurled the assault rifle up the stairs at the tripwire.

Whilst it was still in the air, he grabbed Vargas and dove to the floor with her down the corridor.

The mine exploded; there was a thump and then hundreds of tinkles of metal ball bearings as they smashed around the stairwell. Eventually they came to a halt, some rolling down the corridor, joining Archer and Vargas on the floor.

Then suddenly, it was quiet.

The gunfire in the stairwell had stopped.

Archer and Vargas were alone in the 14th floor corridor, chalk, dust and cordite in the air, their ears ringing, shell casings and ball bearings littering the stairs and the edges of the hallway.

The mine had done its job and annihilated the guy in the stairwell. Archer moved out from the corridor, down the flight and retrieved the dead man’s weapon, which had clattered further down the stairs. The dead guy had one spare magazine, which Archer stuffed into the pocket of his jeans, pushing Carson’s USP into the back of his waistband with the safety on. Everything else on the gunman’s person had been destroyed; he’d taken hundreds of metal ball bearings front-on which had smashed holes in both him and his equipment. The used plates of the blown Claymore were scattered on the steps in front of him, joining the other metallic debris and the body slumped down the stairwell. The white, chipped wall behind him looked like a horror movie set.

Archer ran back up the stairs to the 14th corridor. Vargas was kneeling, tears streaming down her face as she took gasping breaths, in momentary shock. He knelt beside her, thinking fast whilst checking left and right, making sure no one else got the drop on them.