Tom Barber - One Way

Standing there, his hair and shirt billowing from the chopper’s rotors, his instincts started screaming at him.

He was being watched.

He turned slowly.

Two of the enemy and the gang member with blond dreadlocks had appeared out of nowhere. One of the Miami PD SRT cops had been hit in the shoulder, blood staining his fatigues; however, he had a LAW 66 rocket launcher resting on his other shoulder, aiming it at the NYPD chopper, the reason it had withdrawn and couldn’t get closer.

The other man had an M4A1 in his shoulder, the guy with dreadlocks a steel pistol.

The weapons were aimed straight at him, Vargas and Isabel.

Archer stared at the muzzles of the guns. The lead man also had a control switch in his left hand which he tossed to the ground angrily. Archer recognised the switch from interactions with the EOD in London; it was a detonator. The fact it had been discarded indicated the men were in no rush to leave.

They couldn’t get out of here in time themselves.

He shut down the explosives.

Beside him, the other man was tracing the NYPD chopper with the LAW, keeping it from getting any closer, his left arm hanging limp at his side. The man who’d held the switch ripped off his balaclava angrily, tossing it to the ground. Tanned and brown-haired, his face was a mask of fury and nothing but pure hatred. Beside him, Archer heard Vargas whisper Calvin . He was the SRT Master Sergeant, the leader of the response team.

‘Finally got you, bitch,’ he said to Vargas.

‘That’s what Denton thought,’ she hissed back, full of defiance.

Calvin’s eyes narrowed. ‘Where is he?’

‘Where do you think?’

Archer was beside Vargas and Isabel. His legs felt like cooked spaghetti, his vision hazy, his hearing impaired from all the explosions and gunfire.

In front of them, fifteen feet away, Calvin smiled, looking down the sights of his M4A1.

‘There was only one way this was ever going to end,’ he said, grinning.

‘Shit!’ Shepherd said from the helicopter as they veered away. ‘Get closer!’ he shouted at the pilot.

‘No friggin way,’ the lead pilot said, pointing at the man tracing their movements with the anti-tank rocket launcher . ‘He hits us with that thing, we join the chopper graveyard down there.’

Shepherd and Hendricks watched helplessly, seeing Archer, the woman and the child encircled on the roof. Swearing again and dumping the Mossberg to one side, Shepherd unclipped his belt and moved into the back, ripping open an equipment case. There was a Barrett M82 sniper rifle and ammunition inside, two magazines with ten.50 12.7x99 NATO rounds inside, huge ammunition for a powerhouse of a rifle. After 9/11, NYPD choppers were equipped with the Barretts to shoot down aircraft, which meant it would decimate the Miami cops on the roof.

He pulled it out and slapped the mag into the weapon, racking the bolt and extending the bipod legs, lying down in the cabin. He didn’t have time to sight the weapon, but prayed to God it shot straight.

‘Hover straight!’ he shouted at the pilot, as Hendricks ripped open the door.

‘They’ve got them!’ Marquez said, looking down the scope of the rifle in the building eighty yards downtown. There were three men, two in combats, one with dreadlocks. Archer and the woman looked like hell, covered in cuts and bloodstains, makeshift strip bandages on his arm and her leg. The angle meant she could just see the response team man’s head; he seemed to have momentarily forgotten about her. Marquez centred the crosshairs on his face. The rifle was a straight shooter; she’d nailed the fuselage on the chopper exactly where she’d aimed.

She slowed her breathing. He was talking, his head bobbing slightly, looking down the sights of a black assault rifle.

She pulled the trigger.

Click.

‘Shit,’ she said. ‘No ammo!’

Josh ran back to the dead sharpshooter, frantically searching through his pockets for spare ammunition. Marquez watched helplessly through the scope, praying she’d be in time.

‘C’mon, hurry!’

Archer looked at the three men about to kill him. Glancing at the guy with dreadlocks, Archer thought back to the street hours ago, sitting on the bench and seeing that man crossing the street intending to murder Vargas. A perfect afternoon destroyed by violence and now with so many dead as a result. Archer stared at the man’s face, trying to focus.

He felt unsteady. He felt his pistol slip and drop out of his hand, clattering to the concrete. He glanced down at it. Under his feet, the concrete was blood-stained from earlier in the night, some stray ball bearings still scattered around on the roof. He wanted to lie down. Beside him, he felt Isabel pressing against his leg, shaking.

Vargas picked up the girl, shielding her as much as she could, holding her close to her chest and turning her body from Calvin. It was futile. She knew it would be scant protection when the moment came.

‘You think you could do what you did and get away with it?’ Calvin said, his eyes boring a hole into Vargas.

‘I should ask you the same thing.’

‘You betrayed your own. Now you’re going to die, bitch.’

‘Look around, asshole,’ she said. ‘You took off your mask. Your boys are scattered all over the building. No way are you getting away with any of this.’

‘That doesn’t matter anymore. I don’t even care. I just want to watch you die.’

He paused and grinned, looking at Archer, who was staring at the ground slightly ahead of him, blood staining the lower left portion of his t-shirt.

‘Speaking of which, it looks like your friend is already on his way.’

Vargas glanced at Archer beside her; his face was pale, his eyes fixed on the ground.

But out of the corner of her eye, she noticed something else.

His right hand was inside the black bag slung across his shoulders.

When Archer had dropped his pistol and looked down, feeling dizzy, he’d noticed debris from the explosion earlier.

Ball bearings.

Claymore mines.

The he realised something.

He still had the black bag over his shoulder.

As Vargas had spoken to Calvin, unknowingly distracting him, Archer had slid his hand slowly into the open bag, feeling for the blasting cap already attached to the wire.

He’d found it and slowly screwed it into one of the mines, Calvin’s attention fixed on Vargas, savouring his victory and not noticing what Archer was doing.

He willed them to keep talking. Finally, the cap locked into place.

The mine was now armed.

He felt the shape of the weapon. Front Towards Enemy was on the convex side. If he got it wrong, he’d kill himself, Vargas and Isabel in an instant.

‘Time to say goodnight, bitch,’ Calvin said, hitching up his M4A1 and aiming at Vargas’ forehead.

Archer’s fingers curled around the clacker, taking the utmost care not to close it.

‘Hey Seth,’ he said.

Calvin paused. The use of his first name took him off guard.

‘Catch.’

Archer suddenly whipped the bag off his shoulder and threw it towards Calvin, who didn’t have time to step back.

It hit him in the torso and he instinctively caught it, the other two men watching with surprise.

All three saw a length of wire disappearing inside the bag, the other end connected to the detonator in Archer’s hand.

Front Towards Enemy.

Calvin looked up as realisation dawned.

Archer shielded Vargas and Isabel with his left arm and squeezed shut the clacker in his right hand as hard as he could.