The Getaway (Sam Archer 2) (32 page)

Archer frowned
, then shook his head.

‘He mentioned he’d had some kind of demotion. That’s all.’

Sanderson snorted.

‘That’s one way of putting it. He struck an EAD.

‘EAD?’

‘Executive Assistant Director.’

‘He punched him?’

Sanderson nodded.

‘Luckily for him, the guy was an old acquaintance. It wasn’t a play fight either. He sucker-punched him. Knocked him out cold.’

‘Why?’

‘The guy was having an affair with Gerrard’s wife.’

Archer paused.

‘Wow.’

‘Exactly. The guy he struck, Jankowski, admitted that he deserved it, which saved Gerrard’s career. But the people above him didn’t see it that way. You don’t hit a senior agent ever, no matter
what
the provocation. They didn’t fire Gerrard but they threw the book at him. He was demoted and sent here to take over the Bank Robbery team. Doesn’t seem like a demotion, but trust me, this was a job no one wanted to take. A poisoned chalice, if you will. Like walking the plank.’

Sanderson sipped his coffee. There was a pause.

‘So what’s the plan?’ Archer asked. ‘Can we close this thing out?’

‘Before that, there’s something else I haven’t mentioned,’ Sanderson said. ‘I read the case-file. The latest report from your father was crucial. He had good news.’

‘What?’

‘He said he had proof that someone in the Bank Robbery Task Force team was on the other side. Someone who wasn’t Agent Gerrard.’

‘Great. What kind of proof?’

‘Photographic.’

Archer sat forward, interested.

‘Shit, that’s perfect.’

‘He didn’t want to reveal over the phone what exactly was in the shots. He wanted to deliver it in person back in D.C, face-to-face. He was due to
return the night he was killed.
’

Archer thought for a moment.

‘Siletti and O’Hara must have found out somehow,’ he said.

‘Or Sean Farrell. I listened to the recording of the phone-call your father made to his superiors. He said this was enough proof to take them all down for good, everyone involved.’

Archer shook his head. ‘It wasn’t Farrell.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Because my father left his service weapon at his apartment the night he was murdered. If he was meeting with Farrell, he never would have gone unarmed. And Farrell told me himself he’d never killed anyone from the FBI. He said it would be crazy to. He’s not stupid. He knew that if he did, the entire damn Bureau would jump on him.’

Sanderson thought for
a moment.

‘OK, so we have to assume Siletti and O’Hara are in those photographs. But there are problems. You try and pin anything on the two of them from Katic’s apartment, they’ll just claim they were trying to detain two fugitives from the Garden heist. You put hands on Siletti prior to that, so he’ll also claim he was trying to arrest you for assaulting a
Federal
agent. Lock, Parker and Gerrard will have been killed with stolen weapons so the ballistics will draw a blank. We need hard, substantial proof. We need the camera your father used.

‘The investigating team couldn’t find it?’

‘No
. No
t according to the report. O
r if not the camera, then the memory card instead.
Unless the bad guys stole it after they killed him.
’

Archer thought, then his eyes widened.

‘Oh shit.’

Sanderson looked at him. ‘What? What is it?’

‘I know where the memory card is.’

Across the city inside Jim Archer’s third floor apartment in
Astoria
, Billy Regan lean
ed
back in a chair, a sawn-off shotgun resting on another chair in front of him, his fingers curled around the grip. He’d placed another chair just ahead so the barrel of the weapon was resting on the bac
k, aiming straight at the door.

He was positioned just to the right. Whenever the door opened, whoever was the other side would push it forward and step straight into Regan’s firing line. They wouldn’t have time to react. They’d be mincemeat in a second.

He took a draw on a ciga
rette in his mouth and exhaled.

He was looking forward to this.

He’d known something was up with that English prick ever since Farrell had brought him on board. And it was a miracle that was he was still sitting here and wasn’t in jail. After they’d loaded the first half of the money from the stash room into the cop car, he’d been headed back inside the stadium with Ortiz when they’d turned and seen the car suddenly speed off from the kerb, moving off down
33
rd
Street
and into the night, almost a million
of their dollars in the trunk.

He’d ditched them. T
he son of a bitch ditched them.

After a brief second of hesitation and disbelief, watching the car disappearing into the distance, Regan had grabbed a radio from his pocket and pushed the button.

‘Abort,’ he said into the receiver, once, clearly. ‘Walk away.’

Down below, Farrell was still inside the money room, clearing out the last two lockers of dollar bills, but had heard this over his radio. After pausing and gritting his teeth, fighting the urge to keep going, he dropped the stack of cash in his hand, stepped over the two tied-up and gagged guards and walked straight out of the room, closing it behind him with his gloved hand and locking it. He’d been back up on the street in less than forty seconds, swearing under his breath, as angry as he’d ever been in his life. He moved out of the
33
rd
Street
exit, but Regan and Ortiz weren’t there. They’d already split. They’d agreed before the job that if they got jammed up they’d separate and meet back at the gym in
Queens
, whenever they could get there later in the night.

Farrell had walked east, moving fast, putting distance between himself and the scene of the botched heist. He was absolutely livid. He’d walked down into Penn Station and got on the next train out of the area. Half an hour later, the three of them were inside the concealed brick room through the hidden door in the gym, and all three were furious. The English guy had screwed them, played Farrell like a fool, and walked off with almost a million dollars in the back of the car. Carmen lost the plot, smashing two chairs to pieces and shouting long streams of expletives in Spanish as Farrell tried to breathe and think clearly across the room. A career heist, the finish line in sight, ended becaus
e the English guy screwed them.

Farrell had pulled his phone from his pocket and called him, threatening him, in the vain hope he’d give something away and they could find out where he was with the cash. Farrell’s premature departure meant they’d had to abandon a huge chunk of their money, a large portion of their pot of gold. When Regan had made the call over the radio, Farrell was loading up a sixth bag. Each one was holding about four hundred thousand. They just left behind 2.4 million, dollars that had been packed and waiting in his hands. Now it would be safely locked up again. They’d blown it.

Inside the apartment, Regan leaned back in his chair and shook his head, drawing on the cigarette in the corner of his lips. Once they’d all calmed down, they realised that they’d been able to walk out clean and th
at they hadn’t been sprung on
by the NYPD or the FBI. They had also each made it off
Manhattan
and to the gym, so at least they hadn’t been duped by an undercover cop or a fed. At least the English asshole wasn’t working for the cops. Once they’d cooled and started to think rationally again, Farrell had outlined each of their next moves.

First of all, they figured the Brit would cut and run. It would be suicidal of him to hang around the city, so Farrell reckoned he’d try to get the money out, split it up, maybe through a
Cayman Islands
bank account, then get out of the country as fast as he could or jump in a car and get out of the city. One small blessing was that Farrell had kept the details of the
Flushing
job confidential, not telling the asshole a word of their plan. He didn’t know anything important about their plan of attack on the truck, where it would take place and how. The journey from the
Tennis
Center
up into
Long Island
to the Chase financial headquarters would take around eighty minutes and that was one long stretch of road. He had no idea where or when they would try, or if they even still would.

However, they had still put it to a vote. They were three of them there, with Tate out of town, so they knew they'd have a 2:1 majority vote whatever the outcome. Farrell outlined the complications, still pissed off but thinking more clearly. There was the distant chance that the English guy would tip off the cops or feds, either because he was one of them or to give himself breathing space and hopefully get the three of them in handcuffs as he left town with the money in the back of the cop car. And by now, stadium security would have found the tied up guards, the money loaded in the bags and almost a million of it missing. The whole city would be talking about it. They knew security on the truck was going to be tight, but
now it was going to be tighter.

He’d asked for an opinion and decision, one-by-one.

And all three of them agreed that the job should go ahead.

Taking a seat on the last remaining chair in the room, Farrell had called Tate, who was down in the hotel in
Atlantic City
. At least all his plans were going accordingly. He said that he’d passed most of the cash from the two Chase jobs through the tables, just over a million, separated into wads of a hundred thousand and traded for chips. Tate said he’d even won large at one of the tables, and had earned them an extra forty grand. He’d said he was going to clean the remaining five hundred grand, get his head down then drive up tomorrow with the untraceable cash ready for the final job, the Flushing heist.

So it was agreed.

The job would go ahead.

But the one thing they all wanted a shot at before they left
was revenge.

Regan knew where the guy was staying. He’d followed him home on Monday after the street-fight. Judging from all the shit inside, it didn’t look like it was his place, but nevertheless the guy had definitely been bunking down here. Regan himself had been waiting on
30
th
Avenue
on Tuesday, and had seen the guy walk out from this street and the door to this building. This was his place. Carmen was up on Steinway, watching the subway and any approach from the west. Farrell was at the gym, finishing up arranging their gear and cleaning up anything they’d need to take with them. They would all leave the city as millionaires tonight, each with enough money to buy whatever they wanted. The shotgun in his hands, aimed at where the door would open, Regan smiled. His bags were all packed. His apartment was ready. He was good to go, to le
ave this dump and never return.

But all he wanted was the English asshole before he left.

He’d thought about what he would do if the guy showed up or if Carmen found him down on the street on Steinway. He wouldn’t fire straight away. That would alert the neighbours and people on the street. He’d put the gun on him and make him wait. Then he’d pull his phone and call Farrell. After he arrived, they’d tie up and gag the pretty-boy then take him somewhere isolated, somewhere with soundproof walls. Probably the lower, thick brick rooms at the back of the gym, behind the steel door. Then they would go to work on him. Leave a nice, nightmare-inducing crime scene for the FBI and NY
PD.

He smiled and leaned back in his chair, the barrel of the shotgun aimed flush at the door. He checked the time.

10:31 am.

He was going to come back here one last time.

Regan could sense it.

NINETEEN

Back across the city inside the Marriott Marquis Hotel, Archer stepped off the elevator for the 21
st
floor and stood still for a moment, letting the doors close behind him. Once he’d explained where the memory card was, he and Sanderson had discussed what to do next. Sanderson said he was going to head to
Federal
Plaza
immediately and get back-up, both to find Siletti and O’Hara and to set up an ambush for the
Flushing
truck heist Farrell and his team were planning for tonight. Archer said he’d handle getting the memory card from the camera. They had risen, shaking hands and parting ways, Sanderson headed downstairs to the taxi rank, Archer back to the hotel room.

Walking down the corridor to the room, he slid the key-card into the slot and push
ing
down the handle,
walked into the room
. Shutting the door behind him, he saw that Katic and the girl were awake, both enjoying a room-service breakfast. They were
perched
side by side on the edge of the bed, a table pulled up in front of them with some toast, spreads and cereals on the counter. They looked up and smiled as he entered, closing the door behind him. He also saw Katic withdraw her left hand from her handbag sitting beside her on the bed, no doubt her 9mm Sig i
nside, on her guard. He smiled.