The Getaway (Sam Archer 2) (34 page)

The air-conditioning system inside the store was blistering cold, and it hit him like he’d opened a freezer as the sliding doors opened. Clearly the manager preferred to stay cool over keeping his electricity bill down. Inside, he saw the place was quiet, much like the street outside,
with
just the
occasional
person wandering the aisles and browsing the shelves. The only employee he could see was a bored teenage girl behind the counter, reading a magazine and mechanically chewing on gum. She saw him enter but her eyes moved straight back to whatever article she was engrossed in.

‘Photography?’ he asked her.

She pointed a manicured nail straight ahead, not botherin
g to look up from the magazine.

‘Far side. By the wall.’

Archer nodded and moved down the aisle. He found the electronic machine he was after mounted on the wall. Checking he hadn’t been followed, he took off the policeman’s hat and tucked it under his arm and slid the memory stick into the slot. It loaded, and he had to press a few buttons, but suddenly the first shot appeared on the screen, asking him if he wan
ted to edit it before printing.

He pressed ignore and studied the photograph closely instead.

It was a surveillance shot, taken late at night. Three men and a woman, in a parking lot. One of the men was Farrell. That much was immediately clear. He was standing face-on to the camera. Ortiz was
standing
beside him, dressed in a white vest and black sweatpants, her arms crossed, the light from the lamp-post showing the pronounced curves of the muscles in her arms and
the sharp edge of her jaw-line.

They were facing two men in what looked like a meeting. The other two had their backs turned. It was dark, so making out exact distinguishing characteristics was a challenge, but he saw a tall, gangly shape on one of them a
nd fiery red hair in the other.

Sil
etti and O’Hara. Unmistakeable.

He clicked on. Siletti and O’Hara still had their backs turned. It was evidence, but Archer wanted more. A good lawyer could probably defend this in court, finding a way to get them out of it, but then again any half-decent professional in the D.C office who was familiar with photography
could enhance these in seconds.

Archer clicked on. The shots continued, and he tried to decipher what had happened. Farrell didn’t look happy, the street-light above showing him frowning, his mouth open, his face angry. Farrell had mentioned that he’d severed ties with his rat in the Task Force a few weeks ago. These photos were taken in the last two weeks, when relations were gone, hence the anger on Farrell’s face. Siletti and O’Hara were probably meeting to try and re-establish their working relationship. He clicked on.

Soon enough, the meeting seemed to end and Siletti and O’Hara started to turn in the photographs. He watched in staccato as Farrell and Ortiz turned and walked away, disappearing into the night. Jim Archer hadn’t bothered to follow them with the camera. He alrea
dy had them on the memory card.

Instead, the photographs showed the other two men climb into a dark Mercedes. As they moved off, James Archer had caught the perfect shot. The interior light inside the car hadn’t quite gone off yet and it lit up their faces like a beacon.

Siletti and O’Hara.

Three cherries.

The lights flashing, quarters pouring out of the bot
tom of the machine.

Jackpot.

He reached in his pocket, grabbing his cell phone, and pushed Katic’s number. It connected and he lifted it to his ea
r, looking at the damning shot.

‘Katic, it’s Archer. I’ve got great news.’

But he suddenly paused.

Something didn’t feel right.

Something was wrong.

‘Katic?’

‘Katic isn’t here right now,’
a man’s voice sa
id, the voice nasal and creepy.

Archer’s blood turned as cold as the air blasted from the
air-conditioning system above.

He recognised the voice.

‘Listen up,’
Siletti said, his voice distorted from his broken nose.
‘Or the bitch, kid and Sanderson die.’

TWENTY

Archer stayed very still, the phone to his ear. The air-conditioning system above blew chilly air over him, but he stood there frozen, the police hat in one hand, the cell phone in the other, the photographic evidence sti
ll up on the screen before him.

‘You’re an idiot,’
Siletti told him.
‘A real dumb shit.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘I knew you’d end up back at the hotel. We raided your old room last night, but you weren’t there. But we saw Katic’s car in the parking lot and knew you were somewhere inside. So we waited. We stayed all night in the lobby. Then Sanderson appeared this morning, headed for the taxi ranks. We couldn’t believe it. Bobby Sanderson, an Assistant Director, at the same hotel at the same time as you and Katic. Once we put a gun on him and got him in the trunk of our car, I took the receptionist to one side and asked what room you’d been moved to. I told her what I would do to her if she didn’t tell me. Before long she was begging to give me the key.’

Pause.

‘So what do you want?’ Archer asked.

‘What do you think I want? The money. And you. I want you, you piece of shit.’

‘You can’t have both. Make a choice.’

‘You broke my nose, you son of a bitch.’
Pause.
‘Or maybe I should hang up right now. Maybe I should just kill the bitch and the kid. I’ll keep the call connected. You can listen.’

Archer stayed silent.

‘The Garden cash. Where is it?’

‘No way. We meet. We exchange. You and I can settle
it afterwards.’

A pause.

‘Flushing Airport,’
Siletti said.
‘7:30 pm. A minute late, Katic, the kid and Sanderson die, one after the other. If you go to the cops or the FBI, they die, one after the other. 7:30 pm. If you’re a second late, they die.’

And the call went dead.

He stood in that same position, staring straight ahead for the next couple of minutes. Someone came up behind him to use the machine themselves, but realised something was up with the cop and moved away.

They had Sanderson. They had Katic.

And they had Jessie.

He couldn’t go to the cops. They’d arrest him in a
heartbeat over the Garden job.

He couldn’t go to the feds. That was Siletti and O’Hara’s world. They’d know in a second an
d the three hostages would die.

Pulling the memory card from the slot and pushing it into his pocket, Archer wandered to the exit, desperately trying to think of a plan. Suddenly he bumped into someone, not paying attention to where he was going. He looked up from under the hat to apologise.

But he stopped dead.

He was lo
oking into the eyes of a woman.

He saw her eyes widen, the same time as his.

It was Carmen Ortiz.

They stood there for a split-second, just staring at each other, both of them in stunned disbelief. Archer’s hand was by his right hip, next to the Sig tucked in the holster there. He didn’t reach for it though. There were people all around them on the sidewalk and entering the store. But Ortiz didn’t move. They stood there in total silence, eye-to-eye, not saying a word.

The uniform was saving him
.

She couldn’t attack a cop or pull a weapon on him. Everyone on the street would see. It would be reported or intervened on in a second.

‘Walk away,’ he told her, staring into her hostile eyes as he had done that night in the bar when she passed him. ‘Pretend you never saw me.’

‘Where’s the cash?’ she asked, Dominican accent.

‘I can’t tell you that,’ he said.

‘If you don’t, you’ll die,
pendejo
. I won’t let you go.’

Neither moved, both staring at each other. A standoff. If she came at him, Archer would pull his gun. If he came at her, she would use her fists, which were almost as effective.

‘You left us.’

‘That wasn’t my fault. I got held up.’

‘By who?’

‘A woman.’

‘Where is she?’

‘She’s dead. I killed her.’

‘So give us the money. If you run, we’ll find you.’

‘What if I tell the cops about
Flushing
? I take it you’ll all still be there, right?’

She didn’t respond.

‘Pretend you never saw me. Or I’ll talk to the feds. There’ll be an entire division waiting for you when you get there.’

He stepped forward and to the side. She didn’t respond or move. He moved around her slowly, keeping eye contact the whole time, moving onto the sidewalk. He was close to her radius where she could hit him, but deliberately kept just out of it. He saw her arms and fists tense, desper
ate to strike him.

He kept eye contact on her, his hand close to the Sig.

Suddenly a police car passed on the street alongside, then slowed.

‘Hey,’ a voice called.

Archer flicked hi
s eyes, risking a quick glance.

There was one cop inside the squad car, a man. He was one of the cops that had just checked out his father’s apartment, the first guy inside, the one with the female partner.

‘Hey man, I’m headed for a house call in
Long Island
City
,’ he told Archer from behind the wheel. ‘My partner just had to bounce. Can you give me a hand?’

Archer stared straight at Ortiz.

‘Sure,’ he called.

He walked across the sidewalk, around the side of the car, and climbed into the front seat, beside the cop. He closed the door and the car moved off, Ortiz still staring at him. He looked through the open window at her as she stood there, her eyes following him as the car moved off down the street. The gu
y behind the wheel saw her too.

‘Damn,’ he said. ‘That’s one chick I wouldn’t want to mess with.’

‘Haven’t seen you before,’ the cop behind the wheel said, as he drove through the streets towards the East River and
Long Island
City
. Archer allowed himself a small sigh of relief and then turned his attention to the cop beside him.

‘Yeah, I’m out of the 19
th
,’ Archer said, in his best American accent. A benefit of coming here a lot as a kid meant he had developed an ear for it, and he could pull one off pretty convincingly.

‘Oh yeah? What you doing in
Queens
?’

‘I live here. I was just headed to the city.’

The cop frowned.

‘Why are you in uniform already? Didn’t you leave it at the station?’

‘Just got it dry cleaned,’ Archer replied, thinking fast.

The driver nodded.

‘Oh. Gotcha.’

At that moment, a call came over the radio. It was a woman, from dispatch, wherever their base was in the area. She told the officer that the
Long Island
call was a false alarm. He picked up the receiver as he kept one hand on the wheel.

‘Roger that,’ he said, pushing the buttons on the receiver with his thumb and forefinger. ’10-4.’ He returned the receiver to its cradle and turned to Archer. ‘Ah shit. Never mind. Tell you what man, I’ll take you into the city to say thanks for coming along.’

Archer nodded, keeping his head slightly turned away. ‘Thanks.’

They drove on in silence, approaching the
Queensborough
Bridge
. Archer didn’t say a word, but he sensed the guy next to him wanted to talk. He was friendly, and seemed professional. That however would change if he realised who the guy beside him in the car was and his current status with the NYPD.

‘So you’re the morning shift then?’ the cop asked.

‘Yeah.’

‘You dodged a bullet not being on duty last night, man. It’s been a long one, let me tell you,’ he said. ‘There was some heist at the Garden last night during the fight.
Madison
Square
Garden
, can you believe it? Guy and girl made off with almost a million bucks. Apparently the chick was an FBI agent. We’ve been scouring the city all night looking for them.’

‘Really?’ Archer asked, looking out the window.

‘Yeah. The FBI is on the hunt as well. Two of their agents have gone missing and one of them was found dead in his apartment. They reckon the guy and girl did it. Real Bonnie and
Clyde
stuff, you know?’

‘Yeah. Sounds like it,’ Archer said
as they moved over the Bridge.