Nine Lives (Sam Archer 1)

FOUR

  It was somewhat ironic that Dominick Farha had chosen to rent an apartment in the Knightsbridge area of London. In modern times, Knightsbridge was renowned as being a pretty trendy and upmarket place to live, a great location, adjacent to the always beautiful Hyde Park and with Harrods, one of the world’s most well-known stores right there on its doorstep.

  But what a lot of people didn’t know was its dark and somewhat sinister history. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the place was infamous as being a haunt for highwaymen and thieves, who lay in wait in the shadows to target those travelling westward out of London. In recent years, it had also seen its fair share of terrorism and crime. The Iranian Embassy siege of 1980 took place in the area, when six armed gunmen took twenty six hostages in a stand-off that lasted for six days until the SAS showed up. It had also been the victim of an IRA car bomb, detonated in the neighbourhood in 1983 and a legendary bank heist around the same time, when thieves had made off with over sixty million pounds.

  The address the ARU officers had been given by GCHQ was an apartment on the third floor of a building overlooking the park. The task force had moved through the lavish lobby, two of them staying downstairs to guard the exits while the rest had swiftly moved up the stairs in their riot gear.

  Opening the stairwell door, they crept down the third floor corridor, coming to a halt outside apartment 3F. F for Farha, Archer thought as he stood in line and waited. Beside him one of the other officers, a man called Mason, crept forward, a shotgun in his hands. It was Benelli M3, loaded with a special breaching round, designed to take locks off doors.

  The team collectively took a breath as he aimed the weapon at the door-handle.

  He pulled the trigger.

  There was a loud blast, and the lock on the front door exploded, splintering and disintegrating as it took the force of the shotgun shell.

  Deakins, the point man, slammed the door forward and the officers piled into the apartment.

  The policemen moved smoothly in a well-practised drill, dispersing by the door and quickly sweeping the apartment room-by-room. Each man was dressed in navy-blue overalls, the trousers tucked into black combat boots. Above a Glock 17 pistol clipped to their right thigh, a Kevlar tactical vest was zipped up tight around their torso holding spare magazines, tools, plastic hand-cuffs and a mobile phone. All of them save for Mason carried a Heckler and Koch MP5 sub-machine gun. Accurate and reliable, each weapon had a thirty-round magazine slotted into its base, two more tucked into slots on their tac vest, ninety rounds in total. If the policemen needed more than that then they were in serious trouble, but then again, they always had the firepower of Mason’s shotgun to call upon if such a situation arose.

  The officers checked every inch of the apartment; it was a large flat, with a spacious living area connected to two separate bedrooms and a bathroom. The place was finely decorated, expensively furnished and immaculately clean. The walls were painted a pale lilac, with a soft cream carpet.

  Judging by the interior, one thing was for sure; Dominick Farha had a lot of money at his disposal.

  But he wasn’t here. As they completed their search and with no sign of the suspect, the officers re-grouped in the living room. Mac joined them, looking around with a grimace.

  The place was empty.

  He cursed.

  ‘Shit. Anything?’ he asked.

  Archer appeared from the main bedroom and shook his head.

  ‘Looks like he’s packed his bags.’

  Mac turned his attention to a brown-haired officer who’d appeared beside Archer in the doorway. His name was Porter, Mac’s right hand man; the task force had only been together less than a year, but it was generally accepted that Porter would take over command whenever Mac retired. Professional, considerate and in his mid-thirties, Porter was known for two things. He never swore, and he never complained.

  ‘Port, get on the horn to Cobb. Let him know,’ said Mac.

  Porter nodded. ‘Yes, Sarge.’

  Turning, he disappeared out of sight as the rest of the team convened in the living room.

  ‘This doesn’t change anything, lads,’ Mac said. ‘Find me something we can use. We still need to get this guy.’

  The officers nodded and separated, preparing to tear the apartment apart to find any clue on Farha’s whereabouts.

  In a semi-detached house not too far away, an elderly lady was just beginning her morning routine. Since the sudden death of her husband the year before, she had taken great comfort in knowing roughly what was going to happen each and every day. Wake up. Run a hot bath. Get dressed. Feed Tigger. Make a cup of tea. Read the newspaper delivered to the porch. Routine, routine, routine. What was mundane to the younger generation served as a loyal and reassuring friend to the old lady, unwavering and reliable.

  Having just added the right amount of milk to a mug of tea poured to the perfect level, she shuffled through to her living room and took her place in a comfy armchair by the window. Placing the mug carefully on a coaster on the small table beside her, she leaned back with a sigh and looked outside.

  It was a bright but chilly December morning. Frost from the previous night had clamped itself to the edges and corners of the window pane, leaving tiny white whorls and swirling patterns like intricate calligraphy. As she gazed outside, she noticed that the red rosebushes in the front garden hadn’t been pruned properly in the autumn. She frowned; she’d have to do that when the weather warmed up in the spring.

  But she also noticed something else.

  Something odd.

  Across the street, a young teenage boy was pacing down the pavement in a hurry. He was so focused on getting somewhere, the lad didn’t seem to have noticed that the back of his coat had ridden up, catching on something jammed into the back of his waistband.

  Frowning again, the lady looked closer then gasped.

  Even from this distance, she could see what the object was.

  The youngster stopped outside a house across the street, and her suspicions were confirmed. Walking up and knocking on the front door, he reached behind him and pulled the black shape from his belt.

  It was a gun.

  She knew her duty. Forgetting her cup of tea, she pushed herself up from the armchair and moved to the other side of the window. Scooping up the receiver to a telephone sitting on the table, she dialled three numbers and waited.

  The call connected as a voice arrived on the other end, asking a question through the receiver held to the woman’s ear.

  ‘Police, please,’ the elderly lady answered.

  In contrast to the lady’s home, the interior of the house across the street couldn’t have been more different.

  It was dimly lit, the air reeking of stale cigarette smoke. With the curtains drawn, the lights low, three men sat at a kitchen table, playing cards. Two of them were smoking cigarettes while the other munched on some breakfast cereal from a bowl. Several small bags of cocaine were scattered carelessly on the kitchen table amongst the cereal and cards, joined by a nine-millimetre pistol. The gun had been dumped on the table so that the barrel was currently aimed at one of the men’s chest, the safety catch on the weapon off. None of them seemed to have noticed.

  The pistol was a Beretta. There was another one somewhere in the house, but they couldn’t find it. A third gun was leaning against the wall, within reach of one of the two men playing cards. It was a Remington 870 shotgun, twelve-gauge, a fearsomely powerful weapon. Some firearms had to be aimed carefully to have the desired effect, but the Remington wasn’t one of them. All a man had to do was aim at the central mass and pull the trigger. Whoever was unfortunate enough to be standing in front of it would be getting stuck back together with glue.

  As the men sat there in silence, there was suddenly a knock on the door.

  The trio froze and looked at each other; they weren’t expecting a guest.

  The knocking continued.

  The guy sitting closest to the shotgun lowered
his cards, rising from his chair and taking the weapon from the wall. The other two men separated, one of them grabbed the pistol using an armchair as a screen, as the third man moved to the door. He crept up to it, and peered through the spy-hole, then relaxed instantly and turned to his two companions.

  ‘It’s your brother,’ he said to one of them.

  As they put down the weapons, the man by the door opened it and turned without a greeting, walking back to the table and returning to his cereal.

  The man who’d snatched up the pistol frowned, as his younger brother appeared from the hallway.

  ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ he asked.

  The boy didn’t respond, staring at the cocaine on the table.

  ‘Hey!’ Saqib shouted, grabbing his brother’s attention. ‘I asked you what you’re doing here?’

  The boy looked at him nervously.

  ‘I borrowed something. I thought I should bring it back,’ he said.

  He pulled out the missing Beretta from behind his back, placing it carefully on the armchair.

  The moment Saqib saw it, his eyes blazed with anger.

  ‘You little shit! Come here!’ he shouted, lunging at him, trying to grab his coat.

  The boy had been expecting that reaction and already had a head-start. Before Saqib could grab him, he was almost out of the front door. He sprinted outside and ran off down the street, running to the corner and then fleeing out of sight.

  Standing in the doorway, his brother squinted as his eyes adjusted to their first taste of the morning light.

  Across the street, he noticed an old lady standing in her front room, a phone to her ear, watching him. Nosy bitch, he thought.

  He glared at her for a moment, then turned on his heel and slammed the door shut, locking it behind him.

  FIVE

  Over in Knightsbridge at Farha’s apartment, reinforcements had arrived. Cobb had been in touch with the CID, the Criminal Investigation Department, and they’d sent over a team of detectives who were more than accustomed to searching places like this for clues. Around them, the ARU officers were also still hard at work, examining everything they could find, searching every drawer, every shelf, every inch of the flat. They needed a lead and no one was leaving until they got one.

  Archer was sitting at a desk in the main living room with a view overlooking Hyde Park. He’d found a stack of papers tucked in the top drawer that he was currently rifling through. There were bank statements from a well-financed account with a fake name, receipts from hardware stores. There was even one from NEXT, a woman’s retail store, for a dress. That one seemed a bit bizarre.

  Across the room, Mac appeared in the doorway, finishing a conversation with a detective from the CID. He saw Archer behind the desk and approached him.

  ‘Anything, Arch?’ he asked.

  Archer shook his head. ‘Nothing we can use. Just some old receipts. I guess it counts as evidence, but it’s not telling us where the hell this guy is.’

  Mac nodded as Chalky appeared from one of the bedrooms, overhearing the conversation.

  ‘Maybe he’s coming back?’ he suggested.

  Across the room, Fox shook his head as he examined the contents of a cupboard.

  ‘No bags, Chalk. No clothes to speak of. There’s nothing here. He’s gone.’

  Mac shook his head, cursing with frustration. Fox was right; they were too late to the party. As Mac went to continue, Porter suddenly reappeared in the doorway and interrupted him.

  ‘Mac, I just spoke with Nikki. The Met want us to check out a weapon sighting in the area.’

  Mac snorted, shaking his head.

  ‘No way. We just got here. Tell them to put someone else on it. We’re busy.’

  ‘I tried. They said all the other suitable teams are in the south and east, conducting raids. We’re the only unit in the area. It’s our call.’

  Mac sighed with frustration. Since the Firearms Act was passed, whenever a live weapon was reported in the city it was the responsibility of an armed police unit to go and retrieve it.

  He checked his watch.

  ‘Shit. Alright. Chalky, Arch, Port, we’re going,’ he ordered. ‘Let’s take care of it and get back here quick as we can.’

  He turned to Deakins, who had just entered the room.

  ‘Deaks, take over 'til I get back.’

  Deakins nodded; he was used to this. For operational ease, the task force had been split into two teams. Mac was the head of First Team, which was himself, Archer, Chalky and Porter. Deakins was in charge of the other five guys in Team Two, and therefore was the unofficial second-in-command of the squad.

  Mac moved swiftly to the door, Chalky right behind him and both followed Porter outside into the corridor, heading downstairs to the car. Rising from behind the desk Archer went after them, taking one last look at the expensive apartment behind him as he left and picturing the suspect’s face in his head.

  Dominick Farha.

  The leader of the cell.

  ‘Where the hell are you?’ he muttered as he left the apartment.

  He was just over ten miles away. In a hotel beside Heathrow Airport, the handsome dark-featured terrorist cell leader stepped outside Room 418, freshly showered and dressed.

  As he clicked the door shut, he glanced either side of him, looking down the corridor which was empty. He knew he was being paranoid, but this close to freedom he couldn’t afford to make any stupid mistakes. Caution was his best friend right now.

  And after the last few days, he couldn’t handle anything else going wrong.

  As soon as he’d realised the group had been compromised earlier in the week, the first thought in his mind had been to flee the country. In any other situation he would have done exactly that. But however tempting the idea was, he’d quickly dismissed it. To stand before Henry with no kind of recompense after what he did would be like signing his own death warrant. He was already in some drastically deep shit, and to screw this whole operation up after all this planning and preparation would be like drying the concrete to his feet himself.

  So, with sudden escape not an option, he’d been forced to consider the alternative. With every instinct prompting him to leave, he’d calmed himself down. He’d contacted the cell by using two of them as couriers and yesterday, had ordered the whole gang to meet at an empty warehouse on an industrial estate near the airport. Face to face meetings like this were extremely risky and dangerous at this stage, but they didn’t have a choice. If they used phone or email, Farha knew the government’s security would be onto them in an instant.

  Addressing the group, Dominick had emphasised the fact the security services and police knew of their plans meant nothing. He’d deliberately kept the list of targets a secret and had never intended to reveal them until the very last minute, just in case of a problem like this. And he’d been damn relieved he had. It was far too late to change the plans now.

  He’d finally revealed the targets, each member informed of their particular role which they’d all agreed to without hesitation.

  Saying goodbye, the members of the cell had turned their backs and departed, going their separate ways, knowing they would never see each other again.

  Farha had stayed at the warehouse, watching everyone leave. He’d arranged a couple of safe-houses for some of them and told the rest not to go home, but he knew that he would be the one the police would be concentrating on. Which gave him a dilemma. There was no way he could ever return to his apartment in Knightsbridge. A guy from a counter-terrorist task force would be there to open it for him.

  But similarly, he couldn’t move around the city. There was too much risk of being recognised and captured out on the street. He’d wracked his brains, searching for the answer as to where the hell he could hide out until his escape on Saturday night.

  And then it had come to him, like a light-bulb going off in his brain.

  A hotel by the airport.

  It was organised mayhem in
those places. There was an endless rotation of different faces and names in the building, so many people coming and going that he could disappear into the crowd as another anonymous guest. So he’d selected a hotel and used a fake name to check in, holing up in the room where he’d been for the past twenty four hours, out of sight. Right now was the first time he’d risked stepping out of the room since he’d arrived; he was pleasantly surprised at how calm and confident he felt. There was no-one about. No-one had a clue where he was.

  And he’d be out of the country before the clock struck midnight.

  Pushing a pair of sunglasses up over his nose, he started to walk down the quiet corridor towards the elevators. Dressed in a smart suit, he looked like a typical businessman staying at the hotel, his hectic lifestyle momentarily slowed until he hopped on a flight to New York or maybe the Far East.

  Indeed, there was only one thing about Dominick Farha’s polished appearance which looked slightly out of place that morning.

  A large black holdall, slung over his shoulder.

  ‘Alright, here’s a bet. Ten quid says it’s a water pistol,’ offered Chalky, watching the street flash past his window in the back of the car.

  The four policemen were inside a black 4x4 Ford moving quickly through the streets, speeding towards the location where the weapon was sighted. Porter was behind the wheel, Mac beside him in the front passenger seat, with the two younger officers sat behind them.

  Archer turned to his friend. ‘Deal.’

  He offered his hand, to seal the terms. Chalky shook it.

  ‘Who called it in, Port?’ he asked.

  ‘Old lady across the street. Said she saw a kid take a handgun into a house,’ said Porter, swerving to avoid a car parked just too far into the road.

  Chalky grinned at Archer. ‘Told you. Might as well pay me now, Arch. At least it'll make this little journey worthwhile.’

  ‘You making a point, Officer White?’ Mac growled from the front seat, as he inspected the MP5 resting on his lap.

  ‘Just that we’re meant to be a special unit, Sarge,’ he responded. ‘Armed response, counter-terrorism, that sort of thing. But here we are, going to pick up a Super Soaker from some twelve year old kid who made the heinous mistake of carrying it down the street.’

  ‘Have you considered that it might be a real gun?’ Archer asked.

  ‘How many kids are walking around carrying real handguns in London, Arch?’ his friend countered.

  ‘OK, so let me ask you something Chalky,’ said Mac. ‘Why did you apply to join this unit? It seems to me that you’re starting to complain about doing anything that actually involves police work.’

  Chalky sensed his sergeant’s irritation and backtracked. He knew better than to provoke him. ‘Oh, I love the work, Sarge. I’m just saying it wouldn’t hurt to have a bit of excitement once in a while.’

  As he spoke, Porter turned to the right and pulled the vehicle into a gap on the kerb, applying the handbrake and turning off the engine. They were parked on a residential road, rows of semi-detached houses facing each other all the way down the street. They could see a few people walking down the pavements on either side, but the place was pretty quiet.

  ‘We’re here,’ Porter said. ‘Number 33, up ahead to the right.’

  All four men looked where he’d indicated and saw the front door in question.

  The curtains to the windows in the front room were all drawn, which was a mixed blessing. Whoever was inside wouldn’t see them coming, but equally they couldn’t get any idea who or what was inside.

  Mac turned to his three officers, ready to go.

  ‘Check your weapons. Arch, you’re primary. Chalk, secondary.’

  Archer nodded, appreciating the responsibility. Primary meant he’d be the first man through the door. Each man checked his weapon and went to open the doors.

  ‘Oh, and Chalk?’ Mac added.

  The younger man paused, his hand on the door handle.

  ‘Be careful what you wish for.’

  Inside the house, the three men hadn't moved from the table, smoking their cigarettes and still playing cards.

  But suddenly, there was another hard pounding on the door.

  Three stiff knocks.

  But this time it wasn’t Saqib’s brother.

  ‘POLICE! OPEN UP!’

  For a split second, the three men sat there frozen, staring at each other, wide-eyed with fear and shock.

  How the hell did they find us? their faces said.

  Then they bolted into action.

  One of them grabbed the two bags of cocaine, throwing them under the couch in a frenzy as the other two rushed to grab the weapons scattered around the room.

  They were trapped, with no way out.

  But they weren’t going down without a fight.

  Outside the front door, the four officers could hear the sudden commotion inside the house.

  Without hesitation, Archer stepped back and kicked the front door as hard as he could, but it wouldn’t budge.

  He tried twice more quickly. Nothing.

  He put everything he had behind the fourth, and threw his body weight behind it.

  This time, it worked and the door splintered open.

  Pushing it all the way back, he moved into the house, followed by his three team-mates, shouting as he held his MP5 to his shoulder, tight in the aim.

  ‘Police! Nobody move!’

  Sweeping through the front hallway, he turned right, arriving in the doorway of the living room. The place was dark and dirty, like a seedy den.

  But in the shadows in that split second, he saw three men standing there.

  One of them was holding a pistol. This one wasn’t a toy.

  Immediately, Archer could tell it was the real deal.

  But things got a hell of a lot worse.

  He saw a second man across the room holding another weapon.

  A pump action twelve-gauge shotgun.

  The guy had it in the shoulder.

  And it was aimed at Archer’s head.