The Getaway - By Tom Barber Page 0,86

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. Not according to the report. Or 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 leaned 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 back, 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 cigarette 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 Street and into the night, almost a million of their dollars in the trunk.

He’d ditched them. The 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 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 because the English guy screwed them.

Farrell had pulled his phone from his pocket