Blackout - By Tom Barber Page 0,22

a great police unit, solid colleagues and friends for life on the force around him.

Any woman in his personal life would have to wait.

And sadly, that included Agent Katic.

He took a pull from his tea and looked out of the window at the city again. He'd lied to Chalky earlier on the range when he'd said Katic had found someone else. That was bullshit. He'd only said it so Chalk wouldn't bring it up again. Her feelings for Archer hadn't changed. She'd called him at home just two days ago and told him she was thinking about him every day, hoping that somehow he could make the move and be with her in New York sometime soon.

But Archer was stuck. To be with her, he would have to leave the Armed Response Unit.

And right now that wasn't something he was prepared to do.

Returning his attention to the room, Archer shifted from the window and walked over to take a seat in an empty chair. Leaning back, he glanced to his right and saw Chalky buried in the sports pages of a newspaper, his eyes scanning the articles. Although his job often depended on even a minimal knowledge of current affairs, Chalk never read the front pages, only interested in the football and sports bulletins printed on the back. Archer looked over and read the front bold-print headlines of the paper facing him in Chalky's hands. He didn't see Charlie Adams' name anywhere. The newspaper must have gone out before the journalists had got news of the politician’s suicide, but Archer knew for sure it would be all over them tomorrow.

‘You know what’s really annoying?’ Chalky said, not looking up from the paper.

‘What’s that?’

‘When you’re reading a newspaper and someone else reads the back of it.’

Archer grinned at him. But before he could respond, he saw Nikki approaching the room with Cobb and Porter, moving fast through the operations room.

They looked like they meant business.

'Look out,' Archer said. 'Here's trouble.'

The moment the trio entered, every man in the room stopped what he was doing and sat up, paying immediate attention. Whenever these three entered the room at the same time, it meant something was brewing.

The room was silent and the relaxed atmosphere changed instantly from flat to charged.

‘We’ve got a call, lads,’ Porter said.

‘A package was just delivered to the US Embassy containing some kind of white powder,’ Nikki said. ‘They think it could be anthrax.’

‘HAZMAT are already down there, but they need back-up. This could be the start of something else’ Cobb said. ‘Everyone outside in two minutes. Get your kit and gas masks.’

As one, the ten-man team all rose and everyone moved to the doors without a word, dropping their papers, abandoning half-filled cups of coffee and tea all over the room.

Sitting around drinking coffee was nice, but this was what they were paid to do.

Inside his office across town, the CIA Operations Officer had been about to take a first sip from his cup of coffee when a wailing siren sounded around the building, jolting him, causing him to spill some of the piping hot liquid on his trousers and to jerk back on his chair. Shit. As he quickly patted his legs off with some tissues, wincing from the hot coffee on his legs, he heard a voice over the building intercom telling everyone to evacuate the building immediately.

Cursing, the man rose and pulling open the door to his office, walked outside. In the corridor, workers were rushing quickly past his office, heading towards the exits. It didn't look like a fire drill. These people were really hurrying out of the building.

He stepped out and grabbed a passing analyst.

‘What’s going on?’ he asked him.

'There's been an anthrax threat.'

His eyes widened. ‘Real?’

‘Yes, sir.’

He let the analyst go, and the kid rushed off. Closing the door to his office, the man went to make his way down the corridor with the others. But as he went to leave, he saw Lynn fighting her way towards him through the throng. As people continued to flow past them, he noticed that she still had that list of names he had given her in her hand.

She looked concerned.

‘Sir?’ she called, raising her voice to be heard over the alarm.

‘Let’s go, Lynn,' he said, turning. 'We need to leave the building. Walk with me.’

They started moving down the corridor, side-by-side, the alarm above them still wailing.

‘Sir, I have some news,' she shouted in his ear. 'I checked the names you gave me. I