Blackout - By Tom Barber Page 0,72

and saw the huge soldier run into a car door that had suddenly swung open in front of him to Archer’s left. Through blurred vision and watery eyes, he saw it was the ARU car. Fox had pulled round into the underground car park.

Archer saw Chalky jump out onto the dazed soldier instantly, restraining him, Fox racing around from the driver's seat and helping him subdue the large man. Porter was climbing out of the car from the other side, the stains of blood trickling from each earlobe joining the cuts on his head and face. He saw Archer was shaking his head, trying to clear his vision, and moved over to him.

'You OK?' he asked.

Archer nodded, his chest heaving up and down from the exertion as he sucked air deep into his lungs. His vision clearing, he looked down at the Black Panther soldier. It had taken both Fox and Chalky to restrain the struggling man, and he was pinned to the ground while Chalky bound and zipped up his wrists with a set of plasti-cuffs from his tac vest. Belly to the ground, the man turned and looked back at Archer. His face was shielded with the balaclava but there was nothing but sheer murder in his eyes.

'What about the other one?' Chalky asked Porter loudly so he could hear him, this knee on the big soldier's back.

'We'll find him,' Porter said. 'Let's just get this one back to HQ.'

Fifteen minutes later, Worm watched from a crowd gathered on the corner of MacFarlane Road as tape was drawn up around his ruined getaway car, the damaged lamppost leaning drunkenly over it. He had fled down the residential streets once they crashed, but doubled back when he realised the cops hadn't pursued him and ditched his balaclava and overalls revealing jeans and a sweater. He blended right into the crowd, but made sure to keep himself well out of sight at the back.

Looking left, he saw the black Ford that had been tailing them appear out of the car park and head towards them, bullet holes on the front windshield and both the front headlights smashed. It pulled to a halt, and a blond man stepped out from the back seat, rubbing a cut above his eye as he walked over to the officers by the ruined car, holding a brief conversation in lowered voices. Worm recognised him as the pretty-boy cop from King’s apartment building, the one he had bumped shoulders with.

He shifted his gaze to the car and saw his commanding officer in the middle seat. They had taken off his balaclava and Worm saw his commander's head down, his dark hair ruffled, the huge muscles of his arms and shoulders pulled behind him by a set of handcuffs. Worm swore under his breath in Albanian, then turned and walked away quickly.

He pulled a mobile phone from his pocket and checked the time on his wrist-watch. All the others would be landing, in the next couple of hours.

Spider and Bug would already be here.

He dialled a number and waited, glancing back. Through the crowd, he saw the blond cop step back inside the car and watched it speed off back into the city, no doubt to their police station.

'Sir?'

'Yes,’ Spider’s voice said.

'It's Worm. Where are you?'

'At the command post.'

'Bad news. The English police captured Wulf after we killed McCarthy. We tried to get away, but the car crashed and we had to run.'

Pause.

'Do you know which station?'

'I think it's the team under Cobb. I recognised their uniform. They all have ARU printed on the back.'

There was a pause.

'OK. Come back to the safe-house. Bird and Flea will be here soon. We'll get him back.'

'Yes, sir.'

The call ended. Worm turned and moved off down a side-street, away from the crowd and the ruined car, headed back to the command post and his comrades, his mood darkening with every step.

TWENTY TWO

Back at the ARU's headquarters, Jackson was standing alone in the briefing room, a cup of lukewarm coffee in his hands, made more out of a desire to give himself something to do than anything else. He was leaning against the drinks stand, staring at the noticeboard across the room with his name on it, deep in thought.

He'd been on the line with Agent Wallace in DC when Fraser had taken the round to the head, mere seconds before they got to him. Coupled with reports from Director Cobb's task force, who had found King dead in his apartment