Blackout - By Tom Barber Page 0,76

sure as anything that there would be few, if any, mourners

Strangled with a wire.

Jackson nodded. Jason was dead. So too was Floyd, his partner in crime. Although he’d claimed he hadn’t pulled a trigger that night, Fletcher’s time was also coming to an end due to Nature. It was a fitting end for all of them. Fifteen years on, justice had been served. Even though one of them was family, they deserved exactly what they got.

But the other men who’d died today didn’t.

The hardest part was, Jackson could understand the rage of the Panthers, the thirst for revenge. If it had been his family who had been massacred, God only knew how he would feel and what he would do to bring those accountable to justice.

Jackson looked out at the orange-tinted sky on the horizon.

They were out there right now, and Jackson was next on their list. He knew they would die to get to him, and to Cobb and Fletcher in the hospice bed. They wouldn't show mercy, even for a sick man. One way or another, this thing would end with more people dying. More kids left without fathers. More wives left widows. All of them paying for the crimes of three stupid men committed over a decade ago.

And the shame Jackson had carried since that night suddenly felt ten times heavier.

Something outside the window caught his attention, and the CIA agent looked down as a dark Ford pulled into the parking lot. The front of the car looked like it had been damaged from gunfire. It moved swiftly along the tarmac and swung into an empty space near the doors below. He saw two men from the Unit's First Team step out, Fox and Archer, and then watched as another officer opened one of the rear doors and led out a huge man dressed in black fatigues, his hands cuffed behind his back. Jackson watched the four men lead the captive inside. He was a giant, dwarfing the two officers either side of him. The American studied him as he was led into the building. Jason had ruined this man’s life.

Looking down at the captive, all those feelings of guilt and regret at what his cousin did that night filled him like a balloon full of water, close to bursting.

Alone at the window, he watched as the man was led across the tarmac.

'I'm sorry,' he said, quietly.

Then he turned on his heel and headed downstairs to watch the interrogation that would surely follow.

But he’d make sure that the man was securely in the cell first before he moved down the corridor.

Outside, Chalky and Fox escorted the huge man towards the entrance of the building, Porter and Archer checking behind them that they hadn’t been followed. Once they all moved inside, Chalky and Fox took the captive through to holdings as the other two officers exchanged greetings with several members of Second Team. Archer touched the cut above his left eye. It was sore and he had a thumping headache. Beside him, he saw Porter still had dried rivulets of blood down his neck that had trickled out of each ear, his face peppered with cuts and blackened from the explosion.

He turned to Archer.

‘You alright?’

‘I’m fine,’ he said. ‘Better than you, anyway. Go and get cleaned up, boss.’

Porter nodded and patted him on the shoulder, then walked into the station and headed upstairs. As the two officers from Second Team turned to talk to each other, Archer had time to stop and think for a moment, the first time in a while.

Taking his left hand off the stock of his MP5, he pulled his phone from his tac vest and scrolled through his recent Call History, finding Katic’s number. He pushed the green button and waited for it to connect, turning and walking to the entrance to look out of the windows.

It rang three times, then it was answered.

‘Two calls in one day,’ she said, munching on something. ‘Did you miss me already?’

‘Bad time?’

‘Lunch break,’ she said, through a mouthful of food. ‘It’s been a quiet day. No one’s robbing any banks.’

‘Don’t jinx it.’

‘You OK?’

‘Yeah, I’m fine.’

‘Any news on your situation?’

‘We found out that the two guys who attacked our station are from a larger group of eight.’

‘Oh shit.’

‘We captured one of them. He just got taken inside to the cells.’

‘Do you know who they are?’

‘Funny you ask. Your family is Serbian, right?’

‘Yeah. My grandparents left after the Second World War, but I still have relatives there.’

‘You ever