The Getaway - By Tom Barber Page 0,34

‘What’s the answer?’

Archer looked at the gun in his hand. He shifted his gaze through the bedroom door at the empty, silent apartment ahead of him.

‘OK. I’m in.’

He didn’t wait for Gerry to respond.

He just returned the phone to the handle, and looked down at the steel Sig Sauer pistol in his right hand again.

Someone murdered James Archer.

They thought they’d get away with it.

But his son was going to find out who they were.

SEVEN

‘I think I’m in,’ Archer told Gerrard, back in that same Starbucks on 35and 7, three days later. Across the table, Gerry’s eyes widened.

‘Already? How?’

‘There was a fight. Outside the pub on Ditmars. They pulled me out to the street to find out who I was but then they got jumped. Six guys, out of nowhere. I backed Farrell and his friends up, and flipped it on its head.’

Gerrard nodded. ‘Good move. I told you he’s trouble.’

‘That’s for damn sure.’

‘Anyone hurt?’

‘No one killed. And you were spot on about Ortiz. She took two of them down like they were practice. There’ll be some sore heads walking into Accident and Emergency at Mount Sinai this morning. She put both of them away in about twenty seconds.’

Gerrard nodded, sipping his coffee.

‘They pulled another job yesterday.’

‘Where?’

‘Chase bank, Upper East Side. Hit the place when the time-lock on the vault was off. When you saw them, they were probably celebrating.’

‘What was the damage?’

‘Five hundred thousand. Over half a mil.’

‘Wow.’

Gerrard shook his head as Archer reached for his cup of tea. ‘Not quite. They screwed up.’

‘How so?’

‘Two homicides. Or, should I saw, two more. Left them both in the getaway car which they then torched. First time they’ve done both those things. The two bodies were a real mess when we found them. What was left of them, anyway.’

Archer frowned, pulling the cap off his tea and letting the liquid cool.

‘That doesn’t sound like them. You said they weren’t that sloppy. Who were the two victims?’

‘Driver of the stolen taxi-cab, the car they used for the job. And Brown.’

‘Brown? Their own guy?’

‘The very same. Someone blasted him in the back of the head as he pulled up by the switch car.’

‘Shotgun?’

Gerrard nodded.

‘They unloaded the gear then tossed a match inside the cab,’ he said. ‘The driver was locked in the trunk and couldn’t get out.’

‘Wait, hold on. They just killed Brown?’ Archer asked, still surprised. He couldn’t believe it.

Gerrard nodded.

‘Yeah, they did. I guess they found out he was talking to us.’

Archer shook his head in disbelief. From the report in the file, he knew that Brown was a childhood friend of Farrell’s, a man who had been part of every job they had pulled together. But they had killed him in a heartbeat, shotgun, point blank, back of the head, the same method of execution as his father.

‘Jesus. These people are a different breed,’ he said.

Gerry nodded in agreement and took a long gulp of coffee.

‘OK, so why not move in right now and take them?’ Archer asked. ‘That’s two more corpses to work with. Surely you have enough of a case to make something stick?’

Gerrard shook his head.

‘That’s the damn problem. I don’t,’ he said. ‘Everything we have is circumstantial. We know they hit the bank. We know they torched the car. We know they blew Brown’s head off and killed the driver. I know one of them killed your father. But we can’t prove any of it. Their alibis will have been bought and paid for weeks ago. They never leave any evidence or traces of DNA, and are always fully disguised so nobody can make an I.D. And we can’t match the two shotgun blasts with ballistics. So until we actually physically catch them in the act or until they screw up and leave something we can pin on them, it’s just not happening. They don’t make mistakes, Sam. And that’s what is pissing me off.’

He shook his head, looking out the window, cursing under his breath. Archer drank from his tea. It tasted good, refreshing.

He noticed that Gerry looked wearier than the last time he’d seen him, which was only a matter of days. Judging by his complexion and demeanour, the investigation seemed to be really taking its toll. He looked exhausted.

‘OK, so let’s think,’ Archer said, forming a plan, trying to be positive and help the FBI agent out. ‘The last thing Brown told you was the job at Madison Square Garden on Saturday, right?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Today’s Tuesday. That’s four days from now. You said you needed