He sat there for another hour, working everything out in his mind, every possible scenario or outcome. He was still dressed as a cop, the hat over his head, so no one passing by in the Park would recognise him. At one point, he pulled the cell phone from his pocket and deliberated whether to call Cobb or not. He decided against it. Even if he could help, Archer only had three hours. Cobb was across the Atlantic Ocean. He couldn’t do anything or get here in that time. And Archer had dragged Sanderson into this mess and it had got him taped up with a gun to his head. He was going to handle the rest of this himself. This was his problem and he was going to fix it.
He rose and started walking through the Park, headed north to the Upper East Side. The walk took him about twenty minutes. He exited the Park and crossed 1 Avenue and went straight to the parked police car on 92, pulling the keys from his pocket, unlocking it and climbed inside. In the front seat, he pulled off the police hat and started unbuttoning his shirt, and changed back into his clothes quickly, getting out of the cop uniform. He pulled on his jeans, t-shirt, trainers and grabbed the navy blue overcoat. He checked the chamber on the Sig, then clicked on the safety catch and tucked it into his coat. He went to climb out to get the money from the back, but something made him stop.
There was something stowed between the two front seats.
A gun.
He reached over and pulled it from its home and held it in his hands.
It was an Ithaca 37, pump-action 12 gauge shotgun, the same weapon that Farrell and his team liked to use. In a compartment under the radio, Archer found ammunition for the weapon, twenty shells inside a small cardboard box.
And he had an idea.
Across the city in an FBI safe-house, Siletti checked the watch on his left wrist.
5:51 pm.
Not long to go.
He looked across the dark room at his three hostages. He’d duct taped and gagged all three of them and left them lying on the floor. O’Hara had blindfolded the kid, but neither Sanderson or Katic were wearing one and the two of them glared up at Siletti, a mixture of rage and fear in their eyes. Katic’s hair had fallen over her face, hanging in strands over the grey-strip of duct-tape pulled across her mouth, and she was looking at him like she wanted to kill him. Sanderson had been a pain in the ass earlier, trying to fight them when they marched him downstairs to the Marriott parking lot, so Siletti had punched him three times in the face, breaking his nose. Join the club, he thought as he saw the FBI Assistant Director sat against the wall, his eyes blazing with fury, blood staining the skin under his nose and the strip of grey duct-tape across his own mouth.
They were in an old storage place, a safe-house that only he and a select few other members of the FBI knew about. It was dusty and smelt of sawdust but it was quiet. No one was going to come in here. But just as the thought crossed his mind, a noise came from behind him, and he turned, pistol in hand. But it was only O’Hara. He was returning from a trip to get some food, two burgers and fries from McDonalds. They needed to fuel up before the evening’s events. He walked over without saying a word and dumped the bag on an empty chair, passing Siletti a wrapped up burger. He pulled back the plastic and took a bite, watching the three hostages.
The three of them would have to die. There was no question. All three had seen his and O’Hara’s faces. Katic and the kid weren’t a problem. He’d do them both, cut them up, then dump them in the sea, the pieces weighed down with bricks in individual bags. He’d do it down in Atlantic City, far away from here. No one would ever discover the bodies. Sanderson was the only problem. He was an Assistant Director, which meant there was going to be a shitload of attention on what would happen if he disappeared. He also didn’t know how he had got down here and become involved. He figured the Bureau had sent him, but he had come from the hotel