Silent Night - By Tom Barber Page 0,68

option was his gun, but he would never pull it in a place that crowded. He glanced at the goon on his left and saw he was holding something in his large fist.

A knife.

The middle neo-Nazi pushed him backwards towards the wall, which counted as striking a detective and gave him carte blanche to respond. But he was outnumbered. To his right, a small queue had formed for the restroom, everyone watching as the trio encircled Archer. The song on the speakers beside them changed, David Guetta, Flo Rida and Nicki Minaj thumping out. Where Them Girls At? the lyrics of the song asked, pounding around the room. He looked up at the three skinheads. No girls around here.

When tackling someone one-on-one or even two-on-one, Archer liked to use jiu-jitsu and chokeholds to disable them. It was quick, bloodless and nullified any size discrepancy. A guy can’t punch you if he can’t breathe and he can’t sue you for assault if he doesn’t have a mark on his body or even clearly remember what had happened. A tough guy could take a punch but no one on the planet could hold out from a choke. But he was outnumbered three to one here and by a hell of a lot of poundage.

He needed to even the odds to at least two.

He glanced past the group, over the shoulder of one of them. He had one shot, otherwise it would be like in the movies when someone shouted what’s that? and the bad guys turned to look.

He did it right.

Instinctively, the trio glanced behind them, just for a second.

And backed up against the wall, Archer targeted the guy with the knife.

His right fist hit the thug’s jaw like a freight train that was running late. He tagged the neo-Nazi just as he turned back, a hundred and eight five pounds of survival behind the punch. The guy hadn’t been braced, the muscles of his neck not ready to absorb the blow and the punch laid him out.

He dropped to the floor, the blade spilling out of his hand as he fell.

The others reacted instantly. The middle one didn’t take a swing. He just ducked his head down and drove Archer into the wall, trying to slam him to the ground where he could pin him down and attack him. Archer stiffened his back and legs and looped his right arm quickly around the guy’s neck, grabbing his right hand with his left and locking his grip. The guy was strong and Archer felt himself going for a ride.

But as the guy slammed him down, he unwittingly worsened his own position. Archer hooked his feet behind the guy’s back and started squeezing his arms as hard as he could, the thug’s head caught in a guillotine headlock. The music was pounding, strobes flashing, people queuing for the restroom shocked as they watched the fight. Archer was now beside the speaker and Nicki Minaj pounded into his ear. His body was pumping with adrenaline, locked onto the neo-Nazi and not letting go. His head caught in the headlock, the thug used his hands to try and prise Archer off his neck but Archer intensified the pressure, using every muscle fibre and sinew in his body, gritting his teeth with fierce aggression, putting a crushing vice on the guy’s neck.

His back to the ground, every muscle in his body in the choke, Archer saw the second guy coming towards him in distorted staccato images in the strobe lighting. Archer was about to release the goon he had in his grip to defend himself, but the thug was yanked back as an arm suddenly appeared around his neck.

Josh’s arm.

Archer’s guy was trying to pull his head out of the headlock, but he wasn’t going anywhere. He lost consciousness around the same time as Josh’s guy, who Josh lowered to the ground near the corner and out of the way of the dance-floor. Archer let his victim go, the man’s body limp, and scrambled to his feet panting hard. He grabbed his badge from the carpet to his right then pulled his handcuffs and slapped one side over the big skinhead’s wrist, locking the other side to a radiator. Josh did the same with the other two, scooping up the knife and tucking it in his pocket. Without a word or moment’s hesitation, the two detectives cut their way back through the side of the dance-floor, headed for the stairs. Josh took the lead, Archer following,