Green Light (Sam Archer 7) (17 page)

‘
She’s great; she misses you. She got real worried when you
didn’t call.’

‘
She did?’

‘
Of course. She worships you. We’ve got a moment; why don’t you
try her now? If she’s not asleep, Michelle can pass the phone
over.’

Looking
at his partner for a moment, Archer lifted his Nokia again as
Marquez walked out of the building behind them, moving down the
steps to join the two men.

‘
Ethan’s checking Lister’s file with SDPD to try and work up
some possible associates and potential suspects,’ she said. ‘Every
squad car in Lower and Midtown Manhattan is combing the area for
the white van.’

‘
No sign of it yet?’

‘
No, but we’ll find it.’

She went
to continue but noticed Archer was looking at the phone in his
hand.

‘
You good?’ she asked him.

Nodding,
Archer tilted the phone, showing them both the screen.

Josh Home
was flashing
there.

‘
Your wife must be psychic,’ he told his detective partner,
pushing
Answer
and
lifting the phone to his ear.

On West 78
^th
Street, the four
Prizraki
had arrived a few moments
earlier at their first stop. The residential street was quiet,
which meant they didn’t have to concern themselves too much with
prying eyes, but they’d concealed their weapons under their leather
jackets anyway, their hands tight around the grips, wanting to
avoid attracting any unnecessary attention.

Standing
on the sidewalk outside their car, Marat looked around the street
but couldn’t see any sign of Valentin yet. Unwilling to wait and
with the other addresses to visit, he turned and looked at the
other three men.

‘
Let’s go,’ he said quietly in their foreign tongue.

Without another word the four men headed for the front door
of
J Blake’
s
house, whoever the hell he or she was, pleased to see lights still
on. There was someone home.

But
although they were alert, none of them noticed they were being
watched by a small dark-haired girl two floors up through a small
gap in the curtains.

Dressed
in her pyjamas and holding the house phone receiver to her ear with
both hands.

NINETEEN

In a lot
of ways, Isabel Vargas was just like any other nine year old girl.
She looked like one, spoke like one and dressed like one. She went
to sleepovers and birthday parties; she worked hard at school. She
played games, she didn’t like boys and she was still scared of the
dark.

However,
despite all that, she was different from other kids and she knew
exactly why. Bad things happened around her. People got hurt and a
lot of them died.

It had
started in March, in a horrific, violent way. Her entire blood
family had been murdered on a Sunday afternoon, gunned down at a
villa upstate in East Hampton. She’d been the only survivor and was
still dealing with the things she saw that day in her nightmares.
However, her ordeal hadn’t ended there; a few weeks later she’d
been trapped inside a building here in New York, a group of men
seemingly intent on hurting her and the people she was with.
Assigned to protect her along with three other men, Vargas had
defended her as best she could from events in the building that
night but she’d still seen more people die, guns fired and
explosions, things that a kid her age would never expect to see or
experience.

Someone
else had protected Isabel in the building that night too. Isabel
had got to know Vargas before that eventful day but Archer had
appeared out of nowhere, his presence becoming more and more
reassuring as events unfolded. After they’d finally made it out and
things had settled down, she’d been overjoyed to find out Vargas
was going to look after her; for Isabel, the icing on the cake had
been when they’d ended up living with Archer too.

She
didn’t know why these things happened around her; she guessed it
was because of her father. A few months ago, Vargas had explained
to her that he’d done some bad things in his life which was why he
wasn’t alive anymore and that there were more bad men out there too
who were his enemies. As a consequence, she’d said that they all
had to stay aware in case more of these men tried to come after
them. She’d made Isabel memorise her’s and Archer’s cell numbers,
saying if she ever felt in danger she should call one of them
instantly.

Both of
those things had just happened.

Michelle
had told Isabel that she’d only be gone a few minutes while she
went to collect her kids from their grandmother’s place around the
corner and that she was to go to bed. Isabel had brushed her teeth
and then walked into the guest bedroom, glancing out of the window
as she drew her curtains, having to do them one at a
time.

It was
then that she’d seen a dark car pull up outside, parking in the
spot Michelle had just left.

A group
of men had stepped out, looking a lot like the men her real father
used to have around him. They were all in jeans and leather
jackets. They were all dark-haired and scary, like the gang who’d
killed her family.

And they
were all carrying guns.

They’d
quickly hidden the weapons under their jackets when they got out of
the car but not before Isabel had seen them.

However,
despite what she’d been told by Vargas, as she watched the men
stand there on the street looking around, she’d still wondered
whether she should call, for two different reasons. The first was
that she hadn’t seen Vargas since last month; apparently she’d been
sent on a trip somewhere and couldn’t be contacted. Isabel had
secretly tried to call her anyway but Vargas hadn’t answered her
cell.

The
second reason was different and it was to do with Archer. She
hadn’t seen or spoken to him in what felt like ages either. Josh
had said he was busy with work but she missed him so much and
wondered why he’d been so busy he couldn’t even call her, just like
Vargas. Isabel had never been close to her real father and Archer
was the total opposite to him, open and kind, not closed off and
angry all the time. However, despite the fact that Archer had
always been kind to her, she felt she could never really get close
to him. Perhaps he didn’t like her, just like her real father.
She’d always wanted a dad who actually liked her, something that
all her friends seemed to have.

She knew
she shouldn’t call him except in an emergency. She’d debated what
to do, not wanting to get into trouble, but then she heard Vargas’
voice in her head.

No matter what, who or when, you let one of us know if you
think you’re in danger.

So she’d
dialled his cell phone number, hoping he wouldn’t be
mad.

To her
joy, he’d been far from angry when he answered.

‘
What do you see, sweetheart?’
Archer
asked at that moment, thirty seconds later into their call.
‘Tell me in detail.’

‘
There are four of them,’ she said quietly. ‘They all have
guns.’

‘
Are they still outside?’

Clutching the phone with both hands she peered cautiously out
of the window, then heard two
thumps
, a third followed by the
splintering of wood.

‘
I think they just smashed open the front door.’

‘
Where are Michelle and the other kids?’

‘
They’re not here,’ she said quietly. ‘Michelle’s picking them
up from their grandma’s but she said she’d only be gone a few
minutes.’

She
heard the sound of footsteps in the hallway below, boots on
wood.

Floorboards creaking.

The four
men downstairs, searching the house.

Déjà
vu.

‘
I’m scared,’
she whispered into the
receiver.

On the
ground floor, Marat motioned to the other three who immediately
separated, looking down the sights of their weapons and searching
for the occupants.

Gripping his own MP UMP tight, he walked into the sitting
room. He saw from the pictures in the photo frames that Blake and
his family were black but living around here ruled out any rival
organisation from Brooklyn that he could think of. The
Prizraki
mostly feuded
with the Georgians or Ukrainians and that was it; they had no beef
with the Italians or Irish who had their own turf in the city, and
the Chechens had been gone from the city for years.

But the man who owned this home was African American. Maybe it
was personal, or this guy had been hired to carry out hits on
the
Priz
. However,
although the man in the photos looked to be a big guy he wasn’t
menacing, quite the opposite in fact, smiling in all the shots, not
fitting the persona of a man who’d made eleven
Prizraki
members disappear. When
Valentin showed up, Marat wanted to find out how he’d got this
information.

As Ilya
kicked open the door to the kitchen, sweeping the interior with his
silenced sub-machine gun, Marat focused on a certain photo frame in
the sitting room and paused. He stepped forward, black boots on the
white rug, and peered closer.

It
showed the same black guy from all the other photos, this time in
police uniform.

Staring
at the image for a moment, Marat glanced at Nemkov, who’d joined
him and was studying the photo too.

‘
A cop?’ Marat said quietly.

Nemkov
didn’t reply, looking at the frame then glanced around the room,
confused. A beat later Marat pulled his cell phone and headed for
the front door.

He
wasn’t going to wait for Valentin to show up.

He
wanted to speak to him right now.

Cutting across a red light, the police lights on their Ford
flashing, Josh roared up 8
^th
Avenue towards his address,
Archer beside him and Marquez in the back seat. The Blake’s house
was the other side of town from the Lower East Side, and although
Josh was driving as fast as he could in the heavy traffic, progress
was frustratingly slow.

‘
Hello?’ Archer said. ‘Isabel? Sweetheart? Hello?’

‘
What happened?’ Josh asked, panicked.

Archer
swore. ‘It went dead.’

‘
West 78
^th
!’
Marquez said into her cell, on the line with Dispatch. ‘Armed
men breaching a Counter-Terrorism Bureau detective’s home address.
Get over there now!’

Ending
the call, she pulled her pistol as Josh weaved his way through the
traffic and burned it uptown, now just twelve blocks away. The
car’s hands-free system had synced with his cell phone and he was
calling Michelle.

‘
C’mon, sweetheart, pick up!’ Josh said, looking at the
display. ‘Pick up the phone!’

Easing
his way upstairs in the Blake household, Sivic looked down the
sights of his UMP. Bashev wanted these people alive but Sivic
didn’t give a shit; if he found someone here, they’d die. With the
list they’d been given, there’d be plenty of other bodies to
satisfy the boss later.

Tightening his finger on the trigger of his suppressed UMP,
the tall Eastern-European approached the main bedroom first,
pushing the door back with the barrel of his sub-machine gun,
tracing both sides.

It was
empty.

He eased
open the closet doors to check there was no-one hiding inside, then
went into the bathroom, pulling open the door to the shower
cubicle.

There
was no-one hiding in there either.

After
clearing two other bedrooms and a bathroom, he moved back onto the
landing, then entered a third bathroom. He swept aside the shower
curtain hanging around the bath but saw there was no-one hiding in
the tub. Frustrated, he looked around. It seemed the entire upper
floor was clear, but his instincts were telling him
otherwise.

Someone
was here. He was sure of it.

He stood
still, listening.

Then
turning, he looked across the landing. The door to the last room to
check was slightly ajar. It looked like a guest bedroom, the duvet
on the bed disturbed, a toy rabbit lying on a pillow.

A kid.

Smiling,
he walked into the bedroom and stood quietly again,
listening.

Glancing
to his left, he saw the closet door was open. He walked forward and
eased the doors back with the barrel of his UMP, but no-one was
hiding inside.

His foot
creaking on a floorboard as he turned and looked around, Sivic
grinned as he realised there was only one other hiding place. Just
where a kid would choose.

A beat
later he dropped to one knee, aimed his weapon under the bed and
opened fire.

On Central Park West, just twenty seconds from home, Michelle
had picked up her three kids from her mother’s house but wanted to
get back quickly and make sure Isabel was safely in bed. Turning
onto West 78
^th
, she drove down the street,
annoyed to see a black 4x4 had taken her parking space in the few
minutes she’d been away.