Blackout (Sam Archer 3) (26 page)

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 heard of the Black Panthers?’

There was a long pause.

Down the line, he heard her stop munching on her lunch. In the receiver, there was nothing but a period of silence.

‘Why do you ask?’
she said eventually.

‘Apparently they were a Special Forces Unit during the Kosovo war. Part of the KLA.’

‘I know who they are.’

He paused.

Silence.

‘Can you tell me anything about them?’

Another pause.

‘My family who are still there, they live in a town called Priboj,’
she said.
‘It’s a small place, less than 30,000 people, towards the border with Bosnia. A few years ago, I went to visit my first cousin, Marija. I stayed at her home, with her husband and two small girls. The first night I was there, we all had dinner together, and then she took the girls off for a bath and put them to bed. I headed upstairs too to have a shower and get an early night’s sleep, but from my room I heard Marija telling the two girls a story. I’d never heard it before. It was one of those bedtime stories with a moral that w
arns children about something.
Like the Boy who cried W
olf.’

‘A fable,’ Archer said.

‘Yes, that’s right. Anyway, I heard her talking to them in Serbian. She told them about a family. They used to live down the street, before the two girls were born, and were not nice people. They lied, they cheated, they treated everyone around them badly. They had two boys who would bully all the other children in the playground, punching and kicking them and so forth.’

She paused.

‘Anyway, long story short, there was a school bus in the town that came every morning to pick up the children who lived on the street. And one morning, the driver pulled up outside the house of the two bully boys. But no one came out. The driver shrugged, then drove on and continued on his way. But then the kids didn’t show up the next day. Or the day after. So eventually, the police went round to their house
.
And they found that the family was gone. Vanished into thin air, the father, the mother, the two boys. But the sheets on their beds were rumpled, blankets half on the floor, chairs knocked over. As if they had been snatched in the night.’

‘OK,’ Archer said, confused, not sure where this was going.

‘Marija told the two girls that something came for the family. She told them that because the family were so cruel a monster came in the middle of the night and took them away, and no one ever saw them again. She said the beast had a name, called the
Crno Kuguar
.
The
Black Panther
,
in English.’

Archer frowned, touching the cut again over his eye.

‘I don’t understand.’

‘After Marija shut the kid’s bedroom door, we went downstairs to get a drink and I told her I’d overheard her story. I didn’t grow up in Serbia so had never heard it before. I asked her if it was a famous old tale or something she made up.’

She paused.

‘Then she told me it was actually true.’

‘What?’

‘Well, not the monsters thing. But I swear to you, as Marija swore to me, that during the war people just went missing from all over the area, in the town and in the surrounding countryside. She assured me that the family she spoke of had existed, and all four of them had vanished. Rumours had spread about who was responsible for these disappearances. She told me it was a KLA Special Forces Unit called the Black Panthers.’

‘They stole people?’

‘That’s what everyone there still thinks, even the adults. No one ever found out what had happened to those who disappeared. But not a single one was ever seen again. Rumour had it the Panthers were arrested and put on trial in Belgrade after the war. And after that happened, no more people went missing.’

‘That’s right. That’s what we were told.’

‘So the story was actually based on reality. It scared kids into behaving because of that. And Marija told me that no one ever knew what had happened to the Black Panthers. Like their victims, they just disappeared too.’

‘Not anymore,’ Archer said.

She paused.

‘Whoa, wait a minute,’
she said.
‘Are you telling me these are the men who attacked your station?’

‘Yes. They’re trying to kill my boss.’

‘Why?’

‘I can’t say.’

‘Jesus Christ, Sam. These men are the stuff of nightmares in Serbia.’

Archer went to reply, but he heard a whistle from behind him. He turned and saw Chalky in the doorway of the lower corridor, gesturing at him to join him.

‘I need to go.’

‘Archer, listen to me,’
she said.
‘There’s a lot of bullshit back home surrounding these men, but somewhere the myths mix with the truth. To this day, grown men in Priboj are scared shitless at the mention of the Panthers. Be careful.’

Archer nodded.

‘Is there anything else you can tell me about them?’

‘Yes.’

‘What?’

‘They must have been desperate to kill your boss.’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘They attacked
during the
day. That’s very unlike them. That’s the opposite of the fable, in fact.’

‘Why was it unlike them?’

She paused.
He looked out of the windows of the police station at the setting sun.

‘Because they come for you at night.’

TWENTY THREE

'They'll have taken him back to their police station,' Worm said, in Albanian, as the group of soldiers gathered at the command post. 'I recognised their uniforms. Each man had lettering on the back of his vest. ARU. The same Unit that Grub and Crow attacked.'

In the dark room, illuminated only by the glare of the two televisions, Bug, Bird and Spider listened closely.

'You know where this place is?' Spider asked, also speaking in their native tongue. When they had set-up the operation, Spider had been in charge of the US-based foursome and was unfamiliar with locations this side of the Atlantic. Worm nodded.

'Yes sir. But I also have good news. I followed Cobb and Jackson and the officers earlier. They arrived at some kind of hospital. I couldn't follow them inside, but moved around the building into the garden and saw them before they shut the curtains. I saw who was in the bed.'

He paused.

'Corporal Simon Fletcher.'

The men looked at each other. Bug hawked and spat on the floor.

'Son of a bitch,' Bird muttered.

‘That is good news,' Spider said to Worm, nodding.

Silence followed. His piece said, Worm looked over at Spider. With their commander gone, Spider was the new man in command, but the men had just as much faith in him as they did in their commanding officer. Spider was the kind of lieutenant that would never challenge for the top position, loyal, willing to die to save his leader. The perfect right hand man, and a good soldier in his own right.

'OK,' he said, in Albanian. 'We arm up, then go to this police station. We take back our leader, and kill anyone who gets in the way. Then we go to the airport, pick up Flea, then head to the hospital and kill Fletcher. You said there is a long garden outside this man's room?'

'Yes, sir,' Worm said.

'Good. Flea can take him with the rifle. We won't need to move inside.'

'What about Cobb and Jackson, sir?' Bird asked.

'They won't still be at the station surely,' Bug said. 'Only a pair of fools would still be there.'

'So what do we do?' Bird asked.

Spider smiled in the darkness.

'Never underestimate human stupidity. We take a good look and see if they are there. And if they aren't, we'll get one of the other policemen to tell us where they are.'

*

At the ARU's headquarters, the atmosphere on the lower level of the building was one of both apprehension and excitement. The capture of the soldier felt like a big victory, even though they all knew there were five more of these men still out there. After Fletcher’s warnings about the squad and their aura of being Special Forces, the wattage of their perceived invincibility had been dimmed slightly. With one of them in handcuffs, it was physical proof to the team that these men were mortal, the same as the rest of them, and that they could be subdued and arrested like anyone else. The captive had been placed inside one of the interrogation cells, alone. The room was simple, two chairs either side of a desk. The lights in the room were bare and bright, throwing harsh light into every corner and over the soldier in the centre of the room.

The ARU was a squad that dealt with terrorists and hardened criminals on a regular basis, so they were used to dealing with some of the toughest and most violent men out there. But they had never encountered a Special Forces commander like this before. Staring straight ahead, arms bound behind him by Chalky’s plasti-cuffs, the man cast a hulking, intimidating figure. He hadn't said a word since he got captured, but just by sitting there his sheer physical presence emanated danger.

No officer or detective had gone in to interrogate him yet. Time was on their side. Cobb was at the safe house, Jackson was here and Fletcher was being guarded at the hospice, all protected and prepared. Porter had ordered that they wait, so they’d left the Panther in the cell for over an hour. The man in the interrogation room and his team had enjoyed the element of surprise when killing their seven victims so far. That wouldn't happen again.

With Cobb gone for the time being, Porter had assumed leadership of the squad. He was st
anding
outside the cell in a dark viewing room, alongside the rest of First Team and Agent Jackson, who had come downstairs after they had first brought the captive in. Down the corridor, Deakins and Second Team were still guarding the building, both front and rear entrances, but each officer was still wearing his throat mic so they could all communicate at a moment's notice.

In the room adjacent to the holding cell, shielded behind a one-way mirror, Porter pulled his mobile phone from its home on his left collarbone and pushed Cobb's number as the other men examined the Panther through the glass. The phone rang once, and was answered.

‘
Port?
’ Cobb said.

'Evening sir,' Porter said, turning to one side. 'I have some news.'