Blackout (Sam Archer 3) (28 page)

He turned and kicked a parked car in frustration.

'Shit!'

Back inside the building, Fox raced back into the interrogation room that had held Wulf, smoke and the smell of cordite from the gunfight in the air. He had a red boxed first-aid
kit in his hand, one he had grabbed from the viewing room next door. One of the officers had got to the reserve generator the other side of the building, hitting the switch, and it suddenly kicked in, dim lighting coming back on with a buzz and a flicker, showing the destruction and damage to the lower corridor of the station.

Inside the interrogation room, Jackson was lying on the ground, his head on Porter's knee, the ARU Sergeant desperately clamping his hands at the wound at the American's neck to try and stop the bleeding, blood pooling under them both. Fox ran forward and dropping to his knees, pulled out some bandages from the open box. He and Porter desperately started packing the wound on both sides, compressing it, trying to stop the constant blood flow. They were both kneeling in blood, the red liquid all over their hands, knees and boots, as Jackson's body started to tremble.

'Someone call an ambulance!'
Fox shouted, as he and Porter compressed the bullet wound either side.

But the blood kept coming, soaking the pads, staining their hands, spreading out over the white floor.

He looked down at Jackson, who was shivering.

'Hang on, buddy,' he said. 'Stay with us.'

After a few more moments of desperat
e effort
to stem the flow, the American looked up at Fox, who was holding one of the bandages to his neck, clamping it in position, the pad dark and soaked with Jackson’s blood. As Fox pushed it firmly, he looked down into Jackson's eyes.

The CIA agent gently shook his head. Almost imperceptibly.

He knew.

The blood was pumping out of him.

They couldn't stop it.

Fox looked over at Porter, both of them doing all they could, kneeling in the warm life-blood of the wounded man.

But before either of them could say a word, Jackson spoke.

'It's OK,' he said, quietly.

His face was calm, some of his blood smeared on his cheek, the back of his hair damp from it, his body no longer shaking. Although he spoke at almost a whisper, the silence of the room made every word clear. After a pause, Fox looked at Porter, who nodded. He
leaned back, releasing his grip on the blood-soaked bandage. Jackson lay there, his face calm, the red puddle around them slowly increasing. If it wasn't for the blood silently pooling out of his neck to the floor and his complexion that was growing paler every minute, he would have looked quite serene, not a man in the last moments of his life.

Porter looked up and saw Deakins watching from the door silently. Deakins turned and pulled the door shut respectfully, leaving the two officers and the dying man alone.

The three of them stayed there in silence, just the sounds of Porter and Fox's breathing audible.

Fox reached over and gripped Jackson's hand, his own stained with blood, comforting the dying man. The CIA agent flicked his eyes at him and gave a faint smile. In the silence, blood continued to pool under Fox and Porter's knees, maroon in the dim light from above as it pulsed out of Jackson's body.

Then the American
suddenly spoke, quietly.

'I have to tell you…something.'

Fox looked down at him.

'What's that?'

'Jason…Carver was my cousin. Did you know?'

Pause.

'No. We didn't,' Porter said. 

'Spent my…whole life…trying to make up for what he did….to those poor people.'

The two officers nodded.

J
ackson blinked, trying to see.
He
was finding it harder to focus.

Then he smiled, faintly, and spoke.
H
is voice a whisper.

'It doesn't hurt anymore.'

Fox gripped his hand tight, as they stayed there in silence.

He felt Jackson give the faintest of squeezes back.

Then his grip relaxed.

And he died.

TWENTY FIVE

Sometime later, Archer blinked his eyes open and instantly winced.

His head hurt.

He was in a dark room somewhere. Alone.

It was almost pitch black, but a chink of light creeping under the door allowed him some visibility.

He blinked, looking round, trying to clear his head and figure out what had happened. And where he was.

Am I still in the interrogation room?

Looking down, he saw in the dim light that he was still in his dark blue overalls and white t-shirt.

He tried to move, but realised his feet had been duct taped to the chair.

And his hands were similarly bound behind his back.

Moments later, he heard footsteps outside the door and then a key jangle as it slid into the lock.

Then he remembered what had happened back at the station.

The door was pushed open and a man stepped into the room, Archer squinting from the sudden light. When his eyes adjusted, he looked past the man into the room beyond, but couldn't see anyone else out there. The man shut the door, and the room was dark again.

They were alone.

'You're awake,' the man said, same kind of accent as the man called Wulf. 'Good.'

Archer had re-gathered his senses and started thinking fast, assessing his situation. The binds around his hands and feet were tight. He was all alone.

He was in seriously deep shit.

'Do you know who we are?' the man asked, just a voice in the darkness, his accent rolling the r of
are
.

Pause.

'Yes.'

'Good. That will save me some time.'

The man flicked a switch on the wall and a light bulb above Archer flickered on. He blinked from the sudden light, then looked across the room.

He saw the dark, hard-faced man from King's apartment building, the one he had bumped shoulders with.

The man read the look of recognition across Archer's face and smiled.

'Remember me?'

Archer didn't respond, but glanced down at the man's hands instead.

He was grasping something in his right fist.

A long, wickedly-sharp knife, the edge of the blade serrated.

'Here's how this will work,' the man said. 'I'm going to ask you a question. I'll only ask you this one time. But if you don't answer it, I will hurt you. I will inflict pain like you have never experienced. Before long you will be begging me to kill you. And I promise you, you'll tell me everything I want to know. Do you understand?'

Arched didn't respond. In the harsh light, he saw the man's mouth crease into a smile.

'I also suggest you start giving me some answers before the rest of my team returns,' he continued. 'Luckily for you, they've gone to pick up our last man from the airport and then kill Corporal Fletcher. But they will be back soon. And for your sake, you don't want to still be holding information from me when they return.'

Archer stared up at the man.

'Here is my question, ' the man said. 'Tim Cobb and his family were not at your police station, or at his home. Where is he?'

Archer looked up at him.

He said nothing.

'Do you remember what I just told you?' the man said.

Archer didn't react.

The man stepped forward.

'Typical. This normally happens. Men like you start out tough. They end up like children, soon enough.' The man walked forward, then stopped, putting his hands on his knees, his harsh face inches from Archer's. 'Look at you. You are quite something. You’re a handsome man. But too pretty to be a soldier.'

The man leaned forward closer, looking into Archer's eyes, his dark hair slicked back, his nose like a beak over his stubbled sneer.

'As you can tell, I was never attractive. Women never lusted after me. But I guess they all like you. You must be
- what’s the saying-
beating them off with a stick
. That makes me jealous. So I'm going to make you as ugly as me. I'm going to take that face of yours and cut it off.'

The man reached forward and grabbed Archer's chin, who bucked and twisted away.

'Hold still,' the man said.

He grabbed the knife and pulled back Archer's hair and started to cut from the centre of his brow across the top of his hairline, a long jagged cut to the right. Archer roared in pain as he felt the blade slice into his skin, cutting across the top of his hairline. The soldier had a strong grip and Archer tried moving, but he felt the knife cutting open his head, unable to move, tied to the chair. Eventually he managed to twist himself out of the man's grip, his head burning. Blood poured down his face, into his eye, and started leaking to the floor, his head and face feeling like it was on fire, the red staining his white t-shirt and navy blue overalls.

The man with the knife stepped back, looking at his helpless captive.

'That's a start,' he said. 'I feel better already. But I'm not going to do it all at once. I'm going to take it a piece at a time until you tell me where Cobb is. And if you don't tell me, I'm going to cut your entire face off.'

Archer looked up at him, blood pouring down his face, blind from the blood in one eye. Some of it had gathered in his mouth and he spat at the beak-nosed man with the knife.

The guy didn't react.

'Oh, I forgot to tell you,' he said. 'You're not the only person from your station here. There is a woman next door waiting for me. She is beautiful. Dark hair, dark eyes. I'm going to go talk to her. Or I might just skip the talking and do something else with her. These walls are thin. You’ll be able to hear. But I'll be back soon.'

He paused. Archer blinked, feeling the hot sting of blood running down the side of his face and his neck. He could feel the cut on the top of his forehead, and it burned and throbbed intensely as blood flowed from the jagged wound.

'You know, I lost my girlfriend and my son that night. Both of them were in the first hut the two sons of bitches attacked. They were the first ones to be killed.’

He paused.

‘Do you have a wife, or a girlfriend? A woman you care for?'

Archer looked at the ground, blood pouring into his eyes and dripping onto his lap. Hard as he tried to ignore the man, an image of Katic flickered into his mind, like a television screen with bad reception catching a signal.

He saw her dark hair and brown eyes, smiling at him.

She looked beautiful.

'I want you to think of her,' the man said. 'And know that you're never going to see her again. That's a promise from me. Because I just changed my mind. When I come back, I'm going to take your eyes out. And after the woman next door tells me where Cobb is, I'm going to cut your throat, from ear to ear. Then we'll see if you are still so pretty, you piece of shit.'

The man spat at Archer, then turned and walked towards the door, switching off the light.

Archer was left all alone in the dark, blood dripping down his face and soaking his t-shirt, half-blinded.

Tied up and alone.

'Where the hell are they?'
Chalky shouted to the re-gathered team in the ops room back on the second floor of the ARU’s headquarters. 'They'll kill them!'

Most of the squad had gathered up there, but without Archer, Cobb and Nikki. They were three of the core members and the room felt empty. Unused to combat situations, the remaining members of the tech team were still shell-shocked and traumatised. They were used to the safe and secure confines of the building, but the headquarters had already been attacked twice in one day. With the captive gone, as well as Archer and Nikki taken hostage, the mood in the room was dark. They were running on emergency power and the lights were still dimmed. In the low light and in Cobb's absence, Chalky was desperately trying to get the team going and thinking straight.

'C'mon! Someone think of something,' Chalky shouted.

He turned to the members of the tech team, all of them sitting in their chairs.

'Do you have access to traffic cameras?'

'Of course,' one of them said.

'Then find the white van that left here and tail it. We need to know where they took them.
Do it now!
If we wait, Archer and Nikki will die!'

The tech team turned and started tapping away on their computers, glad for something to do to help. Fox and Porter stood there in silence, both of them still covered in Jackson's blood, as Chalky paced back and forth. His normally jovial demeanour was gone, his face hard and his brow furrowed with anxiety. He’d seen the kind of men they were dealing with here. He’d heard Wulf’s threats to Archer, watching them through the glass of the viewing room downstairs.

And he knew if they didn't find them soon that Nikki and his best friend would die.