TWENTY ONE
The two Panthers had a head-start and were already some distance ahead, the speedometer on both cars pushing seventy, parked cars, houses and stunned pedestrians flashing past either side. The silver Fiat pulled a hard sliding right and Fox did the same, not giving an inch. Archer grabbed the mobile phone from the pocket on his vest, calling Nikki. It connected almost straight away.
‘Nikki, we need back-up!' he shouted. 'We’re tailing two of the Panthers. They just took out McCarthy. We’re on Ladbroke Road, heading west.'
'Copy that.'
Fox turned a hard left as Archer ended the call, the wheels of the car squealing as the Ford slid south onto Ladbroke Grove. They could still see the Fiat racing ahead of them. Fox put his foot down harder as pedestrians at a passing crossing jumped back, and the car flashed past, keeping the Fiat in sight, weaving in and out of traffic.
Archer turned and looked back at Porter. 'How you doing, Port?'
He was sitting with his head back, bleeding from cuts to his face and head. He was just beginning to recover some of his hearing, his ears bleeding too. He tipped his head slightly, sensing Archer was looking at him, and nodded, still dazed and out of it. Fox was using every second of his pursuit training and experience in the field. He used to ride in an undercover response vehicle before he joined the ARU, and although it had been a while, Archer saw why he had a reputation as one of the fastest drivers in the Met.
There was a roundabout up ahead, but the silver Fiat carrying the two Panthers barely slowed, racing around it and causing other drivers to brake and swerve. They ignored a red light at the next junction and careered across the intersection, smashing a small VW out of the way. The ARU vehicle followed as the Fiat roared straight on, the street behind them filled with the sounds of blaring horns of cars left in their wake.
Then the two Panthers made a mistake.
The Fiat turned a corner too fast. The driver lost control and the car smashed head on into a lamp-post. The impact dislodged the light above which fell onto the roof of the car and shattered into a thousand pieces. The driver tried throw the car into reverse, but the engine died, so without hesitation, the two soldiers scrambled out, abandoning the car, taking off in opposite directions. One of them ran onto MacFarlane Road, headed west. The other, the guy who’d fired the bazooka, was running towards the Westfield Shopping Centre, one of the largest malls in the city. He still had his AK-47 in his hands. Speeding towards him, Archer watched the guy turn towards them in the middle of the street, aiming the rifle at the front of the Ford.
‘Get down!’ Archer shouted, grabbing Fox, who ducked and braked at the same time.
The guy opened fire, the bullets smashing into the car and through the windshield, the four officers huddled low and just avoiding the fire, some of the rounds thudding into the seats, white fluff protruding through the black cushions from the bullet holes. He was firing on full auto which suddenly stopped as his magazine clicked dry. The guy cursed and dropped the empty Kalashnikov on the ground, then turned and ran towards the shopping centre, people on the pavement screaming and running in panic.
Archer threw his own door open, seeing the big guy sprinting towards the galleria.
'Cut him off!' Archer shouted as he jumped out, slamming the door and taking off across the road after the Panther. Fox roared off up Wood Lane, past the West Side of the shopping mall, the front of the vehicle riddled with bullet holes, Fox doing his best to see through the smashed-up windshield.
Dodging through the traffic, Archer sprinted across the street and ran as fast as he could after the fleeing soldier.
Outside the shopping centre, terrified people had rushed for cover when the man in black who’d fired the AK-47 sprinted past them, ploughing through anyone in his path as he headed for the galleria, followed forty yards behind by an armed policeman. The big man sprinted past a long Debenhams store, then took a sharp left and raced into the shopping centre itself, smashing unsuspecting shoppers out of his way. Archer dodged round a young couple, leaping over a pushchair, and chased after the guy as fast as he could, his MP5 gripped in his hands as he tried to keep pace with the fleeing man.
Inside, the arcade was busy for a weekday, lots of shoppers meandering around. Some people who had been near the entrance to the mall had stopped in their tracks, wondering what the unusual noise was outside. They’d all been taken by surprise as the huge figure dressed in black rushed past them, followed soon after by the young police officer carrying the MP5. Archer weaved his way through shoppers and kids, racing through the area crowded with people.
‘Move! Move!’ he shouted.
He saw the Panther racing up an escalator ahead. He moved fast for a big man and Archer was running as fast as he could to keep up, hampered by the MP5. He ran towards the escalator and took the steps two at a time, determined not to let the guy get away. All that morning time in the gym was paying off - he was in excellent cardiovascular condition and he was making up some ground on the Panther.
Archer arrived on the First Floor, looking left and right. He couldn't see the soldier, but there were more shoppers up here, who’d stopped in their tracks when they saw him with the sub-machine gun in his hands.
‘Which way?’ he shouted.
They pointed right. There were lifts and toilets there, but the door to a service corridor was open and Archer sprinted forward, bursting through it and racing down the side corridor. He could hear the slap of running footsteps up ahead and he chased after them, arriving at a flight of stairs. He leapt down two at a time, down past the ground floor and onto the lower car park levels. He caught a glimpse of black as the man turned a corner up ahead, and Archer jumped off the remaining steps, sprinting after him.
He rounded the corner, and then instinctively ducked. A steel pipe swung in the air, smashing into the wall where his head had been. From a distance the Albanian Special Forces soldier had cut a large figure, but up close he was huge. He kicked Archer’s MP5 out of his hands with his boot, breaking the strap, the gun clattering to the ground, and he swung the pipe at Archer’s head again as if he was going for a home run. The smaller man ducked and hit the man in the face with an overhand right, a hard punch. Although the blow landed, it didn’t seem to hurt the soldier at all, but Archer’s hand felt like he had just punched granite. The two men locked up, then the soldier head-butted Archer above the left eye, his head like a rock, smashing into Archer's forehead. Archer staggered back and pulled his Glock from the holster on his thigh, but the man was already out of the door.
Dizzy and disorientated from the head-butt, his eyes watering, Archer staggered and scooping up his MP5, he stuffed the Glock back in its holster and moved into a corridor, just as the soldier disappeared out of the other end, heading into the car park.
He took off after him as fast as he could, with blurred vision, and burst out of the door into the parking lot.
Just as he arrived, he heard a loud thump and saw the huge soldier run into a car door that had suddenly swung open in front of him to Archer’s left. Through blurred vision and watery eyes, he saw it was the ARU car. Fox had pulled round into the underground car park.
Archer saw Chalky jump out onto the dazed soldier instantly, restraining him, Fox racing around from the driver's seat and helping him subdue the large man. Porter was climbing out of the car from the other side, the stains of blood trickling from each earlobe joining the cuts on his head and face. He saw Archer was shaking his head, trying to clear his vision, and moved over to him.
'You OK?' he asked.
Archer nodded, his chest heaving up and down from the exertion as he sucked air deep into his lungs. His vision clearing, he looked down at the Black Panther soldier. It had taken both Fox and Chalky to restrain the struggling man, and he was pinned to the ground while Chalky bound and zipped up his wrists with a set of plasti-cuffs from his tac vest. Belly to the ground, the man turned and looked back at Archer. His face was shielded with the balaclava but there was nothing but sheer murder in his eyes.
'What about the other one?' Chalky asked Porter loudly so he could hear him, this knee on the big soldier's back.
'We'll find him,' Porter said. 'Let's just get this one back to HQ.'
Fifteen minutes later, Worm watched from a crowd gathered on the corner of MacFarlane Road as tape was drawn up around his ruined getaway car, the damaged lamppost leaning drunkenly over it. He had fled down the residential streets once they crashed, but doubled back when he realised the cops hadn't pursued him and ditched his balaclava and overalls revealing jeans and a sweater. He blended right into the crowd, but made sure to keep himself well out of sight at the back.
Looking left, he saw the black Ford that had been tailing them appear out of the car park and head towards them, bullet holes on the front windshield and both the front headlights smashed. It pulled to a halt, and a blond man stepped out from the back seat, rubbing a cut above his eye as he walked over to the officers by the ruined car, holding a brief conversation in lowered voices. Worm recognised him as the pretty-boy cop from King’s apartment building, the one he had bumped shoulders with.
He shifted his gaze to the car and saw his commanding officer in the middle seat. They had taken off his balaclava and Worm saw his commander's head down, his dark hair ruffled, the huge muscles of his arms and shoulders pulled behind him by a set of handcuffs. Worm swore under his breath in Albanian, then turned and walked away quickly.
He pulled a mobile phone from his pocket and checked the time on his wrist-watch. All the others would be landing, in the next couple of hours.
Spider and Bug would already be here.
He dialled a number and waited, glancing back. Through the crowd, he saw the blond cop step back inside the car and watched it speed off back into the city, no doubt to their police station.
'Sir?'
'Yes,’ Spider’s voice said.
'It's Worm. Where are you?'
'At the command post.'
'Bad news. The English police captured Wulf after we killed McCarthy. We tried to get away, but the car crashed and we had to run.'
Pause.
'Do you know which station?'
'I think it's the team under Cobb. I recognised their uniform. They all have ARU printed on the back.'
There was a pause.
'OK. Come back to the safe-house. Bird and Flea will be here soon. We'll get him back.'
'Yes, sir.'
The call ended. Worm turned and moved off down a side-street, away from the crowd and the ruined car, headed back to the command post and his comrades, his mood darkening with every step.