Green Light (Sam Archer 7) Read Free Page A

quietly, bending down beside
Archer.
    Working
fast, Archer patted down the gunman’s torso and frowned. Quickly
pushing up the man’s shirt, he froze.
    ‘ What the-?’ he whispered.
    The
suspect had fresh, angry-looking stitches covering his stomach; the
skin was lumpy and inflamed, dried blood visible from the crude
needlework.
    The
explosives were sewn under his skin.
    As the
detectives stared at the man’s torso in disbelief, they saw a
flashing green light just under the skin, accompanied by a quiet
beeping sound.
    And both
had just started to quicken.
    ‘ Go!’ Josh ordered the two MTA men,
who not needing to be told twice, turned and stumbled away down the
train.
    Not
wasting a second, Archer rose and pushed open the driver’s side
door, which swung out into the dark tunnel. Turning back, he
grabbed the suspect’s arms and pulled him towards the exit, Vargas
and Josh picking up the man’s legs.
    They
manoeuvred him awkwardly out of the train, the flashing light on
the man’s stomach getting faster, the three of them frantically
searching for somewhere to dump the body before the explosives
detonated. However, there were no obvious access doors, nowhere
they could put the body, just dark dirty tunnel stretching onwards
uptown.
    Holding
the dead man’s arms, Archer looked around, the speed of the beeping
and flashing under the stitches increasing by the
second.
    ‘ Shit!’
    Glancing
down, he suddenly spotted a circular manhole cover a few feet in
front of him on the lower level of the tracks, camouflaged with
dirt and grime from the tunnel.
    ‘ There!’ he said, Josh and Vargas following where he was
looking.
    Knowing
they only had seconds, they quickly carried the dead terrorist
towards the manhole cover; Archer lowered him gently to the ground,
grabbed the cover with both hands and heaved it off.
    The
flashing was now going as fast as a drum roll.
    Without
ceremony, they stuffed the guy inside the hole, Josh and Vargas
holding onto his ankles as they lowered the dead man onto several
thick pipes, all three of them praying to God they weren’t gas
mains. With him safely placed, Josh and Vargas stepped
back.
    ‘ Let’s go! ’ Vargas said.
    Grabbing
the lid, Archer quickly lowered it back in place then sprinted back
to the train behind the other two, taking care not to step on the
tracks.
    Pulling
themselves up into the cab, they ran through the carriages, trying
to put as much distance between themselves and the manhole as they
could.
    Suddenly
there was an enormous muffled explosion, throwing the three
detectives to the carriage floor. The whole station seemed to
shake, dust and brick falling from the walls, the train rattling
like a tin can caught in a tornado. Coughing, Archer looked up
through the dust and to his relief, saw the other two
moving.
    A few
seconds later the three of them slowly sat up and turned, looking
towards the front of the train which had been annihilated, the
wailing fire alarms accompanied by the sound of running
water.
    ‘ You good?’ Josh asked his colleagues over the
noise.
    Beside
him, the other two nodded, Vargas giving a thumb’s up. On the far
left, Archer exhaled and lay back on the floor in exhausted
relief.
    ‘ Next time I’m taking the bus,’ he said.

TWO
    Two and
a half hours later, Archer and Josh were standing on the street in
Union Square, the entire area illuminated by the flashing lights of
emergency services vehicles and the glare of news-camera lights.
The place was full of activity, members of the public and MTA
employees who’d been directly caught up in the drama being treated
for shock and minor injuries by medical teams.
    CSU were
down in the cavernous station examining the damaged front of the
train, the entire place shut down for the time being. The FBI and
ATF had shown up too; both agencies were being brought up to date
on the situation as news teams both national and international were
filming the Square from behind hurriedly-erected