8pm, so they had an hour and a half at their disposal. He and the other guys had all been at the Unit this morning when the call came in from the Counter-Terrorism Bureau in New York informing Cobb that an NYPD detective had been kidnapped and the two perpetrators were thought to be in London. Porter had been in Cobb’s office with him when he received the call and both men had been confused as to why it had been directed to them, a counter-terrorist unit.
Cobb had been about to redirect the man to CID when the American analyst had revealed that the kidnapped NYPD detective they were trying to locate was both a team-mate of Sam Archer and his girlfriend, which is why he’d called them specifically. He’d added that four detectives from the Bureau, including Archer, were already on their way to London on Lieutenant Franklin’s orders.
And the analyst had asked if the ARU could help.
The decision was already made before the man hung up; although the Unit had their usual work to attend to, MI5, the Met and SCO19 could more than cover it at the moment and Cobb was determined to do what he could. To everyone who’d known him from his time there, Archer’s memory lingered large in the Unit but Cobb and Porter particularly held their old colleague in special regard.
He’d saved their lives once and neither man would ever forget it.
When he’d passed all this information on to the rest of the ARU, Cobb had received his team’s unanimous support in doing what they could to assist the NYPD team headed their way. Nine hours later, Porter leaned forward and looked up at the 2 nd floor of the apartment block. Seeing as the ARU was a counter-terrorism Unit sex-traffickers weren’t their usual target, but the Slovakian man upstairs in 2F had kidnapped Arch’s girlfriend and threatened to kill her, which was the biggest mistake he’d ever made.
Porter pushed the circular switch on the front of his tac vest, the other officers waiting for his call.
‘Listen up,’ he said. ‘We move fast and clean. She’s probably hidden in there somewhere, so clear every room quickly. Once he’s in cuffs, we’ll find her.’
He turned to the officer in the back seat behind him holding the shotgun, but still held down his pressel switch so the other guys could hear his orders.
‘The door might be reinforced, so Mason, you’ll blow the lock. I’ll take point. Hold your fire unless he makes a move but get him in handcuffs ASAP. We need this guy alive to find out where he’s hidden the girl.’
Mason nodded; Porter paused.
‘Go.’
The car doors immediately opened, the six officers stepping out, closing them quietly then moving to the stairs. They climbed them quickly, the stairwell filled with the sound of boots on concrete, Porter moving behind Mason who was at the front of the line and carrying his shotgun with a breaching round in the chamber.
As the group arrived on the 2 nd floor, Spitz and Shifty appeared from the apartments either side of Stanovich’s, each man in plain clothes but wearing a tac vest and also carrying a fully-loaded MP5 with a Glock strapped around their thigh like the others.
Moving smoothly and quietly, the eight-man team came to a halt outside the apartment, several curtains on grille-covered windows elsewhere in the block flickering as residents watched.
Kneeling to one side of the door, Mason didn’t wait a second.
He put the shotgun against the lock immediately and fired.
The blast annihilated the mechanism and the door was smashed back a moment later, the counter-terrorist police team piling in through the door one by one in a well-practised drill, looking down the sights of their weapons and already familiar with the layout of the place from the schematics they’d studied minutes earlier.
‘Police!’ they all shouted. ‘Get down!’
As three of the officers split, checking the other rooms for Detective Vargas, Payan or any other occupants they might have missed, Porter took the
Cobb had been about to redirect the man to CID when the American analyst had revealed that the kidnapped NYPD detective they were trying to locate was both a team-mate of Sam Archer and his girlfriend, which is why he’d called them specifically. He’d added that four detectives from the Bureau, including Archer, were already on their way to London on Lieutenant Franklin’s orders.
And the analyst had asked if the ARU could help.
The decision was already made before the man hung up; although the Unit had their usual work to attend to, MI5, the Met and SCO19 could more than cover it at the moment and Cobb was determined to do what he could. To everyone who’d known him from his time there, Archer’s memory lingered large in the Unit but Cobb and Porter particularly held their old colleague in special regard.
He’d saved their lives once and neither man would ever forget it.
When he’d passed all this information on to the rest of the ARU, Cobb had received his team’s unanimous support in doing what they could to assist the NYPD team headed their way. Nine hours later, Porter leaned forward and looked up at the 2 nd floor of the apartment block. Seeing as the ARU was a counter-terrorism Unit sex-traffickers weren’t their usual target, but the Slovakian man upstairs in 2F had kidnapped Arch’s girlfriend and threatened to kill her, which was the biggest mistake he’d ever made.
Porter pushed the circular switch on the front of his tac vest, the other officers waiting for his call.
‘Listen up,’ he said. ‘We move fast and clean. She’s probably hidden in there somewhere, so clear every room quickly. Once he’s in cuffs, we’ll find her.’
He turned to the officer in the back seat behind him holding the shotgun, but still held down his pressel switch so the other guys could hear his orders.
‘The door might be reinforced, so Mason, you’ll blow the lock. I’ll take point. Hold your fire unless he makes a move but get him in handcuffs ASAP. We need this guy alive to find out where he’s hidden the girl.’
Mason nodded; Porter paused.
‘Go.’
The car doors immediately opened, the six officers stepping out, closing them quietly then moving to the stairs. They climbed them quickly, the stairwell filled with the sound of boots on concrete, Porter moving behind Mason who was at the front of the line and carrying his shotgun with a breaching round in the chamber.
As the group arrived on the 2 nd floor, Spitz and Shifty appeared from the apartments either side of Stanovich’s, each man in plain clothes but wearing a tac vest and also carrying a fully-loaded MP5 with a Glock strapped around their thigh like the others.
Moving smoothly and quietly, the eight-man team came to a halt outside the apartment, several curtains on grille-covered windows elsewhere in the block flickering as residents watched.
Kneeling to one side of the door, Mason didn’t wait a second.
He put the shotgun against the lock immediately and fired.
The blast annihilated the mechanism and the door was smashed back a moment later, the counter-terrorist police team piling in through the door one by one in a well-practised drill, looking down the sights of their weapons and already familiar with the layout of the place from the schematics they’d studied minutes earlier.
‘Police!’ they all shouted. ‘Get down!’
As three of the officers split, checking the other rooms for Detective Vargas, Payan or any other occupants they might have missed, Porter took the
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