Aftershock by Adam Hamdy

Author:Adam Hamdy [Hamdy, Adam]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Quercus
Published: 2018-07-12T12:54:02+00:00

33

Reeves wasn’t sure what had woken him, but he came to suddenly. Perhaps it was the sound of an anti-social car horn drifting through the open windows? Or an over-revved engine? Whatever the cause, this wasn’t the gentle drift to wakefulness of a natural rousing, it was an alert, a call to action, and even though he couldn’t pinpoint the reason, Deon rose from his bed and hurried over to the window. He pulled back the drapes and peered four storeys down at the NYPD cruiser that was stationed on the opposite side of the road, outside the Crescent Street Laundromat. There was only one uniformed officer in the car and he was asleep. No, not asleep, Reeves thought as his eyes adjusted to the darkness of the early hours. He looked more closely and saw that a tiny spray of blood flecked the car window and a trail of crimson ran down from a puncture wound in the man’s skull, trailing a course around his ear. He was dead and his partner was nowhere to be seen.

Reeves ran to his bedside cabinet and pulled open the top drawer to grab his Beretta and spare clip. He heard the unmistakeable sound of movement in his apartment, the creak of the one loose floorboard in his living room, something he’d been meaning to fix for months. Barefoot and wearing nothing but boxer shorts and a white vest, Reeves didn’t have time to think about anything other than escape.

Creeping backwards to keep his eyes on the bedroom door, he returned to the open window, gun raised and ready. There was a four-inch gap between the bottom of the sash window and the sill. Wide enough for a cooling night breeze, but not for the body of a man. Aware of a tightness in his chest, saliva filling his mouth, and a shiver-inducing build-up of nervous tension, Reeves reached behind him, wrapped his fingers around the bottom edge of the window frame and slowly pushed it up. The window creaked and groaned, the sore sound of timber rubbing against timber, drowning out the noise of the city, filling the apartment and acting as a spur to action.

Having betrayed the fact he was awake, Reeves had nothing to lose and shoved the window open as fast as he could. Two black-clad shapes burst into the room, their faces concealed by Pendulum masks. Reeves opened fire instantly, the gunshots sounding like battlefield explosions in the tiny room. One of the men was hit in the chest, the other retreated through the open doorway. The crack of the shots died away to be replaced by loud ringing, and as the acrid smell of gun-smoke hit him, Reeves clambered through the window on to a steel-framed window box.

The metal creaked and groaned with his weight. He was four storeys up, crouching on a two-by-one-foot basket that was designed to support pot plants. The dirty brown fire escape lay to his left, a yard of clear air away. Reeves sensed movement behind him and fired blindly into his bedroom.

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