The Getaway (Sam Archer 2) by Tom Barber Read Free Book Online

headed in the same direction towards the station. The rail line itself ran horizontal to the street, looming over 31 st Street, and served as direct passage to either the east and Ditmars Boulevard or the west and Manhattan . As he approached the stairs that led up to the station and platforms up above, he heard a Manhattan-bound train arriving, moving into the 30 th Avenue station from Astoria Boulevard . He jogged briskly up the steps, pulling a yellow Metrocard from his pocket, and swiped his way through the turnstiles as the train rattled into the station above. He ran up the second flight of steps and arrived on the platform just as the train screeched to a halt. The doors opened, and he stepped past people departing the carriages, moving inside one and joining scores of people already inside. Judging by their clothing, most of them seemed to be headed for work. He took up a position by one of the doors, and turning, watched the carriage next door.
    He wanted to get a good look at the guy following him.
    He’d picked up the tail the moment he’d turned off 38 th . The guy had been waiting for him outside a restaurant across the street, pretending to read a paper. He was sloppy, and had picked a bad spot for surveillance. It was a 50/50 chance that Archer would come this way and not head up Steinway. But then again, there was probably someone else waiting for him up there doing the same thing. The guy been almost directly in Archer’s line of sight, an amateur mistake , and behind his sunglasses Archer had seen the man rise from his chair and start to move down the hill the opposite side, watching his mark.
    Right on cue, he saw the guy appear, running up the steps, out of breath, and moving forward to just make it inside the carriage next door, jamming his arm in the sliding doors as they closed and then pulling them open and dragging himself inside. Archer examined him quickly before the guy relocated him. He was one of the men from t he group at the bar last night.
    Not Farrell.
    Not the man with longer hair.
    The third guy, shaved head and tattoos on his forearms, the one who had been the first to spot the six guys coming down the street. He saw him looking around, trying to relocate his mark, and Archer turned his back, feeling the man’s gaze fall on him. He didn’t move. There was no point trying to lose him yet. The trip into the city would take about twenty minutes and he didn’t want to alert the guy that he knew he was there.
    The train moved off towards the next stop, the streets rolling past down below through the windows. The carriage Archer was standing in was busy, full of people headed to the office, crossing off another day, another step close r to the weekend. People were sitting and stan d ing everywhere, listening to music through headphones, reading newspapers, sipping coffees and tapping into cell-phones or just looking out of the window, lost in thought . Archer wasn’t impressed to see a number of seats occupied by men as women in heels stood nearby, clutching the rail, some of them fighting to keep their balance. None of the guys on the benches seemed to care though, and he swallowed down his irritation. A small thing, but something that always pissed him off when he saw it. Unlike him, he guessed some guys just didn’t give a shit when it came to stuff like that.
    The train slowed and came to a halt at the next stop, Broadway. Archer realised the guy next door had no idea where he was getting off. He contemplated deceiving him by stepping outside then back in at the last moment, but decided against it. The guy didn’t know he’d been made. It would make it easier to lose him when they got to Manhattan , and would avoid a confrontation that Archer could do without. The doors closed and the train pushed on, stopping twice more at 36 th and 39 th Avenue before swinging a right hook and approaching Queensborough Plaza , the eastern side of Manhattan coming into view up ahead across the East