Silent Night (Sam Archer 4)

by Barber, Tom

  But a big factor in coming here had been FBI Supervisory Special Agent Mina Katic. Ever since they’d met last summer she'd been constantly in his thoughts. He'd arrived in New York seven months ago and initially everything seemed to be fine, but then Archer had realised it just wasn’t working. Something was missing. Aside from just feeling 'off', they both worked insanely unpredictable hours. They’d been separated by an ocean before, but now they were in the same city they still barely saw each other. Like embers on a dying fire, their romance had slowly dimmed and faded.

  Soon enough, the spark was gone.

  Her job offer in Chicago had been a blessing in disguise. He’d sensed for a while she’d had enough of New York and wanted to move back to where she’d grown up with her daughter, Jess, who would be starting high school in the next couple of years. When she'd first mentioned that she was thinking of leaving, Archer hadn’t felt any desire to ask her to stay.

  That was when he knew it was over.

  The period leading up to her departure, much like their goodbye this morning, had been very civil with no acrimony or hostility. Neither felt any anger towards the other. But for whatever reason, be it personal or professional, what they had obviously wasn’t destined to be a long-term thing. It almost seemed to Archer that a man in this career had to pick between his work and his personal life. You couldn’t have both. But then he glanced at Josh and realised that wasn’t true. You couldn’t find a happier married man or a more doting father. Josh was getting it right. Archer wanted to find out what his secret was.

  The horn of a passing car blared, bringing Archer back to the situation at hand. They’d just moved off the Bridge and were now in Manhattan. Josh drove down 59th, headed west, past 1st, 2nd and 3rd Avenues. Then Park, Madison and 5th. Central Park rolled into view on their right. Everywhere he looked there were red and gold Christmas decorations, shoppers wrapped up in thick coats, many of them laden with bags as they made their way to a coffee shop or back to their hotels. A group of carol singers had taken up a position on the sidewalk by the south-east entrance of Central Park and he caught a glimpse of an ice-skating rink through a gap in the trees as they drove down the street. New York did Christmas damn well. There were throngs of people everywhere, all enjoying a festive weekend. All of them blissfully unaware that a man had died a horrific toxic death across the Park last night.

  ‘You got plans Christmas Day?’ Josh asked.

  ‘Haven’t thought about it.’

  ‘What about your sister? She’s in DC, right?’

  ‘She’s having a hot one. Going off with the family to the Caribbean.’

  ‘Never understood that. It wouldn’t feel right having a barbeque on Christmas Day.’

  ‘Right now I wouldn’t mind.’

  Josh grinned. ‘You should come over. We’d love to have you.’

  ‘I can’t do that. Christmas is family time.’

  ‘Yeah, but now I won’t be able to fully relax. When I’m sitting by a warm fire with a cold beer and a plate of food, I’ll think of you alone in your apartment looking pathetic, pulling the ring off a can of soup.’

  ‘OK, I’ll think about it.’

  Josh shook his head. ‘It’s not your decision anymore. I’ll tell Michelle. The moment I do that, it’s a given. Otherwise she’ll head over to your place on Christmas morning and march you over to our house herself.’

  Archer laughed. They stopped at a red light at Columbus Circle, then once it turned green drove around the monument and headed uptown on Broadway.

  ‘Where is this place?’ Josh asked. ‘66th, right?’

  ‘66th and Amsterdam.’

  From Columbus to around West 86th, Broadway was positioned at a right-diagonal that eventually straightened out. Given its slant, the road met 9th Avenue on 64th Street. Josh held at a red light, then took a left across the intersection and headed down 65th. The next Avenue over was Amsterdam. When the light was green, Josh moved out and over to the left hand lane. He pulled up to the kerb just past 66th, applying the handbrake and killing the engine.

  The two men stepped out of the car, Archer hunching into his coat and pulling his collar up against the blast of the cold wind. Being on the west side of Manhattan, they were close to the Hudson River and the wind had an extra bite to it. Slamming his door and jamming his hands into his pockets, he walked around the front of the car and joined Josh on the edge of the sidewalk. Several stores and a frozen yoghurt place were lined side by side up the block, but the building in front of them had to be the address they were after. Judging by the entrance, a number of different businesses and companies had office space here. A series of company names and logos on metal placards lined the walls either side of the entrance, all in different swirling calligraphy and fonts.

  Archer looked up at the building as Josh walked forward to check out the plates.

  About a third of the way down, in plain, printed, no-bullshit style was Flood Microbiology.

  'Bull's-eye,’ Josh said.

  Archer didn’t respond.

  Josh looked over his shoulder. ‘Let’s head-’

  He stopped mid-sentence.

  Archer's head was tilted back and he was staring up at the building in front of them.

  There was something wrong.

  ‘Arch?’

  ‘Look,’ he said.

  Josh frowned and stepping back to join his partner, tilted his head to see what had caught Archer’s attention. The building was about twenty storeys high, but he immediately saw what Archer had spotted.

  ‘What the hell?’ he said.

  The two men backed up quickly, moving out onto the street beside the car to get a better look.

  They could see a man standing on the edge of the roof.

  Eleven blocks uptown, a man in his early thirties was just finishing cooking a late breakfast, some eggs and bacon sizzling in a pan. He lived alone in an apartment on the Upper West Side. He wasn’t a social guy and had never been particularly comfortable around women, so he much preferred his own company in his own private place to having people around. It had been a long week and he was looking forward to relaxing all day by himself, just the way he liked it.

  But suddenly, the doorbell rang.

  It made him jump. He wasn’t expecting a guest. Maybe it was a delivery, or someone from downstairs.

  ‘One second,’ he called, tipping the frying pan and sliding his breakfast onto a plate. Turning off the cooker and wiping his hands on a cloth, he walked over to the door and pulled it open.

  There was a man and woman standing there.

  The man had bleach-blond hair, with a sharp jagged scar across one eyebrow. In contrast to his hair, he had dark, emotionless eyes that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a shark.

  The woman was dark-haired with a harsh face, her hard eyes emphasised by thick black eyeliner.

  They stared at him, expressionless.

  The man had a roll of duct tape in his hand.

  And the woman was holding a silenced pistol.

  SIXThe lift inside the building on 66th and Amsterdam dinged, opening on the 20th floor.

  Before the doors had fully parted, Archer and Josh sprinted out. The door to the stairwell was straight ahead. Archer wrenched it open and the two men raced up the stairs that led to the roof, bursting through the last door and running out onto the rooftop.

  Fifteen yards away, they saw up close what they’d caught a glimpse of from the street.

  A man was standing on the edge of the rooftop.

  Ten feet behind him was a young woman, her hands covering her mouth.

  Both of them were in lab coats.

  The woman turned when she heard the two newcomers arrive. She looked distraught and terrified. She was standing beside a smoking oil can, bits of burnt paper swirling around her, catching the wind and whipping off into the air.

  Archer pulled his badge and showed it to her silently, walking forward. She nodded, eyes wide with fear. As he moved closer, Archer saw
that they were also filled with tears. Josh motioned for her to walk over and join him. She passed Archer as he walked past her slowly, approaching the man on the edge of the roof.

  He was completely motionless, his back turned, staring down at the Manhattan street far below.

  Apart from the whistling of the wind, it was quiet. All the street noise down below was a distant murmur. But the situation was highly dangerous. There was no building or windbreak cover and the gales blowing in from the Hudson were strong, rifling through Archer’s hair. Looking down, he saw the roof under his feet was icy and treacherous. At any moment, the man on the edge could be blown off or slip.

  As could he.

  Moving towards him ten feet to the right, Archer didn’t say a word.

  The man didn’t react or respond when Archer came into his peripheral vision. The wind was snapping through the folds of his white lab coat as if it was a sail.

  Archer came to a stop, his hands up in a non-threatening gesture. Standing there in silence, a few feet from the edge, he looked at the man.

  He had grey hair and glasses.

  He looked terrified.

  ‘Sir, I’m a detective with the NYPD. My name is Archer.’

  The man didn’t respond.

  ‘My first name’s Sam. What’s yours?’

  There was a long pause.

  ‘Peter.’

  Silence.

  The only sound was the wind and the noise Peter’s coat made as it was whipped around his body. Archer glanced to his right and looked out over Central Park. From up here he could see all the way up to Harlem. He felt his stomach lurch and fought down vertigo. Turning his attention back to the rooftop, he saw Josh standing with the woman near the door, arms wrapped around her in comfort but also to keep her from moving towards Peter and startling him.

  Both of them were watching the tense exchange in silence.

  Archer turned back to Peter. Looking down, he noticed that the tips of the man’s shoes were over the edge of the building, just his heels keeping him in place.

  ‘Peter, if you step back, we can sit down and talk,’ Archer said, slowly and reassuringly. ‘I’m sure that whatever’s wrong, we can fix it. Together.’

  ‘No. We can’t.’

  Silence.

  ‘Do you have a family?’ Archer asked.

  Silence.

  ‘I’m sure they’d want you to move away from the edge,’ he said, taking his time, choosing each word carefully. ‘Whatever has happened, I’m sure they’d understand.’

  He paused.

  ‘Nothing could be worth this.’

  For the first time, the man turned his head and looked at Archer.

  His eyes looked haunted behind the glasses.

  ‘You need to get out.’

  ‘Out?’

  ‘Of New York. You need to leave right now.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Thousands of people are going to die.’

  ‘Why, Peter? What’s going to happen?’

  Silence.

  ‘Talk to me, Peter.’

  Silence.

  Archer glanced back at Josh.

  And Peter took a step forward.

  Across the East River in Astoria, the doors to a Manhattan-bound N train opened and the three men from the diner stepped inside the carriage. Given that it was the weekend the service had been delayed and they’d been waiting on the 30th Avenue platform for a while. The trio stood together by the doors across the carriage. There wasn’t a word of conversation between them. The train was moderately full but no-one gave the men a second glance. There was nothing unusual about them; they blended right in.

  By the far doors, Bleeker grabbed a support pole with a meaty hand and looked down at the white bag he held in the other. He saw the shoebox tucked inside.

  His ticket to a whole new life.

  A female voice came over the intercom. Stand clear of the closing doors.

  A second later, the doors slid shut.

  And the train moved on towards the city.

  SEVENA police cordon had been set up on Amsterdam just outside the building off 66th. Several officers in uniform were standing with their backs to some blue wooden barriers, preventing any pedestrians who were unwise enough to want to see what had happened from getting any closer. It was easier said than done.

  The body was covering about an eight foot radius, concealed under a series of hastily placed sheets. The impact of the fall had left a grisly aftermath. Luckily, no one had been hit by the falling man, although a handful of people had been walking nearby on the sidewalk at the point of impact. They were all in an ambulance nearby being cleaned up and treated for shock.

  Inside the lobby and relieved to be back down on street level, Archer looked at the spread of white sheets covering the ground. A four-man team from the CSU, the forensics specialists, had arrived. Archer had just finished speaking to two of them, providing them with the details of what had happened up on the roof, including every word that had been spoken between him and Peter. Standing with the pair of investigators, he watched as a third member of their team knelt down and lifted the sheet with a latex-gloved hand. The fourth dropped to a knee beside him and took photographs of whatever was underneath. Some detectives from the 20th precinct had arrived and were standing together watching the investigators work. Although the death was on their turf it wasn’t a homicide, so they were letting Archer and Josh take the reins on this one.

  The two CSU investigators thanked Archer. He nodded, then turned and walked back into the main building. A large group of workers from upstairs had gathered in the lobby, some asking what had happened, others trying to catch a glimpse as building security and two other NYPD officers kept them from going outside. Given that the possibility of terrorism was on everybody’s mind these days, New Yorkers liked reassurance and word had clearly spread fast about the number of police officers, squad cars and ambulances suddenly gathered outside their building. To the left of the cluster, Archer saw Josh approaching, clicking off a cell phone and tucking it back into his pocket.

  ‘I just spoke to Rach,’ he said. ‘His full name was Dr Peter Flood.’

  ‘Flood Microbiology.’

  ‘Exactly. He owned the company. He was the senior scientist and the guy we were supposed to be meeting.’ Josh looked over Archer’s shoulder at the scene outside. ‘Poor guy.’

  ‘You hear what he said?’

  ‘You need to get out of New York right now. Thousands of people are going to die.’

  ‘I don’t like this. It’s too coincidental.’

  ‘You think it’s related to the dead guy in the Park?’

  Archer nodded.

  ‘I looked into his eyes. Something was scaring the shit out of him.’

  ‘Well Rach is checking out everything she can find on him. We’ll know more about him soon.’

  Archer looked past Josh and saw the young woman who’d been up on the roof when they’d arrived. She was sitting across the lobby on a bench against the wall, a navy-blue NYPD jacket draped over her slender shoulders. She was alone, staring straight ahead with a cup of coffee in her hands. She’d been hysterical after the man had stepped off the roof to his death, but now seemed to have cried herself out. Josh noticed his partner watching her.

  ‘Her name’s Maddy,’ he said. ‘Twenty eight years old. She’s a doctor too.’

  He paused.

  ‘And Peter Flood’s daughter.’

  Archer looked at him. ‘Oh shit.’

  ‘Yeah. That’s her daddy out there on the sidewalk.’ He paused. ‘Hey. You did a good job up there, by the way.’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ Archer said. ‘Perfect outcome.’

  ‘He’d made up his mind. He was stepping off regardless. Nothing you could have done or said would have changed his mind. Was he your first jumper?’

  Archer nodded. He went to say more but felt his phone ringing in his pocket. He pulled it out and took the call as Josh turned and headed across the lobby towards th
e female doctor.

  ‘Archer.’

  ‘Arch, it’s Shepherd. I heard Rach speaking to Josh, but I wanted to get your take too. How’s everything going?’

  Archer looked over his shoulder at the white-sheeted area cordoned off on the street.

  ‘Getting cleaned up. CSU and some local detectives are here. It’s going to take a while.’

  ‘How’s the girl?’

  Archer watched Josh take a seat beside the woman. He was talking to her quietly.

  ‘Better. She’s calmed down.’

  ‘We’re drawing a blank over here. Rach can’t find anything on Flood or his company that could be relevant to this virus. But I think there’s a connection.’

  ‘Yeah. I’m getting that feeling.’

  ‘We need her to fill in the blanks and find out why he took a dive.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Anything from Marquez?’

  ‘Yes. CSU found a set of fingerprints on the box from Central Park. They belong to a man called Rashad Cantrell. He’s a low-level street dealer based up in Harlem. They're headed over to get him now.’

  ‘That’s good.’

  ‘Keep me posted. And get that girl talking.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  The call ended. Archer tucked the phone back into his pocket. Then he headed over to join Josh and Maddy Flood in the corner of the lobby.

  At the Counter Terrorism Bureau, Shepherd put his cell phone back on the table, then examined the computer screen mounted on the wall of the briefing room. Beside him, Rach was tapping the keys, searching through every database she could access.

  ‘Still nothing?

  ‘Not on our system. I think plain old Google could be our friend on this one,’ she said, pulling up the website homepage and typing in Flood’s name.