Silent Night (Sam Archer 4)

by Barber, Tom

  ‘We need to find out where he went.’

  ‘I can do better than that, sir,’ Rach said. ‘If he’s still in the city, I’ll find out where he is right now.’

  As Shepherd turned, taking the call, Rach ran the tape back then froze the frame of the man talking with Cantrell. He had his back turned but the fabric and pattern of his coat was lit up perfectly by the street lamp.

  She drew a box around the image, then tapped a few keys and hit Enter.

  Bleeker had ditched the jacket in a trash can less than a minute earlier. Wearing a zip-up dark hoodie and jeans, a Yankees cap over his head, he was just about as anonymous and now cold as a man could be in New York City. He’d left Macy’s through the south entrance and was standing on the sidewalk on West 34th between 7th and Broadway, the building directly behind him. The temptation to stay and watch the effect of his work in the store was almost overwhelming, but he knew he needed to get the hell out of here. The winds were blowing strong today. No use watching the bomb go off if he got infected with the virus as well.

  Particularly after seeing what it could do.

  As Christmas shoppers and tourists moved past him either side, he shot his cuff and checked his watch.

  He had thirteen minutes.

  He stepped to the kerb, raised his hand and a passing taxi slowed to a stop. The driver lowered his window as Bleeker stepped forward.

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘Queens,’ Bleeker said, entering the cab and slamming the door shut. ‘Earn your tip.’

  ‘TB, sir,’ Archer said to Shepherd on his cell, standing in the lobby of the building. ‘That’s what she told us. Apparently her father was trying to create some kind of revolutionary cure for lung cancer but it went badly wrong.’

  ‘Tuberculosis?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But that’s curable, right?’

  ‘Not this type. It’s been grown with a virus.’

  ‘Did she explain?’

  ‘Yeah. I just about kept up. Radiation in the virus knocked out some elements that made the TB medicinally safe. Basically if you breathe in this shit you cough so hard you rupture the blood vessels in your lungs. You spew out pieces of lung, break your own back from the spasms and drown in your blood within thirty seconds of inhalation.’

  ‘Jesus Christ. How on earth did this stuff get out of the lab?’

  ‘She doesn’t know. But when she and her father arrived at the lab this morning, five of the six samples of the virus were gone. Then they got a phone call from us.’

  ‘So that’s why he stepped off the roof. He knew.’

  ‘And that’s what killed the groundsman in the Park last night.’

  ‘Who else works at the lab?’

  ‘Only five people apparently. Peter Flood, his daughter, and three other doctors.’

  ‘Names?’

  ‘Kruger, Glover and Tibbs.’

  ‘I’ll tell Marquez and Jorgensen. We’ll locate and bring them in. In the-’

  He suddenly paused, mid-sentence.

  ‘Hang on.’

  Pause.

  ‘Wait a minute, Arch. Stay on the line. Rach just got something.’

  Pause. Archer looked back at Josh, who was still with Maddy Flood, comforting her.

  Shepherd came back. ‘Listen. Rach found the man who arranged for the package to be left in the Park last night on surveillance. She’s located him again this morning via his clothing.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘He was in the subway station at 34th Street about twenty minutes ago. He got off a Downtown-bound R train. She’s speeding up the tape. Wait.’

  Pause.

  In the meantime, Archer caught Josh’s attention.

  He beckoned his partner to come over quickly.

  ‘We’ve got him on the street, walking through Herald Square. He’s carrying a white plastic bag with something inside. It looks rectangular.’

  ‘Like a shoebox,’ Archer said. Then realisation dawned. ‘Oh shit.’

  ‘He went into Macy’s twelve minutes ago.’

  Josh joined Archer, seeing the look on his face.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m calling it in,’ Shepherd said. ‘Get down there now!’

  ELEVENLocated on 34th Street and taking up an entire city block between Broadway and 7th Avenue, Macy’s billed itself as The World’s Largest Store, a huge red banner draped down the side of the building claiming so in white letters. It wasn’t lying. The monolithic department store offered close to two million square feet of retail space. Hundreds of top-flight designers and clothing companies had concessions inside, from Tommy Hilfiger and Ralph Lauren to Armani, Versace and everyone else in between. The building had ten floors, a selection of coffee shops and restaurants, and thousands of customers passing through its three entrances every day of the week, each week of the year. It was also the setting for several nostalgic movies, including Miracle on 34th Street, where a little girl discovered that the store Santa Claus was real. However, as Archer and Josh jumped out of their hastily pulled-up Ford Explorer on 34th and 7th, their thoughts weren’t so pleasant.

  With lights flashing they’d cut through traffic and got down there in four minutes flat to find evacuation of the building was already underway. There were scores of pedestrians flooding the sidewalks outside the 7th Avenue entrance, ushered out by efficient store security and cops from Midtown South. Archer saw that an ESU truck had already arrived, the NYPD’s SWAT team, the officers already inside the building. Several Hercules Teams, armed Special Forces-type units, had also shown up and were spread out on the sidewalks, talking into radios and scanning the crowds. Showing their badges to the cops, Josh and Archer pushed their way through the glass doors and made their way into the building.

  Inside, it was a similar scene to the sidewalk outside. There was a sea of people, men, women and kids, all of whom were being quickly herded towards the exits. The two detectives saw a large pool of ESU officers and store security guards gathered to the left, listening closely as they received orders from their Lieutenant who was standing in front of them, like a sports team receiving a half-time talk.

  Archer and Josh fought their way towards the group, but the gathering disbanded just as they got there. The ESU officers and Macy’s guards headed off with purpose, some moving swiftly towards the upwards escalators, others headed downstairs to the basement. Standing beside a guy who looked like the head of store security, the ESU Lieutenant had spotted Archer and Josh pushing their way towards him. He was in his forties, dark haired, dressed in police fatigues, a Colt AR-15 assault rifle slung over his shoulder on a strap.

  ‘Blake and Archer,’ Josh said, showing his badge. ‘Counter Terrorism Bureau.’

  ‘Hobbs,’ the ESU Lieutenant said, shaking their hands quickly. ‘You the two guys who’ve come from the lab?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘I spoke to your man Shepherd. He said a box containing a bomb might have been left somewhere in the building. Mind telling me what’s inside?’

  ‘It’s a Type-Three Pneumonic virus,’ Archer said. ‘Once it enters the human body, the host is dead within half a minute.’

  ‘Jesus Christ. Hang on.’ He grabbed his radio. ‘All teams, gas masks. This is a biological threat. I repeat, a biological threat. Put on your gas masks.’

  ‘One viral bomb already went off in Central Park last night,’ Josh said. ‘It killed a groundsman.’

  ‘I’ve got my men and the store team searching the building,’ Hobbs said. ‘We know the shape, or anything distinguishable about this box?’

  Josh shook his head. ‘Rectangular. Like a shoebox. That’s it.’

  ‘Shit. I’ve sent them out in teams, working their way through each floor. But I need reinforcements. You have any ideas as to how we find this thing?’

  During this exchange, Archer had gone quiet. Something Maddy Flood had said earlier surfaced in his mind.

  ‘Wait,’ he said.

 
; Hobbs and Blake turned and looked at him.

  ‘Every ESU officer carries a radiation detector, right?’

  Hobbs nodded. ‘One of the Department’s newest regulations. All my men have one. Why?’

  ‘We can use them.’

  ‘How?’ Josh asked. ‘It’s a virus. Nothing will show up.’

  Archer shook his head. ‘The doc said that the virus was cultivated using cobalt. That stuff is radioactive.’

  Josh looked at him. The penny dropped.

  ‘You think it’ll show?’

  Archer nodded. ‘Those things are sensitive. It’ll show.’

  Hobbs listened to the exchange, then lifted his radio again. ‘Attention, all teams. Use your radiation detection equipment, I repeat, use your radiation detection equipment. The package we’re looking for will give you a gamma reading.’

  He put down the radio. Behind them, more police and a Chemical Response Team had just arrived through the doors, carrying their gear and making their way through the remaining crowd towards the command post. As they approached, Hobbs reached to his belt and unclipped a small radiation detection device, about the size of a stopwatch.

  He passed it to Archer. ‘Here. I’ll fill these guys in. You two better get searching.’

  Archer took it with a nod.

  Then he and Josh ran for the escalator.

  Three floors above, the viral bomb continued to count down silently, hidden from view under the wooden panel.

  4:02.

  4:01.

  3:59.

  3:58.

  Inside the briefing room at the Counter Terrorism Bureau, Shepherd and Rach were still working on trying to find out where the man in the red jacket went after he left the store. Rach had him walking out of the south entrance on 34th Street, a streetlight camera in front of him, but he’d turned to his left and moved out of the shot.

  ‘Damn,’ Rach said, scouring the cameras.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Outside Macy’s is the last I can find of him. Look.’

  She ran back the tape and hit Play. Shepherd watched the man walk out of the store, checking his watch, then turning and heading down 34th. He switched his gaze to the next camera shot.

  But the man never reappeared.

  ‘Damn it,’ Rach said. ‘Blind spot.’

  Shepherd tapped the shot on the left. ‘Go to this camera in real time.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Now.’

  She did, and the shot came up. People were flooding the street, all of them milling outside Macy’s, waiting to be allowed back in.

  ‘Find the trash,’ he said.

  She tapped the keyboard and watched as shots appeared on screen. She held the down arrow and the camera slid down. She held the right arrow and it moved to the right. Shepherd tapped the screen.

  ‘He ditched the coat. Look.’

  Rach peered closer and could make out a piece of the familiar red fabric. The jacket had been dropped into a trash can, just out of sight of the initial view of the camera.

  ‘Shit,’ she said, pulling the camera up to its original shot.

  ‘Track back,’ Shepherd said.

  She nodded and went to wind back the tape, but something in the corner of the computer screen caught her eye and made her stop.

  ‘Wait a minute, sir,’ she said.

  She brought up a shot from the top right corner. It was from about thirty minutes ago, the white lettering in the corner of the shot stating it was at Times Square 42nd Street Sub.

  ‘Look,’ she said, tapping the screen. ‘This is from earlier. Ten minutes before he entered the store.’

  Shepherd looked closer, examining the shot.

  Amidst the hustle and bustle of the station in the footage, he saw the man in the red jacket, the white bag containing the dark box in his hand.

  He was with two other men.

  They were each carrying an identical bag.

  ‘Oh no,’ Shepherd said. ‘No, no, no. Not good.’

  Shepherd and Rach watched the trio split up and move off in separate directions. There was a moment’s silence as the implication of what they’d just seen hit them.

  Then Rach looked up at Shepherd slowly.

  ‘Sir, we’re not just dealing with one bomb.’

  ‘We’re dealing with three.’

  TWELVEArcher and Josh had just arrived on the third floor. The building had been cleared; the only people in sight now were ESU officers or store security scouring each level. They’d had to make a flash decision as to which part of the store they concentrated their search and figured the guy would have wanted to blend in when he planted the device. The men’s department seemed to be as good a place as any to start.

  The task-force guys were working in small teams, holding their radiation detectors and sweeping their designated area. Archer started doing the same. Holding the device, he watched the reading on the monitor closely as he walked around the floor. Meanwhile, Josh had moved ahead and was searching the old fashioned way, quickly checking under piles of clothing, behind rails and around cashier desks, searching for any sign of the box or the bag. However, like the rest of the store the third floor was huge, rails and displays filled with clothes everywhere you looked.

  Josh ducked down, searching behind a counter, then cursed and reappeared.

  ‘Anything?’ he called.

  Archer shook his head, watching the radiation reading. ‘Nothing.’

  What he’d said earlier was true, but only to a point. The bomb would give off a gamma reading, but he didn’t know how strong. Thankfully, the detector’s sensors were extremely sensitive. They reacted to fire alarms as well as to other equipment emitting even tiny levels of radiation. Since the device had come into use, there’d been many occasions when a suspected threat somewhere in the city had been called in, ESU and CRT teams deployed, only to find the reading was coming from an innocent member of the public who’d been undergoing radiotherapy treatment. And here, they could be dealing with an even smaller amount. Tiny even. Archer guessed that Flood and Kruger had not used much cobalt in cultivating the virus. He didn’t know if they were all wasting their time.

  Time they didn’t have.

  He rounded the corner, the escalators immediately to his right, and looked down at the handheld monitor. The numbers on the display were hovering on 45, the normal readout.

  Having just searched under some clothing displays, Josh loped over and joined him.

  ‘Shit,’ he said, looking around at the amount of floor that still needed to be searched. ‘We need more people up here.’

  Archer nodded, looking down at the monitor. ‘We’d better try the next level.’

  The two men quickly walked forward towards the rising escalator, stepping on.

  ‘Hey!’ a voice suddenly shouted from behind them.

  They looked at each other, then immediately ran back down.

  They saw a pair of ESU officers ten yards away, each holding a radiation detector. One of them had momentarily pulled off his gas mask in order to shout and get the detectives’ attention.

  ‘We’ve got a reading!’

  Running forward, Archer and Josh looked down at their own reader in Archer’s hand.

  The man was right.

  The reading had jumped to 52.

  ‘Here we go,’ Josh whispered, side-by-side with Archer.

  The ESU officers took the lead, the two detectives following close behind. The four men moved silently, not taking their eyes off the monitors. They moved agonisingly slowly, their heads down, ignoring their immediate surroundings, just focused on the sensor reading on the machines.

  56.

  58.

  61.

  The two ESU guys had walked into an area filled with men’s shirts on rails. The place was deserted. Music was still playing quietly from the speakers. Archer and Josh followed close behind, watching their own reading on Archer’s borrowed detector.

  ‘It’s getting stronger.’

  64. />
  68.

  The guy who’d alerted Archer and Josh pushed his pressel switch, talking into his radio with his gasmask still raised.

  ‘Lieutenant, this is Hicks. I’m in menswear on 3. We need CRT and back-up up here right now. We’ve got a reading.’

  The four men moved forward through the menswear section, Hicks pulling his mask back into place. The reading kept rising.

  Following it, the ESU officers turned a corner and headed into the changing room area.

  72.

  75.

  They went into the first cubicle on the right, then stepped back out, studying the detector. They tried the second and third.

  Then they tried the fourth.

  ‘Whoa,’ Hicks said, his voice muffled under the gas mask. ‘We got something.’

  Archer and Josh looked at their own reader.

  It was at 95.

  They tore their gaze from the detector and looked at the cubicle in front of them.

  It was empty, but the radiation equipment was telling a different story. Behind them they could hear the sound of running feet. ‘In here!’ Hicks called. Then he pointed at the seat in the cubicle. ‘Get that panel off.’

  Hicks’ partner dropped to one knee, pulling a screwdriver from his tac vest. He started working the screws out of the four corners one by one. He removed the fourth just as two CRT specialists appeared in the changing room.

  The ESU man grabbed the panel and lifted it.

  All six men saw the viral bomb inside.

  It was nestled beside some wiring and a small air vent. Archer and Josh recognised it immediately as a replica of the one used in Central Park, except that this one had a timer and no lid. Under a cylindrical vial of yellow liquid was a timer with a series of lime-green buttons.

  00:31.

  00:30.

  00:29.

  ‘Back up!’ one of the CRT specialists ordered, the sound distorted by the helmet of his suit. The ESU pair and Archer and Josh were already moving out of the way, making room. Neither Archer or Josh had a gas mask, but neither of them was leaving.

  The CRT team worked like quicksilver. As the specialist on the left ran his hands along the sides of the package, the man to the right laid down a thick black containment case that he had brought with him. It was empty. He clicked open a lock on each corner and pulled off the transparent glass lid. In front of them, the timer on the bomb ticked down.