Silent Night (Sam Archer 4)

by Barber, Tom

  Both ATF agents nodded.

  Faison pulled his cell phone. ‘I need to make some calls.’

  Fourteen miles to the west at Kearny Medical, Bobby Rourke stood side-by-side with Wicks and Drexler, watching the kidnapped doctor working inside the lab. They had their arms folded and were all standing in line. To the right, Drexler glanced at her watch.

  ‘How long’s this gonna take?’

  ‘He’ll be done by sunset.’

  ‘You know we could have done this ourselves,’ Wicks said.

  Rourke shook his head.

  ‘Pointless risk. This is dangerous shit. And I need him later anyway.’

  There was a whistle from an office to their right. The trio walked forward and found Finn watching a television. It was NY ONE News running the bulletins from the day.

  ‘Check this out,’ he said.

  Breaking: Chemical Pipe ruptures in clothing store by Seaport, kills 59.

  They watched the pictures in silence, showing a clean-up operation down by the waterfront. The shot was filled with NYPD cops, detectives, ESU officers and lab teams.

  ‘Chemical pipe my ass,’ Rourke said.

  ‘At least we know it works,’ Wicks said.

  The headline rolled to another. Two suspected neo-Nazi extremists killed in police raid in Astoria. The shot changed and they watched footage from outside a house off Ditmars Boulevard. The news cameras were being kept well back, but two body-bags had been wheeled out. CSU teams had taped off the area and were moving in and out of the property.

  ‘So that’s where they were hiding,’ Wicks said.

  ‘Good job pigs,’ Finn said. ‘Save us the trouble.’

  As the others watched the television, Drexler glanced out of the window to her right, which was overlooking the front of the building.

  ‘Hold up,’ she said. ‘We’ve got company.’

  The group all looked out of the window.

  A car was pulling into the parking lot.

  Mary Bale wasn’t one to cause a fuss, but her husband hadn’t been answering his phone all morning and she’d wanted to arrange a good time to bring in his lunch. They only lived a fifteen minute drive from the lab complex so the journey wasn’t an ordeal. She saw all the familiar cars of his team outside the building, including her husband’s new pride and joy, a Mercedes CL-Class. She pulled into an empty slot, then applied the handbrake and turned off the engine. She picked up a brown bag beside her containing a couple of cold-cut sandwiches and some chips. Jonathan’s favourite. It was after 2pm but they could still enjoy a late-lunch together before heading out to see their daughter at her home in Elizabeth this afternoon.

  She stepped out of the car, shutting the door, then walked towards the entrance. She entered the building and saw a lean, slender guard with a short mullet haircut behind the front desk.

  ‘Good afternoon, ma’am,’ he said, with a Southern accent and a smile.

  TWENTY SEVENIn the Battery Park area of Lower Manhattan, a nine year old goalkeeper took a run-up and hoofed a soccer ball up a field. It was the middle of the second half of a kids’ little-league game, the score at 7-8. As the boys ran around on the pitch, swarming after the ball like a flock of headless chickens, their parents watched on the side-lines, wrapped up against the cold and cheering them all on.

  One of them was a senior legal partner in his late forties called Alistair Jacobs. He’d been out all morning with his son and hadn’t seen the news reporting the bomb threat at Macy’s or the incident at the Seaport. Seeing that he only had the boy for one day a week, he always turned his phone off until the late afternoon so he could give the lad his full, undivided attention. It was common knowledge that you couldn’t reach Jacobs on a Saturday. Most people never even bothered trying.

  Including his ex-wife, which was something he savoured.

  Just recently divorced, the court had decided that the boy live with his mother, largely due to Jacobs’ work commitments and unpredictable hours. His allotted timeslot for spending time with him was from Friday night until Saturday night. Seeing the boy tackle someone and steal the ball, Jacobs shouted encouragement, the expensive leather gloves on his hands muffling his enthusiastic clapping.

  Watching the game, Jacobs seemed just as engaged as all the other parents standing beside him on the side-lines. However, his mind was somewhere else entirely.

  Today was a big day.

  He’d set up the law firm with Lloyd and Garrett five years ago, making the move across the Atlantic from London. At the time his marriage had been in pretty good shape and he’d relocated to New York with his son and American wife, not anticipating a messy and expensive divorce. The firm had built an extremely strong reputation and client list since their inception, dealing with everyone from movie stars and professional athletes to Wall Street bankers and Financial District bigwigs. Forty seven years old, good-looking, well-dressed, successful and now single, Jacobs knew that many people at the firm envied him. All the trainees and junior partners looked at him with a mixture of jealousy and respect, believing his life to be perfect.

  It wasn’t.

  In reality, Jacobs was in deep, deep shit. A series of bad investments, a serious gambling habit and a high-maintenance wife who’d dragged him through the divorce courts had combined to drain his once considerable savings. With an expensive Manhattan lifestyle to maintain and a spiralling debt, he couldn’t just walk into the bank and ask for a loan. And given his gambling addiction which he was currently fighting, he owed serious money to people who were just as serious about collection. Although he still had seven figures in his bank account he was down thirteen million this year.

  Not exactly an amount you could ask HSBC to spot you for.

  Moving his attention from the soccer match, he glanced around the Park.

  He’d been sent an envelope in the mail four days ago containing a series of photos of his son. Someone had snapped them at the game here last week, but a crosshairs had been neatly drawn over each photograph in black pen, centred on the boy’s head.

  The people who had sent it were men to whom he owed seven million dollars.

  A note inside the envelope told him he had seven days to pay it.

  He couldn’t go to the cops. If he did, the people he owed would kill both him and the boy without a moment’s hesitation. And if he got arrested for illegal gambling, he knew they had connections inside. He wouldn’t last a night in jail. Desperate and scared, he’d been searching for a solution. Something. Anything. It had been the longest four days of his life, but in other ways it had been the shortest. Every night since the envelope had arrived at his office he’d sat behind his desk at the firm long into the early hours, frantically trying to think of a way out. He’d fought the urge to gamble further, but it was just as hard as a junkie avoiding the needle and spoon.

  You’ll win it back at the table, the voice inside his head kept saying.

  You just need a few lucky hands.

  Fighting the compulsion, he’d searched for an alternative. His projected solution, as embarrassing as it was, had been to ask the other senior partners for a loan. The firm had enough money to cover what he owed and he would figure out a way to pay it back. Hell, he’d win it back. But right now, he needed to be alive by this time next week to do so. Survival was his priority. He’d met with Lloyd and Garrett on Thursday night and asked them outright. He didn’t mention who he owed the money to though. Both partners had been aghast. Seven million dollars? Lloyd had repeated, incredulous and horrified. Garrett had just looked at Jacobs and shaken his head, speechless. Both men had not only refused point blank. They’d also said that they were going to take steps to secure the firm’s reputation.

  That had been Thursday.

  Payment was due this Tuesday.

  Both Lloyd and Garrett had walked out that night and left Jacobs alone in his office. He’d sat at his desk completely out of ideas and with nowhere to turn. His last option was to gamble what he had left and hopefully win
a load back. But even as the thought crossed his mind he knew he would have to go on the streak of a lifetime. Alone, scared, in debt and with his life in danger he’d sat there in his office with the photograph of his son on his lap. His only other resort was to flee the country with the boy, but then he’d be hunted for abduction seeing as his wife had custody.

  But as he sat there, a miracle had happened. It was like a gift from God and from the most unlikely of sources.

  His janitor had walked into his office to empty his trash.

  Jacobs had seen the man around although he’d never taken much notice of him. He was pudgy, scruffy and looked bad-tempered. He worked the nightshift, cleaning the offices and emptying the rubbish every weeknight. It was out of character for Jacobs to be sitting there doing nothing at that time of the evening and the janitor had noticed the Englishman’s unusual agitation. He’d asked if everything was OK. More as a throwaway comment than anything else and with two glasses of whisky in him, Jacobs had asked the guy if he had any idea how to make seven million dollars in the next five days.

  But it was as if fate, or luck, or something higher had sent that man into his office that night. Jacobs still couldn’t believe it. The janitor didn’t just look at him as if he was mad.

  He’d said Yes. I do.

  Jacobs had assumed the man was joking, but his face was serious. Unbelieving and more out of curiosity than anything, Jacobs had asked the man how.

  The janitor had placed his bag on the ground, then stepped forward and offered his hand, introducing himself. Paul Bleeker. Taking a seat across the desk from Jacobs, Bleeker told him that he knew two men who were about to get a hold of something that was worth a hell of a lot of money. They’d put an asking price out on the street of two million dollars. Bleeker snorted, saying it was worth ten times that and proposed that if Jacobs put the money up for the item, Bleeker could purchase it then let it be known in the right quarters that it was available and sell it on. They’d make enough to not only cover Jacobs’ debt but a whole lot extra.

  It’ll happen fast, Bleeker assured him. Opportunities like this come along once in a lifetime.

  Jacobs’ gambling instincts had been instantly aroused.

  He’d asked Bleeker what was in it for him. The scruffy janitor had simply asked for a 50 per cent cut of the profits Jacobs would make when they sold it on. In return, he would act as a go-between and set the deal up. Bleeker wanted money. Jacobs wanted to save his son. He’d asked Bleeker what this mysterious item was. Apparently it was some kind of deadly virus.

  Desperate and with nowhere else to turn, he’d suppressed any moral objections, agreed to fund the purchase and had gone to bed that night both relieved and slightly bewildered at his sudden good fortune. And yesterday, everything had gone according to plan. Bleeker had messaged him saying that the sellers were in town.

  But then Jacobs and Bleeker had been scheduled to meet at his office last night to discuss the details of the trade.

  And Bleeker had never showed.

  Now, the day of the planned exchange, Jacobs was nervous and confused. His gambling addiction had led him into dangerous waters in the past, but the illegality and danger of what he was embarking on here was whole different territory. He didn’t even want to know the type of people Bleeker would sell this virus on to or consider the consequences. And as with all illegal dealings, he knew the usual rules wouldn’t apply. These were dangerous men he was planning on meeting with later. Bleeker hadn’t revealed much about them, save that they were coming up from Texas.

  Watching the kids chase the ball around the field, Jacobs took a deep breath.

  Relax. This time in three days all your debts will be cleared.

  No more threats.

  Pulling out his cell phone, he turned it on. He’d left an anxious message on Bleeker’s answering machine a few hours ago. He still didn’t know where the trade would take place tonight. Checking the display, he saw that Bleeker still hadn’t called back.

  Shit.

  On the pitch, the referee checked his watch and blew his whistle. Jacobs tucked the phone back into his pocket and started clapping with all the other parents. All the kids shook hands with players from the other team, then his son ran over to him.

  ‘I scored, Dad,’ the boy said. ‘Did you see?’

  ‘I saw,’ Jacobs lied, ruffling his hair. ‘You’re a natural. David Beckham better watch out.’

  The boy beamed as Jacobs checked his watch.

  ‘Some of the other kids are going to get pizza. Can we go too?’

  Jacobs looked at him. ‘I actually need to head off for an hour or so, buddy.’

  He saw the dismay on his son’s face.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be back by three o’clock.’

  He looked over at another of the parents, a woman called Marie. She was friendly, and from the way she looked at him Jacobs guessed that she knew he was back on the singles market. Her son was friends with Jacobs’ boy and she seemed to have overheard what Jacobs had said.

  ‘I can watch him for you, Ali,’ she said, giving him her best smile.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Thank you so much, Marie. I appreciate it.’

  She smiled, and he looked down at his son.

  ‘I’ll be back in an hour or so,’ he said, forcing a smile. ‘Then we can get some ice cream, or go to the cinema if you’d like.’

  The boy smiled eagerly. ‘OK, Dad.’

  Jacobs turned and walked away from the soccer field, pulling his cell phone from his pocket. Heading towards the Park exit he tried Bleeker again but it went straight to voicemail.

  He cursed and hung up, striding across the grass.

  Bleeker, where the hell are you?

  At the Counter Terrorism Bureau, Shepherd finished clarifying some extra details with Agents Faison and Peterson, then stepped out of the interrogation cell and made his way to the stairs. He saw Kruger and Maddy Flood sitting at his desk in the detective pit and took a quick detour, moving over to them.

  ‘How are you both feeling?’

  ‘We’re OK,’ Kruger said.

  ‘Good news. We’ve got some leads.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘One of the bombers, Paul Bleeker, worked as a janitor at a Manhattan law firm. He’s got a message on his cell phone that indicates one of his bosses knows about the virus. We’ve got two police cars on their way to pick this guy up and bring him in.’

  ‘What about the fifth vial?’ Maddy asked.

  ‘Two gentlemen from the ATF just arrived. They know the two people who we think are in possession of it. We’re trying to locate them.’

  The two doctors took this in, then nodded. Shepherd turned and headed back up the stairs to the briefing room. Inside, he found Rach at her desk working with Archer and Josh. On the screen, he saw that she’d pulled up files relating to the English senior partner, Alistair Jacobs. Shepherd saw a driving licence and some press articles.

  ‘This is all I could find, sir,’ Rach said. ‘He’s a big-league lawyer. Judging by one of these newspaper articles, he’s also recently divorced.’

  ‘No charges?’

  ‘Nothing. Not even a parking ticket.’

  Shepherd nodded. ‘Lawyers are good at making sure their records are clean.’

  ‘A little too clean,’ Archer said.

  ‘Not everyone has a police file, Arch,’ Rach said.

  ‘No, but he’s interacting with Paul Bleeker. That means he’s got something to hide.’

  ‘When did he move here?’ Shepherd said, looking at the screen.

  ‘According to the paper, five years ago. Before that, he was a partner at another firm in London.’

  Shepherd scanned the screen. ‘We need to know more about this man.’

  Archer thought for a moment, then rose and pulled his cell phone.

  ‘I’ll handle this, sir,’ he said. ‘Gimme five.’

  He walked out and passed Marquez
on the way, who looked serious as she entered the room.

  ‘Sir, I just spoke with Jorgensen,’ she said. ‘He found Ray Creek at his home.’

  ‘Alive?’

  ‘Far from it. Six gunshot wounds to his head and chest. He’d also been tortured. CSU used ballistics fingerprinting to compare slugs and cartridges from the scene with those at Dr Tibbs’ apartment. They also compared wound pattern. They were a match.’

  ‘So whoever killed Creek killed Tibbs.’

  ‘Yes, sir. CSU checked CCTV at Tibbs’ apartment building but they couldn’t find anyone entering the building who didn’t live inside. They think whoever killed Tibbs used the fire escape. Unless another resident capped him.’

  ‘OK. Tell Jorgensen to get back here.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  She turned and walked out, passing Archer who was standing on the walkway. He’d just finished dialling a long number and put the phone to his ear.

  Walking up through Tribeca, Jacobs swore and ended another attempted call. Bleeker still wasn’t picking up. His entire future and the safety of his son depended on this deal going down tonight. If Bleeker pulled out or got cold feet, Jacobs would go find whatever rock he was hiding under and drag him out. If he had to, he’d tear apart the city looking for him.

  Turning right, he walked down Worth Street, headed towards 111 and his apartment. From upstairs he could log into the law firm’s admin database and find Bleeker’s address. He’d go over there himself and get the information he needed. As he walked, he decided to quickly check his emails. He opened the Internet browser, but a Breaking News banner on the homepage caught his eye.

  He read it as he pushed back the glass door and walked into the building.

  Breaking: Macy’s evacuated after morning bomb threat. Chemical accident by Seaport kills 59.

  He froze.

  Then he looked up and saw two cops in uniform standing there in the lobby.

  The two men were looking straight at him, their expressions hard.

  Jacobs sensed movement behind him and turned.