Silent Night (Sam Archer 4)

by Barber, Tom

  ‘How are we doing?’

  ‘We’re on course.’ Rourke glanced at Archer. ‘You want to get rid of him now?’

  Kruger didn’t reply.

  He raised his pistol instead, aiming at the centre of Rourke’s torso, and started firing.

  Rourke took six rounds. Each impact jerked him back and he collapsed in a torn, bloody dead heap across the cabin. The bullets ruptured holes in the cabin and air started to whistle in. Archer saw Drexler turn, looking at Rourke’s corpse, her eyes wide with shock. But before she could react, Kruger was up on his feet, the pistol trained on her.

  ‘Don’t move, bitch,’ he said, moving down towards her in the cockpit. ‘I’ll take that weapon.’

  Archer saw Drexler stay motionless behind the control stick. Then she reached inside her jacket and passed over what looked like a silenced Glock. Kruger took it, and tossed it into the cabin behind him, the pistol landing near Rourke’s corpse.

  He started ordering Drexler to do something, the gun to her head, but Archer couldn’t hear what it was from the whistling coming through the bullet holes in the plane.

  Archer saw her nodding and he felt the plane start veering to the left.

  Rourke was slumped across the cabin, torn apart by the gunfire. Archer looked up at Kruger, who was walking back into the cabin, grinning at him.

  ‘Just like that, huh? Kill him and take his ride to Texas?’

  Kruger smiled, a strange look in his eyes.

  ‘We’re not going to Texas.’

  FIFTYArcher watched as Kruger stepped across the cabin towards him. He grabbed one of the canisters full of the liquidised virus, rolling it towards the tank. He attached the tubing and pushed the pumping mechanism; the big tank started sucking in all the liquid.

  Archer watched him work. ‘So where are we going?’

  ‘Take a guess.’

  Archer thought of their flight path and the veer they’d taken.

  ‘DC?’

  Kruger didn’t respond.

  ‘Are you nuts?’

  Kruger shook his head. ‘No. I’m not. I’m going to do something that the Third Reich only ever dreamt of. They fought an entire war with the Americans but never got anywhere near their homeland. By the time the rest of the country wakes up this morning, thousands upon thousands of people in their capital city will be dead. My virus will cleanse that place like a Biblical plague.’

  ‘Keep dreaming. They’ll shoot you down before you get anywhere near the city.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. This stuff will still be in the air. Rourke will go down as the man who killed a city. I’ll be just an innocent passenger.’

  Archer looked at the thickly-built doctor with the hate tattooed on his chest.

  Kruger flicked his gaze to Archer. His eyes were gleaming.

  ‘Why the hell are you doing this?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re a doctor, for Christ’s sake.’

  ‘So?’

  He paused.

  ‘You know the history. Apartheid, Mandela, black and white. But you don’t know that four black men broke into my house when I was a boy. You don’t know that they raped my mother in front of me, then shot her in the head. That they put a shotgun in my father’s mouth and pulled the trigger. I would have been next but a neighbour heard the shots and arrived just in time. He killed them and saved me.’

  He spat on the floor.

  ‘I was orphaned at eleven years old by those bastards,’ he said. ‘These men worked for my father. He took them in when they had nothing. Gave them a home, food, water, a job. A purpose. And that’s how they repay him.’ He sneered. ‘And over there, American culture is everywhere. All those guys worshipped it. The rappers, the baseball caps, the pants around their asses. All that shit started here. It’s spread, like a disease. Liberal, democratic bullshit. So now, this is payback.’

  He looked down at the canisters, then at Archer.

  ‘I’m no different from Peter. He created this virus because he lost someone he loved. Now I’m going to use it for the exact same reason.’

  ‘You won’t even make the city,’ Archer said again. ‘They’ll shoot you down.’

  ‘Like I said, it doesn’t matter. Hell of a wind blowing today. Headed south.’

  He smiled.

  ‘I’ve thought of everything, Detective. It makes no difference whether I spray this stuff or we take a hit. Either way the virus will be in the air and will be spread for hundreds of miles, floating down onto the city.’

  ‘And you’ll be a martyr for the cause, right?’ Archer said.

  ‘Correct.’

  Silence.

  Beside him, the tank sucked up the liquidised virus, the piping sealed tight so none of it escaped into the air.

  ‘Bleeker was a fool. But he was the only one with any balls to use this virus.’ Kruger nodded at Rourke’s corpse, slumped across the cabin. ‘All he wanted was money.’

  He paused.

  ‘But not me. Not tonight.’

  With that, Kruger moved off and headed up the cabin. He moved into the cockpit, jabbing the pistol into Drexler’s neck who nodded and said something to him. Watching him go, Archer felt helpless.

  Kruger was right. The gas would be airborne whatever happened, if it was sprayed, they were shot down or they crashed. Hundreds of thousands of people would die.

  Archer felt the tight handcuffs around his wrists.

  In desperation, he looked over at Maddy who was motionless on the floor.

  Suddenly, her eyes flared open.

  Maddy had regained consciousness whilst Kruger was talking. She’d heard everything he said, but had played possum, staying still. She looked straight at Archer, who was sitting across from her in the rear of the plane and saw the cuffs holding him to the bar. With Kruger’s back to them, assuming his hostages were restrained or out cold and therefore no threat, she quietly raised herself to her hands and knees and crept forward, never taking her eyes off Kruger who was still focused on Drexler and where they were going. She crawled towards Archer, who tilted his hips, mouthing this pocket. She reached inside and found the key to his cuffs.

  She quickly undid them.

  Now free, he went to rise, but Kruger suddenly stood upright. Maddy froze then frantically scrambled back to the rear of the plane and resumed her previous position trying not to breathe too heavily.

  Archer put his hands behind his back as if they were still bound.

  Kruger moved back into the cabin. He walked up to Archer and stared down at him, a mad light in his eyes.

  ‘Not long now. But you’re pissing me off. I think it’s time you and the bitch went for a skydive.’

  He laughed.

  ‘Just like her old man.’

  He placed his Beretta to one side, then moved towards the door. He grabbed a support rail and reached for the handle. As he did so, Archer shouted something to him, but given the noise the whistling wind made from the bullet holes in the cabin, Kruger couldn’t hear.

  Instinctively, he turned towards Archer, stepping closer.

  ‘What?’

  Launching forward, Archer suddenly took Kruger off his feet.

  FIFTY ONEKruger had done his research. The duster was coming in from the north-west. The wind reading was perfect, blowing south. If they took a hit, the virus would be airborne, drifting down onto the capital city and the surrounding area.

  They were beginning to approach a military installation. It was Fort Myer, a military base aligned with the USMC Henderson Hall and the first joint base in the Department of Defense. Although it was the early hours of the morning, the main ops room was busy. A serviceman studying the screen in front of him frowned, peering closer. He pulled off his head-set, then turned.

  ‘Captain?’

  A man looked over.

  ‘I’ve got a small propeller aircraft headed south towards the city,’ one of the men said.

  ‘That’s restricted airspace.’

  ‘Could be a priva
te airplane off course?’

  ‘I don’t care,’ the Captain said, walking around the ops room towards the controls. ‘He comes anywhere near the city, he’s going down. Pass me the transmitter.’

  The man did so. The Captain took it and pushed the buttons down on either side.

  ‘Unidentified aircraft, this is the United States Army. Identify yourself.’

  Archer and Kruger were grappling furiously on the floor of the crop duster. Drexler had turned, sensing something was wrong, but she had to stay in the cockpit or the plane would dip. As the two men fought, Maddy had reversed the pump; the liquid was now being sucked back into the canister. Grabbing a bar to steady herself, she staggered across the cabin, avoiding the fighting men and wrenched open the side door.

  The noise in the cockpit increased tenfold as wind roared in the cabin.

  Her coat and hair flapping violently in the wind, she looked down and saw that they were flying over what she guessed was the Potomac, the water glinting far below in the moonlight.

  She grabbed the canister nearest to her and using all her strength, heaved it out of the door.

  Kruger was as strong as an ox. Archer was pinned on the floor of the aircraft, trying to attack the doctor’s neck. Kruger was trying to strike him, but was hampered by the fact that he needed all his strength to hold Archer down. As they fought, Kruger became aware of Maddy throwing the canisters out of the door.

  ‘Bitch!’

  With a roar of anger, he lunged for her.

  But he made a fatal mistake.

  He turned his back on Archer.

  Archer leapt on the big South African, hooked his legs around his lower torso and sunk in a rear choke, pinning him to the floor. As Kruger gagged and fought for air, Maddy continued to drag the canisters across the cabin floor and throw them out, each one plummeting down and dropping into the Potomac below. She reached over for the last. She pulled out the tubing, the seal instantly forming. She screwed on the secondary cap as tight as she could, then went to throw it out of the plane.

  Suddenly, three bullet-holes appeared in the big tank by her head, and she dropped to the floor instinctively.

  Archer saw Drexler moving out of the cockpit, her retrieved silenced Glock 21 in her hands. He released Kruger, just as Drexler raised the weapon again but her mag clicked dry. Screaming a curse, she threw the weapon away and moved into the cabin towards them.

  Abandoning Kruger on the floor, Archer rose and waited for her.

  He had a rule about not harming women, but this one had broken his nose and had just tried to kill Maddy. All rules were out the window.

  ‘C’mon, bitch,’ he shouted. ‘I’m ready this time.’

  She screamed like a banshee and lunged forward but was met with a huge uppercut that took her off her feet, revenge for the shot she broke Archer’s nose with. She bit her tongue and lip, the punch sending her backwards and onto the floor in a daze. Watching her drop, Archer suddenly heard the radio up front in the cockpit. He ran forward to the cockpit and could just make out what it was saying over the howling gale.

  ‘Unidentified aircraft, this is the United States Army. You have just entered restricted airspace. This is a verbal warning. If you disregard this and do not turn around, we will shoot you down, I repeat, we will shoot you down.’

  ‘That’s the last one!’ Maddy shouted behind him, tossing out the final canister.

  Drexler was trying to get to her feet, but she was dizzy from the blow, disorientated and weakly spitting blood from her mouth. Archer grabbed the radio receiver. The plane had started dipping and was gathering speed and he felt his stomach lurch.

  ‘This is NYPD Detective Sam Archer, I repeat, NYPD Detective Sam Archer!’

  ‘This is your final warning. If you do not turn around right now, you will be shot down. I repeat, you will be shot down!’

  He swung round, frantically searching the cabin.

  He saw a parachute hanging by Maddy’s head.

  ‘Put it on!’ he shouted, pointing at it.

  Far below them, the Captain at Fort Myer looked at the screen in desperation.

  ‘What do I do, sir?’ the man in front of him asked.

  ‘They’ve been warned. We have no alternative. Fire!’

  Just as Kruger and the woman re-gathered their senses, Archer looked through the window and saw lights up ahead and to the right.

  The radio had gone quiet.

  He turned and ran through the plane, past Drexler and Kruger, who were staggering to their feet. Maddy had just finished securing a parachute, clicking it in place with shaking hands, holding a hook inside the plane as she stood by the open door. Her eyes widened as Archer headed straight for her.

  Without stopping, Archer tackled her, driving his shoulder through.

  He took them both through the open doorway, and out of the plane into the night sky.

  A split-second later, the rocket launched from Fort Myer below.

  On their feet in the cabin, Kruger and Drexler looked out of the cockpit window and saw it streaking towards them.

  Drexler screamed.

  Kruger closed his eyes.

  As the duster exploded above them, Archer and Maddy tumbled through the air, plummeting down through the darkness towards the Potomac. They had just the one parachute between them which was strapped to Maddy’s back. She screamed in terror as they hurtled towards the water through the dark night, the wind shrieking around them.

  ‘Archer!’

  He didn’t answer. He used all his strength just to hang on. If he lost his grip, he’d fall hundreds of feet to his death. Hanging on to the straps above her shoulders, he manoeuvred his legs tight around her. He hooked his right arm into the straps, gripping the far one as hard as he could as they spun down towards the water.

  He pulled the parachute release cord.

  Nothing happened.

  He tried again, the wind howling in their ears.

  ‘Shit!’

  The water was approaching with terrifying speed.

  If they hit it at this speed, they would both be killed instantly.

  ‘Archer!’

  Archer pulled the cord as hard as he could for the third time.

  ‘C’MON!’

  It worked.

  The white parachute unravelled and billowed out with a flurry. The two of them whiplashed up as the parachute expanded, killing their speed.

  And they hit the water.

  FIFTY TWOFive hours later, the dawn sun was just starting to rise over the horizon. At the New Jersey industrial estate, the leading doctor of a HAZMAT team finished testing the air. He removed his headgear and gave Hendricks the thumbs up. The toxicity had lowered, the strong wind disseminating the poisonous gas. They were good. The area was safe.

  When Hendricks hit the propane it had triggered a huge explosion, all three meth trucks and the other tanks of propane going up. Unlike in the movies, propane tanks don’t explode unless they’re hit with an incendiary round or if there’s a source of fire to ignite them. Hendricks had done the latter; his shotgun blast had bled gas from the tank which came into contact with the lit cigarette on the ground. That was all it took. The blast had killed sixteen of the Chapter members on the spot, and most importantly Wicks, the blond-haired guy with the RPG. The shockwave had blown the remaining thugs off their feet, completely disorientating them, their eyes and ears bleeding, their senses scrambled. Hendricks and most of the other law enforcement were further back and using cover anyway, so aside from a serious ringing in their ears, they’d been pretty well unaffected by the blast. After the explosion, they’d immediately moved in, the handful of remaining Chapter members not putting up any resistance. They were locked into handcuffs, most of them still trying to work out what had happened. Four ATF guys had been hit in the gunfight and ambulances were already on their way, along with HAZMAT. Once the place was secured HAZMAT had ordered everyone off site, their team hosing down the flaming caravans.

  As the team withdrew
and the arrested neo-Nazis were dumped in the back of an ATF truck, there were reports coming in about a situation over the Potomac River. Apparently six canisters loaded with a deadly virus had been thrown from a crop duster over the water. A NYPD detective and a female doctor had jumped out of the plane just before it was blown out of the sky. A parachute had slowed their descent, but it hadn’t released early enough and both had sustained injuries. They’d been pulled from the water and taken to an army hospital. No one knew any more details other than the canisters had been retrieved from the water, intact and secure.

  It was over.

  Standing in the middle of the smoking estate, Hendricks looked around him. The dawn sun was giving the place a tangerine glow. The Latina detective Marquez was beside him, the embers of the dying campfire ten yards in front of them. Hendricks recalled her fearlessness in the gunfight. I wish I’d known about you when I’d selected my team, he thought, glancing at her.

  The ATF agents Faison and Peterson walked over to join them. Hendricks and Marquez nodded to the two men and the quartet stood in silence.

  Hendricks felt his cell phone purr in his pocket. He pulled it out and looked at the display. It was Shepherd.

  He took the call.

  ‘Shep, where the hell have you been, man?’ he said. ‘You missed-’

  He suddenly paused, listening.

  ‘What?’

  *

  ‘Take it easy, doc!’ Archer said, as his leg was elevated in a sling. ‘Jesus!’

  The army doctor gave him a look, then satisfied, turned and walked out of the room. The hospital sling was supporting Archer’s broken ankle, bound and wrapped in a cast.

  He’d stayed conscious when they hit the water. Despite the parachute massively reducing their speed, they’d hit the surface hard. Archer had skydived once before. Chalky had bought him a skydive for his birthday a couple of years ago, but little to Chalk’s knowledge Archer had booked him onto the jump as well after he’d been told of the present. The night before the jump they’d been out on the town till four am and the two hungover officers had arrived at the airfield the next morning feeling very much the worse for wear. Leaping out of an aircraft was absolutely the last thing on God’s earth that they wanted to do right then. In the end, Archer had enjoyed the experience, particularly seeing the look on Chalky’s face before they dived and then hearing his yells and promises of retribution as they fell through the air.