Silent Night (Sam Archer 4) (21 page)

Shepherd, Faison and Peterson all nodded.

‘This is starting to make sense,’ Shepherd said.

‘Where’s the Chapter holed up?’ Archer asked Peterson.

‘We’ve set up camp on an empty industrial estate in
New Jersey
. The whole crew’s there. They’re treating it as a weekend-long party.’

‘Including Rourke and Sway?’ Shepherd asked.

‘Haven’t seen either of them since we arrived. Or Wicks and Drexler for that matter. But they’ll be back at some point. The vehicles they rode up in are still there.’

Shepherd turned to Faison.

‘Do you have any men on the camp-site?’ he asked.

He shook his head. ‘Just Peterson right now. He’s my eyes and ears. Our whole operation was set for this coming weekend so my team is still down in
Texas
. I’m the only agent who came up here to follow. But that was when we thought this was a straight arms deal, before we knew about this virus threat. I can call in back-up from the
New York
or
Newark
office at a moment’s notice.’

Shepherd nodded, and turned to Josh, who was standing behind him.

‘I want eyes on the camp-site. Find Sergeant Hendricks and tell him I need to speak with him.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Josh said, pulling open the door and leaving the room. Shepherd turned back to the two ATF agents.

‘I don’t want to encroach on your operation gentlemen, but I’m sure you understand that the NYPD now has a major interest in Bobby Rourke and Finn Sway.’

‘We all want the same thing here,’ Faison said. ‘And forget M16s and boxed ammunition. If we catch them in possession of a lethal virus, that takes it to a whole new level. Not only do we secure the virus, we’ll bury the entire Chapter for good. I’ll call the
New York
office and get a Task Force on stand-by. We’ll stake out the camp with your team. If we can confirm the virus is at the location, we’ll move in and take ‘em all.’

‘And I’ll go back undercover,’ Peterson said. ‘Try to find out what’s going on.’

‘The rest of them won’t wonder where you’ve been?’ Archer asked.

Peterson shook his head.

‘I had to get arrested to get to you. It’s given me a window.’

‘What did you do?’

‘Slugged a cop in
Hoboken
.’ He looked up at Faison. ‘How is he?’

‘Broken nose and pissed off that I got you out. I’d send him a Christmas card.’

‘I’ll tell the group that my girlfriend posted bail,’ Peterson said. ‘My story will check out.’

Shepherd nodded. ‘OK.’

‘Before we continue, there’s something else,’ Faison said.

‘Which is?’

‘This needs to be ATF’s collar.’

Shepherd looked at him. Both men knew that ATF already had jurisdiction, but Shepherd appreciated the courtesy. He nodded.

‘Agreed. At the campsite, the ATF will take the lead. The NYPD will offer back-up.’

‘Appreciate that.’

Shepherd glanced at the hate tattooed on Special Agent Peterson’s arms.

‘You’ve definitely earned it,’ he said.

Peterson rose. Shepherd did the same and shook hands with him and Faison.

‘Do you have any other leads on where this last vial could be?’ Faison asked.

‘We’re following up on one right now,’ said Shepherd. ‘When I know more, I’ll fill you in. When Sergeant Hendricks arrives, we’ll brief his team and draw up a game-plan. Can you both sit tight until he gets here?’

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.

In 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.