Silent Night (Sam Archer 4) (39 page)

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.

Five 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.

However, Archer had remembered one vital piece of information from that day. It had come from the jump instructor when Archer had aired a concern about parachute reliability. The guy had told him that he’d only suffered dual parachute failure once in his career. He’d survived by signalling to another man he’d jumped with. Falling through the air, the two men had manoeuvred towards each other. The man without a chute had hooked his arms into the other guy’s parachute, legs around his waist and had held on as hard as he could as the other man pulled the cord. He’d dislocated his shoulder but they’d both survived.

Little did Archer know at the time that his question would save his and Maddy’s life a couple of years later.

Archer knew the duster’s low level of flight had saved them. If they’d been higher, they would have reached terminal velocity. The parachute would have ripped off or he’d have broken both his arms trying to stay hooked to Maddy. Or they’d have hit the water without a windbreak, which would have been similar to what Peter Flood experienced when he stepped off the
Flood Microbiology
rooftop. Nevertheless, they’d hit the water hard. So hard it had knocked the wind out of both of them and broken some bones.

Pitched into the ice-cold water, it had been suddenly dark and silent. Archer had still been holding Maddy who’d gone limp. Aware that the parachute was above them on the water he’d kept hold of her and kicked as hard as he could, aiming up and away.

They’d surfaced to the right of the parachute, Archer taking in a mouthful of air. But his joy at being alive was short-lived. In his arms, Maddy wasn’t moving and pieces of the flaming crop duster were starting to rain down around them. Minutes later, a DC Metro patrol boat came roaring up the River having seen the parachute landing. The pair were pulled from the water, sub-machine guns trained on them until it could be verified who they were. Then the adrenaline had worn off and the pain had set in.

Once safely on the boat, Archer had looked down and seen his foot was bent at a bizarre angle. Beside him on the deck, Maddy was still unmoving. They’d injected Archer with something that had to be morphine and the pain had disappeared. Then they’d taken him to a hospital in a painless daze. He was only just starting to re-gather his senses.

There was a knock at the door. It opened and a grey-haired man in military uniform entered the room.

‘Good morning, Detective.’

'Where am I?'

'Walter Reed Medical.'

The morphine was wearing off. Archer moved and grimaced.