Silent Night - By Tom Barber Page 0,106

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