Silent Night - By Tom Barber Page 0,108

arrived within a couple of minutes and taken control of the scene. He’d made sure that Beth and Mark were OK and that Finn Sway’s body was removed. He’d had to leave them to close out the rest of the operation, but armed officers were staying at his house until he got back.

It seemed all hell had broken loose suddenly. He’d just got off the phone with an Army lieutenant at Walter Reed who’d filled him in on what had happened to Archer and Maddy. It turned out Dr Kruger had been the missing link. He’d been an extremist in South Africa and joined The Stuttgart Soldiers when he arrived in the States. He was the man who’d told Bleeker about the virus at one of the New York Chapter meetings, and together with Rourke and Sway the four men had planned to steal and sell the virus. But Bleeker had got greedy, kidnapped Kruger to gain access to the lab and stolen the vials. Archer had explained to the lieutenant that Sway and Rourke were planning to fly the canisters containing the virus back to Texas, but Kruger had always intended to hijack the crop duster and cover DC with it. Archer and the doc had stopped him just in time.

Josh was out of surgery; he was going to be fine. Shepherd had spoken to him on the phone and the detective was furious that he’d missed out on all the action. Once Shepherd had told Hendricks what happened with Finn Sway at his home, he got a full update of what had happened at the campsite. Apparently the neo-Nazis had almost an entire cache of stolen weapons, so Faison got what he wanted. Firing at a Federal agent was a serious crime so having fired at an entire Task Force, the remaining bunch were going away for a long time, joining their three friends who’d confronted Archer in the nightclub.

However, not all the news was good. The tallied dead at the lab in New Jersey had been eleven; a Dr Jonathan Bale, his entire team, his wife, a security guard and a woman called Melissa Slade who’d turned out to be Dr Frankie Glover’s girlfriend. Glover himself was dead, as was Jorgensen, joining the fifty nine who’d perished at the store by the Seaport. A New Jersey farmer had also been found, hastily buried beside a shed at his farm with a fatal gunshot wound to the head, much like Alistair Jacobs. And of course there was Luis Cesar. The puzzle of the murder weapon from Tonic East was solved when an attentive CSU investigator noticed a rectangular parcel in the lobby of the apartment building from where the shot had been taken. It was addressed to a company in Texas. They’d opened it up and found a Winchester 270 inside, a suppressor on the end, the weapon that had killed the English lawyer.

The phone on the desk suddenly rang. Rach took the call. She listened for a few moments, then thanked whoever was on the other end and put the receiver back on the cradle.

‘Good news. Metro PD confirmed the canisters are on their way to the lab.’

‘For research?’

She shook her head. ‘To be destroyed.’

Shepherd smiled. He went to speak further, but there was a quiet knock on the door behind him. He turned. And saw his wife.

Beth.

‘Hi,’ he said, rising from his chair.

‘Hi.’

There was a pause. Rach and Hendricks got the signal.

‘We’ll head out,’ Hendricks said patting his friend on the shoulder, Rach following him.

‘Thank you. I mean it. Outstanding work from both of you.’

They nodded, moving past Beth Shepherd, leaving the husband and wife alone.

‘Please. Come in,’ he said. She shut the door behind her. As it had done so many times in the past few weeks, a silence fell between them, both of them standing across the room from each other.

Only a few feet apart but an eighteen year old boy’s life separating them.

‘Thank you for what you did.’

Shepherd didn’t reply.

‘I heard what happened,’ she said. ‘Your team saved everyone.’

‘Yes, they did.’

‘Are they all OK?’

Shepherd looked at her. ‘No. Josh got shot. Archer broke his leg.’ Pause. ‘And Dave Jorgensen died.’

‘I’m sorry.’

Pause.

‘How are you?’ she asked.

‘I’m OK,’ he said.

Silence. He looked her in the eye.

‘I’m so sorry.’

She blinked and turned her head to hide the tears in her eyes.

‘I just miss him, Matt,’ she said, her voice trembling.

‘So do I,’ Shepherd said. She started to cry. He took a step closer. She didn’t withdraw.