Silent Night - By Tom Barber Page 0,33

masks firmly in place, were frantically pushing people away from the area. Other members of their team had already raced towards the front of the store and had pulled the doors closed, holding them shut. It took three of them. The remaining people trapped inside were desperately trying to force their way out and the trio had to fight to keep the doors secure in order to contain the virus.

Several members of CRT were trying to help the five people on the ground, but it was useless. Two of them were already dead and the others were about to join them, their bodies stiffening, blood erupting from their mouths. The guy who’d ordered Archer and Josh to stay back was dragging what looked like fabric tenting from the back of the CRT van with the help of two other men.

An ESU officer ran over to the entrance of the store with a bully ram he’d pulled from their truck, the other three officers still holding the doors shut. They lodged it across the entrance bars, providing a makeshift block. People were still thumping the other side, more weakly now, but they weren’t getting out.

Having moved back, standing with a crowd of civilians watching in dawning horror, Archer and Josh could hear screaming from inside the store.

But it was fading.

And soon, it stopped.

SEVENTEEN

Jorgensen drove fast at the best of times, but the discovery of Dr Tibbs’ corpse had put an extra few ounces of pressure on his pedal foot. They sped across town, lights on the fenders flashing as they cut several reds. Before long they pulled to an abrupt halt outside Dr Glover’s address, an apartment building on the Upper East Side on 70 and 3. Unlike Dr Tibbs’ apartment building there was no reception, which also meant they had to wait for someone to let them in. Standing on the cold street they scanned the occupiers list beside the buzzer. They found F. Glover beside Apartment 2D. Luckily, a resident exited the building less than a minute later and Jorgensen jammed his arm in the door before it could shut.

Moving quickly up the stairs, the two detectives headed down the second floor corridor towards Dr Glover’s apartment.

However, as they approached they saw that the door was ajar.

Marquez was first inside, checking the apartment through the top sight of her pistol. Jorgensen followed her in. They cleared the place, the same as before.

And just as before, the apartment was empty. No sign of Dr Glover.

After a few moments they met up in the living area, holstering their weapons and looking around. The television was on, showing the news. There was the beginnings of breakfast on the kitchen counter, a couple of cereal bowls and two pastries. One of them had a bite taken out of it.

‘Someone was just here,’ Jorgensen said.

Marquez nodded in agreement. As Jorgensen moved to the kitchen to take a closer look around, Marquez saw several photo-frames placed on a table in the sitting room. She approached them, and noticed that the same man was in all three. Picking up the middle frame, she examined the photo. He was blond, in his thirties, standing on the deck of a yacht. Dressed in a white polo shirt, cream shorts and deck shoes and holding a green bottle of Heineken, he was smiling at the camera. It had been a beautiful day when the photo was taken and she saw nothing but blue sea and horizon behind him.

‘Here’s our guy,’ she said.

‘The kettle’s still warm,’ said Jorgensen, his hand on the jug. ‘He was here recently.’

Feeling uneasy, Marquez looked down at the photograph, at that broad grin on the man’s face. She thought of Dr Tibbs, flat on his back, four gunshot wounds to his head and chest.

Where are you, Dr Glover?

Wherever it was, she had a gut feeling that he wouldn’t be smiling.

Marquez was right. At that moment Glover’s face was a mask of wide-eyed shock, fear and confusion.

He was still sitting inside the lab at Kearny Medical across the Hudson River in New Jersey. His initial shock at his predicament was fading and was now being replaced by an ice cold fear and disbelief. Melissa’s body had been dragged away and dumped in a room across the level. He was trying not to stare at the blood stain it had left on the floor, smeared on the white tiles. Outside the lab Glover saw the man with the black curly hair watching him from an office next