Silent Night - By Tom Barber Page 0,44

at Archer, smiling.

‘What’s your name?’ he asked.

Archer ignored him. As the two men led Gunnar out of the door, Archer glanced around the room. A large American flag was draped across the far wall, taking up most of the space. To the right, he saw a series of notepads stacked together in a neat line on the shelf. Beside them were rows of books. Looking at the spines, Archer recognised some of the titles, but others were in a foreign language.

However two of them were familiar, resting side by side.

The Bible and Mein Kampf.

‘Mind your step,’ Gunnar said to Shepherd, who was leading him out of the apartment. He'd almost missed a small drop, which would have taken him off balance. Behind the giant, Archer grabbed the house keys off the table. He made momentary eye contact with Shepherd when they paused whilst he secured the apartment. Their expressions said the exact same thing.

Who the hell is this guy?

TWENTY TWO

Twenty minutes later, just as the clock ticked to 1:30pm, the team had reconvened back at the Counter Terrorism Bureau. Over in Manhattan, clean up from the store by the Seaport was in full swing and the entire NYPD, ESU and Chemical Response Teams were on red alert. The CRT had locked down the area where the bomb had detonated, and the bodies had been wheeled out and transported to the lab, their families in the process of being notified. Macy’s had also been shut down for the rest of the day which had severely pissed off its senior executives, some of them calling in and demanding to speak with Lieutenant General Franklin. However, using all his PR skills and trying to calm them down, Franklin pointed out that their building staff had dealt with a potential major incident expertly and with great efficiency. That was good publicity and some compensation for their temporary drop in profit. The Mayor had gone on the air a few moments ago saying that the tragic accident at the Seaport and the situation in Macy’s were unrelated and that both events happening so close together was just a terrible coincidence. He assured the city that everything was under control, and offered his sincerest condolences to the families of those killed at the Pier.

Upstairs in Briefing Room 5, Rach was searching for the person or people who’d taken the man into the restroom at Bryant Park and killed him. She’d asked a co-worker to run through the CCTV footage from the lobby at the Flood Microbiology building. The analyst had found the man Archer had killed earlier at the house. He’d entered the building and swiped himself in at just after 7pm, exactly as Dr Kruger had said. He’d left ten minutes later with a box under his arm which must have contained the missing vials. The body found at the French café at Bryant Park was on its way to the lab where prints would be taken and hopefully an ID pulled, but that was only part of the puzzle. The number one priority was finding who broke his neck in that restroom and stole the vial from his undetonated bomb.

Downstairs, to the left of the detectives’ desks and working areas, was the corridor lined with interrogation cells. Gunnar had been taken into a cell ten minutes ago, his cuffs removed and his white tank-top given to him to put on. He'd been told to sit and wait. The intimidating size of the man and the inking covering his body contrasted oddly with his unrelenting cordiality. Nothing seemed to upset or faze him. Unlike most suspects dragged into the building, he was showing no signs of aggression or resistance, maintaining his air of patience and tolerance.

Watching from a one-way glass window to the side of the interrogation room, his arms folded and with Jorgensen and Marquez beside him, Archer studied the man with curiosity. He’d never come across someone whose appearance was such a contradiction to their manner. Gunnar spoke like a post-grad yet looked like the head of a prison gang.

In fact the only time he hadn’t been one hundred per cent compliant since they picked him up was a few seconds ago. Shepherd had gone in to grill him about the dead neo-Nazis but he had flatly refused to talk.

He said he would only talk to the blond guy who’d put the cuffs on him.

That meant Archer was taking the lead whether he liked it or not.

Shepherd stepped outside to the surveillance room,