Silent Night - By Tom Barber Page 0,74

campsite.’

‘So where else are you gonna find one?’

‘We never checked out Flood Microbiology, did we?’

Josh thought for a moment. ‘No. We didn’t.’

‘I want to take another look around the lab. See if there’s anything we missed.’

Josh nodded and drained his coffee. ‘Want me to give you a lift?’

Archer shook his head.

‘I’ll walk. Need to clear my head anyway.’

‘Hey! Look who it is!’

Peterson grinned as he walked onto the industrial estate, a taxi behind him pulling away and speeding off into the night. A bonfire was going in the centre of the area, thrash metal coming out of some speakers, bottles of liquor and cans of beer being passed around. Three of the guys walked towards him, shaking his hand one by one. The man in the middle was one of his two companions from the bar in Hoboken.

‘You crazy son of a bitch,’ he said. ‘How the hell did you get them to let you out?’

‘My girl posted bail,’ Peterson said, with a grin. ‘Arraignment is in a month.’

The trio laughed, two of them patting him on the back.

‘C’mon, dumbass. Let’s get you a beer.’

Peterson walked off with the trio towards the main campsite. Behind the bonfire, the doors to one of the meth caravans opened. A big bearded guy stepped out; he pulled down his mask, then grabbed a can of Bud and took a swig.

‘Idiots,’ the man beside Peterson said. ‘Cooking product next to our campfire. Hey!’

The big guy looked over at him.

‘You want to take that shit somewhere else?’

The cooker gave him the finger and drank some more beer.

During this exchange, Peterson glanced over his shoulder.

But all he saw were old abandoned buildings and dark forestry beyond.

‘You hearing this, OK, Sergeant?’ came Faison’s voice quietly over the radio.

Sixty yards from the main campsite, hidden in the shadows of the hedge-growth with the members of his team, Hendricks scooped up his radio and answered.

‘Copy that,’ he said quietly. ‘Loud and clear.’

Peterson was wearing a small, imperceptible sticky mic tucked away under his collar. From now on they could hear every word he was saying down there. One of Shepherd’s people had just contacted them to report that the British lawyer had been shot dead at the nightclub before the trade took place. Someone took him out with a rifle. They’d arrested Finn Sway who’d been found near the scene but his alibi had checked out and they’d released him. Shep had wanted to keep him in custody regardless but given that this was an ATF operation, Faison ultimately called the shots. He’d requested that they let Sway go. And so he had.

Hendricks had agreed with that decision. He knew people like Sway. Even if he didn’t kill Jacobs himself, he would have been implicated. And he was involved with this last vial of the virus somehow. Hendricks had heard the briefing and it all made sense.

Looking down at the camp, his eyes narrowed in anticipation. Now, Sway would be twitched knowing the NYPD was up his ass.

All they had to do now was sit back and wait for him and his crew to make a mistake.

THIRTY FIVE

It was too cold for Archer to walk all the way up to the lab on 66. Besides, he couldn’t take too long or Shepherd would be pissed. He managed about four blocks, then threw in the towel and hailed a cab.

The journey took a couple of minutes. As the taxi pulled up outside the lab building on Amsterdam, Archer saw a lone figure sitting outside on a bench, wrapped up in a dark coat.

Maddy Flood.

She was sitting not ten feet from where her father had died. The point of impact on the sidewalk in front of her had been cleaned up and the team who were here earlier were long gone, all traces of the suicide removed. Archer paid the fare, then stepped out of the cab and shut the door, and the vehicle headed off uptown.

He walked slowly towards her, well aware of the hostility she’d been directing his way all day. He stopped six feet away from her, his hands buried deep in the pockets of his coat.

‘I thought you were meant to have a detective with you?’ he said.

‘He went to get us some food and I left. I wanted to be alone.’

‘Are you OK?’

She looked at him, then sniffed. ‘What happened to your nose?’

‘Jacobs is dead.’

‘What? How?’

‘The meet at the club was a set-up. They killed him with a rifle.’

She thought about what he said, then looked