Silent Night - By Tom Barber Page 0,86

flesh wound. Sway had a weapon and had already shot Josh. That meant he needed to go down hard. The bullet hit Sway in the upper chest, the force punching him backwards. He dropped the pistol, which clattered onto the roof beside him, and fell back onto the edge of the rooftop, his back arched over the wall.

Keeping their weapons trained on him, Shepherd, Marquez and Jorgensen moved forward.

Sway was panting, his chest heaving up and down, a growing patch of blood staining the front of his sweater from the gunshot wound. Up close they could see that he wasn’t Finn Sway, although the resemblance was very strong. This guy was younger. The trio all watched him then lowered their weapons. The kid wasn’t a threat anymore. He was on his way out.

The young man managed to lift his head and looked down at the wound, his eyes confused. Then he looked up at Shepherd, the man who shot him. The guy was young. Barely a man. A younger Finn Sway. They were even wearing the same outfit.

The younger Sway grimaced, the heaving in his chest decreasing.

Then his head lolled to the side and his breathing stopped altogether.

FORTY ONE

Fifteen minutes later Josh was being loaded into an ambulance on a frame back down on the street. Luckily they were only a few blocks from Roosevelt Hospital and a medical team had arrived fast. Josh had taken the round in the upper arm; the ambulance team said he was going to be fine but they needed to get him into surgery and extract the bullet immediately. They finished locking him in place in the back and were feeding him oxygen.

Standing by the rear doors, Archer and Marquez watched. Lying on the bed, medics working either side of him, Josh saw the two detectives and lifted the hand of his good arm. They raised theirs back in acknowledgement as the doors were pulled shut from the inside. Then the ambulance sped off on its way to the hospital.

Watching it go, Archer turned and saw Shepherd standing alone near the entrance of the building. The street was pretty busy around him but he’d tuned it all out, lost in his own thoughts. They’d just wheeled out Sway’s body-bag and were taking it to the morgue in a separate ambulance. His prints had already been taken and a match had come back from Charlotte-Mecklenburg PD. The kid’s name was Reese Sway, no middle name. Finn Sway’s younger brother. He’d been charged for vagrancy and theft but had never served time. Watching Shepherd, Archer heard Josh’s voice in his mind. Hell of a thing. Man tries to defend his home, ends up killing his own son. Reese Sway had been young. Archer could imagine the memories pulling the trigger had stirred up. He stepped his way through the assembled throng of police and onlookers, and approached Shepherd.

‘Josh is on his way,’ Archer said. ‘He’s going to be fine.’

‘Great.’

Archer saw the look on his face. 'You had no choice, sir.’

'There's always a choice.' Shepherd shook his head angrily. 'Stupid kid.'

'He tried to kill Josh. He tried to kill the doctor and me at the lab. He wasn't a kid.'

Jorgensen walked over. Shepherd saw him approaching.

‘Where are we with Finn Sway?’ he asked.

‘Rach can’t find him in the city,’ Jorgensen said. ‘But taxi and bus services have been informed as well as State borders. Dispatch is putting out his description. We’ll find him.'

Behind Jorgensen some news teams had just pitched up, hoping for a scoop after a headline-packed day. Shepherd glanced at them. 'I’m going to put the word out. Let’s get every New Yorker searching for this scumbag.’

The two detectives nodded. Shepherd rose and stepped towards to the waiting press, thinking of the dead boy.

Stupid kid.

Eleven miles to the west, Finn Sway had just arrived at Kearny Medical in New Jersey having taken a taxi. He’d considered using one of the cars left in the parking lot from the dead scientists upstairs, but decided he didn’t need the hassle and wanted to be able to jump into a vehicle at a moment’s notice. He stepped out and shut the door, paid the fare, then watched the guy leave. When the car was gone, Finn walked over to the lab complex and pulled open the door.

Rourke was standing inside behind the reception desk. Wicks and Drexler were sitting across the lobby, talking. All three of them turned and looked at Finn as he walked in.

‘Jacobs is dead,’