Silent Night

TWELVE

Archer and Josh had just arrived on the third floor. The building had been cleared; the only people in sight now were ESU officers or store security scouring each level. They’d had to make a flash decision as to which part of the store they concentrated their search and figured the guy would have wanted to blend in when he planted the device. The men’s department seemed to be as good a place as any to start.

The task-force guys were working in small teams, holding their radiation detectors and sweeping their designated area. Archer started doing the same. Holding the device, he watched the reading on the monitor closely as he walked around the floor. Meanwhile, Josh had moved ahead and was searching the old fashioned way, quickly checking under piles of clothing, behind rails and around cashier desks, searching for any sign of the box or the bag. However, like the rest of the store the third floor was huge, rails and displays filled with clothes everywhere you looked.

Josh ducked down, searching behind a counter, then cursed and reappeared.

‘Anything?’ he called.

Archer shook his head, watching the radiation reading. ‘Nothing.’

What he’d said earlier was true, but only to a point. The bomb would give off a gamma reading, but he didn’t know how strong. Thankfully, the detector’s sensors were extremely sensitive. They reacted to fire alarms as well as to other equipment emitting even tiny levels of radiation. Since the device had come into use, there’d been many occasions when a suspected threat somewhere in the city had been called in, ESU and CRT teams deployed, only to find the reading was coming from an innocent member of the public who’d been undergoing radiotherapy treatment. And here, they could be dealing with an even smaller amount. Tiny even. Archer guessed that Flood and Kruger had not used much cobalt in cultivating the virus. He didn’t know if they were all wasting their time.

Time they didn’t have.

He rounded the corner, the escalators immediately to his right, and looked down at the handheld monitor. The numbers on the display were hovering on 45, the normal readout.

Having just searched under some clothing displays, Josh loped over and joined him.

‘Shit,’ he said, looking around at the amount of floor that still needed to be searched. ‘We need more people up here.’

Archer nodded, looking down at the monitor. ‘We’d better try the next level.’

The two men quickly walked forward towards the rising escalator, stepping on.

‘Hey!’ a voice suddenly shouted from behind them.

They looked at each other, then immediately ran back down.

They saw a pair of ESU officers ten yards away, each holding a radiation detector. One of them had momentarily pulled off his gas mask in order to shout and get the detectives’ attention.

‘We’ve got a reading!’

Running forward, Archer and Josh looked down at their own reader in Archer’s hand.

The man was right.

The reading had jumped to 52.

‘Here we go,’ Josh whispered, side-by-side with Archer.

The ESU officers took the lead, the two detectives following close behind. The four men moved silently, not taking their eyes off the monitors. They moved agonisingly slowly, their heads down, ignoring their immediate surroundings, just focused on the sensor reading on the machines.

56.

58.

61.

The two ESU guys had walked into an area filled with men’s shirts on rails. The place was deserted. Music was still playing quietly from the speakers. Archer and Josh followed close behind, watching their own reading on Archer’s borrowed detector.

‘It’s getting stronger.’

64.

68.

The guy who’d alerted Archer and Josh pushed his pressel switch, talking into his radio with his gasmask still raised.

‘Lieutenant, this is Hicks. I’m in menswear on 3. We need CRT and back-up up here right now. We’ve got a reading.’

The four men moved forward through the menswear section, Hicks pulling his mask back into place. The reading kept rising.

Following it, the ESU officers turned a corner and headed into the changing room area.

72.

75.

They went into the first cubicle on the right, then stepped back out, studying the detector. They tried the second and third.

Then they tried the fourth.

‘Whoa,’ Hicks said, his voice muffled under the gas mask. ‘We got something.’

Archer and Josh looked at their own reader.

It was at 95.

They tore their gaze from the detector and looked at the cubicle in front of them.

It was empty, but the radiation equipment was telling a different story. Behind them they could hear the sound of running feet. ‘In here!’ Hicks called. Then he pointed at the seat in the cubicle. ‘Get that panel off.’

Hicks’ partner dropped to one knee, pulling a screwdriver from his tac vest. He started working the screws out of the four corners one by one. He removed the fourth just as two CRT specialists appeared in the changing room.

The ESU man grabbed the panel and lifted it.

All six men saw the viral bomb inside.

It was nestled beside some wiring and a small air vent. Archer and Josh recognised it immediately as a replica of the one used in Central Park, except that this one had a timer and no lid. Under a cylindrical vial of yellow liquid was a timer with a series of lime-green buttons.

00:31.

00:30.

00:29.

‘Back up!’ one of the CRT specialists ordered, the sound distorted by the helmet of his suit. The ESU pair and Archer and Josh were already moving out of the way, making room. Neither Archer or Josh had a gas mask, but neither of them was leaving.

The CRT team worked like quicksilver. As the specialist on the left ran his hands along the sides of the package, the man to the right laid down a thick black containment case that he had brought with him. It was empty. He clicked open a lock on each corner and pulled off the transparent glass lid. In front of them, the timer on the bomb ticked down.

00:21.

00:20.

00:19.

‘No disruptor or motion sensors,’ the specialist on the left said. He kept feeling the package. ‘I’m moving it. Box ready?’

‘Ready.’

He took hold of the bomb either side and gently lifted it off the panel.

They all held their breath.

It didn’t go off.

00:12.

00:11.

00:10.

The man lifted it out steadily and placed it carefully into the black container beside him.

00:07.

00:06.

‘Seal it!’ he said, withdrawing his hands.

The other guy grabbed the lid, sliding it into place, and together the two of them clicked the four locks, sealing the container and locking it airtight.

‘Box secure!’ the second man said.

Standing behind them, Archer and Josh saw the countdown on the timer through the glass lid.

00:03.

00:02.

00:01.