Silent Night

NINETEEN

Marquez saw the guy lifting the gun but she was faster. She shot him twice in the chest and watched him thump back to the floor, dead. She moved inside the house swiftly and kicked the gun away from his hand, his palm open and his fingers loose. She focused her attention down the corridor to where the other guy had been standing as Jorgensen and Shepherd moved in behind her, Mossbergs in their shoulders.

‘NYPD!’ she shouted, looking through the sights of her Sig Sauer. ‘Come out with your hands up!’

There was movement up ahead.

Something appeared around the corner.

The barrel of a twelve gauge shotgun.

Jorgensen and Shepherd were already diving for cover.

Marquez launched herself into a room to her right as the guy pulled the trigger.

The blast was deafening, a thousand splinters and dust spraying into the air as the shell hit the main doorframe, forcing Jorgensen and Shepherd to retreat and Marquez to stay in what was a small sitting room.



Forced back outside the house, with their backs to the wall each side of the door, Jorgensen and Shepherd tried to move in again to back up Marquez, but the guy in the house fired again, pinning them down, pieces of the door frame spraying in the air. He had command of the corridor.

‘Back off!’ a voice screamed from the kitchen. ‘I said back off!’

Standing next to Josh to the right side of the door, Archer thought fast.

He swung away from the others and headed to the house next door.



‘Back off!’ Bleeker screamed again, aiming the Remington down the corridor. He looked at Donnie’s lifeless body on the ground up ahead and roared with rage. He racked the pump and fired the shotgun again, splinters and plaster filling the corridor as the shell annihilated the wall by the door. But even though he appeared to have the upper hand, Bleeker knew he was pinned down. It was just a matter of time. Keeping the barrel of the weapon on the only entrance, he looked around frantically, desperately trying to think of a way out. The bitch cop appeared from the sitting room, trying to get off a shot. Bleeker aimed and fired, just missing her and destroying the door frame.

‘Back up!’

Then he remembered he had the last two vials of the virus in his bag, sitting on the stool behind him. That was a serious bargaining tool. He could threaten them with that.

Firing again and working the pump, he ran to the bag. But just as he unzipped it and went to grab the box inside, he caught a movement through the kitchen window from the corner of his eye. He swung to his left, raising the shotgun, and caught sight of a figure in the house next door.

That wasn’t unusual except this one had white letters on his black vest.

NYPD.

It was the last thing he ever saw.



The Mossberg in Archer’s shoulder had a trigger pull of around seven pounds. He squeezed as the man turned towards him and the weapon boomed in his shoulder. The buckshot smashed through both sets of windows and hit the guy full in the chest. He wasn’t wearing a vest and the shot hurled him back into the counter behind him. Watching the man slump to the ground, Archer racked the pump on the Mossberg, his ears ringing from the shot.

‘Clear!’

He turned, and looked at a couple huddled down on the floor behind him, the owners of the house. They had their hands over their ears.

‘Sorry about the window,’ he said.



Inside the house, Marquez and Jorgensen were in the lead, sweeping and clearing each room. As they moved into the kitchen, Marquez dropped down to the man Archer had shot, pulling his shotgun from his grasp and checking his pulse.

He was dead.

Jorgensen headed straight to a door ahead, kicking it open and moving forward, all the while looking through the sights of his Mossberg. It was a bedroom, dank, the bed unmade.

But there was a man inside, tied to a chair. He was sitting on the left of the room, his eyes wide with shock. He’d taken a severe beating, his face cut up and bloodied, a piece of black duct tape pulled across his mouth. Jorgensen stared at the man for a moment, recognising him immediately as Marquez joined him inside the room. Lowering their weapons, the two detectives moved forward and Jorgensen pulled the strip of tape off the man’s mouth.

‘What’s your name?’ he asked.

‘Reuben,’ the man said, between deep gulps of air. ‘Reuben Kruger. I’m a doctor’.

*

Across the water in Manhattan, a long line had formed outside the men’s restroom in the French patisserie at Bryant Park. As she fulfilled a drinks order, a busy waitress noticed the queue and frowned. Irritated, she placed her tray down and quickly stepped past everyone, arriving outside the men’s room door. She knocked on it briskly.

‘Sir? Is everything alright?’

Nothing.

‘Sir?’

Nothing.

No sound from inside.

She tried the handle but it was locked. Turning, she caught the attention of a waiter and motioned him over.

‘He’s not answering,’ the waitress said, as the man joined her. He put his ear against the wood, listening for a moment, then grabbed the handle and tried to force it open. It wouldn’t budge. He made a decision and stepped back. He dipped his shoulder and hit the frame. The force overpowered the lock and the door flew open. As he stumbled into the restroom, they both saw a man slumped on the ground.

His body was limp, his head twisted at almost a right angle. Beside him was an empty box. His dead eyes stared across the room.

The waitress covered her mouth, but didn’t quite manage to stop a scream.