Silent Night

THREE

Fifteen minutes after Archer had stepped inside the taxi, it turned off Vernon Boulevard in Queens and began to move down a side street, passing a long junkyard and several auto-body shops. In the back, Archer looked out of the window to his right. The snowfall here had been pretty heavy last night, the same as in Manhattan. The white stuff had been shovelled and ploughed to the kerb to clear the way for vehicles, piled a couple of feet high in some places.

They paused at a red light for a few moments, then crossed the street and continued to head south. Before long, a long red-brick building slid into view on the left. It was unmarked and looked innocuous, blending in with all the other structures on the block.

‘Here’s good,’ Archer said.

The driver looked at him through the rear-view mirror. ‘Right here?’

‘Yeah.’

The driver shrugged and pulled to a halt by the kerb. Archer paid the fare and tipped the guy then climbed out and slammed the door shut behind him. As the taxi moved off, turning the corner and disappearing out of sight, Archer looked around. He could see why the driver had been confused. The whole neighbourhood was pretty much deserted, just the faint sound of a radio hanging in the air from one of the auto-body shops nearby.

He walked straight towards a set of glass doors that led into the red-brick building. He pulled one of them open, moving inside.

A second glass door was directly in front of him, this one electronically controlled. He drew an ID card from his pocket and swiped it down a card reader. It buzzed, a green light on the boxed-panel flicking on.

He pushed the second door open and walked into the Counter Terrorism Bureau for the New York Police Department.

The bustle and hum of activity inside the building couldn’t have been in greater contrast to the quietness of the street. To the left as you walked in was a large technical area containing a team of some twenty analysts. On the wall in front of them was a myriad of LED news tickers, electronic maps, digital world clocks and television screens tuned to various news channels both from within the United States and from all over the world. Some of the analysts were wearing headphones, monitoring foreign broadcasts and communications, constantly on their guard for anything that so much as hinted at a threat. Others were working closer to home, running key words through domestic calls and internet searches, scouring communications for anything that seemed at all unusual. The rest were working on a variety of jobs such as threading through intelligence, tracking potential suspects or working with field teams based out of the building. Open twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, the Bureau epitomised both the way the world and technology had changed in the last few years and also how the NYPD now conducted its affairs.

Since that terrible day in September 2001 when the city had come under attack, New York’s security systems had undergone a multi-million dollar transformation. The Mayor, Commissioners, Police Chiefs, Lieutenants and street police had collectively done one hell of a job. Crime-wise, New York was now regarded as the safest big city in the United States, just ahead of El Paso in Texas, a real triumph considering where the place had been back in the 80s and early 90s. The number of criminal incidents across the city had plummeted in the past decade and scores of gangs had been driven out of the State due to intensive policing by city law enforcement.

However, New York was still the number one US target for terrorist activity. With over eight million residents, its standing as the financial and business capital of the nation and with a subway system used by three and a half million people every day, the city knew it had a large red target painted on its chest. Protecting it was a constant and sometimes almost overwhelming challenge. But it was one that was an absolute necessity.

The work was relentless. Like most counter-terrorist work, ninety-nine per cent of the time the public never knew about the successes. They only knew about the failures. From his position near the entrance Archer watched the tech team work. They were like their own tribe, working on assignments, talking to each other in a foreign language of technical jargon, coding and in-house slang, surrounded by some of the most advanced technology available to any police force in the world. The information they gathered was invaluable. It both protected the millions of people who lived in the city and also enabled the 125 detectives who worked out of the building to do their job effectively.

Given that the NYPD had precincts spread across the five boroughs and around 35,000 officers to call upon, the detectives in the Counter Terrorism Bureau had different responsibilities. Much of their work involved threat assessment on major city landmarks, public and private properties and areas in the city deemed vulnerable to terrorist attack. They conducted security audits, ensuring that every appropriate defensive measure was in place and that there weren’t any chinks in the armour that could be exploited. They had informants and undercover detectives infiltrating the criminal element in the city, their objective to gather any information on terrorist sleeper cells.

It was like a deadly game of chess. Although the city was now protected like a fortress, it was a certainty that there were groups out there desperate to find a weakness in its defences. The 125 detectives were separated into divisions with various assignments. Archer was part of a five-man detail which was at the top of the food chain when it came to emergencies and casework. Given that he’d been a counter-terrorist task force cop in the UK just seven months ago, how Archer happened to land here now was partly luck, but was mostly down to a stroke of good timing and his old boss in the UK.

Archer had left his police team in London, the Armed Response Unit, in May. Being half-American and therefore bypassing any visa issues, he’d decided to move to New York City for the foreseeable future. Once in New York, he’d intended to apply for the NYPD and if accepted, begin re-training and then work his way up through the ranks from the ground. He needed at least five years on the street before he could attempt his goal of qualifying for the Emergency Service Unit, the NYPD’s SWAT team, but it was something that he was fully prepared to do. His father had been an NYPD cop and he’d recently discovered an ambition to follow in his footsteps, to experience what it was like to police the capital city of the world, as his dad had called it.

But a few days after he’d arrived and was prepping his application, Archer had received a call from Director Tim Cobb, his boss at the ARU in London. When Archer had explained his reasoning for handing in his notice back in May, Cobb had promised to try and help speed up his process of induction. He’d worked quite extensively with members of the NYPD in the past and had the sort of professional connections that could help Archer out.

However, the proposition he’d made in that phone call was beyond anything the younger man could have imagined or hoped for.

In its new era of law enforcement, the NYPD now had detectives placed in major cities all over the world, in locations such as Lyon, Hamburg, Tel Aviv and Toronto. It wasn’t a secret to the police forces in those countries; the detectives weren’t on clandestine operations. They were there to work closely with the major intelligence departments in each city and act as tripwires, giving immediate heads-up warnings whenever they were alerted to something relevant to New York City’s safety and security. It was a crucial part of the new age of the NYPD.

If something was coming, they wanted to know about it as soon as possible.

Cobb told Archer that he’d contacted one of his colleagues in the Department concerning Archer’s situation. The guy had then passed Cobb on to Lieutenant General Jim Franklin, the man who ran the newly-formed Counter Terrorism Bureau. Although the two men had never had dealings in the past, they’d quickly realised that an agreement between them would benefit both parties considerably. Franklin already had two men in the UK working with New Scotland Yard, but given that the ARU was at the forefront of London’s fight against terrorism he’d realised that stationing a man at the Unit’s headquarters in North London could prove very beneficial.

A deal was proposed.

If Cobb took a man from the NYPD, then Franklin would be happy to take Archer.

When Cobb had rung that night, he told Archer about the planned exchange. He didn’t even need to ask if the younger man would say yes. The next day, the swap was given the green light. An NYPD detective was heading to the ARU in London and Archer was joining the Counter Terrorism Bureau in New York City. However, admission wasn’t guaranteed. He’d endured extensive background checks and been enrolled in a federal police programme down in Georgia. Given that he’d been a frontline cop in the UK for almost a decade, he’d cruised the training and enjoyed every minute, learning some new techniques and honing some old ones. Once he’d passed the course, the deal was done and at the end of July he’d been formally presented with his badge. It was a huge moment for him.

It meant 3 Grade Detective Sam Archer was now a member of the NYPD’s Counter Terrorism Bureau.

Moving further into the building, Archer turned right and headed into the workplace for the detective squads. This portion of the building was spread over two floors. The lower level was where the working areas were located. Upstairs there were a series of Briefing Rooms and Lieutenant General Franklin’s office, all of which lay behind a fenced railing that looked down into the detective pit.

That morning, the place was humming. The weekend shift was hard at work, scores of people at desks, phone conversations taking place and fingers tapping computer keyboards. With the New Year approaching in a couple of weeks, many of the detectives had been assigned security roles for the crowds that would gather in Times Square. Given that there was always an upcoming celebration, parade, sporting event or political visit in the city, there was no such thing as a quiet shift when you worked in this building. Amongst the organised melee, Archer saw that someone had made a half-hearted attempt at putting up Christmas decorations. Token strips of gold and silver tinsel had been draped over a number of partitions separating each cubicle, and a Christmas tree with golden lights had been placed by a wall up ahead. Beside the tree, Archer saw his partner Josh Blake pouring himself a drink from a machine. Archer smiled and walking around the detective area, headed towards him.

Josh was twenty nine, black, and just about the nicest person who worked out of the Bureau. Everyone in the building called him by his first name, not his surname, a testament to the high regard in which he was held. He had a cool head and a maturity befitting a much older man. In the five months Archer had known him, he’d never seen him lose his temper. Originally from New Orleans, Josh had relocated to New York after Katrina had hit in 2005. A Pace University graduate with four years of street experience, he was married with three kids and had a balance in his life that Archer often felt was lacking in his own. Everyone liked Josh. He was strong and calm, with a measured approach to everything he did. He was also a serious weightlifter and had forearms like Popeye. It was always a gamble when a cop was assigned a partner and Archer had hoped that he and 3 Grade Detective Josh Blake would get along. He needn’t have worried. The two of them had hit it off from the moment they met and had since become very good friends.

As Archer walked towards him, Josh sensed someone approaching and turned. He had two foam cups in his hands. Like most in the Department, Josh had been a routine coffee drinker when he and Archer had first met, but his new partner had got him hooked on tea. Now he drank it every morning and had become quite an aficionado, much to his wife’s and Archer’s amusement.

He passed one of the cups to Archer and winked.

‘Earl Grey, no milk, no sugar. And good morning.’

‘Thanks,’ Archer said, taking it. ‘You too. Am I the last one here?’

Josh shook his head.

‘You’re number four. No sign of Shepherd yet.’

The drinks machine was near where their five-man team was stationed in the detective area. Archer glanced over his shoulder and saw that none of their team was at their desk.

‘Where are we meeting?’

‘Briefing Room 5,’ Josh said, motioning up with his head. ‘C’mon.’

The two men turned to their left and headed up a metal stairwell to the second floor. When they reached the top of the stairs they turned right and moved down the walkway, entering Briefing Room 5. In the centre of the room was a long rectangular table, chairs either side. A large screen was mounted on the wall straight ahead, hooked up to a computer terminal which was positioned down the far left of the table, ready and waiting for any member of the analyst team who needed it. Following Josh into the room, Archer saw two other members of the detail had already arrived, Jorgensen and Marquez. Both of them were wearing off-duty clothes, Jorgensen in a thick navy-blue fleece and jeans, Marquez in a black coat, black sweater and grey trousers. They were sitting on the left of the table. Josh and Archer took seats opposite them on the right.

Across the table, Jorgensen glared at Archer.

‘Finally,’ he said, confrontationally. ‘Where the hell have you been? At the salon getting your hair done?’

Archer smiled at him. ‘No, I was with your sister. She says hi.’

Marquez and Josh both chuckled. Jorgensen’s eyes narrowed in hostility.

His full name was Dave Jorgensen. Queens born and bred, he was an imposing guy, six foot three and about two hundred and twenty pounds. Before he became a cop he'd been a real up-and-coming American Football player, a starting line-backer at Rutgers for three years. By all accounts he’d been a red-hot prospect and had all the potential to go into the NFL after he graduated. But like many guys before him and many to follow, one injury had destroyed that dream. He’d blown his knee out in his final year and any promise of a professional career had instantly vanished. When he’d managed to get off crutches and walk again, he’d done two things. He’d applied to join the NYPD and had developed a large chip on his shoulder that he'd never managed to remove. He was short-tempered and confrontational, and a lot of people in the Bureau avoided him as a consequence.

But he had a special dislike for Archer. It had been evident from the minute Archer had walked in five months ago. Given his background, he’d been expecting some heat and initial opposition to his inclusion in the Bureau, despite the fact that his father had been NYPD. He hadn’t been disappointed. But Jorgensen in particular really hated him, so much so that it had taken Archer by surprise, although he could guess the reason. Archer knew that close to a thousand cops had applied for positions in the Counter Terrorism Bureau after its inception. Josh had told him over a beer that Jorgensen’s best friend, an old team mate at Rutgers, had applied for one of the spots but had just missed the final cut. Judging from his attitude, Archer guessed that Jorgensen felt his friend would have been a more valuable addition to the team than him. He met the big detective's glare across the table and stared straight back, not intimidated in the slightest. Archer just thanked God that the two of them hadn’t been assigned as partners. That would have been awkward.

Sitting beside Jorgensen was 3 Grade Detective Lisa Marquez. She was an entirely different case from him altogether. The only woman in the team, she was also one of the most natural detectives Archer had met, on both sides of the Atlantic. Born in the Bronx and just turned thirty two years old, Marquez was a great mix of Latina passion and incisive thinking. Although she was only five six and about a hundred and thirty pounds, she was just as tough as Jorgensen and didn’t take an ounce of his shit, which was just as well considering that the two of them were partners. She was perceptive and sharp; Archer had liked her from the moment they’d met. The feeling was mutual.

She looked across the table at him and nodded, giving a quick smile.

‘Morning, Archer,’ she said.

‘Morning.’

Just as Jorgensen was about to speak again, there was movement behind them at the door and the head of the team entered the room, Sergeant Matt Shepherd, dressed in a cream-coloured fleece and dark blue jeans. In his mid-thirties and with almost fifteen years of experience under his belt, Shepherd was one of those guys who would be just as comfortable in a gunfight in a crack den as he would be delivering a presentation to the senior heads of the Police Department in shirt and tie. Previously Josh’s sergeant at Midtown South, Shepherd had made the transfer to the Bureau with him. He was similar in build to Jorgensen, over six feet tall with a powerful frame, but that was where the similarities between the two men ended. Shepherd had a far more likeable demeanour and was also one hell of a leader.

The team had recently been forced to make do without him for a month. He’d returned two weeks ago from an unexpected leave of absence. No one knew why he'd been forced to take time off or where he'd gone, but once he’d returned they’d picked up straight away that things weren’t right. Usually an engaging and charismatic guy, Shepherd hadn’t smiled once since he’d returned to duty. He seemed distracted and slightly aloof. Everyone on the team was concerned, but no one had dared broach the subject with him. He’d talk when he was ready. And right now, he obviously wasn’t.

Stern-faced, he walked past the detectives to the head of the table, followed by a computer analyst named Rach. In her early thirties, with blonde hair and a kind but somewhat plain face, Rach worked with the team as their main analyst. She was diminutive and unassuming but was just as valuable as every other member of the team. Hollywood frequently portrayed their heroes working alone against seemingly insurmountable odds but the reality was very different. None of the detectives in the room could do their job without Rach’s assistance. Jorgensen might have outweighed her by a hundred pounds, but she was just as important as he was, perhaps even more so.

As she moved past Jorgensen and Marquez, taking a seat behind the computer terminal, Shepherd nodded at Archer to shut the door. The room was quiet, the only sounds coming from Rach as she started tapping away at the computer. Sitting back down, Archer took a mouthful of tea and watched the screen on the wall spark into life, the NYPD login page appearing and Rach quickly typing herself in.

Shepherd stood to the right of the computer screen. He had that now familiar grave look on his face.

But this morning, he looked even more serious.