Silent Night

THIRTY NINE

At his girlfriend’s place thirty one blocks downtown, Reese Sway had almost finished packing up his stuff. Or her stuff, to be exact. He was working fast but methodically, going for the most valuable things. Jewellery, money in her bedside drawer, a gold watch. Finn had promised that they would both be millionaires by the end of next week, but Reese had only made it this far by being good at what he did.

And anyway, a grifter stays a grifter, no matter how much money he has.

He and Finn were born three years apart. Before Reese was born, Finn and their parents lived in the middle of Roller, but half-way through her second pregnancy the boy’s mother had found out that their dad was screwing other women in town. She’d packed her stuff, got in her car and driven away, leaving three- year old Finn behind with his cheating a*shole of a father.

Reese had grown up moving from place to place, leap-frogging from town to town. Eventually his mother had all but given up, living in a trailer in North Carolina and spending her unemployment on alcohol and drugs. When he was fifteen he’d had enough; he packed his shit and left. Two months later, he’d called his grandma and found out that his mother had overdosed on Oxycontin and died.

The moment he’d left home, Reese had been forced to fend for himself. He bounced from homeless shelters to subways and bus stations. A few weeks after he’d first walked out he’d been sitting in a park in Charlotte in the middle of the afternoon, the same bench where’d he slept the previous night, hungry and tired. A nineteen year old blond girl called Christina had sat down beside him. They’d got talking, and he’d given her his story.

But rather than walk away, which he’d been expecting, the girl had been horrified at what had happened to him. She took Reese home and luckily for him, her parents were equally kind-hearted. They’d let him stay in their spare room, fed him and bought him some new clothes from the local store outlet. After countless nights sleeping rough on park benches and under bridges, he lay there between the soft sheets and suddenly realised he had something that other bums didn’t have.

Women were attracted to him.

He’d humoured the family, sensing Christina had taken more than just a passing interest in him. That instinct was justified when she snuck into his room late at night about two weeks into his stay. But after a while the situation started to feel claustrophobic. Reese hadn’t grown up in a family environment and he sure as hell didn’t need one now. He didn’t care about anyone but himself and after they’d taken him to church one Sunday he’d realised enough was enough. So, just under a month into his stay at the family’s residence, he’d slid open the bedroom window and headed for the first train out of town.

But not before he’d cleaned the house out of as many valuables as he could carry.

And that’s where his grifting began. Conning became a game, one he was very good at. And the better he got, the more money he made. Given his youth, people underestimated him. He’d lost count of how many women he’d ripped off using a variety of routines and set-ups. Often it was as easy as going home with a girl from a bar, then robbing her blind the moment she fell asleep. He’d always skip town before anyone realised what had happened or had a chance to call the cops.

However, something his mother had said just before he left home had always lingered at the back of his mind. He’d tried to ignore it, but it kept coming back. He knew piss-all about his father but one night, in a drunken, drug-induced haze, his mother told him that he had an elder brother.

Apparently the guy lived in a town called Roller, down in Texas towards the border with Mexico.

Eventually, two days after his twenty first birthday and with money in his pocket from a successful rip-off, Reese had made a decision. He’d booked a flight to San Antonio then taken a bus out to Roller, arriving just after 9pm. He’d dumped his bag at the only motel in town, then gone to the only bar for a beer. He was planning to have a few drinks, get his head down then ask around and find his brother the next day but the man he was there to find had walked in less than an hour after Reese, with some of his friends. Looking up from his Bud, Reese had done a double take. The guy was the spitting image of him. He’d stepped off his stool and walked over to him, apprehensive.

The man had seen Reese then done a double take himself. The two men spent a few seconds staring at each other. It was like looking in a mirror.

The night that followed was still the most enjoyable of Reese’s young life. He’d been apprehensive on the journey down there, wondering if his brother would acknowledge him, whether he’d turn out to be an a*shole or if he was even still here. But he needn’t have worried; they’d spent the entire night getting drunk and catching up on twenty one years of history. It turned out their father was dead too. After he put all his money in a bad investment four years ago he’d drunk a bottle of Jack, put a shotgun in his mouth and eaten a shell. Finn had enjoyed hearing the tales about his brother’s grifting, how he conned his way from place to place and ripped people off.

In return, Finn told him about his work. Six months ago he’d joined a local right-wing chapter called The Stuttgart Soldiers. He’d done six months upstate and had been cell mates with one of their members. They aren’t just Nazi dumbasses Finn had said, seeing the look on his brother’s face. This was a business and a civic responsibility, taking the fight to domestic enemies. Reese had assumed all they did was burn books and run non-whites out of town, but Finn told him how they took guns and dope back and forth across the borders. They patrolled the area in trucks, searching for immigrants and then removing them from the land, taking back their country one wetback at a time.

Interested, but too self-centred to be concerned with other people’s issues, Reese had made the right noises then spent the rest of the night drinking whiskey and having a great time with Finn and his friends. They had all welcomed him as family. More so than anyone else ever had.

Two days later, Reese had bid Finn farewell but had a new outlook on life. He had a brother, some family he actually cared about and who gave a shit about him in return. In the five years since that night he and Finn had stayed in constant touch. Victims of the young conman assumed that he only cared about one thing: himself. But that wasn’t true. He’d do anything for his big brother.

Which is exactly what he’d done tonight.

Reese had been in New Jersey for the past three months, his meagre savings dwindling fast as he rented a motel room over in Elizabeth. He was working on a girl he’d met at a bar in Midtown who had a husband fighting the Taliban and who was bored and lonely. He’d put in some solid groundwork, eventually winning her over, but it had been a lot of effort.

Then a week ago he’d received a call from Finn.

He was coming to New York. Reese was surprised and delighted. He’d asked him why, but Finn wouldn’t reveal anything over the phone. He said he’d tell him in person.

And he had. Earlier today he’d asked Reese to meet him at a lab complex in New Jersey. He’d ridden a taxi over there, then taken a few moments to shake hands with Finn’s crew, Wicks and Drexler, two of the people he’d hung out with that night in Roller when he’d first met his big brother. Finn had then explained about the virus and what he and Bobby were planning to do with it.

However, he said there was a problem, which is why Reese was there.

Finn was due to meet with a so-called buyer later that night but had a feeling it was a set up. However, he wasn’t going to pass up the chance of getting his hands on $2 million. The plan was to stake the bar out, watching for any pigs who might be undercover. Finn would set up with a rifle nearby. If the bar was kosher, he had Drexler in the club. She’d approach the man, tell him to transfer the $2 mil via wire transfer then once payment was confirmed, pass over a fake vial. The guy would never know it wasn’t the virus; he couldn’t exactly open it and test it in the club. And if it was a trap, Finn would kill him. But given that he had eyes and ears on him everywhere, Finn needed a solid alibi. And that was where Reese came in.

Finn had asked him to go to a Starbucks at 10pm on the nose, buy a drink, make himself visible on camera, hang about for a few moments and then leave. Reese couldn’t have been more willing to help. Anything that was a con or put one over the cops was his bread and butter. What about our clothes? Reese had asked. Finn said they’d stop at a retail store on the way to Manhattan and buy a matching set.

Once he was done at the coffee shop, Reese was told to go to some lab on 66 and Amsterdam. Apparently there was one last vial of the virus that had been missed which they didn’t need anymore and a bitch doctor who needed to be got rid of. Drexler had offered to find her and take her out but Finn said she’d have cops guarding her. They couldn’t waste time looking for her either. They’d been assured that the woman would be the next person to go inside the main lab, so Reese had entered the building and the lab using a key card Finn gave him. He’d headed upstairs and rigged up the virus with a bug and timer as instructed which would be activated once anyone entered the correct code into the keypad. It would kill the bitch and get rid of the last sample of the virus.

He’d taken the bio suits, dumping them in the trash, and left.

Now in the apartment, he checked his watch, then swept the contents of the girl’s jewellery box into his bag. Finally, he checked around, making sure he had everything worth taking.



‘What?’

‘Jesus Christ,’ Archer said, shaking his head, leaning back. ‘How the hell did we miss this? We had the guy in handcuffs and we let him go.’

‘Miss what?’ Shepherd said.

‘There are two Sways. They’re brothers. That’s their cover. That’s how Finn Sway said he couldn’t have planted that bomb at the club. That’s how the guy at the coffee shop saw him at the exact same time and how this man says he was in here just afterwards. Sway was the shooter. His brother was at the Starbucks pretending to be him. Then he came here and rigged up the lab.’

The team looked at him and realised how they’d been duped.

‘Jesus Christ,’ Shepherd said.

‘How was this not on the file?’ Marquez asked.

‘Roller only has a small-town local PD,’ Archer said. ‘You saw his jacket. He came from a broken home. He could have ten brothers and sisters for all we know.’

‘We need to get them both before they leave the city,’ Josh said.

Shepherd pulled his phone, pushing Redial.

‘Rach?’ he said. ‘Listen. Pull up footage from outside Tonic around 2215. The East 29 Street camera will show Finn Sway. I want you to run clothing rec on him as fast as you can.’

He waited. A few moments later, Rach came back.

‘Go on,’ Shepherd said, listening closely. A few moments pause. Then he started for the door, ending the call. ‘One of the two Sways entered an apartment building off 35 and 8 four minutes ago.’

The entire team ran out of the building and headed for their cars. Dr Kruger had just arrived, stepping out of a taxi, the detective assigned to protect him joining him on the sidewalk. Kruger had changed his clothes, the blood-stained blue shirt replaced by a sweater, brown jacket and fresh jeans. He paid the fare, then slammed the door. ‘What’s going on?’

‘In the car, doc,’ Shepherd said. ‘You’re coming with us.’