[Sam Archer 08.0] Last Breath

by Tom Barber

  ‘Ledger and this guy Archer can’t make it over the Bridge unless they grow wings,’ Marcus said. ‘They’re trapped in the 7th and 8th. How hard can it be to find them?’

  ‘Our guys are on it but it hasn’t exactly helped that the two Wards are heating up with all the rioting. That area of the city’s going to be a goddamn war-zone tonight.’

  ‘Maybe that’ll help; we can snarl up Ledger and this other guy in the noise.’

  He looked back at the freeze-frame of the two cops and the black teenager.

  ‘Tell them I want all three now,’ Marcus ordered. ‘Not just Ledger. We’ve got no idea what he’s figured out. Archer, the kid and anyone they come into contact with get blasted. We need to hit them before the cops get there.’

  ‘They’re already on it,’ Burnett replied. ‘Trust me.’

  SIXTEEN

  ‘I’ve been working nights,’ Ledger explained, hauling himself into a chair, the painkillers not yet kicking in but with his shoulder wadded up, seeming more comfortable. Positioned around the office Jack, Jesse and Archer listened intently. This was the first time any of them had heard Ledger’s version of events. It was the first time anyone had. ‘Got in after my shift yesterday, showered and went to bed. I’ve been having trouble sleeping, so I took some medication and fell asleep.’

  As he listened, his arms folded, Archer recalled the mass of OxyContin capsules that had been found at Ledger’s place.

  ‘Normally I go to bed around 11am, wake up around 7 or 8pm, but this time I woke up just before 5pm. Felt like shit; was real dizzy and disorientated. I’d thrown up in my sleep. I sat up.’

  He paused.

  ‘And that was when I saw the rifle.’

  Archer glanced at Jack, who was listening closely. He wasn’t making the call to 911 yet.

  ‘It was lying right beside my bed. I’d gone to sleep in shorts but was wearing clothes I’d never seen before. I was trying to think straight, work out what the hell was going on and how the rifle could have got in my room. It was a 20 mil, designed for long-range work. And it’d been fired recently too. I could smell the gunpowder.

  ‘I switched on the TV and went to the news on NY One. Saw there’d been a shooting by the East River, and they were saying it was a distance shot. Even with my brain not working properly, I realised straightaway I’d been set up. Knew I had to get out of there and fast; give myself time to figure out what had happened. And why.’

  ‘So you ran,’ Jack said,

  Ledger nodded. ‘Changed clothes, grabbed my car keys, Department pistol and used the fire escape to get out of there. Listened to the radio in my car and heard my name given out as the number one suspect, saying it was likely I was responsible for two other hits in Portland and Boston over the last two days. It was like a bad dream. For a while there, I wondered if I was hallucinating or something.’

  ‘When did you get to D.C?’

  ‘2am this morning. Heard I got made going over the Maryland State line. Dumped the car, changed my clothes and hitched a ride into SE. Had a ball cap on and the guy didn’t recognise me.’

  ‘What were you doing with pepper by the way?’ Jesse asked.

  ‘Bought it at a supermarket after the guy dropped me off. I knew the cops would be using sniffer dogs and that stuff makes them lose interest real fast.’

  ‘So why come here?’ Jack asked. ‘Why not just disappear somewhere less populated?’

  ‘Before I left the apartment, I saw a receipt on the floor by the rifle. Part of one, anyway.’

  ‘From where?’ Archer asked.

  ‘A CVS pharmacy in Adams Morgan, North West Washington D.C. Whoever dumped the rifle in my room must have dropped it.’

  ‘What did they buy?’ Archer asked.

  ‘Superglue,’ he said with a half-hearted smile, glancing at his shoulder. ‘And I saw the mileage in my car had gone way up too. I hardly ever drive that thing in New York, but it had gained over an extra thousand miles.’

  ‘With everything going on, you noticed that?’ Jack asked.

  ‘I was a sniper. We’re taught to obsess over minutiae. Aim small, miss small.’

  ‘So what was your plan?’ Jack asked. ‘Go knock on the store’s front door and ask who’d been buying superglue lately?’

  ‘I was gonna break in at night and check their CCTV system,’ he said. ‘It was the only possible lead I had. The receipt had the time of purchase printed on it, so I’d be able to see who bought the glue. Then I got made outside a gas station across the neighbourhood and had to hide out. I hadn’t slept in over a day and crashed out; got found and ran.’

  He looked at Archer.

  ‘And that’s when you showed up.’

  ‘Which you still haven’t explained to me,’ Jack said, firing a look at Archer.

  ‘He and I trained together when I applied for the NYPD,’ Archer explained. ‘He told me he’d hidden a stash box in a book store in Buena Vista he helped refurbish a few years ago. I thought he might head there as he’d need supplies if he was on the run and saw him taking off down the street. Followed him into another house, and that’s when those cops showed up.’

  ‘What was in the box?’

  ‘Money, food, change of clothes,’ Ledger said. ‘Weapons. Made use of all the former, left the latter. I’m not here to hurt anyone. I just want to find out who set me up.’

  ‘That a common thing to do, hide stuff like that?’

  ‘It is in my world.’

  ‘What sleeping pills were you taking?’ Jack asked.

  ‘OxyContin.’

  ‘That’s strong stuff. Regularly?’

  ‘Yeah, but they do their work real good. Knock you out.’

  ‘Leave memory gaps?’

  ‘Occasionally,’ Ledger replied, seeing where he was going. ‘But I think I might have remembered buying a 20 mm twelve grand rifle and driving over a thousand miles back and forth to Portland and Boston to shoot people in the head with it.’

  Jack assessed his story, the lawyer in him taking over. ‘So you woke up, dressed in strange clothes with a high-tech rifle beside you on the floor. You don’t remember anything after you took a dose of OxyContin and went to bed until you woke up. You found part of a receipt on the floor that came from Adams Morgan seventy two hours ago, and a load of extra mileage on your car.’

  Ledger nodded.

  ‘So you decided to run from the police before they came for you, not tell them what you just told us and right now are eluding the FBI in an interstate manhunt?’ Jack finished.

  ‘It’s the truth. I swear.’

  ‘Why take off if you’re innocent?’

  ‘Instinct, I guess. Way I was trained. If you’re in trouble, pull back and lay low until you can figure out what’s going on. And handle it yourself.’

  ‘And you think all this has helped your case?’ Jack replied, looking at the wounded man, who didn’t reply. Jack turned his attention to Archer. ‘Is he the real reason you came to D.C.?’

  Archer paused. ‘Partly.’

  ‘Wow. Thank you so much. What were we, cover?’

  ‘It’s not as straightforward as that.’

  ‘So how is it?’

  ‘My partner’s son was the boy shot and killed yesterday by the East River,’ Archer said, looking at Ledger. ‘That’s why I’m here.’

  Jack paused for a moment. ‘He was your partner’s boy?’

  ‘He was. Fourteen years old.’

  Shaking his head in exasperation, Jack considered everything he’d been told. ‘You said that two men dressed as Metro cops found you at that house and tried to kill you?’

  Archer nodded. ‘More were outside; they started firing when Jesse got to the door.’

  ‘How many?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You didn’t resist arrest in the house?’

  ‘They tried to shoot Jesse in the head, Jack. I figure Harry and I were next. That’s not how things usually go down when you arrest someone. And they didn’t
call it in.’

  ‘Think they’re the ones who could have set him up?’ he asked, looking at Ledger. ‘If he’s telling the truth?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe.’

  Jack looked at Ledger. ‘If it was them, then why frame you? And if these guys are so good, why didn’t they just kill these three people quietly and then melt away?’

  ‘You tell me.’

  ‘You have any enemies?’

  ‘No-one who’d do something like this.’

  ‘What aren’t you telling us? You must know or have seen something.’

  ‘I’ve told you everything. I swear.’

  Taking a deep breath, Jack shook his head, looking at Archer and Jesse. ‘Do you two have any idea how much shit you’re in now? You just aided and abetted a domestic terrorism suspect in a Federal multiple homicide investigation and possibly resisted arrest too if the guys you confronted are actually cops. They’ll take your badge minimum, Sam. Worst case, you’ll go to prison, and juvenile detention for you, kid.’

  ‘That’s not the worst case,’ Archer said, rising and checking through the blinds from the side.

  ‘Really? Please tell me, how could this get worse than it already is?’

  ‘I assumed these shootings were a one man job. Until about thirty minutes ago, I was convinced it was a single shooter, working alone.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘We’re dealing with a team, five people at least. Two guys outside that house who tried to blast Jesse, and the pair who showed up who tried to kill us. That’s four, and our two guys were wearing ear pieces, which means they’ve got support from somewhere. My cell phone shut down before we’d even made it ten blocks away from that house, which I’m guessing meant they’d already ID’d me and killed the line somehow. That’s high-tech stuff. They also showed up at Harry’s hideout before the Feds, ATF or Metro.’

  He looked at the other three.

  ‘We’re dealing with people who aren’t deterred by hunting someone in Washington D.C., even when it’s under the spotlight with almost every Federal agent in three States and the world’s media here searching for him too.’

  He risked another look out of the blinds, relieved to see the light traffic at the intersection was running normally, no unusual activity.

  ‘These guys sure as hell aren’t cops.’

  ‘So who the hell are they?’ Jesse said.

  SEVENTEEN

  The rioting in the south east of the city was understandably prompting considerable fear in D.C.’s residents tonight, but so too was the fact that Harry Ledger remained on the loose. Many still remembered the sniper shootings of 2002 in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia, when over a three week period thirteen men, women and children had been shot in the greater Washington D.C. area as they went about their daily business, seemingly chosen at random and each hit by a bullet from a high-powered rifle. Ten were killed, the other three seriously wounded.

  The perpetrators had taunted the police, following through with their threats and as the situation intensified and the body count rose, emergency teams were kept on stand-by 24/7, ready to deploy at a moment’s notice. Entire areas of the region were cordoned off, undercover cops working leads, but in the end, chance coupled with the vigilance of a truck driver at a rest stop in South Mountain, resulted in the arrest of the pair responsible, twenty one days after the first shot had been taken.

  There were echoes of that situation tonight. However, in 2002 people had stayed off the streets or if they had to go out, did what they had to do quickly, but tonight the trouble in Wards 7 and 8 was soaking up a disproportionate amount of the FBI, ATF and Metro’s resources. Teams who would have been assisting in the hunt for Harry Ledger were having to be redeployed to deal with the civil unrest.

  The concern now was it was giving the suspect every opportunity to evade capture.

  Not to mention the possibility that he wasn’t done killing people yet.

  A statement had to be released and although the FBI had drafted it, wanting to control how much information on the ongoing manhunt was released, they’d asked the local police authority to deliver it. People would want to see Metro PD handling the situation that directly affected them, not receive a statement from a government agent in a suit.

  With all these thoughts running through his mind, the Metro Chief of Police stepped onto the stage set up to the right of the main entrance to the Georgetown University Hospital. He’d come here with other high-level personnel from the Department wanting to personally thank the Wilson High guard for his actions and with the media already here, had decided to hold the press conference from outside the hospital.

  The entire area swept, a police cordon established with K9 units and sharpshooters in place, the MDPD Chief looked over the bank of logo-stamped microphones directly towards the cameras filming him, reporters and junior members of law enforcement standing further back, waiting to hear what he had to say.

  ‘Good evening, everyone,’ he said clearly. ‘Earlier today, at approximately 4:55pm, a fourteen year old student attending Wilson High School entered the school library carrying a 9mm handgun…’

  ‘Does your police team in New York know you’re here?’ Jack asked Archer, the press conference playing quietly on the television on the wall.

  He nodded. ‘I tried to call my sergeant from the car but my phone’s signal had been shut off. I had full service before I found Harry. I’m guessing the guys looking for us, whoever they are, somehow killed it after they found me at the house and pulled an ID. They did that in the space of a couple of minutes.’

  ‘If they could do that, they’ll be trying to track your GPS.’

  ‘Not just that; if they have my phone, they’ll have my ID. If they get the plates on the car, which they probably already have through the cameras, they’ll know about you and Sarah.’

  ‘The car?’

  ‘I borrowed her Honda.’

  Closing his eyes, Jack shook his head. ‘Christ, you’re on a roll tonight, brother.’

  ‘We can call for back-up on this and get Harry into protective custody we can trust,’ Archer said. ‘But I need to talk to my people in New York.’

  ‘Shit, they’re coming,’ Jesse said from the window.

  ‘Who?’ Archer said, swinging round. ‘The cops?’

  ‘No, trouble. Look.’

  Walking over to the window, Archer saw a mass of what had to be almost fifty rioters four blocks away, directly ahead of them and now clearly visible down the street.

  They were heading right this way.

  ‘We need to make that call right now,’ Archer said, watching the mob getting closer.

  ‘But those men will be onto it in seconds,’ Jesse said. ‘If they know who you are, they’ll be monitoring anyone you try to contact.’

  Pulling his pistol, Archer checked the chamber, Ledger drawing his own Sig Sauer from its place at the back of his jeans and pushing the top-slide against the side of his leg, jamming the gun down fast and loading a round.

  ‘What are you planning?’ Jack asked.

  Staying away from the window, the arsonist mob now just three blocks away, Archer picked up the office phone.

  ‘Get ready to run.’

  Peralta and Font had just arrived at GU Hospital, intending to talk with the Wilson High school guard, but with the crush of people around the hospital entrance listening to the Chief they couldn’t get near the doors.

  Having parked behind the press cordon, they circumvented the crowd, heading for the entrance twenty yards behind the dais, hearing the Chief as he spoke to the city and further afield via the assembled media.

  ‘…with exceptional professionalism, the security guard saw the boy and reacted quickly before Jeremy Somers had the opportunity to shoot any of the students and staff present,’ the Chief said. ‘Students and faculty were able to get out of the building without further casualties. Law enforcement was on site within eight minutes. They cleared the building and although the youn
g man was still alive when they got there, he died shortly afterwards from his wounds.’

  He paused.

  ‘Questions?’

  ‘Chief, was this shooting connected to the one in New York yesterday?’ a female reporter asked.

  ‘No. They’re not linked.’

  ‘What’s the current status with the manhunt for Harry Ledger?’ another asked.

  ‘Ongoing. Citizens are advised to stay in their homes until the situation is resolved, which I assure you it will be, soon.’

  ‘What about the trouble in the city right now? People feel unsafe.’

  ‘Metro is dealing with that. To those out there causing the trouble, I ask you to stop what you are doing. We understand why you are angry; so are we. But the FBI need a safe environment in which to operate and find the lead suspect and the distraction your actions are causing could very well impede their investigation and work in the suspect’s favour. This isn’t expressing your 1st Amendment rights. It’s an affront to the memory of Marcia Barrera, Tyron Scrace and Nathan Blake.’

  He focused on the cameras, Peralta and Font moving into the hospital behind the dais.

  ‘Right now, the FBI are working on a lead that the areas people are currently looting and rioting in contain the suspect, who is armed and extremely dangerous. For your own safety, we are asking you to get off the streets. The last thing we want is anyone else getting hurt tonight.’

  Sitting on a bed inside the hospital, Wilson High’s security guard Jeff Cummings was watching the news conference from the television inside the room.

  Still in his uniform, he looked down at his right leg, the trousers rolled up, a white bandage around his calf. The wound didn’t hurt, the medical team having dosed him up with painkillers, but he was going to have a fresh scar there to match the damaged tissue around his knee from the operation when he was a sophomore at Duke, the injury that had ended his football career and his dreams of becoming a professional athlete.

  The man sitting on the bed was barely recognisable from the fit young athlete he’d been only a few years before. Now an overweight twenty five year old already losing his hair, Cummings found himself, for different reasons, the centre of attention once again. He’d been taken completely by surprise when the kid walked into the library with that gun and had reacted quickly, managing to get a shot off but getting clipped himself in the process.