[Sam Archer 08.0] Last Breath

by Tom Barber

  Staying cool, the foursome strolled nonchalantly across the street, deliberately not heading straight for the cop and risk alerting him, intending to change direction at the last second; their usual MO.

  Passing the cop, the other three turned to watch as their fourth guy suddenly reversed direction and threw a vicious right hook at the side of the cop’s head.

  It hit nothing but air.

  Their intended victim had reacted with surprising speed and turned as he ducked. As the gang member who’d tried to punch him lost his balance, he saw the rifle was now in the cop’s hands, the weapon up and the man’s finger on the trigger.

  In that fraction of a second, he realised he’d just made a terrible mistake.

  The gun went off four times, the suppressor coughing out smoke, each gang member taking a burst to the chest. As they crumpled to the sidewalk, the cop changed magazines then continued to listen to his radio as he looked down at the four dead kids.

  He frowned, missing something Thorne had just said.

  ‘This is Riley,’ he said into his mic. ‘West-side exit is covered.’

  Reaching the end of the street, he paused, seeing the white van they were looking for, parked halfway down the block. As he observed it, Tarketti appeared from around the corner the other side of the street and moved towards the van, giving it a couple of rounds to provoke a response, his weapon cracking quietly from the suppressor.

  Reaching the side door, he pulled it open.

  ‘It’s empty.’

  ‘Find them, Burnett,’ Thorne’s voice ordered over the radio.

  ‘I’m on it. I just put the word out to some street crews too. Waiting to see if they take it.’

  ‘Deerman, Riley, Tarketti, reconvene.’

  As Riley walked towards Tarketti, the four teenagers lay sprawled on the concrete behind him, blood slowly pooling out onto the road.

  He didn’t give them so much as a backward glance.

  Jesse was leading the group down a residential street, towards a highway and the Anacostia subway entrance when they became aware of a serious increase in the level of noise.

  ‘Stop!’ Archer warned. Walking forwards another twenty yards, he took a quick glance around the next corner.

  A large mob was coming their way, shouting and whooping, throwing missiles and smashing out windows of houses as they passed.

  They were ten seconds away, if that.

  Swinging round, Archer looked at the street behind them, spotting a dilapidated-looking black van parked in a space two houses from the end, the nose facing the wall in front of a house that was dark, no lights on.

  ‘This way! Quick!’

  Sprinting back, the others right on his heels, it only took him seconds to break into the van, killing the alarm by ripping out the wires under the dash, the brief noise getting lost in the chorus of alarms in the air around them. Jumping inside, Archer opened the rear doors.

  ‘Get in!’

  The other four wasted no time climbing in. Closing the door behind them, Archer saw rolls of electrical cord, tools and other kit strewn around the vehicle; it looked like an electrician’s van, an old model. The owner hadn’t appeared after the alarm went off which was a good sign, but considering the vehicle was still intact, Archer guessed the owner must have parked it pretty recently. He just hoped he wasn’t going to return any time soon.

  They watched from the blacked-out windows as the unsettling noise of the mob got louder.

  ‘NSA has the ability to spy on anyone,’ Angela continued quietly, not wasting any time, the noise of shouting and whooping in the air increasing as the mob passed the end of the street. ‘In the right hands, that power is respected. However, if the wrong people get access to that capability you have a big, big problem.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘NSA’s programmes and data storage are an absolute treasure trove of information. Say a Wall Street company wants access to the communications of a competitor? Get someone at the NSA to take a look. Employee wants to keep tabs on a guy or girl they’re dating? Read their emails, listen to their phone-calls, track them. Again, ask someone at NSA. A load of Agency employees got busted doing exactly that pretty recently in a case called LOVEINT. They account for the majority of unauthorised accesses at the NSA. There was a major investigation into it last year.’

  ‘But what’s this got to do with killing three innocent people?’ Ledger asked. ‘And how do you know all this?’

  ‘A few weeks ago my sister showed up at my house in Boston. I thought she was there for a surprise visit, but that wasn’t the reason. She told me she’d found out someone from the NSA had been abusing the government surveillance system. Apparently they’d been doing it for years and had never been caught. She wanted to expose them.’

  Checking the street outside, Archer stayed silent, connecting the dots; he was thinking about the three shooting victims, and who had been killed two days ago.

  Marcia Barrera.

  Computer Science major at Penn State.

  Did a follow-up programme at George Washington University in D.C.

  Then four years later, became a delivery woman.

  ‘Your sister wasn’t always a FedEx driver, was she?’ he said.

  ‘You got it. Eight months ago, she quit her job at NSA.’ Pulling out an I-Pad in a black canvas sleeve from the holdall she’d brought from her van, Angela kept it in the sleeve and logged in, found what she was looking for then twisted it round, the screen showing Marcia Barrera’s government file and her photo, the woman dressed in a white shirt staring straight at the camera. ‘She was an analyst. Worked at the Agency for four years then upped and quit.’

  ‘And became a FedEx driver,’ Archer said. ‘That never made sense to me with her qualifications. Was she undercover?’

  ‘No. She was done with the Agency by then.’

  ‘What’s with the sleeve?’ Jesse asked, looking at the I-Pad.

  ‘It’s called a Faraday bag,’ Angela replied, showing him. ‘Marcia told me to get one. Shields the electromagnetic signals coming from the I-Pad. Means no-one at NSA can trace the device.’

  ‘Wait,’ Ledger said, taking the I-pad. ‘Your sister was Marcia Barrera?’

  She nodded. Archer noticed the shock on Ledger’s face.

  ‘Did you know her, Harry?’

  Ledger swore. ‘We were dating.’

  ‘What?’

  I was meant to meet up with her in Boston Tuesday but I had to text her that I couldn’t make it.’

  ‘You didn’t think it strange when she didn’t reply?’

  ‘I was surprised, sure, but figured she was out of town or something.’

  Archer looked at him, starting to realise why he’d been chosen as the fall guy.

  ‘She’s dead?’ Ledger said.

  ‘Murdered,’ Angela said, tears filling her eyes. Ledger stared at her for a moment then swore again quietly, looking back at the dead woman’s photo.

  ‘I had no idea,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘What kind of information was Marcia wanting to leak to you?’ Archer asked Angela, needing to know everything she knew.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said, wiping her eyes. ‘She wouldn’t put it in an email. Said she had to explain in person and was gonna come back to Boston on Tuesday, but that it was something major. Enough that it could do serious damage to NSA. She told me she was taking the day off to meet up with a guy for dinner that night and could meet me beforehand.’

  ‘But someone found out about that meeting and didn’t want it to happen,’ Archer said.

  ‘They killed her.’ She looked at Ledger. ‘And who better to use as a patsy than the guy she was dating who happened to be an ex-military sniper?’

  ‘But everyone thinks I did it,’ Ledger said. ‘Why don’t you?’

  ‘I was worried for Marcia’s safety. Whistle-blowers put themselves at considerable risk, especially with the information she implied she had.
I asked if she’d noticed anyone following her, anyone who’d appeared in her life lately since she’d contacted me. She told me only someone she’d met recently online. A cop and former soldier. Because Marcia told me how serious the information she had was, I decided to watch your place. Check you out. I didn’t know if you could be trusted. Needed to find out as much about you as I could to protect my sister.’

  ‘How’d you get the address?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s not hard when you used to be a journalist. Called a friend of mine at the DMV. But I know you didn’t shoot her. You were at your apartment when she was killed on Monday. I was watching. Saw you go in and knew you hadn’t left.’

  ‘Yeah, I was there,’ Ledger replied. ‘I didn’t even know she’d been killed.’

  ‘What about briefings at work?’ Jack said. ‘This whole sniper hunt has been in the press for three days. Surely all you cops were told about it?’

  ‘They mentioned it two nights ago at the start of shift, but didn’t give out any names,’ Ledger said, Archer nodding in agreement. ‘I didn’t make the connection; why should I?’

  ‘FBI were keeping it under wraps,’ Archer said. ‘Trying to keep it out of the media and find the killer before panic set in.’

  ‘They did a great job,’ Jesse said, looking through the blacked-out window onto the street.

  ‘How long were you watching me?’ Ledger asked Angela.

  ‘Four days. But Monday night, I was still on your place. And I saw something else. Something that made me stay, even after I found out Marcia had been killed.’

  She swivelled the sleeve-covered I-pad, showing photos of a group of four men arriving and leaving the apartment building, the group wearing the same clothes in each photo, t-shirts with fluorescent vests over the top, jeans, boots and hardhats, their heads down.

  Despite their efforts at concealing their faces, Archer recognised a couple of them.

  The two cops who’d just attacked them at the intersection.

  ‘On each day someone was killed, your car was driven off at 2pm and returned before you woke up.’

  ‘They got in each time without him hearing?’ Jesse asked in surprise.

  ‘The Oxy I take is strong shit,’ Ledger replied. ‘A hurricane could blow through that apartment and I wouldn’t hear it.’

  ‘So they broke in and stole your car keys,’ Archer said. ‘That accounts for the extra mileage you noticed.’

  Angela nodded, showing a third set of the photos, the group carrying in a large box about seven feet in length.

  ‘And they also showed up an hour before the police arrived yesterday.’

  In the heart of the rioting area of Southeast, a thickly-muscled twenty nine year old man stood on the street, looking down at his cell phone as a building burned behind him. He was dressed in a black vest, jeans and sneakers, a bandanna around his face. Reloading a semi-automatic pistol, he tucked it into the back of his jeans, beside a folded knife in one pocket, spare clips for the pistol in the other, but he didn’t take his eyes off the phone.

  ‘Who is this?’ he muttered, reading a message that had come through a minute or so ago. Beside him, two of his guys were taking turns smoking from a glass pipe packed full of red crystals, sucking in the methamphetamines, shouting as they got amped up. The night was still young and they weren’t done tearing shit apart.

  Ignoring them, the leader called the number connected to the message.

  ‘Yo, who is this?’ he repeated, hearing someone answer.

  ‘Want to earn half a million dollars?’

  ‘I said who are you?’

  ‘Someone with a lot of money. I want to hire you and your guys.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Know who Harry Ledger is?’

  ‘Course. Who doesn’t?’

  ‘He’s somewhere in that area with four other people. I want you to find them for me.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Bake them a cake? What do you think?’

  The gang leader hesitated. ‘How do I know you aren’t full of shit?’

  ‘I just transferred ten grand into your bank account. I sent you a link to prove it. Check it on your phone, then call me back. You and your guys get the rest once you find Ledger and co.’

  Hanging up, the big man immediately checked the link, which showed the statement for his account. It was true; he was ten thousand dollars richer. The phone rang a few seconds later and he answered, looking around him, intrigued but confused.

  ‘Who are you?’ the gang leader repeated.

  ‘None of your business. You want the rest of the money, stop standing there, get your guys together and start looking.’

  TWENTY THREE

  At the FBI’s Command Post, Sorenson and his team were stretched to the absolute limit, the city now declared to be in a state of emergency. Not only were large sections of Wards 7 and 8 still filled with police and rioters engaged in violent clashes, they were also now dealing with both the aftermath of the Jeff Cummings shooting at GU Hospital and a major firefight at the Minnesota and Benning intersection where there’d been a confirmed sighting of Harry Ledger.

  Although the FBI and ATF were also heavily involved, Sorenson knew the city was on the brink of having the National Guard called in, something he wanted to avoid if at all possible. With the entire nation watching, being seen to have to call for back-up would be an embarrassment; he and his team were supposed to be handling this situation. It was definitely a last resort as far as he was concerned.

  ‘Someone blasted out an office on the 1st floor of a building here and hit the lobby with tear gas,’ the FBI HRT Commander said, his voice echoing around the room after Sorenson put him on speakerphone. ‘A fire door on the east side of the building’s taken a hammering too. There’re shell casings all down the alleyway there and more on the west-side of the intersection. We’re lucky the intersection was mostly clear with people staying off the streets right now. Normally it’s busy as hell.’

  ‘Tear gas? Were riot control or CDU at the scene?’

  ‘We checked with Metro and none of their teams were here. Someone fired a couple of canisters into the lobby. We also found a launcher on the roof of a building across the street. Not Metro issue.’

  ‘Get Lieutenant Morrison on the line,’ Sorenson said to one analyst, then asked another. ‘Who has leases in that building?’

  ‘Floor that got hit belongs to one of the prominent law firms in the city,’ he answered after a few moments. ‘It’s a new operation.’

  Sorenson turned to the analyst beside him, the one who’d located Ledger. ‘We must have footage of what happened?’

  ‘The cameras were shut off.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Intersection cameras went dark for eight minutes and only just came back on. Whatever happened, we missed it.’

  ‘How the hell did that happen?’

  ‘Beats me, boss.’

  Irritated, Sorenson glanced at his watch: 6:53pm. He looked at the freeze-frame they’d retrieved of Harry Ledger being helped into the office building immediately before these events took place; the image had been taken just after 6pm.

  ‘Get that up on the wall.’ She transferred the shot to a plasma screen, enabling the analyst team to study it. ‘Commander, are you positive none of your people have engaged the suspect tonight?’ Sorenson asked over the radio.

  ‘We wish. We haven’t seen him, sir.’

  Sorenson studied the couple with Ledger; one was a blond man in a dark shirt, grey t-shirt and jeans, the other a teenage boy in a Redskins jersey. Both had their backs to the camera and the shot was grainy from being enlarged to full capacity.

  ‘I want every single shell casing down there checked for prints and DNA as soon as possible.’

  ‘Forensics are already on it.’

  ‘Jeff Cummings was killed five miles away eight minutes after this shot was taken,’ an analyst said to Sorenson, looking up at the still on the screen. ‘Harry Ledger co
uldn’t have done it.’

  ‘Maybe he’s got an accomplice,’ Sorenson said.

  ‘Or we’ve got a copycat,’ another analyst added.

  ‘But who would have attacked that office building with such ferocity? Law-enforcement wouldn’t light it up like that unless Ledger fired first. And even then, grenades, automatic weapons and tear gas? That’s just crazy.’

  ‘And why did he go to that particular building anyway?’ another said. ‘It’s some distance from that sighting in Buena Vista. There was nothing random about that. He went there for a reason.’

  Loosening his tie, Sorenson looked at the image, trying to connect all these disparate questions but with little success.

  ‘Sir, I’ve got Lieutenant Morrison on hold,’ one of the analysts said.

  ‘Patch him through,’ Sorenson said, hearing the click as Morrison, the man co-ordinating the riot-control on the street, came on the line. ‘Lieutenant, do you have any CDU or riot control teams near Minnesota and Benning?’

  ‘Not right now. Why?’

  ‘Someone just used tear gas down there.’

  ‘Wasn’t us. What’s the status with the manhunt?’

  ‘Ongoing. The rioting?’

  ‘It’s gone crazy. No-one is obeying the curfew orders. We’ve got some residents and legitimate protestors trying to calm people down but it seems like every Southeast gang from Columbia Heights to Barry Farms are down here. They’re attacking news reporters, shooting at our helicopters and setting fires to distract my people. I’ve got eleven injured officers, an unknown number of totalled squad cars and a report of four fresh homicides just came in.’

  ‘Homicides? Were they sniper hits?’

  ‘No, but it’s pretty bad. Someone blasted all four up close with shots to the chest; tight groups too. Twelve shell casings, three in each victim. Someone who knew what they were doing.’

  ‘Which part of town?’

  ‘Four blocks from Minnesota and Benning.’

  That immediately got Sorenson’s attention. ‘Do you have a crime-scene team there?’

  ‘Already working on it. We’ll send any prints straight over to your people if we find anything. We’re barely managing to control this though; if this situation doesn’t start improving, I recommend we start thinking about requesting the National Guard.’