[Sam Archer 08.0] Last Breath

by Tom Barber

  She looked back at the house. ‘Guns, attempted murder, shootouts in classrooms. This isn’t a kid’s game.’

  He shook his head. ‘No. It’s not. And why did he do it?’

  ‘From what we can gather, Jeremy Somers wasn’t being bullied, right?’ she said.

  ‘Looks that way, yeah.’

  ‘He wasn’t violent and he wasn’t unpopular. Like the investigator in there said, he was smart, patient and methodical. But he walked into that library carrying a gun intending to kill people. Only reason he didn’t succeed was because the guard happened to be in there.’

  Peralta looked at her.

  ‘The boy’s dead, but Jeff Cummings isn’t,’ Font said. ‘He was right there when it all went down.’

  She pulled on her seatbelt as Peralta started the engine.

  ‘Let’s find out what he has to say.’

  FOURTEEN

  Across the city, a married couple both in their late fifties were about to have an early dinner on the deck outside the back door of their multi-million dollar townhouse, the barbecue smoking from the meat sizzling on the grill. It was the first proper meal the woman had had in almost three days, but the odds weren’t on her eating much. She was sitting on the deck, lost in thought, not noticing the drink of water in her hand was almost overflowing due to the melted ice.

  Dressed in deck shoes, white shorts and a designer label light blue polo shirt, her husband had just walked into the kitchen to collect a bowl of salad when he caught the 6pm news headlines on the television across the room. Forgetting about the salad, he walked over and listened carefully as the network provided the most recent updates on the manhunt.

  His wife was still sitting out on the deck and so couldn’t see the expression on his face.

  They’d both just got back from an afternoon sailing with friends, so he hadn’t been able to keep up to date with the latest developments, but he’d assumed the suspect would have been dealt with by now.

  Apparently, he hadn’t.

  The grey-haired man watched as the images of the rioting in Wards 7 and 8 appeared on screen. The trouble seemed to be escalating. Cars were being trashed, stores looted, the two danger Wards seemingly in the grip of civil unrest at its ugly and violent worst. There’d also been a school shooting at Woodrow Wilson High, the ticker running along the bottom of the screen saying a press conference would take place at Georgetown University Hospital at 6:20pm, the closest major medical facility to the school.

  A lot of trouble on a hot summer’s day in the city.

  And night was starting to draw in, which meant the violence was only going to escalate.

  However, what was capturing the man’s attention was the report of a shootout in the Buena Vista neighbourhood of Southeast. He frowned.

  ‘Honey, bad news,’ he called. ‘I need to go to work.’

  ‘Now? You’re kidding. Don’t leave me.’

  ‘I won’t be long.’

  ‘Marcus, we’re just about to eat!’

  ‘It’s an emergency,’ the man replied, snatching up his keys from the sideboard and heading straight for the door. ‘Put it in the oven.’

  Almost six miles south, the two men in Metro uniform who’d found Ledger, Archer and the teenage boy were speeding through the Southeast of the city, towards the Anacostia Bridge that led across the River and into Ward 6. In the front passenger seat, the man who’d taken the double-tap to the vest hadn’t wasted any time once he’d recovered his breath. Seeing his companion handcuffed to a radiator, the two had managed to pull the old pipe away from the wall.

  Getting out of there in their Metro car only moments before the real cops turned up, now the pair were trying to locate the two men and the kid. Behind the wheel, the man with the tattoo on his left hand looked at the GPS screen mounted on the dashboard. Beside him his partner looked down at the two holes in his shirt, his chest sore but otherwise undamaged, the bulletproof armour under his uniform having done its job. He’d had worse.

  ‘They’ll be going for the bridge,’ the man said. ‘We need to cut them off. Cops get them, it’s over.’

  The cop car was providing them with easy access wherever they wanted to go but it also had its disadvantages; despite trying to bypass the trouble, they couldn’t avoid it all and as they drove towards the Bridge, bottles, bricks and other missiles smashed against the side of the vehicle. The men inside didn’t flinch; they had bigger things to focus on and it would take a hell of a lot more than a few rioters to intimidate them.

  ‘We need a location, Burnett,’ the man in the front passenger seat said.

  ‘I’m working on it,’ a voice told them.

  ‘Do it fast,’ he replied before switching frequencies to another channel. ‘Riley, Tarketti, it’s Thorne. Where are you?’

  ‘Ward 6, Navy Yard,’ Riley replied, one of the two guys who’d lit up the front of the house when the kid had tried to escape. ‘Just got through the Anacostia roadblocks. Heading into position.’

  ‘Make it count,’ Thorne replied. ‘Deerman and I are trying to pick up the trail.’

  ‘Copy that.’

  ‘All teams in Wards 7 and 8, evidence of gunfire exchanged in the Buena Vista search area. Location of last confirmed sighting of Harry Ledger, although unknown if he was involved,’ the voice over the scanner radio announced, tuned to Metro PD Dispatch. ‘FBI are on site. All officers in the area use extreme caution.’

  ‘I hit Ledger,’ the man called Deerman said, accelerating to beat a red light. ‘He’s wounded. That’ll slow him down.’

  ‘Got them!’ Burnett’s voice said in their earpieces. ‘They’re going for the Anacostia underpass. You’re less than a minute away!’

  Turning a quick left they headed directly for the location.

  ‘Should be right there. A black Honda!’

  A few moments later Thorne and Deerman saw the car parked on the right side of the underpass. Pulling up behind it, the two officers were out of their doors in a second, checking out the immediate area, their pistols drawn.

  Satisfied they weren’t walking into an ambush, they approached the car, their weapons up and ready to fire.

  The Honda was empty.

  ‘Shit, they ditched it,’ Thorne said, looking at the bloodstains on the back seat of the car as Deerman checked underneath. ‘We need a visual. Are they on foot?’

  ‘I can’t find them.’

  Standing there in the underpass, the occasional vehicle passing them, the men looked up and down the tunnel, hearing shouts in the air from trouble nearby.

  Not wasting any more time, they turned and ran back towards their car.

  Inside his office on the 2nd floor of a new building in SE’s Minnesota and Benning intersection, Jack thanked his client as the man stepped into the elevator, waiting for the doors to close before the elevator took the man down to the ground floor.

  Turning, he retraced his steps along the corridor to his office, light from the setting sun illuminating the space around him with a golden glow. As he walked, he checked his watch. It was past 6pm. The girls’ performance was still ninety minutes away, but he wanted to collect Sarah, then Sam and get over there early just in case of any hold ups, especially with the current situation.

  Returning to his office, he switched on the television in the corner to check on the latest news about the shooting and started to pack his papers away. He’d been heading through the city for his meeting when news of the attempted shooting at the school had come over the radio. He’d almost turned around immediately but not only was the girls’ school some distance from Wilson High, it was being reported that the young man responsible had been shot. Sarah had called him, also having heard the report. She’d been concerned but like him, realised the sad event was unlikely to affect other schools in the area. It was a one-off.

  As he stuffed the last of his papers into his briefcase, the Fox News report switched to the ongoing manhunt for the suspected inter-city sniper. He paused as he realised with a
sense of unease the focus of their search was right here in Southeast. That, along with the rioting and looting that was going on just a few blocks away was making this not a place to be tonight, especially with no security in this building at the moment. Finding the main doors secured, Jack had had to let himself in. He didn’t blame everyone else for staying away.

  It was time to get out and stay out until the police had the area back under control.

  Tucking his laptop into his briefcase, he paused to watch the news feed. After a long period of disinterest, the city council was attempting to gentrify the 7th Ward and Jack’s firm had taken up office space here, right on the intersection close to the Bridge back into the Capitol, wanting to be closer to a developing client base and set an example. We need a safe pair of hands, his boss had said when Jack had been given the role of setting up the office. Things are looking up over there.

  Watching the clashes taking place between protestors and riot police, bricks and bottles being thrown, some people violently resisting arrest as other legitimate protestors sought to calm the situation down, he shook his head. A lot of work on both sides still had to be done before the vision for this place could be realised.

  Sighing, he clicked his briefcase shut, but just as he picked it up there was a quick knock on the door. Frowning, he paused; he wasn’t expecting anyone else tonight. Lying the briefcase back down, he walked over to the door.

  He opened up to find Archer standing there beside a young black kid in a Redskins jersey. But what really drew his attention was a wounded man Archer was propping up; Jack instantly recognised the guy’s face.

  There was a moment of stunned silence.

  Then after staring at Harry Ledger for a moment longer, Jack looked at his brother-in-law.

  ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’

  FIFTEEN

  Without a word, Archer walked forward, Jack instinctively stepping out of the way as his brother-in-law helped Ledger into the room. Jesse followed, quickly securing the door behind them.

  ‘We need something to stop the bleeding,’ Archer said, laying Ledger on the floor and then looking up at Jack. ‘Do you have anything?’

  Not responding, Jack just stared at Ledger, whose breathing was becoming increasingly laboured.

  ‘Jack!’

  After a moment’s hesitation, Jack turned and walked into the adjoining bathroom, coming out moments later with some towels. Taking them, Archer folded one of the towels and pressed it down hard directly onto the wound before looking up at his brother-in-law.

  ‘You got a first aid kit?’

  Still without saying a word, Jack moved over to his desk and pulled a medical kit from a drawer, passing it over. The kit was rudimentary, but was better than nothing. If someone had to get shot, the outside of the shoulder was one of the better places. Archer had seen a man take a round to the stomach before and that had been a very different story.

  ‘It missed the brachial artery,’ Archer said.

  ‘How can you know?’ Jesse said.

  ‘He’d already be dead.’

  Archer poured iodine over the wound to clean it, Ledger grunting in pain. After waiting for a few moments, Archer used all the gauze in the kit and wadded it against each side of the wound, packing it to try and stop the bleeding.

  ‘Hold here,’ he told Jesse, who moved forward, putting his hands where Archer’s were, front and back of Ledger’s shoulder.

  ‘Do you have glue?’

  Jack looked at his brother in confusion, then nodded and opened his desk drawer, pulling out a small tube which he passed to Archer.

  ‘Keep hold,’ Archer said to Jesse, pushing the nozzle under the gauze held in place by the teenager, squeezing glue into the exit wound then proceeding to do the same with the entry wound, Ledger catching his breath and grimacing in pain.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’ Jesse asked.

  ‘Closing the wound,’ Archer said. Tossing the small empty tube to one side, he took over from the boy, pushing the bandages hard either side as he waited for the superglue to set.

  ‘How’s that?’ he asked Ledger.

  ‘Wonderful,’ Ledger said, panting. ‘You missed your…calling.’

  Smiling briefly, Archer let go, the bandages sticking to the glue on the wounds. Strapping tape over them to keep them secure, he then helped Ledger sit up, propping him against the back of Jack’s desk, the blood-stained towels scattered on the floor around them. Finding some Tylenol in the kit, he poured some water into a plastic cup from a cooler in the corner before giving the pills to Harry, who used his good hand to pop them in his mouth before drinking.

  Blood all over his hands, Archer went into the small bathroom and rinsed them off, wiping them with a towel as he moved past Jack to look out of the office window. He quickly checked the intersection below from their vantage point on the 1st floor of the building, but not seeing any police activity, clicked the blinds half-closed to shield them from view.

  Turning, he saw Jack’s face, who looked as if he was about to combust.

  His next problem.

  Oh boy.

  ‘I can explain,’ Archer started, looking at him warily.

  ‘Is that who I think it is?’ Jack interrupted, looking at Ledger.

  ‘Some men we thought were cops found us at his hideout,’ Archer said, trying to get his explanation in before Jack could get going. ‘Instead of arresting him, they tried to kill us.’

  ‘Us? They found us?’

  Archer stayed silent.

  ‘And what do you mean, men we thought were cops? Why wouldn’t they be? The police and FBI have been hunting him for over twenty four hours?’

  ‘As a general rule, when I’m arresting someone I don’t make it a habit of shooting them in the head.’

  Jack just stared at him, stunned, confused and angry in equal measure. Then he looked at Jesse. ‘And who are you?’

  ‘He got swept up in this,’ Archer said before the boy could reply. Without another word, Jack suddenly pulled out his cell and dialled 911.

  ‘You, start talking,’ he told Ledger, who’d been sitting there quietly, recovering from Archer’s treatment and listening to the exchange between the two men while his breathing stabilised.

  ‘He just got shot, Jack.’

  ‘His mouth still works,’ he replied, holding up the phone with his thumb over the Call button. ‘You’ve got one minute to convince me not to call the cops. Sixty seconds, starting now.’

  Across town, the grey-haired man called Marcus who’d abandoned his barbeque pushed open the door to a rented office space in the Washington Circle area of the city. Across the open space, his assistant was sitting at a desk wearing a headset, looking at several screens.

  Other than the two of them, the place was empty.

  ‘What the hell’s going on?’ Marcus asked, walking towards the guy at the desk.

  ‘They found Ledger but he managed to escape,’ Burnett replied, a twenty nine year old man, tall with a slender frame and soft face. ‘He took a round to the shoulder. He’s trapped somewhere in Wards 7 and 8.’

  ‘Relocated yet?’

  ‘Not yet. He’s got someone helping him. That’s how he got away.’

  ‘Who?’

  Burnett clicked on the screen, enhancing a shot of a blond man running across the street beside Ledger, the two men frozen in mid-stride.

  Dressed in jeans, dark unbuttoned shirt and a grey t-shirt, the blond guy had a pistol in his hand.

  ‘He’s a cop,’ Burnett said.

  ‘Metro?’

  ‘NYPD. 3rd Grade Detective Sam Archer,’ he replied, reading from a police file and driving licence on the main screen. ‘Twenty nine years old, born in London. English mother, died eleven years ago; father was a US citizen, former cop and FBI agent, killed three years ago in New York. Archer joined the London Met when he was nineteen, worked six years on the street before he joined the Armed Response Unit, the counter-terrorist team in London.’

&nbs
p; ‘Then?’

  ‘Worked at the ARU for two years then jumped ship and joined the Counter-Terrorism Bureau in New York. Explains why he’s Stateside. He’s got quite the record.’

  Marcus peered in closer, looking at the information on the screen. ‘CT Bureau? I thought the FBI had shut the NYPD out of the Ledger case?’

  ‘So did I.’

  ‘You ID’d him fast.’

  ‘That’s why you hired me. I’m good.’

  Reaching forward with his right hand, the older man brought up the freeze-frame of the two men running, Archer apparently helping Ledger who’d clearly been hit in the shoulder.

  ‘There’s something else,’ Burnett said. ‘His partner’s son was the kid who got shot in New York yesterday.’

  Marcus looked down at him. ‘What? Are you sure?’

  ‘I’m positive.’

  ‘So why is he running with him and not bringing him in?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  The grey-haired man looked back at the freeze-frame of Archer. ‘His phone?’

  ‘Switched off. I killed the line, kept the GPS active and tried to switch on the microphone to listen to what they’re saying, but looks like he got wise to that. He took the battery out, so we can’t turn it back on or trace it. The car he’s using is registered to a Sarah Hardy; according to Archer’s police bio, she’s his sister. Lawyer, lives and works in the city, home address is in Georgetown. Husband is a Jack Hardy; he’s a lawyer too.’

  ‘Who’s the kid?’ Marcus asked, pointing to an African American teenager in the shot immediately behind Archer and Ledger. ‘And what’s he doing there?’

  ‘Don’t know yet. Working on it.’

  ‘Find out fast. You just said you’re good. Prove it.’

  As Burnett concentrated again on his computer, movement on the plasma screen on the wall to their right caught both men’s attention; it was tuned to CNN. They watched as a bank of microphones were hurriedly being set up in front of a makeshift dais outside a hospital in the city, a number of senior law enforcement agents gathering behind the stand.

  Breaking News: Press conference concerning shooting at Wilson High to take place at 6:20pm ran the banner.