[Sam Archer 08.0] Last Breath

by Tom Barber

  Angela took several turns and they found themselves on a road heading north-west, the wide river on their left, reflecting the lights from surrounding buildings. Archer closed his eyes, every inch of his body hurting after throwing himself through the roof-light to escape the drone. Four hours after he’d entered the heart of the rioting area, he’d finally made it out with Ledger but collected two unexpected companions and some injuries. Harry had a gunshot wound to his shoulder packed with rudimentary bandages and superglue and Jesse and Angela were also both clearly pretty traumatised, neither ever having been in close contact with the sort of violence and experienced the level of fear they’d been exposed to in the past few hours.

  Looking left across the river, he saw the Pentagon on the other side, the famous building positioned next to Arlington Cemetery, the lights shimmering on the surface of the water.

  ‘Those guys deployed a goddamn drone,’ Angela suddenly said, breaking the silence. ‘In the centre of Washington D.C. What the hell were they thinking?’

  Archer recalled the white machine, the four turrets, the camera on the underside. He turned to Ledger. ‘You ever seen anything like that?’

  ‘Only in combat.’

  ‘This goes way beyond trying to frame you for the murders and then shut you up,’ Archer said. ‘Deploying a thing like that in the heart of D.C. could hardly be described as subtle. Forensics are gonna have a field day with that wreckage.’

  ‘And the press too,’ Ledger added.

  ‘Shows they’re getting desperate,’ Angela said. ‘The Feds have got to have figured out by now that this isn’t as straightforward as they thought. That you’re being hunted.’

  ‘Yeah, but by who and why?’ Ledger said.

  Archer watched tourist sites roll past on their right, the tall Washington Monument looming up like a giant pencil, then the Lincoln Memorial, while trying to make sense of a situation that seemed senseless. The tourist landmarks calibrated with his basic knowledge of D.C.’s layout, and he realised where they were, breathing another sigh of relief. The streets here were devoid of rioting, police cordons, fire and smoke. They were quiet too; it seemed a lot of people were staying at home tonight. He couldn’t blame them.

  Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out the business card Jack had scribbled Sarah’s temporary address on, having already shown Jesse who was now guiding Angela.

  ‘How far out are we, kid?’ Archer asked.

  ‘Not too far, I think. Don’t know this part of town so well.’

  Leaning back in his seat, Archer closed his eyes again, thinking about the ID of the man they’d fingerprinted back in Barry Farms.

  Carl Thorne, NSA analyst.

  Then he recalled the face of the man they’d captured. He looked nothing like his supposed ID; he’d been tanned, dark-featured, possibly Hispanic.

  They deployed a goddamn armed drone in the centre of Washington D.C.

  As the car rolled on through the safer part of the city towards Washington Circle, Archer opened his eyes and looked out of the window again.

  For killers who’d done such a professional job of framing Ledger, it just didn’t make sense.

  Inside the FBI’s Command Post, Sorenson had a conference call going, Matt Shepherd and Lisa Marquez from the NYPD on a video feed, with Peralta and Font on the line from the scene in Anacostia. Shepherd and his Latina detective had become increasingly involved in the case to the point now where Sorenson didn’t bother to mute the line with him when updates on the manhunt and case were called in. He needed extra minds on this.

  ‘Did you get an ID from the DMV on that van that crashed in Barry Farms?’ Marquez asked.

  ‘Registered to Angela Jane Barrera,’ Sorenson said. ‘She’s a freelance journalist from Boston. Used to work at the Herald but quit two years ago. Marcia Barrera’s sister.’

  ‘Why would she be helping Archer and Ledger?’ Font asked over the phone. ‘With Ledger shooting her sister, you’d think he’d be the last person she’d want to help.’

  ‘That’s what we need to find out,’ Sorenson said. ‘And we just had a shootout in Anacostia reported.’

  ‘Near the subway exits?’ Shepherd asked.

  ‘Near one of the access doors of a maintenance tunnel which had been found open. What the hell happened over there, Peralta?’

  ‘We’ve got a half destroyed hardware store, a car shot to Swiss cheese, enough shell casings for maybe two hundred rounds and the mangled leftovers of what looks like an armed drone crashed on the street.’

  ‘A drone?’

  ‘This wasn’t the work of gangs or vigilantes, sir. Metro arrested a gang member who said he saw the whole thing go down.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Apparently Harry Ledger, a dark-haired woman and a teenage boy matching the description of Jesse Mayer were in the street just before the attack. This guy and his friends were walking down on them, then he said some kind of drone appeared and started to shoot at something on the roof of the building across the street. They didn’t know what until a man ran out from the building and started firing back at the drone with a rifle. Said he was a blond guy, dark shirt, grey t-shirt, blue jeans.’

  ‘Archer,’ Sorenson said. ‘So what happened next?’

  ‘He doesn’t know. He thinks Ledger knocked him out and he woke up with the drone burning on the street twenty yards away and cops everywhere. But we haven’t found any bodies down here.’

  ‘What more proof do you need?’ Marquez asked Sorenson in obvious frustration. ‘It’s clear they’re being attacked by someone, not FBI, ATF or Metro.’

  ‘If they’re in so much danger, why don’t they just turn themselves in?’ Sorenson countered. ‘They’re running every time we get close.’

  ‘Because they either don’t or can’t trust people on your side. That’s hardly surprising considering so-called cops have been trying to kill them for the past few hours. Add to that a drone? Who would have the balls or stupidity to deploy something like that in D.C.? Not to mention who has access to one? You can’t exactly buy those things from Walmart.’

  ‘That’s all speculation, Detective,’ Sorenson replied. ‘These people are on the loose in the city, evading capture by law-enforcement and are armed and dangerous.’

  ‘You’ve got someone deploying a drone to try and kill them. I think I’d run, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘I can’t suddenly order my entire force to start assisting them without concrete evidence of what you’re saying. If we encounter them and they try to run, we’re out of options. They’re going down.’

  Neither Shepherd nor Marquez replied; there was a tense silence. Sorenson exhaled.

  ‘Innocent or not, until you can come up with something I can work with, my orders stand. Ledger’s still wanted for numerous murders and Archer’s list of crimes are stacking up by the second.’

  ‘Don’t be naïve,’ Shepherd said. ‘There’s something else going on here and you know it. If Ledger really killed Marcia Barrera, why would the dead woman’s sister be running around town with him?’

  ‘That’s what I’m wondering,’ Font said over the line.

  ‘And Archer is one of our best guys,’ Marquez continued. ‘He wouldn’t be doing this without very good reason. Not to mention that Harry Ledger couldn’t have killed Jeff Cummings with that fourth rifle hit. He was locked down across the city.’

  Sorenson looked at his support staff next door working tirelessly to try and locate the group they were after. Shepherd, Marquez, Font and Peralta had all made valid points, but without hard evidence he had no alternative but continue.

  ‘This gang member see or say anything else, Rob?’ he asked.

  ‘He’s all tweaked up on meth, but told us he and his crew got an offer. Half a million to kill Harry Ledger and the people with him. No reason for him to invent that, and how would he know Ledger has company right now?’

  ‘Who the hell offered them that?’

  ‘He doesn’t know. But we’re taking
him seriously. He had a twelve inch knife and sub-machine gun on him and the other gang members we arrested were armed too. He’s done tonight, but if the other members of that gang find Ledger and the others, they’ll cut them to pieces.’

  ‘They weren’t all arrested at the scene?’

  ‘We got a few but most of them took off before we arrived. I don’t think they’re going to quit trying to claim that half a million any time soon.’

  Looking at the screens, Sorenson focused on Ledger and Archer’s police files which had taken permanent residence on the plasma, Jesse Mayer’s school photo beside them alongside Angela Barrera’s profile.

  Two experienced cops with excellent records, a fourteen year old boy and a former Boston Herald journalist, whose sister had supposedly been shot by the man she was running around with.

  And people going to extraordinary lengths to try and kill them.

  What Marquez had just said made sense. Who wouldn’t run under those circumstances?

  Standing alone in his office, for the first time since Ledger had been marked as the lead suspect, Sorenson suddenly felt something he didn’t like and hadn’t anticipated.

  The stirrings of uncertainty.

  THIRTY SEVEN

  Less than two miles away from the FBI Command Post, Angela pulled to a halt off Washington Circle, easing into an empty parking space on a wide street.

  ‘We’re here,’ she said, putting the car in Park and switching off the engine.

  In the back seat, Archer looked up and down Pennsylvania Avenue, noting how different it was from the nightmare they’d just left behind; it was hard to believe they were in the same city. There were no rioters, no fires, no police cars or sirens, just a quiet street that seemed never-ending, stretching away into the distance. He suddenly heard his mother’s voice in his head from long ago when the family had visited D.C, telling them how Charles Dickens had described the capital city.

  Spacious avenues that begin in nothing and lead nowhere.

  Looking down the wide street, Archer saw the architecture might have changed since the famous author’s day, but the ambience hadn’t.

  After the high-octane events of the past few hours, they could have been forgiven for relaxing slightly, but Archer knew they were now surrounded by a different threat. There may not have been any rioting here, but these neighbourhoods had some of the most powerful and influential people in the world as residents, with security to match, who would undoubtedly be only too willing to assist if they knew they had a Federal manhunt suspect on their doorstep.

  Just because they’d escaped the riot zone didn’t mean they could relax their guard.

  Checking the address Jack had written on the back of his business card, Archer identified an office building on the other side of the street, the rope from a crane on the roof of an adjacent building looming over it. In stark contrast to the polished glass structure in front of him, the building next door was still in the process of construction, exposed open floors and interiors covered by white sheeting and tarpaulins to protect against the elements.

  He switched his focus back to the address Jack had given him. ‘That’s the one. Directly opposite.’

  As Angela and Jesse looked up at the building, Archer and Ledger checked the street, the two men looking for any indication they were being watched.

  ‘Lights are out in the lobby,’ Jesse said.

  ‘Doesn’t mean there aren’t any guards inside,’ Archer replied, looking over at the dark reception area behind two wide glass doors. On any other occasion he would have been pleased to know there was security in the building with his sister working here, but tonight that presented some serious logistical problems.

  Looking at the state of the four of them in the car, he could see their detour on the Metro rail hadn’t done their sartorial elegance any favours. If they remained on the street they’d soon attract attention, particularly in this neighbourhood. They needed to get out of sight fast.

  ‘Metro have had your ID for hours,’ Angela said, twisting in her seat to look at Archer. ‘They’ll know about Sarah and where she lives and works. There might be an entire task force up there waiting for you to appear.’

  ‘Or the NSA team beat us to it,’ Ledger said quietly.

  Archer looked up at the building. ‘This isn’t where she usually works, so it’ll take them time to track her down.’

  Pulling the magazine from his Sig, he did a quick ammo count, then reloaded the handgun and looked up and down the long, empty street.

  His instincts rarely let him down and he was uneasy.

  Something was off.

  ‘Font and I are with a Metro Forensics investigator checking out the drone,’ Peralta said, on a speaker call with Sorenson who’d requested any details as soon as they had anything. ‘I’m putting him on the line.’

  Pause.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘What can you tell us?’ Sorenson asked, sitting at his desk.

  ‘It’s called an ARDS. Autonomous Rotorcraft Defence System. Military patent. Self-stabilising turrets, built in camera with adjustable zoom, fires seven to ten .338 calibre rounds per second.’

  ‘Military patent?’ Sorenson said.

  ‘Yes, but this one is slightly different. It has four guns attached. It can be broken down into separate parts and transported pretty easily; then assembled in less than a minute and be airborne immediately.’

  ‘Who has access to equipment like that?’

  ‘The military, obviously, but they’d never deploy something like this in a U.S city without very good reason and only then with the highest level of authorisation. It would never be authorised for a domestic manhunt operation, that’s for sure. This drone was designed for the battlefield.’

  ‘Who designed it?’

  ‘Not sure. The markings were burned down.’

  ‘Who in the name of Christ would deploy a drone in the US capital?’

  ‘This machine isn’t designed for surveillance,’ Peralta said, having retaken the phone at his end. ‘It’s designed to kill up close and personal. There are more shell casings on the street here than on a bad night in Beirut.’

  ‘A drone sounds like it comes from the intelligence community, right?’ Font said, following up Peralta. ‘And the CIA aren’t permitted to operate State-side.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘What are you getting at?’ Sorenson asked.

  ‘I can think of another government agency who would have equipment like this and people skilled enough to use it,’ she said. ‘People who have the capability to hunt down our suspect and the group with him and be ahead of us at every turn.’

  ‘NSA?’

  ‘Would explain why Archer and Ledger haven’t attempted to get in touch all night, save for that dead call in Barry Farms where no-one spoke. If they’ve come to the same conclusion, they’ll be aware their calls will have been monitored and their voice prints taken. The moment they use a phone, someone from NSA will have their location.’

  ‘These are serious accusations, Agent Font. Extremely serious.’

  ‘But it makes sense though, doesn’t it?’ Font replied. ‘Aside from the military, who else would have access to a machine like that?’

  Sorenson paused for a moment then put them on hold, dialling the FBI’s HRT commander who was currently handling the Metro rail search for Ledger and Archer between the Anacostia station and Waterfront.

  ‘Commander, it’s Special Agent Sorenson. How we doing down there?’

  ‘I was just about to call you. It’s a mess.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Teams have cleared the tunnel and found a load of dead bodies on the way to the Navy Yard. Seems they were all hit by a service train.’

  ‘Ledger?’

  ‘No. Gang members, we think. There’re what’s left of a variety of weapons scattered on the tracks. We know Ledger and the others were seen entering the station. Looks like these guys followed them and got caught out by the tra
in.’

  ‘So where are the bodies of the four they were chasing?’

  ‘They must have made it out somehow. There’re a couple of service doors and the latch on one of them is busted. The corridor leads up to Anacostia where that drone crashed and where the shootout on the street happened. I’m guessing they got out that way. There’s nowhere else for them to hide down there, that’s for sure. We’ve cleared every inch.’

  Sorenson swore under his breath. ‘Has Metro’s task force watching the sister checked in?’

  ‘Not yet. But they’re ready. She’s one of Archer’s only ports of call in town. If he somehow got across the Anacostia, he’s pretty likely to show up at some stage.’

  He nodded. ‘OK.’

  ‘But there’s another reason I was about to call. We just got a big result back at the house in Barry Farms where there was that shootout.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘We found an I-pad connected to a phone in a house. They’d both taken small arms fire and been damaged pretty bad by an explosion, but we dusted the pieces of the phone for latent fingerprints. Sam Archer’s are all over the back, but we’ve got a clean forefinger from a shard of front screen. Some of our investigators ran it through NCIC and FI.’

  ‘You got something?’

  ‘I’m sending it through. But I don’t think you’re going to like this.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It belongs to a field operative from the NSA.’

  Archer led the way as he, Ledger, Angela and Jesse crossed the street in Washington Circle. With nothing in the car besides a spare wheel, a few tools, some window cleaner and an ice scraper, they were left with no option other than taking any guard they encountered hostage until they could get to Sarah upstairs and explain what was going on.

  Traffic had been passing intermittently, but they’d waited until the road was clear to make their move. With his Department pistol sitting in his holster, Archer reached the glass entrance and tried the doors.

  They were open.

  Pushing his way through, he drew his Sig and held it double-handed, looking around the dark lobby.

  There was no-one behind the front desk.