by Tom Barber
Moving forward, Archer and Ledger quickly cleared the space; moments later, making eye contact with Archer, Ledger shook his head.
Something didn’t feel right.
The sound of a cop car siren suddenly penetrated the silence and Ledger immediately dropped down behind the reception desk beside him. Waving Jesse and Angela forward, Archer opened the stairwell door and pushed them inside, pulling the door closed behind all three of them just as a cop car swept past.
It didn’t slow and sped on its way.
Once it had gone, Ledger rose and moved across the lobby to the stairwell, joining the others as Archer took point on the low-lit stairs. As Ledger clicked the door shut, Archer paused for a moment, listening. He couldn’t hear any sound of movement; it was completely silent.
That in itself was odd.
She works on the 5th floor, Jack had said.
Gripping his pistol, he started moving up the stairs, the pain in his body forgotten as adrenaline kicked in, Ledger covering the rear with his Sig Sauer in his good hand, Jesse and Angela between the two NYPD cops.
As they made their way up the stairs, Archer eased open the door to the 2nd floor, then the 3rd, cautiously checking each level. The floors were dark and empty, and Archer’s uneasiness grew.
The revelation that an NSA operative’s fingerprint had been found at the scene of the Barry Farms shootout, coupled with the use of the armed drone, had prompted Sorenson to make a call to a friend of his at the Agency who owed him. He and the man on the other end of the line went back almost ten years, the man a former Bureau employee who’d found himself at the wrong end of an investigation that went south and ended up being targeted as the fall guy.
Sorenson had known his colleague, Gregan, wasn’t at fault and had warned him the sharks were circling, giving him the opportunity to protect his back. Gregan had jumped ship to NSA soon afterwards, Sorenson calling several contacts of his and helping the transition, saving the guy’s career. Gregan had frequently told Sorenson that if he ever needed a favour, he only had to ask.
Despite that assurance, having just informed him what he was after, Sorenson could tell from his old colleague’s voice this wasn’t exactly what he’d had in mind.
‘HRT just found a latent fingerprint on a phone in a house in Barry Farms which has been shot to pieces,’ Sorenson continued, having risen from his chair and now pacing around his office. ‘The print belongs to a man called Carl James Thorne. According to the FI database, he was a Special Forces soldier for almost a decade. He now works for the NSA as an analyst.’
‘So?’ Gregan replied, not giving anything away.
‘What the hell is he doing running around Barry Farms chasing my sniper suspect, Nick?’
‘You have a print, Mike. Do you have any camera footage of this man being down there?’
‘CCTV on the street was out of action.’
‘Any witnesses?’
‘None.’
‘So you have no other proof he was there. Someone could have planted that print.’
‘That’s ridiculous. Your man could be actively damaging my investigation and I want to know why.’
‘I’m not defending him, I’m pointing out a possibility.’
‘Do you know him?’
‘He’s not my section. You know as well as I do how big this organisation is.’ He paused. ‘Do you have any more evidence that he’s been there?’
‘How about that drone which crashed in Anacostia?’
The line was silent.
‘I need information on this man and anyone he works with at NSA.’
‘Jesus Christ, Mike. You know I can’t just give you that.’
‘Yes you can. ’
‘It sounds like this guy works in the field. I send you information on him, I’m breaking Agency rules. It could cost me my job.’
‘Remember who landed you the job in the first place? I helped you out, back then, Nick, but I need you to help me now. Please. You said if I ever needed anything...’
‘I meant moving house or looking after your kids for a weekend.’
There was a long pause. Sorenson waited.
‘Son of a bitch. Alright. Give me a second. After this, we’re even.’
‘Thank you.’
There was a pause, Sorenson hearing the sound of computer keys being tapped.
‘Thorne works out of our Q Division; Security and Counterintelligence. They have two four man operative teams. He’s the leader of one of them.’
‘Not an analyst.’
‘Correct. He’s a field agent.’
‘So who are the other members of his team?’
‘That’s classified, Mike. I already told you about Thorne. People aren’t meant to know who these guys are.’
‘I’m one decision away from calling a press conference telling the nation that NSA are actively damaging this investigation, Nick. Who are his team?’
Silence.
‘I’m sending the details over to you on the secure network. Delete once read, understand?’
‘You have my word.’
A few moments later, Sorenson opened the email which arrived.
‘Carl Thorne, Dell Riley, Frank Tarketti and Paul Deerman,’ he read out loud. ‘Four ex-soldiers, extensive combat experience including Special Forces.’
He paused.
‘Deerman and Riley are ex-Delta, Tarketti and Thorne SEALs. All work in Q Division; Security and Counter-Intelligence. Field agents.’
‘Correct.’
‘Do they have access to drones like the one we found crashed in Anacostia?’
‘They do. That drone was a model we’ve used before. It’s a Rozio ARDS.’
‘Jesus Christ, Nick. If these are bent NSA agents unleashing drones in D.C., you’re in so much shit it could be the end of your Agency. Know how much the public are on your case right now after all that Snowden stuff?’
‘Yeah, funnily enough we’ve all got an idea.’
‘So what they hell are they playing at?’
‘Wait. I’m checking the activity logs with these four men. Think I’ve got something.’
‘What?’
‘Last night. Thorne’s wife called a private Agency number next of kin are provided with in case of emergency. Said she hasn’t seen her husband since Sunday and she was certain he hadn’t been on an operation anywhere. He always told her when he was going away.’
‘So?’
‘She contacted Tarketti, Deerman and Riley’s partners to find out if their guys were absent too. All four men have been missing for the past four days.’
Sliding through the gap to the Washington Circle office 5th floor, Ledger, Jesse and Angela stood for a moment in the shadows while Archer studied the office space ahead of him. Unlike all the other floors, someone was here; Archer’s gaze was drawn to a light coming from an office at the far end of the otherwise deserted office space.
Sarah.
Stepping forward, remaining in the dark, he could see his sister through the glass, her head down, no idea the newcomers were there. The others followed him and fanned out.
‘According to his file, Thorne works in NSA’s Q Division, right?’ Angela whispered.
Turning, Archer nodded.
‘If this thing isn’t password protected, I’ll try and get online,’ she said quietly, moving into a cubicle which contained an open Windows desktop. ‘See if I can find out more about that Division and why they might be doing this.’
As Angela slid into the chair, Ledger checked the rest of the dark office while Archer kept his eyes on Sarah’s closed door thirty feet away.
‘I’ll be back in a few moments,’ he told the others in a low voice. Walking forward, he approached the office silently, his heart thumping. This next encounter had been almost a decade in the making and he sure as hell hadn’t imagined it taking place under these circumstances.
Reaching the door, he took a deep breath.
Then he pushed the handle down and went ins
ide.
THIRTY EIGHT
Sarah looked up, startled, when the door opened and then sat and stared as her brother entered the room. Looking back at her, Archer wasn’t surprised by her reaction; they hadn’t seen each other in ten years and his current dirty, dishevelled appearance left a lot to be desired. She continued to stare at him as he shut the door behind him, open folders, charters and papers strewn all over the desk in front of her temporarily forgotten, a television playing silently on the wall slightly behind her to her left, tuned to CNN.
Archer glanced at it and saw it was currently showing pictures of police and dog units milling around the scene of the drone shootout in Anacostia.
Shifting his attention from the television, he focused on his sister instead.
They looked strikingly similar, very obviously siblings, she with long blonde hair and blue eyes slightly darker than his, he with a firmer jawline. Sarah was thirty four, five years older than her brother; born on the outskirts of London she’d gone to school in the city, then left for Yale University in the US just before her nineteenth birthday. Law school had been followed by a lucrative job offer here in D.C. which she’d snapped up, and as far as he knew she hadn’t been back to the UK since their mother died, which was over a decade ago. They’d always been an independent, strong-willed family and like her brother, she’d made a life for herself here despite the problems she’d had to overcome.
That life was a world away from his.
Seeing the blinds to the office were open, he walked forward, tweaking them shut then turned to face her, neither still having said a word. She sat there silently, looking at the brother she hadn’t seen for a decade, taken aback by his appearance. Archer studied her in turn; she looked well, wearing a light blue shirt, the grey suit jacket hanging on a hook behind her. Since he’d decided to come to D.C. last night, he’d spent a lot of time thinking about this meeting and all the possible ways it could go. Turning up looking like this wouldn’t have been his preferred choice.
‘Hey,’ he said after a long pause.
She didn’t reply.
‘What time did you arrive?’ she asked eventually.
‘Half past four-ish.’
‘Jack said he drove you home.’
‘He did.’
‘You decided to go out?’
‘I wanted to sightsee.’
‘Well you certainly did that,’ she said, glancing at the TV.
There was a pause.
‘I-‘
‘They’re saying you might have killed people,’ she said, cutting him off.
He hesitated. ‘I did the opposite. I’m trying to save some people’s lives.’
She studied his appearance, the bloodstains on his thigh and shirt. ‘And did you almost lose yours in the process?’
He didn’t reply. She held up her I-phone, a number dialled into it, her temper starting to rise despite her quiet tone.
‘This is the direct line to a Metro Emergency Response Team. They were here earlier and told me that you’ve been helping Harry Ledger. I’m supposed to press Call if you show up. There’s an entire armed police team three blocks away. They even cleared the rest of the building in case you decided to come here.’
He saw her attention suddenly flick past him. Turning, he saw Angela had turned on a lamp at the desk where she was working at a computer, Ledger looking over her shoulder at the screen.
‘You’re with the most wanted man on the East Coast. Apparently you’re helping him.’
‘Things aren’t what they seem, Sarah.’
‘What kind of bullshit comment is that?’ she snapped, slamming the phone on the desk. ‘Why are you running? Why haven’t you just handed him in?’
‘It’s not straightforward. It looks like the NSA framed Harry. I think they set him up; they’ve been trying to finish him off all night and the three of us along with him.’
She stared at him. ‘NSA. As in the National Security Agency?’
He nodded.
‘For the love of God, Sam, tell me you’re joking. You’re saying you’re running from the most powerful surveillance agency in the country?’
‘It looks that way, yes.’
She stared at him. ‘Why am I surprised?’ She looked away for a few seconds. ‘I got a call from the FBI too. They gave me some history. Told me two years ago you shot and killed some Federal agents.’
‘They were criminals.’
‘You know the punishment for killing an FBI agent is the death penalty?’
‘I’m still here, aren’t I? So what does that tell you, that those men were innocent?’
She stared at him, exasperation and frustration written all over her face.
‘So matter of fact,’ she said. ‘You kill two people and that’s all you can say?’
‘They were evil, Sarah. They made their choice.’
‘So you ended their lives,’ she said. ‘How many other people have you killed?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘You heard me. How many lives have you taken?’
‘What kind of question is that?’
‘You can’t answer it, because you probably don’t even know. Shit, do you even care?’
‘Is that what you really think?’ he said. ‘I do this because I enjoy hurting people?’
Reaching down and reversing then propelling her wheel-chair forward, Sarah manoeuvred herself out from behind the desk and looked at her brother.
‘You tell me.’
She sat in the chair, looking at him for a moment.
Then she wheeled herself towards the door, opened it and left the office.
Back in Anacostia, Peralta and Font had spent a further twenty minutes or so at the scene of the drone shootout, relaying information to Sorenson and his support staff at the Hoover Building. Peralta had then driven them to Jesse Mayer’s house, the original reason they’d come down here in the first place.
Metro had two detectives sitting outside in an unmarked car, both men clearly nervous as hell. Being called to house-sit in an area currently tearing itself apart wasn’t exactly the best assignment, but Metro had no officers in the area to put on it right now and eyes on the house were vital, not only in case Jesse showed up but also in case someone decided to exact some retribution.
‘Foster mother just got back,’ one of them told Peralta and Font, having wound his window down.
‘Any sign of the kid?’ Font asked. ‘Or Ledger?’
‘Nothing.’ The two men glanced at each other as they all heard the sound of smashing glass from somewhere nearby. ‘That shit gets any closer, we’re outta here.’
Leaving the two men, Peralta and Font walked up the path then knocked on the front door; Jesse Mayer’s foster mother appeared a few moments later, holding a phone to her chest. Looking at the pair, she lifted the phone.
‘I’ll ring you back,’ she said, ending the call. ‘What?’
‘We’re FBI, ma’am,’ Peralta said, showing her his badge. ‘We’re looking for your foster son.’
‘You and everyone else.’
‘No, we’ve been pursuing the Jeremy Somers case,’ Font said. ‘That’s why we’re here.’
The expression on the woman’s face softened slightly. ‘I’ve been trying to call him ever since that awful thing at Wilson, but he’s not answering his phone.’
Peralta nodded. ‘He left it at a house in Buena Vista.’
‘What the hell was he doing over there?’
‘We’re trying to work that out. When was the last time you saw him?’
‘This morning when he left for school.’ She looked at the pair. ‘TV is saying he’s with Harry Ledger. He might be a hostage.’
‘They’ve been seen together tonight, yes.’
‘You think Ledger is going to hurt him?’
‘We don’t know. But they were in this area. We think they might come here.’
She shook her head. ‘Today feels like it isn’t even real. My son’s best friend tried to shoot u
p his high school, and got killed, my neighbourhood is getting trashed and my son is on the run from the FBI.’ She picked up her car keys. ‘I need to go, detectives.’
‘It’d be easier for us if you stayed here.’
‘My friend round the corner needs to pick her son up and she can’t go anywhere. Her car was stolen.’
‘We’ll find your boy,’ Font said. ‘But did Jesse say anything to you, any hint that he was in contact with Ledger?’
‘Nothing.’
‘What about Jeremy?’
‘He never mentioned anything. But Jesse’s a good kid. He would have stopped him or told someone if he’d known.’
‘You said your friend had her car stolen?’ Peralta asked, latching onto the earlier comment.
The woman nodded.
‘She lives around the corner?’
‘Yeah, a street over. Said the sons of bitches must have got in through her son’s back window and took the keys while she was in the front room. Had no idea they’d even been there. Her son’s waiting for her at a Metro station near Wilson. I need to go.’
The two special agents looked at each other; then Peralta pulled his cell. ‘We’ll get the two detectives outside to take you. You’ll be safe. But can you call your friend back and ask her for the plates on her car? We’ll try and find it for her.’
She picked up the phone. ‘You’re wasting your time. It’ll turn up totalled somewhere in the riot zone.’
Peralta looked at her. ‘I don’t think it’s this side of the Anacostia anymore.’
THIRTY NINE
After Sarah left, Archer stayed in her temporary office, her last comment hitting him in the stomach like a sucker punch. She hadn’t joined Angela, Jesse or Ledger next door, completely ignoring them as she wheeled herself into an empty Conference Room instead.
There’s an entire armed police team on call three blocks away, she’d said, just waiting for her to make the call.
She might be on the phone to them right now, he thought.
He suddenly heard a noise behind him and turned to see Ledger walking into the room.
‘How’d it go?’ he asked.
‘Metro have an ERT team three blocks away waiting for her to make a call.’