by Tom Barber
A dead boy, a kid they’d fostered, meeting with a former NSA employee from his division.
LOVEINT.
Looking at Veach’s photo, his mind started to put the puzzle together; they seemed to fit.
‘Why would Mr Veach want Tyron dead?’ Jesse asked.
‘In the LOVEINT case, people spied on love interests, right?’ Archer said. Angela nodded. ‘What if the interest wasn’t current?’
He paused.
‘What if it was someone from years before?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘What if Veach abused Tyron? Giving him those injuries and doing God knows what else?’
Silence.
‘That’s gross,’ Jesse said, the first to speak. ‘That house was a good place to be. Mr Veach and his wife never laid a finger on us.’
‘They never laid a finger on you. These people select their victims carefully. That’s how they get away with it.’
They looked at him.
‘Marcia worked in Veach’s Division for three years. She was his assistant for two of them, and she suddenly resigns then comes to Angela saying she has dirt on someone at the Agency, someone who’d escaped exposure and punishment when those data abuse revelations hit the press. But before she can tell you anything, Marcia gets whacked, Tyron comes next and then finally Nate as cover for the two earlier killings. Marcia and Tyron killed before they could tell you what happened to him.’
‘If Angela was encrypting her emails, how would Veach know?’
‘He must have been keeping eyes on her once she left. Maybe he was suspicious she knew something when she left so abruptly. He must have found out somehow that Tyron was in touch with Marcia, so he had them both killed.’
‘But why kill your partner’s boy?’ Angela asked.
‘Make it look like the random killing spree of a former soldier,’ he replied, looking at Ledger. ‘Nate was just the wrong place, wrong time.’
‘It’s pretty excessive, Archer,’ Ledger said. ‘How would he get four of his guys with good records to commit murder? Put their jobs on the line to help him out.’
‘And they’re government employees,’ Angela added. ‘Surely they wouldn’t risk their jobs like that?’
‘Government operatives have done much worse in the past,’ Archer said. ‘Follow orders and ask no questions. Veach might well have spun a line to the four men. Fed them some bullshit about Marcia and Tyron being a security risk which needed to be removed. Or maybe had something on them to threaten them with if they didn’t do what he ordered. Twenty nine years in post, who knows what he’d have on people, just in case.’
The group fell silent as they thought about what Archer had said.
It was possible.
In the silence, Archer opened another tab to the web browser and typed in NSA Q Division. ‘Let’s start trying to get a picture of this guy and his team.’
Almost as soon as he pressed Enter, some results came through, the first one immediately grabbing Archer’s attention, an article from the New York Times.
‘NSA’s Q Division terminates contract with weapons developer after revelations from online justice group,’ Ledger read.
Archer opened the news article.
‘The National Security Agency axed their contract today with the weapons developer Rozio Systems,’ he read. ‘The relationship was terminated after the CEO of Rozio Iron Works, Scott Hallman, was found to have negotiated deals with several criminal organisations in Mexico, including several prominent drug cartels.’
‘What?’ Angela said, leaning forward.
Archer read on quickly. ‘Apparently a cartel used one of Rozio’s drones to take out a rival boss who was being treated in hospital. Killed almost fifty people, with a product Hallman sold them.’
‘Under Federal indictment, the FBI are looking to prosecute Hallman for attempting to cover up the deals,’ Ledger continued, reading the article. ‘In the wake of Hallman’s actions, the NSA have immediately cancelled all dealings with the company, understandably wanting to distance themselves from any association.’
‘The stuff we’ve been getting blasted with all night must be the Rozio stock NSA had left,’ Ledger said.
‘Anyone with a stake in Rozio must have been pissed,’ Angela said. ‘That’s a huge contract with NSA wiped out overnight and their reputation trashed. Government contracts aside, there’s a hell of a lot of money in weapons manufacturing right now. The industry’s going through a renaissance. Hallman must have got greedy. There’d be no real need to sell equipment on the side.’
‘A renaissance?’ Jesse asked. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I did a report on it last year assessing the profits in the industry. The weekend after the primary school shooting in Connecticut a few years ago, gun sales went through the roof. People were queueing out the door. Gun store owners around the country said people were coming in actually requesting the same model of rifle that the gunman used.’
‘Why did the sales go up?’ Jesse asked. ‘I thought it’d be the opposite?’
‘A few reasons,’ Angela replied. ‘One of them is fear. The guy wanting to break into my house has a gun? I need a shotgun. He’s got a shotgun? I need an assault rifle. Others want to stock up in case bans come into place and a particular gun isn’t available anymore. I can see their point. Someone takes away every civilian-owned gun in the country, can we defend ourselves?’
Only half-listening, focusing on the screen, Archer searched Rozio’s name and brought up the company website. He clicked Play on the video on the homepage. A logo came up on the screen along with some music.
The metallic font merged to form the company name: Rozio Weapons Systems.
‘Here at Rozio Weapons Systems, we endeavour to provide you with the most cutting edge military hardware available. Our patented designs offer everything from hand-held weaponry to high-tech defence systems and the highest spec technology.’
He watched as the images cut to show models of their products.
‘First a Mexican hospital hit with one of their drones. Now a street in D.C.’s SE is shot to pieces by another one,’ Ledger said. ‘That company’s having a rough time.’
Tough shit, Archer thought, watching the video, his forearms still throbbing from the cuts from the glass when he’d fallen through the skylight.
Walking out of Jesse Mayer’s foster mother’s house, Peralta thanked the analyst and ended the call on his cell, having just requested a trace on the plates of the friend’s stolen car.
‘She’s searching the plates through every camera in the city,’ he told Font.
‘So if they took the car, where the hell could they go?’
‘Think back to when we came down here. Notice anything.’
She considered it. ‘They were moving the roadblocks when the call came in that Ledger and the others were in the subway. Shit.’
Peralta’s phone rang and he answered, seeing it was Sorenson. ‘Sir?’
‘Are you alone?’
‘I’m with Font.’
‘Listen, both of you. I’m on the line with someone from NSA. We think some people from their Agency are the ones pursuing Ledger, Archer, the reporter and the kid.’
‘What? Why?’
‘We got a fingerprint back at Barry Farms, and that drone was one NSA had in stock. Where are you at with Jesse Mayer?’
‘A car is gone from a house here. We’re searching for the plates now.’
‘I don’t want to distract my team until we know more, so this NSA angle stays between us. But we need to find Ledger and the others immediately. There’s more to this than I originally thought.’
Peralta shook his head, looking at Font. ‘Why would NSA be after Ledger, sir?’
‘I don’t know. But I need you to figure it out before my people find him and Archer. These two aren’t going to go down without a fight.’
FORTY TWO
Across town at his office, Marcus Veach saw he had a new message fr
om his wife on his phone, asking again what time he’d be home. Valerie was still distraught at Tyron Scrace’s death in Boston two days ago and he’d been getting a stream of texts from her wanting him back.
Ignoring the messages, he stuffed the smartphone back into his pocket, his anger still white-hot as he watched the television pictures of the devastation his team had caused tonight. In addition to the rage, for the first time Veach was also feeling the stirrings of ice-cold fear in his stomach.
If the events of the last few days were ever traced back to him, he was only too aware of what the consequences would be.
Veach had been with the NSA for twenty nine years and throughout that time, had managed to keep two aspects of his private life a secret. Even Valerie had no idea of what he got up to. The first secret was his abuse of NSA’s stored surveillance. Before 9/11 and the advancement in technology, the surveillance techniques available to the NSA had not only been more rudimentary, there’d also been severe restrictions on their use. However, with the Patriot Act and increased surveillance on people in the United States, Veach had had a field day, able to spy on whoever he wanted, using the information he gathered to make a lot of money.
It was like a free buffet. He’d been cautious, putting out feelers to carefully selected targets and offering information, knowing major corporations would pay a great deal of money to have inside knowledge on their competitors’ dealings, their future projects and any other information they could glean from private phone-calls and emails. He’d also used the system to become a successful shareholder in a company that had quickly paid for two expensive cars and his retirement home. He wasn’t the first guy in D.C. to use the technology at his disposal for financial gain and he wouldn’t be the last.
But his second secret was much darker.
D.C. was a town built on secrets and lies. Veach had always had certain unspoken urges his entire life but had mostly managed to keep them under control, knowing the trouble those impulsions could land him in. But a decade ago he’d lapsed and given in to his urges, his actions over just a few months giving him countless sleepless nights ever since, not because of guilt but worry in case he was found out.
In those days, his wife had run a foster home that saw a succession of young kids come through their house, boys and girls with no parents either alive or interested in them, no-one they could complain to or who’d listen.
And seeing this perfect opportunity, Veach had been unable to resist.
He’d been careful to select the ones he knew he could frighten into staying quiet. His wife had never had the faintest suspicion of what her husband was getting up to when she wasn’t around. Veach had continued to get away with his assaults, but knowing the consequences if he got caught, decided he had too much to lose and finally managed to resist the constant temptation, a decision made easier when his wife told him one day she intended to stop fostering.
However, as Veach soon discovered, the problem with boys was that they became men. Becoming increasingly paranoid, he started using ThinThread, a surveillance programme brought in after 9/11 that the NSA turned inward on the United States, enabling Veach to keep careful tabs on all the young men he’d assaulted, monitoring their calls, emails, constantly checking on their communications, insurance in case despite the threats, they decided to talk. None had. He was relieved his intimidation tactics seemed to have worked, but he never relaxed his surveillance, always on edge, waiting for one to break their silence. He knew that it would only take one.
Last year he’d almost been caught out. It turned out Veach wasn’t the only one using NSA’s surveillance tools to track partners past or present; in a case called LOVEINT, other employees had been caught using the technology available to them to spy on spouses or romantic interests. The case was made public and they’d been punished severely.
Using all his experience, Veach had only just managed to avoid detection. However, in the weeks that followed, his assistant Marcia Barrera had started to act strangely around him. She’d resigned soon afterwards and that had him worried, his instincts telling him there was more to her departure than it would first appear.
He’d recruited Burnett some time before, a man whom he’d met at a party and who he’d soon learned had similar tastes to his own. Bringing him in as his new assistant, Veach had instructed Burnett to keep close tabs on Marcia without telling him why. She knew the Agency’s methods though and it had been a challenge, Burnett unable to break into her emails.
However, after following her one day, he discovered she was using a payphone in the city and had it tapped.
That was when Veach discovered Marcia was talking with one of the children he’d abused.
Tyron Scrace had lived with Veach and his wife for six years, from ten to sixteen. In that time, Veach had made the boy’s life a misery, doing things to him that would have meant a lengthy prison sentence and an immediate end to his career if he was discovered. The night before Scrace had moved out, Veach had told the boy in great detail what would happen to him if he ever talked and he thought his tactics had worked, the boy keeping what had happened to himself.
But he’d been wrong.
Listening to Marcia’s calls on the tapped payphone, he panicked when he discovered she’d set up a meeting between the boy and a journalist in Boston, her sister, a bitch who used to work at the Boston Herald. The meeting was due to take place Tuesday, by the Charlestown Bridge.
That meeting could not be allowed to happen.
Veach had called in some expert assistance. When they’d discovered the guy Barrera was dating was a cop, the team he was using for the job had checked him out and discovered he used to be a shit-hot sniper in the army. That made him the perfect fall guy, hence the reason Veach’s team had chosen to execute Marcia, Tyron and the New York kid in the way they had, setting the officer up. Those shots weren’t a problem for the team either, who had a similar level of expertise to the cop; it couldn’t have worked out better.
Knowing from their surveillance that the cop worked nights, and finding out when they broke into his apartment that he was using OxyContin, one of the men had returned when Ledger was on duty and changed the pills in the bottle beside his bed to double strength, enough to kill him later when he took a dose. After they’d shot the boy, they’d raced back to Ledger’s apartment and found the guy passed out, just as they’d expected. Quickly changing his clothes and dumping the rifle by his bed, they’d left, assuming Ledger would be held responsible for all three shootings, everyone believing he’d then taken his own life. End of case, and job finished. Nice and neat.
But then it’d all gone wrong. Ledger had survived, apparently puking up the pills in his sleep, and the son of a bitch had left his apartment just before the NYPD had arrived to arrest him. Not only was the man still alive, he’d now managed to pick up some help, Angela Barrera, a kid who went through Veach’s foster home and most worryingly, a fellow NYPD cop whose profile was currently ripping Veach’s nerves to shreds.
A lifetime of working behind a cloak of secrecy at the NSA made him extremely nervous of the sudden public attention the shootings had attracted. The work had been slick, but he was still appalled by how public it was. The resulting rioting had been a disaster too; what was originally supposed to be two quiet kills had now led to cities across the country being trashed, the story dominating the news channels. It’d turned into his worst nightmare.
He hated loose ends. If Ledger survived long enough to talk to the FBI, the frame would almost certainly fall apart. Veach knew that with breath still in his lungs, Ledger along with Archer could figure this out, even if not all of it, enough to cause him major problems which was why he had to be killed along with everyone he’d been in contact with, especially the other NYPD cop, Sam Archer. Veach had discovered how Archer had got involved in all this; that by sheer bad luck those idiots had chosen Archer’s detective partner’s son to shoot as a red herring for the investigating officers. It was clear from his record tha
t Archer was a tenacious son of a bitch. Killing him was going to be the only way to stop him.
‘Where are you?’ he snapped over the radio to his four-man team.
‘We just finished checking the Hardy’s house,’ the leader replied. ‘No-one home.’
‘You think they’d run to their house?’
‘Why not?’
‘Oh shit,’ Burnett said, looking at his screen. ‘Shit!’
Inside the Hardy’s home, the four armed operatives heard Burnett cursing.
‘What’s the issue?’ Deerman asked, hearing a hurried conversation taking place but unable to pick up what was being said.
‘Agency are searching for any unauthorised use of their systems,’ Burnett said. ‘I’m disconnecting from their surveillance tools immediately.’
‘We need to know where these people are,’ Riley said.
‘I just got into Sarah Hardy’s credit card statement. She’s been buying coffee, breakfast and lunch every day for the past week at the same Starbucks off Washington Circle.’ Pause. ‘I just shut off from all the surveillance systems. Right now, all we’ve got is the internet.’
‘Check who works in the surrounding buildings,’ Thorne said. ‘Look for law firms.’
Pause.
‘There’re a few in that area. One of them is a sports promotion company rumoured to be on the verge of a merger. This week she’s bought sodas twice from the deli opposite where this company is based.’
Thorne smiled.
‘That’s where she is. And that’s where they went.’
‘So if you’re right, Marcia wasn’t the only target out of the three,’ Angela said. ‘I guess Veach found out Tyron was going to talk to me and needed to make sure he didn’t get the opportunity.’
‘And who better to frame than the former military sniper she was dating with post-traumatic stress and a reliance on narcotics,’ Ledger said quietly. ‘Shit. What a gift.’
‘It still doesn’t explain why they’re doing this,’ Archer said. ‘What’s the goal here?’
‘Take out the two intended victims and throw the cops off the scent by killing a random third,’ Jesse replied. ‘You just said it yourself.’