[Sam Archer 08.0] Last Breath

by Tom Barber

  The six men had quickly realised they were all on the same page, no loyalty to anyone except themselves, despising the US for the way they relied on men like Alva to handle their problems for them despite being the biggest customers of guns and drugs in the world. On a botched operation, three of Alva’s men had been caught and butchered, the group working off bad intel from the DEA who couldn’t seemed to have cared less.

  That was the final straw. Leaving the army, Alva and the others hadn’t left the region however.

  Knowing the game and the major players, they decided to turn their attention from fighting the crime in northern Mexico to taking it over.

  After leaving the military, Alva and his fellow ex-soldiers focused their attention on a business which was their bread and butter; weapons. With only one legitimate gun store in the entire country which was tightly regulated by the Army, Mexican cartels, criminals and even some residents were constantly on the lookout for weapons. Between 2007 and 2011, over 68,000 guns had been smuggled across the border, 30,000 gun-related murders occurring in that same time period. Small arms, like rifles, pistols and assault rifles were the most commonly sought-after items, but there was also an extensive market for heavy machine guns, grenade launchers, anti-aircraft guns and mortars. For Alva and his team, it had been a gold-plated opportunity.

  Well-trained, sadistic and with no boundaries, the six men had nevertheless been new players in a brutal world and Alva knew they had to establish a reputation that would intimidate all their competitors. Taking a page out of the cartels’ book, the brutal treatment the six men inflicted on anyone who got in their way resulted in major cartels and the police letting them operate in the region unhindered. After posting some graphic photos and videos online, the group had soon been given a name: Los Peleteros, or skinners in English.

  Anyone who saw the sickening evidence on the internet knew why.

  With their most serious opposition quickly fading away, their business had boomed over the past five years, but then the power of the internet, which had proved so helpful in the beginning, had backfired.

  An interfering online organisation in the US had taken it upon themselves to reveal specific examples of corruption and collusion between the police and cartels in Mexico; the group, called Anonymous, had recently exposed the head of Rozio, a US weapons company who’d been selling light weapons to a major drug cartel. The criminal organisation had used a drone they’d bought from Rozio to attack a hospital and kill over fifty people inside, all because they were targeting one man, a rival boss undergoing treatment inside.

  After the blast of publicity that followed the exposure, the CEO was forced to resign, while Anonymous continued with their attempts to clean up the Mexican border.

  And the Peleteros themselves had fallen into Anonymous’ crosshairs.

  Seeing one of the brutal videos Alva had posted of them dealing with a rival gun-runner, the group had targeted him and his men, exposing personal details about them on the web, providing their rivals and competitors with valuable and damaging information. After being ambushed in Cali on a fake deal and almost being killed as a result, the six men realised they had to find an alternative to trafficking weapons in order to create a bedrock for their planned operation.

  And they found it.

  Before that ambush in Cali, combat zones had been the major source of profit for the Peleteros who shipped hundreds of thousands of weapons and millions of bullets into, among others, El Salvador, Colombia and Guatemala. The money to be made was mind-blowing; arm a man and you make a sale, but arm his enemy too and you double your profit.

  However, in the last few years, weapons company stocks had outperformed the S and P 500 Index by at least two to one, some by as much as four to one. Owning shares in weapons companies meant you could earn a hundred times more sitting behind a desk, far away from any risk or conflict.

  The problem was, major shares in such companies were extremely valuable and highly sought after and therefore hard to come by. Organisations like Smith and Wesson, Sig Sauer and Colt were vastly profitable, the shares held by powerful people who couldn’t be intimidated using the Peleteros’ usual methods.

  The alternative was to acquire shares in a weapons company that wasn’t so successful and then turn the company’s fortune around.

  Ironically, Alva had realised they could use Anonymous’ tactics against them. For years, Rozio Weapons Systems had been a successful business. As well as being a minor player in the home defence, pistol, shotgun and rifle world across the United States and abroad, it had also designed cutting-edge weaponry such as drones and bunker clearing-weapons. However, after the hospital incident, the NSA and US Army immediately terminated their contracts with Rozio and shareholders started to pull out. Capitalising on the situation, Los Peleteros had made an offer for the major shares of the failing company.

  The majority shareholders had almost bitten their hands off, cutting their losses and taking the money, no questions asked.

  However, there’d been one shareholder who’d refused to sell; he’d kept his identity confidential, but after some focused investigation, Alva discovered the mysterious shareholder was Marcus Veach, an NSA Section Chief. Alva had travelled to Washington D.C. intending to coerce the man into giving up his stake, but the conversation hadn’t gone as either had expected.

  Veach was no fool and had quickly realised the man sitting in front of him was dangerous, a totally different breed from those he was used to dealing with on the Board. Veach had told Alva there was a very good reason why he’d held onto his shares, and that Alva and co needed his skills. Veach had explained that with access to the NSA’s resources, for years he’d been using the information he had access to, helping Rozio’s business thrive. He knew the company’s competitors’ secrets and forward plans; he had access to their emails and phone-calls. For a businessman, it was a dream come true. He told Alva that if he and his friends could find an effective way to turn Rozio’s profits around, he could make sure the company would not only survive, but thrive.

  With Rozio dead in the water, the time was right for something big, something that would reverse their fortunes and bring the company back from the brink. Something that would draw a lot of attention and showcase their products.

  They needed a situation where they could demonstrate a good selection of Rozio weapons and which would attract major media attention.

  They needed to set something off.

  ‘They’re Rozio?’ Jesse asked, reaching the street with Archer, the pair looking up at the smoking building in front of them. ‘They work for them?’

  Archer paused, leaning against the wall. ‘I don’t know. But they must have…a stake in it…somehow.’

  He took a few deep breaths before speaking again.

  ‘I couldn’t figure it out; the way they’ve been behaving all night is the opposite of the way the NSA operates. They’ve left a trail of destruction. They look nothing like the four guys on file linked to Thorne’s. They spoke in Spanish. Every weapon they’ve used in this has been the Rozio brand, a company that’s on the verge of liquidation. The world’s media is covering what’s going on here tonight. These guys wanted that publicity.’

  ‘And they’re framing the NSA team?’

  Archer nodded. ‘They must be. The prints we took from that man ID’d him as Carl Thorne, an NSA agent, but he looked nothing like him. We thought it was an alias he was using, but it wasn’t. He must be pretending to be Carl Thorne, going so far as to glue copies of the man’s prints onto his hands. The real Thorne is either dead, or will be soon.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Veach didn’t understand who he was dealing with. He had a problem with Tyron Scrace and must have asked those four to handle it. Imagine asking genuine NSA operatives to kill a woman and two innocent boys? It just wouldn’t happen.’

  As Jesse tried to keep up, Archer looked down at him.

  ‘For these men, this was never about silencing whistle-blowers
, or victims of abuse. They couldn’t have cared less about that. It was a perfect opportunity to demonstrate to the world what their weapons can do. But to put on the show they wanted, they needed a reason and someone to go up against. Someone they could legitimately engage in a city and who they knew would fight back, enabling them to throw everything but the kitchen sink at them.’

  ‘You and Ledger,’ Jesse said.

  Archer nodded. ‘And I walked right into their trap.’

  FIFTY THREE

  Foreign shootings boosted sales, but domestic shootings were even more lucrative. After a shooting in Arizona when a US representative was targeted, sales of firearms across the United States shot up 60 per cent. After an attack inside a Colorado cinema where twelve people died, sales of the same weapon spiked 41 per cent. A benefit of the media culture meant the panic a mass shooting created spread like wild-fire, inevitably sparking debates regarding easy access to weapons, which in turn saw a surge in weapons sales as people worried that gun restrictions might suddenly come into force.

  Alva and his men were fully aware of this spin-off and intended to capitalise on it.

  However, although they were all on board with the plan, none of Los Peleteros had no intention of dying to advertise their weaponry. The amount of money they expected from this would be immense. As a consequence, Alva had come up with a two-piece plan, a double-tap.

  For the first part, they needed a fall guy for an event that would provoke a mass emotional response, a headline dominator. Using the extensive NSA surveillance system ThinThread that Veach had provided access to, the group had selected a Washington D.C. high school guard, a former hero quarterback for his school who’d failed to achieve the success anticipated and who was bitter as hell about it, sending whining emails to his rapidly dwindling friendship group and posting similar messages on social media.

  ThinThread had picked him up. The man impersonating Dell Riley had been in D.C for the past month, building up a relationship with their chosen patsy, Jeff Cummings, playing on his insecurities until he was more than ready to take out his frustration against the school he’d now been convinced was responsible for his failure.

  Cummings had been easy to manipulate, taking to this new friend who seemed to appreciate the extent of the injustices life had dealt him. They joined a shooting club in the city where they used to practice a few times a week. Unfortunately for Cummings, his work pistol had disappeared one evening, but to his relief, his new friend had offered him the use of a Rozio-brand replacement until he relocated it. Cummings had been grateful, knowing the trouble he’d have been in if he had to admit to losing his weapon.

  Having worked Cummings’ insecurities until ‘Riley’ thought he was more than ready, the two men had arranged the date for the dramatic payback, today, Friday, the last day of the school year, a day when Cummings would get the fame and notoriety he craved.

  Then that kid had shown up out of nowhere and blasted Cummings, screwing everything up. Unfortunately, he hadn’t managed to kill the guard, which would have saved them a lot of trouble. They’d always intended to shoot Cummings once he’d carried out the attack, the man impersonating Riley on site ready to do just that, making it look like suicide once the mass shooting had taken place, but the kid only wounding Cummings had complicated matters. The guard had been hustled out of the school before ‘Riley’ could get to him, and he’d only just made it out himself before the cops showed up.

  Burnett had quickly traced the Somers kid’s links to Anonymous, their nemesis. The boy had discovered what the Peleteros and Cummings had been planning after searching personal information on the group and discovering that ‘Riley’, aka one of Alva’s men called Lopez, regularly attended a D.C. gun club with Jeff Cummings, the two men on CCTV and on the club’s membership roster online. His curiosity must have been piqued; Somers had then hacked into the dumbass guard’s school email address. Cummings had been stupid enough to send an email to Lopez this morning, the guard obviously nervous double-checking the time of the attack today.

  Using NSA technology, Burnett had wiped the emails and cleared what he could remotely off the boy’s computer before the FBI got to Somers’ house, but Alva had been concerned. As the boy had somehow found out what Cummings had been intending to do, then did other members of that organisation know he and his group were involved? The useless sack of shit had not only failed to carry out what they’d spent weeks prepping him for, but he’d survived, the Somers kid not being able to shoot straight. That had been taken care of with ‘Riley’s’ hit at the GU hospital, but they’d been well aware by taking Cummings out when they did, they’d immediately be throwing doubt on Ledger’s involvement in the other attacks.

  He’d been relieved when Burnett had finally been able to confirm the kid hadn’t had time to message other Anonymous members, so Alva had concentrated on the rest of this operation.

  The attempted shooting at Wilson High had been only half of the planned show tonight.

  And that was where Harry Ledger and Sam Archer came in.

  Leaning against the wall in the shadows while continuing to take deep breaths, Archer anxiously searched for Sarah among the sea of police officers and firefighters. He couldn’t see her anywhere.

  ‘She made it out,’ Jesse said, guessing who he was looking for. ‘I saw her! She’s OK.’

  ‘You’re sure.’

  ‘I’m sure! She was next to me.’

  Pushing himself away from the wall, Archer cut back through the ground floor of the building they’d just left, exiting the other side.

  ‘So they did what they wanted to do?’ Jesse said as they made their way through the back of the building. ‘They’ve been shooting up the city.’

  ‘They had no idea what Jeremy told you, or what Angela knew. They needed to kill all of us in case we implicated them.’

  ‘But your brother-in-law was with us too. How does this end?’

  Archer looked at him.

  ‘I think the way it was always meant to start.’

  Parking in the garage of a house in the Adams Morgan neighbourhood of the city, Alva opened up a black van next to them and dragged the real Carl Thorne out towards the car he’d just arrived in, pushing him onto the back seat before going back for Deerman and forcing him inside the trunk. Both NSA operatives’ hands and wrists were tightly bound; they were gagged and had hoods over their heads. They’d been restrained that way for the past three days, their hoods only removed when they were given food and water.

  Like any good businessman, Alva had done his due diligence on Veach and it turned out the NSA Section Chief hadn’t just been abusing the NSA software for business purposes. After the minimum of persuasion, his assistant Burnett had told him that Veach had been keeping surveillance on a group of young men, all of them having spent time at his wife’s foster home years ago; apparently Veach was continuing to monitor them even now.

  Totally unaware of what the Peleteros were planning, Veach had contacted Alva a week ago saying he had a priority job which he’d pay top dollar for. He needed two people killed. He’d refused to say why he wanted Marcia Barrera and Tyron Scrace to be taken out, but Burnett had told him. Marcia, Veach’s former assistant, had somehow gotten wise to her boss’ past indiscretions and had been talking with Tyron, one of the Section Chief’s victims, the pair arranging to meet with Barrera’s sister who was a former Boston Herald journalist. Veach thought he was using the Peleteros to his own advantage.

  In fact, Alva decided it would be the perfect opportunity for a Rozio weapon demonstration.

  Terrified of Alva and now co-operating fully with the Peleteros, Burnett quickly discovered that Marcia Barrera had recently started a relationship with a guy she’d met on a dating website, an NYPD cop who was a former military sniper and who’d been treated for PTSD. They couldn’t believe their luck; he was the perfect frame. It’d look as if he found her online and then killed her. Tyron Scrace was due to be working near the Charlestown Bridge all day
Tuesday; if they put down a third random person using the same MO the investigators wouldn’t have any idea who the real targets were, allaying any suspicion this was an NSA-ordered hit.

  For the shootings, they decided they should showcase one of Rozio’s most fearsome weapons, their 20mm rifle, perfect for a distance shot. They’d leave it at Ledger’s apartment after the last hit on the kid, knowing the weapon’s details would get out to the press. However, as he’d studied the man’s file, Alva had noted he was the lone survivor of a military operation gone wrong in the Middle East. The man was not only well trained but a fighter. To just kill him seemed like such a waste of a potential opponent.

  Which was when the idea came to him.

  In setting up this operation, Alva had always known a single event to showcase Rozio wouldn’t be enough. He needed something bigger, something more dramatic, enabling them to use a wide range of their available weapons. Something to cause a mass reaction. Whatever they did needed to have maximum effect. After tailing Ledger, they’d followed him to a Midtown bar and watched him hanging out with a blond guy, the two men obviously friends. Burnett had checked the stranger out and it turned out he was a cop too, 3rd Grade Detective Sam Archer.

  The guy had quite the record, and what interested Alva was that repeatedly in each case, he came out as a man who didn’t give up. Like Ledger, the man’s file made it clear how hard it was to kill the son of a bitch; quite a few people had tried. It also noted that he’d been Ledger’s room-mate at a training camp in Georgia. The two men knew each other well.

  Alva’s brain had started working. Two proven survivors, two men who could be relied upon to put up a serious fight.

  Neither of these two would just roll over and accept what was coming to them.

  If they could find a way to lure the two men into a situation where they couldn’t rely on police help, Alva and his team would have a great opportunity to use several of the Rozio weapons in their arsenal with the world’s attention on them.