A Jack Tate SAS Thriller
As Jack sprinted across the car park he was illuminated, not by blossoming fireworks but by the full beams of a North Wales Police Range Rover. That night was the first time he had been put in a police cell and it was the last time he had seen Richie Williams. It was also the last time they ever went to Prestatyn. That event had been the beginning of the end of his relationship with his parents. They weren’t his real parents; he’d been in long-term foster care with them. He didn’t miss them, as much as missed their son, his brother. And that was the reason he was on a road trip in the US.
Tate’s eyes snapped open as the door creaked. The desk officer entered. ‘I’ve got to take your prints – Chief Donoghue’s orders. Will there be an issue?’
‘No issue at all.’
‘British?’
‘English.’
‘Like the Queen.’ The officer had a legal pad-sized black plastic case in his hand. He retrieved a card. It had a printed table on it, columns to receive the inky print of each digit. ‘Hold up your hands.’ Tate did so and the officer inked the tips of each finger with a spongy implement from his case. ‘Now on the card, roll each fingertip slowly once, from left to right.’
Tate complied. Once satisfied with the prints, the officer abruptly stood and left the room. Tate stared at his dirtied fingers, thought about rubbing the ink off onto his jeans but couldn’t be bothered. Instead he stood up and wiped them on the clean, whitewashed wall directly next to the door. It was like finger-painting, a childish but satisfying act of defiance. Tate sat again. He didn’t know how long he’d be stuck in the room for. How long would it take the local authorities to realise their mistake? One of the army’s many mottos had been “eat when you can and sleep when you can” because you never know when you’ll get another chance. There was no food, so Tate closed his eyes and tried to sleep. Fleetingly the stolen fireworks again bloomed in his memory and then he woke with a start, his neck stiff and his head groggy.
‘Get up and follow me.’ It was the desk officer again.
The officer led Tate out of the cell, back into the open-plan squad room, along the full length of the space and through a door into the big office at the back. The large man he’d seen earlier was sitting at a desk. He nodded Tate into the empty chair opposite him.
‘I’m Chief Donoghue of the Camden Police Department. Care to tell me, Mr Tate, the reason for your presence in Maine?’
Tate examined his inky fingertips. ‘Vacation.’
‘That’s what you told my men. But I’d like to know the real reason.’ Donoghue leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers in his lap. Tate noted that his bulk was muscle rather than fat. He had the look of an old soldier – a short, no-nonsense haircut and a stern brow. ‘You see the thing is, Mr Tate, we think you may be just the person we have been looking for.’
Tate remained silent. In his experience, men in authority liked to hear the sound of their own voice, regardless of how much power they had. And this was Donoghue’s desk, in Donoghue’s town. He took in Donoghue’s office. The same white walls as his holding cell but here the concrete floor was covered with grey carpeting. The wall directly behind displayed several framed certificates as though to confirm his legitimacy to all those sitting in Tate’s seat. The desk itself was bare save for a laptop and a blue Maine PD coffee cup. There was a modern coffee station on a unit, and a coffee table with two comfy chairs.
‘What job do you do back in the UK?’ Donoghue asked.
‘I’m a Human Resources consultant.’
‘And the name of your employer is?’
‘Fir Tree Consulting.’
‘Branches everywhere? That’s cute,’ Donoghue said without humour. ‘Can you verify that?’
‘I’ve probably got a business card in my wallet somewhere. It’s in my car, but I’m sure your men have already checked it.’
‘You’ve got an attitude there, Mr Tate.’
‘That’s right, Chief Donoghue; we are both wasting our time here.’
‘Do you have an issue with authority figures, Mr Tate?’
Tate shrugged. ‘Not when I see one.’
The police chief’s nostrils flared, but his tone remained neutral. ‘You are doing what, exactly, during your vacation here?’
‘Driving around, taking in the sights.’
‘How long do you plan to be in the US for?’
‘Like it says on my car rental agreement, a month.’
‘That’s a long vacation.’
‘There’s a lot to see.’
‘Did you serve, Mr Tate?’
‘You mean like a waiter?’
Donoghue pursed his lips. ‘You know what I mean.’
Tate shrugged again. ‘You’ve got my details and my prints. I imagine that you’ll have a pretty good file on me soon enough.’
‘Is that how you want to play this? Really?’ Donoghue’s eyes narrowed. ‘Why are you being so unhelpful, Mr Tate?’
Tate sighed. ‘Yes, I served.’
‘Where?’
‘Afghanistan.’
‘Infantry?’
‘Yes.’
‘See much action?’
‘More than I would have liked. What am I being charged with?’
‘Nothing at the moment, apart from driving in excess of the speed limit.’
‘So why haven’t I been read my rights?’
‘You may or you may not be aware that the Amended PATRIOT Act provides me with increased powers to hold and question “persons of interest” without charge. You, Mr Tate, are a person of interest.’
‘I’m honoured you find me so interesting, but I still don’t know what this is all about.’
‘OK.’ Donoghue pursed his lips again. ‘At lunchtime today, a prominent local resident was murdered. It looks like a contract killing. A single shot was fired. I’m still awaiting confirmation on the type of round used, but it was pretty big – we believe some sort of sniper rifle.’
Tate’s eyebrows rose. It was something serious. ‘And you think I have something to do with this?’
‘Something, or maybe nothing, or maybe everything. An SUV, like the one you were driving, was seen leaving the area. A surveillance camera captured a suspect fitting your description.’
‘Who was the murder victim?’
‘A retired senator by the name of Clifford Piper; you ever heard of him?’
Tate shook his head. The only Piper that flashed in his mind was the wrestler – “Rowdy” Roddy Piper.
‘His wife was killed last year in a terrorist attack. He retired afterwards.’
Tate vaguely remembered the headlines. ‘I’ve never heard of him, and I wasn’t there. My SUV has a tracker, and you can check that against your intel.’
‘Intel?’
‘Your reports.’
‘Yep, see, I know what “intel” means. I’m just surprised that you’d use that term. I don’t think you are who you say you are, Mr Tate.’
‘So you are going to hold me until what, you decide that I didn’t shoot a senator with a Barrett?’
‘Who said anything about a Barrett, Mr Tate?’
Tate remained silent for a moment; he was tired and snappy. ‘It’s the most reliable 0.50 rifle, in my opinion, and it’s what I’d use if I wanted to make sure of hitting a target with one round. One large round. There’s a pretty good suppressor available for it too, and in a semi-urban environment you want to make as little noise as possible.’
‘Ha,’ Donoghue said with a knowing nod.
Tate was getting bored; he wanted to be on his way. ‘You don’t have the murder weapon – just a large hole and a deformed round. And the fact that you didn’t mention anyone as having heard the shot leads me to believe that the shooter used a suppressor. A 0.50 calibre makes a hell of a bang without one.’
‘What did you do in Afghanistan, Mr Tate?’
‘I soldiered.’
‘What exactly did you do in Afghanistan?’
‘I can’t tell you.’
‘Oh, yes you can. Weren’t you listening to me? The Amended PATRIOT Act gives me—’
Tate stood. ‘Yes, I heard.’
Donoghue got to his feet with surprising speed. ‘Where the hell do you think you are going? Sit down!’
The two men sized each other up, Donoghue incensed, Tate impassive. A loud knock on the office door, followed quickly by an officer entering the room broke the standoff.
‘Chief, this is urgent.’
‘On my way. Officer Kent, please escort Mr Tate back to his holding cell. He won’t be any trouble, will you, Tate?’
‘None at all,’ Tate said flatly.
Chapter 2
Camden, Maine
Oleg Sokol gazed out over the waves and breathed in the fresh sea breeze. Camden was so different to his native Sochi, but the sea air smelled the same. He saw birds soar on thermals and smiled at the sound of their excited calls. Oleg’s surname “Sokol” meant falcon in Russian, and he too wished he could fly carefree and enjoy the beauty of the bay and the August sunshine, but alas, this was neither the time nor the place. Oleg’s time in Maine would abruptly end with the coming attack. Many innocent people, of course, would perhaps perish in the aftermath and although he did feel for them, there was nothing he could do, so it was not his concern. His concern was whether the technology he had helped design in the laboratory would work in the field.
He watched a yacht out in the bay, its crew delightfully unaware that in thirty-eight hours the world as they knew it would vanish. Vanish for how long he did not know. Could the US rebuild, re-plug and reboot in six months, a year? He shook his head, as the vessel tacked to head south along the coast. Perhaps thirty-eight hours was all the crew had left.
‘Good afternoon.’ The voice that interrupted his thoughts was cheery.
‘Good afternoon,’ Oleg said.
‘Is that a Russian accent I detect there?’ the elderly woman asked.
‘Yes, it is.’ Oleg had once been a naturally friendly person. As a student learning English he had longed to meet native English speakers so he could practise, explore new words and improve his understanding. That Oleg would have been overjoyed to be overseas in the US. He would have been chatty and gregarious and engaging, but that was not the Oleg of today. He had a mission to conduct, and talking to anyone could put that at risk. He looked down at the old woman; her hair was ice white and immaculately styled. She wore a vivid pink blouse over equally bright, lime-green slacks, a sturdy pair of hiking boots, and a day sack on her back.
‘And what brings you here?’
Camden was a town of only five thousand permanent residents, and each summer up to ten thousand more took up places in vacation homes and rentals. Yet even at the height of the tourist season it was all but impossible not to draw attention to himself. The locals were, like Oleg, naturally friendly people.
‘I am here just to relax for a while. I work in Washington, so it is nice to get away from the city.’
The old woman smiled. ‘I love it here – in the summer, that is. In winter I go down to Florida or go on cruises.’
Oleg smiled. He liked cruises and had once taken a train from Moscow to Kyiv, then cruised down the river Dnipro to the Black Sea resort town of Odessa where he’d proposed to his wife. He felt a sadness, and then didn’t want to say anything more.
The old lady carried on talking, unaware of the distant grief behind his smile. ‘Hill walking is what I love. Give me a good hill and I am happy. Tomorrow a group of us are walking down to Rockport and back. The weather forecast says that it’ll be clear skies and sunshine. Well, goodbye.’
‘Good luck and goodbye,’ Oleg said as he watched the woman walk away. He noticed a cuddly panda keychain hung off the back of the day sack. He took a further five minutes to enjoy the scenery before trudging back up the path towards his Tahoe. It would be interesting to see how many yachts and other vessels arrived after the attack and how, if at all, they were affected. He pulled his encrypted sat phone out of his trouser pocket and read the message sent from his employer. The plan was unchanged. His team was to monitor the aftermath of the attack before falling back to the regional operating base six hours after the event.
Oleg checked his watch; he had time for one extra supply run. He’d drive past the inn, turn up Conway Road and go to Hannaford Supermarket. He may even buy a few bottles of Wild Turkey to take back home; they’d skyrocket in price once the stock in stores ran out and production ended.
Camden Police Station, Maine
‘How’s the coffee?’ Donoghue asked.
‘Good. Thanks,’ Tate replied, four hours after the last time he’d faced the chief.
‘I thought you Brits drank tea.’
‘That’s just the women; real men drink coffee.’
The police chief nodded. ‘See this?’ He pointed to a couple of sheets of letter-sized paper on his desk. ‘This is all we got from running your prints through the system. Now the first sheet here is what I was meant to see … mundane details about your entry into the US and movements, et cetera. But the second is what I managed to see after I called an old buddy of mine who owes me a favour, and that’s what took the time.’
‘Am I still a person of interest, Chief?’
‘You are an interesting person, Mr Tate. You were in the SAS.’
Tate frowned. ‘Was I?’
Donoghue nodded. ‘That’s why I couldn’t get much on you. It was classified, but the three lines I did eventually get from my buddy, who is connected, really opened my eyes.’ Donoghue looked down at the paper for effect. ‘You joined the Parachute Regiment straight from school and then three years later passed SAS selection. After seventeen years you left the army and took a job with Hush Hearing. And that is as much as I got. So the question I still have is this, why is a former member of an elite Special Forces unit in my town at the same time as a gunman?’
‘Happenchance.’
‘You see, Tate, I still have an issue here. The tracker on your Tahoe says you were near the scene of the Piper shooting. Care to explain?’
‘This morning I drove from Bangor to Camden.’
‘And did you stop anywhere?’
‘Yes. I needed a piss.’
‘Did anyone see you?’
‘I hope not; I was pissing in the bushes.’
‘You think this is funny, Tate? Some type of joke?’
‘No, I don’t.’ Tate fixed Donoghue with his steel-grey eyes. ‘But I do think that your belief I had anything to do with this is hilarious. I insist that you call the British Embassy in Washington and notify them that I am being held, without charge.’
‘Now you’re giving me orders?’ Donoghue folded his arms in an attempt to curb his irritation. ‘OK, we’ll do as you say and call them, like you were a US citizen with constitutional rights.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Who do you really work for?’
‘Ask for Simon Hunter; he’s the Commercial Attaché. I met him on a trade mission last year. He’ll vouch for me.’
‘I’m sure he will.’ A thin smile appeared on Donoghue’s lips. ‘You see, I looked at your tracker data twice, in fact, after it was brought to my attention that you were near Piper’s place and that you did stop. But then I realised that you couldn’t be the shooter, as you were stationary for less than a minute.’
‘I see.’ Tate was annoyed; Donoghue had been fishing and now knew about Simon Hunter.
‘And then, of course, your tracker had the SUV outside a pizza parlour thirty miles away at the time of the first shooting.’
‘First shooting?’ Tate said, surprised.
Donoghue ignored the interruption. ‘We contacted the restaurant and sent them your mugshot. They confirmed you were there eating the entire time the tracker shows the Tahoe as stationary.’
‘That’s because I was.’ Tate was terse. ‘How many shootings have there been?’
‘Two. One yesterday and one today with the same MO – a single .338-calibre round. You see, whilst you were cooling your jets in my holding cell we got the second round identified. It’s a confirmed match to the first. Not a .50 cal, as you said, but a .338, and still big enough to all but split the victims in two.’ Donoghue shook his head. ‘No one ever gets shot in Maine, but now we’ve got a maniac on the loose with a Magnum calibre rifle.’
Tate nodded. He’d made a mistake. ‘Of course.’
‘Of course what?’
‘Of course it was a .338. I wasn’t thinking earlier.’
The police chief folded his arms across his large chest. ‘OK, I’ll bite. Go on.’
‘Two shootings, in two days with the same rifle, so unless this was some type of “tag team” operation, it’s reasonable to assume both were carried out by the same shooter. Correct?’
The police chief nodded.
‘And the targets were in urban environments?’
‘Well, as urban as small-town Maine gets. The men were at home, in their gardens, nice green places. What’s your point?’
‘The shooter may have been able to conceal himself, and subdue the sound of the kill shot, but how did he hide his rifle?’
‘You mean as he moved to and from where he took the shot?’
‘Yes.’
‘He carried it in a bag?’
‘But how big was the bag? Rifles aren’t known as “longs” in the British Army for nothing. A guy carrying a bag as long as a pool cue would be noticed.’
‘Simple. He disassembled it.’
Tate closed his eyes for a moment, thinking, visualising and then carried on, ‘But, as far as I know, there are only two types of precision rifles that can be broken down in the field quickly and reassembled. One is used by the US Army and another by about a dozen different international police units.’
‘So that narrows down the weapon used and where it came from? But, Tate, there has to be millions of the one used by the US Army floating around.’
‘It wasn’t that one.’
‘Why not?’
‘The Remington MSR has a barrel that can be removed to change the weapon’s calibre, not for concealment. And the accuracy of the Remington isn’t what I’d call that of a precision rifle because the barrel can be changed. Things get misaligned – the scope, the barrel and the action.’
‘I get it. It’s the other one and this helps me because it’s what, rarer?’
‘Especially in .338 calibre. Very rare. You’re looking for a shooter using a German sniper rifle, a Blaser R93 LRS2. It’s the LRS2 variant that uses the .338 Lapua Magnum rounds. The same as you analysed. Big holes, without the weight of a .50 cal, they were designed for the war in Afghanistan. And then getting a suppressor for this, which I imagine is not sold commercially in the US, is extremely hard.’
‘And what if you’re wrong again, Mr Tate?’
‘I never make two mistakes on the same day.’
‘OK.’ Donoghue flipped open his laptop and pressed a few keys with his large fingers. ‘Tell me the name of that rifle again?’
‘A Blaser R93 LRS2.’
‘I’m going to look it up as I’ve never seen one.’
A question formed in Tate’s head as the police chief checked his Google results. ‘Are there any links between the victims?’
Donoghue didn’t look up. ‘Not that we know of. The first was a banker by the name of Darren Sant; the second was Senator Piper.’
‘And these shootings happened in the Camden area?’
‘The first in Rockport – just down from us – and then today’s was in Camden.’ Donoghue’s expression changed. ‘Now that’s interesting.’
‘You’ve found something?’
Stabbing his screen with his index finger, Donoghue spoke. ‘On Wikiwand I’ve found a list of “users” of this rifle. And the nearest to us here is the New Jersey State Police. I’m going to call them and pick their brains.’ Donoghue finally looked up. He cleared his throat. ‘Look, Mr Tate, I feel I owe you an apology.’
‘I see.’ Tate smiled thinly.
Donoghue continued, ‘If a thing is too good to be true then it usually is, and hauling you in for this was just that. The FBI and the national news crews are going to be swarming all over me come lunchtime tomorrow. You are free to go, and your rental car has been brought around the front of the lot.’
‘Good.’ Tate stood.
The police chief extended his hand. ‘No hard feelings? You were speeding, after all.’
‘OK,’ Tate said with more enthusiasm than he felt. The man had ruined his day, but he was a man in uniform and he had a job to do.
‘Where are you planning on going now?’
‘I’ve got a reservation at the Elm Street Inn.’
Donoghue smiled wryly. ‘I live just across the road. Mind you, when I moved in, the place was called something else and they hadn’t made the bar what it is now. The wife’s not happy about it, but I am.’
‘If I see you there, I’ll buy you a beer.’
‘Would you be attempting to bribe a police officer, Mr Tate?’
Tate smiled. ‘I don’t know. How good is the local beer?’
‘Good. And thanks for your help identifying the rifle, if you’re right.’
‘I am.’
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