Three weeks later, Peter found himself rather down on his luck. His funds were low, he was top of the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List (except for Osama Bin Laden, who doesn't really count) and none of the big firms down here would touch him with a bargepole. He was now reduced to plain old-fashioned armed robbery to make a living.
He had a more or less standard method of operating; take a taxi to his destination, carrying his serious firepower and body armour in a holdall, then drag a balaclava over his face and fire one or two pistol shots through the ceiling as he walked in and address the owner in a polite but firm tone of voice. Once he had the cash he would exit smartly and hail another cab from a safe distance. By the time the police got there he was long gone. He'd become a minor celebrity in Vegas; the local media had started calling him The English Villain. God help him if anybody ever realised who he was!
He'd decided upon a small independent convenience store this time, one of those family-run places started by hardworking immigrants in a rather seedy area. That was a mistake, he reflected later; these places got hit all the time.
He pulled the balaclava down with one hand as he drew the Beretta with the other, a gesture he'd perfected by long practice. He fired twice into the ceiling, causing everybody to scream and dive for the floor. "Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, I'm about to conduct some impromptu redistribution of wealth so if you could all please remain calm then Jesus Christ!" The sales assistant ran around the counter, .45 automatic in one hand and a fifteen-inch machete in the other. Peter double-tapped him in the head and he went down. There was an inarticulate yell of rage, and the proprietor -evidently the boy's father- came tearing out of a back room with a shotgun. Peter dived behind a row of shelves and unzipped the holdall. He fastened on his body armour and took up his preferred weapons. "Have some of this!" he yelled, putting five rounds into the old man, then decided to make a run for it.
Two police cruisers had skidded to a halt outside the shop by this point; they'd been in the area investigating a burglary and heard the gunfire. This is not my fucking day! he thought to himself, opening fire. He raked their windshields, but the glass was rated to withstand anything less powerful than a crew-served heavy machine gun and he succeeded only in cracking them. One officer coming out of his vehicle was less fortunate, and went down with a bullet through his head. Swearing under his breath, Peter ducked into an alleyway and ran.
"Officer down!" one patrolman screamed into his radio. "Requesting an APB on suspect fleeing the 7-11 at 38th and Tavers. He's wearing a mask, and carrying an Uzi or something! We're gonna need SWAT backup!"
"Roger that," the dispatcher replied calmly. "All units, all units, shots fired on 38th and Tavers. One officer down. Suspect is masked, carrying automatic weapon. Don't take this guy on without calling for backup, people, he's already shot up two black-and-whites." Outside, the two Bell 212 helicopters used for rapid SWAT deployment were spinning up, and every available unit was roaring out of the vehicle pool. Union-mandated coffee breaks or not, when a fellow officer is killed in the line of duty, his or her colleagues put on a maximum effort.
Peter briefly considered Apparating, but abandoned the idea. Tipping off the FBI that he was in Vegas would be suicide. He decided to get hold of a vehicle and make a break for it, then drive into a ravine and Apparate out of the vehicle. Okay, so maybe it's a little Hollywood, but it might just work...
A suitably fast-looking Mitsubishi GTO pulled up at a red light. Peter ran over, and smashed the window with a wild swing from the Saiga 12-gauge. It resembled an AK47 chambered for buckshot, which is basically what it was, and the terrified young man looking down the barrel imagined he could see all the way up it to the shell.
"Out of the car! Move!" Peter yelled. The young man fumbled with the door handle. In desperation, Peter opened it from the outside and dragged the man out by the collar, knocked him cold with a backhand swipe from the shotgun and climbed into the car. Putting his SMG and shotgun on the seat beside him, he released the handbrake and stood hard on the accelerator.
The car's previous owner blurted out his story to a foot patrol officer mere minutes later. "Dispatch, this is Foot Patrol Eight. Silver-grey Mitsubishi GTO coupe reported stolen in vicinity of 36th street. Suspect's description matches that of last APB."
"Copy that. All units, all units, suspect is believed mobile in silver Mitsubishi sports coupe."
The Jet Ranger spotter helicopter located the vehicle soon after, as it screamed along a relatively clear highway into the desert. "This is the Nevada State Police," the copilot called into the loudspeaker. "Pull over to the shoulder and exit the vehicle with your hands raised!"
Peter grabbed the MP5 and rattled off a long burst in the helicopter's general direction, failing to actually hit anything but convincing the helicopter to draw back somewhat. "Shots fired from the car, automatic weapon used," he reported. "No damage, but it's him alright."
A Highway Patrol cruiser left the shoulder in a spray of gravel as the stolen vehicle roared past. Peter cursed under his breath as he spotted the flashing lights, and leaned out of the window with the shotgun. A single round of Number 9 buckshot perforated the hood and destroyed one tire. The vehicle skidded and came off the road, then rolled down a bank.
"Score one for me," Peter chuckled, changing up a gear. "I wonder if I can get them to help me recreate that chase scene from The Blues Brothers?" He switched on the stereo, inserted an Audioslave CD he'd found in the glove compartment and began to thoroughly enjoy himself.
Ten miles later, he'd acquired another tail, a motorcycle patrol officer. Keen to conserve his ammunition, Peter jammed on the brakes and sent the unfortunate officer flying as the bike hit the coupe's rear end to land with some force in the other lane. An oncoming truck slammed on the brakes, jack-knifed and rolled over. Simultaneously, a car behind him slammed on the brakes to avoid the wrecked bike and was shunted from the rear by another.
A decidedly alarmed police Jet Ranger pilot reported the carnage, and bitterly suggested they put a call in to Nellis Air Force Base and borrow a couple of F-16s.
"We got the next best thing, Air One," the dispatcher replied. "Redbird Flight, state your position, over."
Two of the Nevada Air National Guard's shiny new UH-60 Blackhawk assault transports hove into view, accompanied by three Bell 212s full of SWAT officers. "Oh, joy," Peter said wearily, eyeing the door-mounted miniguns in each Blackhawk.
"This is the Nevada Air National Guard!" somebody bellowed through a loudhailer. "Pull over to the shoulder and exit the vehicle with your hands raised or we will open fire!"
"Go right ahead," he muttered, setting the cruise control and grabbing hold of his guns.
The National Guard personnel unanimously agreed that there had been a bright flash from the interior of the vehicle, possibly accompanied by a crack that might easily have been a shot. No censure was applied for their response, which was to rake the speeding vehicle with gunfire and blow it apart. The owner of the vehicle was considerably less impressed, but accepted the insurance money and took some comfort in the fact that the culprit was messily dead.
It was prudently kept out of the newspapers that no human remains were found in the wreckage, which was handed over to the FBI for forensic analysis. They determined that the cruise control had been set, but otherwise drew a total blank. The Unconventional Crimes Division sent in their own team, and determined quickly that the occupant had apparated away from the vehicle shortly before the explosion.
Immediately, every UCD recieved an urgent warning that Pettigrew had last been seen in Las Vegas County, and he was now being sought for the murder of two police officers and five civilians (three of them in the pile-ups he left behind him on both sides of the freeway) and at least a dozen armed robberies in addition to his lengthy list of terrorist offences.
"Oh, Peter," Remus said as he read about this in the Daily Prophet, allowing horror to mingle with a little reluctant admiration. "How we underestimated you."