American Sniper: The Last Round – Episode 37
Rachel Fisher’s next bullet struck the keypad above Jane Valentine’s shoulder. Sparks fell across the open vault while Carl Oliver searched the ruined office for a safe angle. Black Widow had chosen the observation tower because it overlooked every exit and forced him to expose himself before returning fire.
Jane slid the evidence tube inside her jacket. Rachel could have killed her with the first shot, which meant Meridian wanted the documents intact. The assassin was controlling their movement rather than ending it. Once Jane recognized that purpose, the tower became less powerful.
Carl found an old target mirror beneath the desk and angled it through a break in the wall. Rachel fired immediately, shattering the glass. The reflection lasted long enough to reveal a second shooter near the parking berm. Black Widow had brought support to cover the blind side.
Jane remembered the emergency target controls survived on a manual hydraulic line. If she reached the floor valve, she could raise steel plates across the outdoor lanes. The plates would not stop rifle rounds indefinitely, but their movement could disrupt both sight lines.
Carl refused to let her cross the exposed office until she pointed out the obvious: Rachel watched him, not her. The assassin had built her reputation around defeating elite marksmen. Jane was merely the woman she expected Carl to protect predictably.
Jane crawled beneath the smoke-damaged counter and reached the valve. Steel targets rose through the rain at irregular angles. Rachel’s support shooter shifted to maintain his view, giving Carl the location he needed. He fired once and destroyed the man’s scope without touching him.
Rachel laughed over the radio. She called Carl’s mercy an expensive habit and asked how many people Lewis had suffered to protect because Carl refused to kill the guilty. Carl answered that violence chosen for convenience was not justice. His words gave Jane time to move toward the service tunnel.
Black Widow shot the hydraulic pipe. The targets dropped at once, trapping Jane outside the office with open ground between her and cover. Rachel adjusted toward her. Carl stepped deliberately into the tower’s line of sight before the assassin could fire.
For one suspended second, the two shooters aimed at each other through the rain. Rachel expected Carl to hesitate because killing her would break his vow. Instead, he fired at the tower’s corroded support cable. The upper platform tilted, throwing her shot wide and forcing her to abandon the rifle.
Jane reached the tunnel as Black Widow descended the rear ladder. The support shooter fled through the parking lot, leaving a motorcycle for Rachel near the gate. Carl could not pursue without exposing Jane. The assassin escaped, but the evidence remained with them.
Inside the tunnel, Jane asked what Rachel meant by calling her his queen. Carl said Meridian profiled relationships as weaknesses and assigned names that reduced people to pieces on a board. Jane replied that she was tired of enemies understanding their relationship before they did.
Carl did not hide behind guilt this time. He told her that protecting Lewis’s family had begun as duty, but staying had become a choice long before the contest. He cared for Rebecca as more than a promise and for Jane as more than a friend’s daughter. The admission arrived without demand, leaving her free to decide what it meant.
Jane wanted to answer, but the radio carried Ruiz’s warning that officers were approaching the range. Rachel had reported armed trespassers inside the federal scene. Remaining would cost them the evidence and return Carl to custody. They exited through the drainage line before patrol lights reached the ruins.
Elena traced Victor Shaw to a private archive facility beside the National Valor Foundation. His access logs showed he entered the building after the gala attack and had not left. Shaw was either protecting the terminal backup or destroying it.
Ruiz arranged a lawful search through an independent judge, but the warrant would take hours. Lewis recognized the delay as Mercer’s preferred weapon. By the time official authority arrived, every useful record would be ash. Jane proposed presenting Matthew’s invoice directly to Shaw and forcing him to choose a side.
They reached the archive facility before dawn. Shaw opened the door after seeing the contractor badge through the camera. He appeared exhausted rather than surprised. Years earlier, Mercer had paid him to alter the authorization pages and retain Carl’s valid biometric seal.
Shaw preserved the original cache because he knew Meridian might eventually erase him. It proved Carl signed an incomplete route form, not the final bait order. He agreed to testify if Ruiz guaranteed protection for his family. Jane accepted the backup drive from him while Carl absorbed the first clean proof of his innocence.
The relief lasted only moments. Shaw revealed that Mercer recently ordered him to alter security plans for the coming Medal of Honor anniversary ceremony. National leaders would gather at the Capitol to honor missing and fallen service members. Meridian intended to turn the event into a mass casualty attack blamed on Carl.
Shaw displayed the modified plan. Rachel Fisher had been granted access as a ceremonial shooting champion, while a remote rifle system was hidden in the bell tower overlooking the plaza. Its ammunition carried Carl’s distinctive ballistic signature.
A live status light appeared on the screen. The remote rifle had just completed its calibration, twelve hours before the ceremony. Then Shaw’s archive door locked from the outside, ventilation stopped, and Mercer’s voice filled the room. “Thank you, Carl,” he said. “I needed you to gather every witness in one place.”