Kill Code (11 page)

After dawn broke, he would stop by, switch out the
batteries, and remove the night vision scope. It was dangerous to
be coming back and forth to where the remote rifle system was set
up a couple of times a day, but for the amount of money he was
being paid, and, more importantly, how much time and money he had
invested in this system, it was well worth the risk.

Besides, he was going to be in the parking lot, not
two hundred yards away, in a panel van that he had outfitted with
almost all the comforts of home.

He killed the lights in the rented office and locked
the door. The remote rifle system hummed as it searched for its
target.

Jackie was pleasantly buzzed by the wine she had
drunk at dinner. It was only a couple of glasses, but it helped
unwind some of the stresses and tensions of the day, allowing her
to relax a bit. Today had been a nightmare, from the time she had
crawled out her bed until ... well it looked like it would be a
long time before she could relax completely.

Leo paid the dinner check, leaving a generous tip.
That was one thing that was different between him and Nathan. While
co-owner of a multi-million dollar computer company, the guy was
still a bit of a cheapskate—tipping at exactly fifteen percent
right down to the cent.

Why was she comparing Leo to Nathan? They were
completely different people. Damn it. Was she looking at Leo as a
replacement for Nathan? The man was an admitted professional
killer. He didn't try to hide it from her, but she did sense that
he had never revealed this to anyone else. She wasn't sure as to
how she felt about that. They were in this together.

Besides, it looked like Nathan might have even more
blood on his hands that Leo did. The extent of his duplicity was
yet to be fully revealed.

She found herself relishing the challenge of
figuring out what Nathan had done, and why. Just present her with a
puzzle, be it a secure computer system, a locked door or anything
like that, she was like a terrier fighting a rat—not going to give
up no matter what happened.

The unaccustomed weight on her hips of the Beretta
and the magazines broke her reverie. She didn't expect to be a gun
slinger today, but here she was, packing heat. She still wasn't
sure if she could actually shoot someone with it if she had to. Leo
seemed unconcerned about that fact when he had insisted that she
carry a weapon. They would have to deal with that when it came down
to it.

“Where are we going now?” she asked.

Leo was walking out towards the truck.

“I need to buy some things, and then we need to lay
down a false trail or two.”

The first stop was a drug store where he picked up
some incidentals, like a toothbrush, shaving tackle and
shampoo.

The next place he took them to was a hardware store
where he purchased a staple gun and bought out the store's entire
stock of cheese cloth. What the hell was he up to?

They then went to a bookstore where he picked up
half a dozen 'Word Finder' puzzle books. Now she was really
confused.

Getting back into the truck, she said, “I don't have
a clue as to what those last two purchases were all about. Want to
confide in your partner in crime?”

“The cheese cloth is for a sniper hide. At the right
angle, you can't see into where I'll be hiding. It works very well
and I've used it several times. It looks like there's a curtain in
front of the window, yet I can see and shoot out of it. The puzzle
books are to help me pick out targets. You look for something out
of place—be it a window open that shouldn't be, someone looking
around too much, heck, a blade of grass out of place could be an
important clue. I like to keep my mind active, stressing the skills
I need to snipe.”

He put the car in gear.

She said, “You are like a hundred percent shooter,
aren't you?”

He nodded. “Yep. Shooting is what I'm good at, damn
good at, and be grateful that you are on my side of the rifle;
otherwise, the story would be completely different.”

“Really?” she asked, trying to keep the indignity
out of her voice. “You would have killed me?”

“If it had come down to doing it to protect my life
and the way I want to live it, in a heartbeat. But I know that
there is something bigger going on that I was going to get dragged
in on and I hate not being in control of my own destiny.”

The drove to a chain motel. In the parking lot, Leo
took out a floppy hat and put it on along with a pair of sunglasses
even though it was dark outside.

“Make sure you stay out of the view of any of the
cameras. And if you do, look down. We don't want your face on any
more TV broadcasts than you need to be.

Clutching a small suitcase in which Leo had loaded
all of his purchases except for the cheese cloth, he stalked to the
desk and rented a room. Strangely, he used a credit card. The clerk
ran it, and as he was handing over the key card, he said, “Have a
nice evening, Mr. Phillips.”

There was a hidden innuendo in his voice that
irritated her. It wasn't like the place was a hot sheet hotel, but
when it looked like two strangers checked in to a hotel, one
obviously disguised, the other hiding from any cameras, without
much, if any, luggage, there was probably a logical conclusion that
almost anyone could make without stretching too far.

Leo had insisted on a ground floor room behind the
building, probably adding to the mystery. They unloaded a few other
things from the truck. Leo reached up and tapped the camera at the
door of the hotel out of the way so that it wasn't pointing at the
door any more. The man was careful.

When they got to the room, Leo checked it quickly.
Turning to her, he said, “Get cleaned up, take a shower, whatever.
We won't be staying here tonight.”

“Why not? And who the hell is Phillips?”

“We are setting a false trail. And James Phillips is
the guy I killed with a letter opener and then set the body on fire
in the trunk of his rental car with some super thermite that I
brewed up. At some point, the cops or the feds will figure out who
it was that was cooked in the trunk of his car and wonder why the
hell he's renting hotel rooms with pretty girls in Denver.
Tomorrow, I'll make some calls using his cell phone to really screw
with them. If the guys, good or bad, are looking for him, maybe
they won't be looking for us.”

He had said it so matter of factly, like, “I stepped
out to the corner and crossed the street.” This man could be cold.
She made a note to herself not to ever get in the way of something
that he really wanted. Was he much different than Nathan had
been—possessing a drive and tenacity that bordered on inhuman?

She stepped towards the bathroom. “What about my
gun?”

“It's a pistol. Correct terminology will lead to the
right mindset. From there, you can do almost anything.

“Anyway, take it with you. The humidity won't hurt
it. When we settle down for good tonight, I'll show you how to
clean and oil it. Lock the door. If I knock three times, come out
shooting. If you hear a struggle out here, same thing. We should be
all right for a couple of hours, but it's best to play it
conservative.”

She did as he asked, setting the pistol on the sink
where she could grab it without reaching too far out of the
shower.

First time that she ever took a shower with a
pistol. Once she got the shower going, she luxuriated in the heat
and steam, feeling it melt away some of the tensions of the day.
She was still uncomfortable, in a hotel room with a strange man,
doing things that were completely beyond her comfort zone, but at
least she had been fed a decent meal and looked to be safe. For
now.

When she got done, dressing in the same clothes she
had worn all day, she pried the door open. Leo had taken off his
shirt and was doing some sort of strange exercises—it started out
like a pushup, but then went in different directions from
there.

There was a weird looking pistol right by his hand;
small but it had a cylinder at the end of the barrel. A
silencer?

She marveled at Leo's physique—the man was ripped.
Sure, he looked and sounded like a coin geek or a gun nut, but she
knew she wouldn't have been able to put both her hands around his
biceps, they were that big. It wasn't the kind of muscle built at a
gym, lacking in some of the definition that she had seen in gym
rats, but looked to be built the long and hard way. Wow, was the
best thing she could say.

“You done looking?” Leo asked from the floor.

“Yes,” was all that she could bring herself to say.
Leo grabbed his pistol and hopped to his feet. The view was even
better. He had six-pack abs and a well-defined chest. Whereas
Nathan had merely used his body as a vessel for his mind and it
showed in some of his personal grooming habits, the way he dressed
and the crap food he shoveled into his system, Leo's body was a
temple and she found herself wistfully wondering what it would be
like to worship at it.

On his shoulder was a strange hump. He must have
seen where she was looking because he said, “Callus. From
shooting.” He rubbed it and said, “No matter, it still is a little
sore from all the shooting I did today.”

He said, “Watch the door. I have some other
exercises that I need to do that are a bit difficult to get out of
quickly if something happens.”

She nodded.

He went over to the other side of the bed and
walking with his hands down the wall, he ended up with his head and
feet supporting him. Then he did some pushup type exercises just
using his neck. When he had done a hundred, which he counted out in
a whisper, he slowly climbed to his feet and said, “I needed that.
It isn't my usual routine, but it will have to do.”

“What was it that you were doing?”

“Body weight exercises. You should try them. Helps
you shoot better if you have strength in the right places.”

“Sure.”

He grabbed a change of clothes from his luggage and
said, “I'm going to take a quick shower.”

After he had shut the door, taking the pistol, she
flipped on the news, looking for a local station so she could see
what was going on in the world, though the events discussed were
all local in nature, starting with the attempt on her life. The
empty hairpiece reporter cryptically ended that report with the
statement, “The police are currently looking for Jackie Winn. She
isn't a suspect, but they do want to talk with her.”

Sure. She knew that if she talked to them, she'd
probably disappear into the justice system. The cops always said
that when they considered, who “they do want to talk with” as a
suspect. No matter, she had no intention of gracing any police
stations in the near future.

The next segment was on the car fire that had killed
Denver Building Inspector Brian Case. The police were still
investigating. It may or may not have been an accident. Jackie
wondered if it was tied into what was happening all around her.

Then came the shocker; an unidentified man was found
dead as the result of a car bomb, very much like the one that had
nearly killed her.

Her shock turned to horror when she recognized the
car—it looked like Patrick Lackey's. From the zoom lens of the TV
camera, it was battered tan Buick, with a faded Colorado Technical
University parking sticker on the rear window. CTU was the same
place that Nathan had gone and they had been roommates. There was a
past history there that neither of them would elaborate
on. 

There was a yellow sheet covering the front half of
the car, and the area was lit by the strobes of emergency vehicles.
Crime scene tape flapped around the scene. She wondered what the
hell had happened.

She considered putting the battery for her cell
phone back in and trying to call him. Deep down, she knew that,
unless she had St. Peter on speed dial, Patrick would never
answer.

Then she realized that Leo was back in the room with
her. She hadn't heard the door open. The man was spooky.

“What's that?” he asked.

“I think someone killed Patrick.”

“Your accountant?”

“Yes.”

Leo studied the picture of the car displayed on the
TV set.

“Probably some sort of Explosively Formed
Projectile. Does the scene look familiar to you?”

She didn't know what the hell he was talking about,
either the projectile thing or the scene.

“No. Neither.”

“It's the same type of device that someone tried to
use on you.”

The damage did look like she had seen with her
car.

She nodded. “But what's that explosively formed
thing that you were talking about?”

“Projectile. It's a type of shaped charge.
Conventional shaped charges are very good at penetrating armor. The
problem is that they have to be in contact with it. Tank designers,
knowing this, have come up with protection that will break apart
the charge before it comes in contact with the armor itself—it's
called reactive armor. The weapon's designers have come up with an
alternative, by designing the charges so they can be at a distance
from the target—where reactive armor won't work and what penetrates
the armor is a projectile of the base metal used to construct the
device—typically copper in cheap devices where size doesn't matter.
It throws this plug out towards the target at about one kilometer a
second.

“What this means is that a device that costs a
couple of hundred bucks can destroy a $20 million dollar M-1 Abrams
Main Battle Tank from across the road.”

Her head was swimming—how did all this matter?

“In your case,” gesturing towards the TV which now
was displaying a commercial for feminine deodorant, “and that of
your unfortunate accountant, the charge can be placed in the trunk
of a vehicle and will blow out the front window and anyone
unfortunate enough to set off the device.”