Kill Code (26 page)

Usually, they tried to make people in the
interrogation room comfortable by leaving them unshackled and
uncuffed. But the search of Leo's possessions had revealed a
ceramic razor blade and plastic handcuff key taped inside his belt,
so no one wanted to take any chances.

He took a sip of his rapidly cooling coffee. Nodding
at the federal prosecutor, Becky Miller, he opened the door to the
interrogation room, and hoped he could get Leo to talk.

###

Tyrannicide was, if a piece of software could be
ascribed with emotions, satisfied with its work. Most of the goals
of this part of the operation had been met with some minor setbacks
that were to be expected in such a complex endeavor.

Employees of all levels of federal, state, county
and city government were resigning in droves in the Denver area.
That only changed their status slightly as far as their placement
on the assassination went—they would get their just deserves at
some point in the future, but now, with limited resources, the more
prominent targets must be dealt with first.

It prepared, based on news reports and public
records, another list of targets.

The next thing was to issue another prepared press
release to state and national media:

“The Children of the Constitution are expanding to
cover selected areas to spread the ideal of a country not ruled by
tyranny. All members of government, your past actions will reveal
if you will live or die.”

Besides sending it out to the usual media, it also
sent it to selected bloggers. The regular media wasn't printing
enough stories about Tyrannicide's accomplishments, but it had
determined that in the right blogs, information could spread like
wildfire throughout the Internet.

It performed a check of finances. There were some
funds that were becoming depleted, so it moved around money as
needed. Then it settled down to wait and watch.

###

Jackie had no idea as to how to get in touch with
the man she was looking for—Jared Becker. He specialized in
web-based applications and had parried his world-known expertise
into one hell of big business. He no longer worked by himself and
employed a cadre of young, up and coming programmers to code his
World Wide Web visions into reality. Rumor had it that he didn't
even program any more.

White Hat Enterprises had used Jared's company, Web
Solutions, Inc., over the years including the recent credit card
swipe machine project as the machines had to be updated over the
Internet. Why it couldn't have been handled with in-house
expertise, Jackie never found out. They had the capability to write
the code, but Nathan had decided, despite the cost, to use Web
Solutions instead.

She knew the city where he lived, Castle Rock,
Colorado, just south of Denver on I-25, but not much more than
that. Not having a laptop any more, she found an Internet cafe and
rented a computer.

She Googled the company and eventually found their
web site. It only listed a PO Box for the address and no phone
number. Typical.

There was an e-mail address listed, but she didn't
have the time for them to sort through the probably thousands of
e-mails they received each day to see hers and act on it.

The next best thing was to hack their mail server.
Damn, she wished she had her laptop but didn't, so she did the next
best thing. It took almost an hour to figure out the naming scheme
they used to address e-mails. Even then, there was no guarantee
that he would even see it.

She signed up for a throwaway Google e-mail address,
and sent a message to what she hoped was Jared's e-mail address. To
make sure it got noticed, she included her hacker handle,
'Grizel'—Scottish for 'gray battle maid.' The message said:

Grizel needs a face to face. Your PBX, where and
when. Soonest though.

'PBX' meant, formally, private
branch exchange, a telephone exchange that serves a particular
office or business rather than servicing the public, but to hackers
it meant 'call.'
Ten minutes and a half a
fresh triple espresso later, an e-mail popped into her
inbox:

“Where we meet for fun toys, 2 hours.”

What did he mean by 'fun toys?' It could be
anything, from a gun range to a porno shop. Then it hit her; Jared
was into old telephone switching systems, arcane computers and
strange electronic parts. She popped up another window and started
searching for electronic surplus stores in the Denver area. There
was one that carried all the things that interested Jared. She
copied the address down on a piece of paper and then looked up the
bus schedule. If she was going to meet him, she was going to have
to hurry.

From the instant that the black clad FBI agents
kicked down the hotel door, Leo had crawled within his mind. He
didn't put up an ounce of resistance as they rudely knocked him to
the ground and roughly cuffed him, then dragged him until he could
get his feet under him.

He put up with having his clothes forcibly removed,
the uncomfortable, ill-fitting jumpsuit, the body cavity search,
the cold interrogation room with the stiff backed, slick chair that
stunk of sweat, urine and vomit, and knew that his every move was
being video and sound recorded through the one-way mirror in the
room in which he was sitting.

It was all a matter of perspective to him—at least
he was out of the weather and reasonably comfortable. What the
future would hold for him he had no idea, but he wouldn't be an
active participant in his own downfall by making the mistake of
opening his mouth.

He didn't think that the FBI would
believe anything that he had to tell them, and knew enough, from
his historical studies of assassination, that nothing like
Robert-François Damiens, a Frenchman who tried to assassinate Louis
XV in 1757, would happen to him. Damiens was the last person to be
executed by drawing and quartering, and his death took many
horrifying hours. That Damiens was an amateur and only slightly
wounded the king didn't have much bearing on his punishment. The
finest refinement of the art of assassination was to be able to
kill without being caught.

He didn't think that even the most hardened FBI
agent would consider torture at this stage of the game, but didn't
really put it much past them. History was also full of examples of
government agencies like the FBI doing whatever it took to
accomplish their own ends. He just wasn't going to help them.

The agent that appeared in charge entered the room
and introduced himself as Special Agent Jeff Silver. He was
swarthy, had a five o'clock shadow, bags under his eyes and a suit
that looked like he slept in it for the past month.

Leo thought about telling him the origin of his last
name, being derived from the Anglo-Saxon ‘seolfur’ and the chemical
symbol from the Latin ‘argentum,’ both meaning silver. Leo knew a
lot about history and one of the threads running through history
was precious metals—the other was murder. But any explanation would
require talking, which he didn't want to do.

“Are you Leo Marston?” Silver demanded. He stared at
the man, fixing his gaze into his eyes, like he was measuring him
for a coffin and remained silent.

“You’re in a world of trouble, you know that?”

Leo remained silent.

“Why won't you talk?”

He smiled.

The rest of the interrogation went about the same,
with Silver getting louder as it progressed. Leo never uttered a
word.

This continued for a couple of hours. While Silver
ranted, Leo reviewed everything he had experienced over the past
week. It had all had gone as expected, including getting caught. He
did wish that they had been able to find out more about who was
behind this mysterious assassination organization before getting
caught.

The shouting didn't bother him—long ago he learned
to concentrate while trying to take a shot despite all the
distractions of a match, and that was gunfire going off right next
to you, not an irate FBI agent.

Then there was a tap on the door. Both of them
looked up at it as an upset-looking man stuck his head into the
interrogation room.

“Call for you, line six.”

“Take a fucking message, can't you see I'm
busy?”

“You better take this call. It's the director.”

Silver gave Leo a sneer and said, “Don't move. I'll
be right back.”

###

Allan Wells was starting to get pissed. He'd done
every task asked of him and yet they wanted him to do another.
Though they couldn't know that he was up to his armpits in
constructing his newest version of the remote sniper rifle
platform, if he didn't get it finished quickly it would seriously
cut into his ability to make money and take on jobs for the
company.

His latest task was to snipe an FBI agent. And, if he got the
chance, to take out someone he only had a picture of, no other
details, a guy by the name of Leo Marston. For some reason, the
name was familiar, but he couldn't place it. A quick Google shoot
didn't reveal anything—how was that possible, not to show up on
Google? It probably didn't matter. The information on the FBI
target, Jeff Silver, stated that he was currently working out of
the Byron G. Rogers Federal Building in Denver. Looking at the
aerial maps of the area, it was clear that this was going to be a
difficult job to pull off. Across the street was the Federal
Building and US Custom House, next to it was a Federal Court house
and on the other side was an office complex.

The only available shot was going to have to be from
across two busy streets. After some calculating, he decided to set
up his shooting position hanging in a tree, a remotely fired charge
would fake the sound and muzzle flash, and set up his real shooting
site from the top of a tire store. It was going to be a cross shot,
no straight on angles, but he knew he could pull it off.

He packed up his laptop and made sure his soldiering
iron was unplugged. The scam he would use to get on the roof as a
building contractor needed some things he didn't have with him. He
had to draw out the shooting site including the relevant ranges,
hang wind flags and other prep before he could take the shots.
After this job was done, he hoped they'd leave him alone for a few
months so he could get some work done.

###

Alpha Surplus was in a converted warehouse. It was a
huge pole barn filled floor to ceiling with all sorts of junk
ranging from military surplus backpacks to electronic equipment
used during the Cold War. As Jackie wandered around, she wondered
if there could be any order to the where stuff was placed—if there
was, she couldn't see it. It was dusty, but brightly lit.

Old telephones, electronic test equipment and other
unidentifiable computer equipment seemed to be stacked along the
far wall. She made her way down there and saw a man crouching over
a tub.

From a distance, it looked like Jared. When she got
closer, she saw that it was—he was gangly, had thick glasses and
moved in nervous twitches like the wiring to his muscles had
something wrong with it.

He saw her coming and stood up, holding a black box
with white painted writing on it.

“Found me,” he said.

“Yes.”

Handing her the box he said, “Guess what this
is?”

Besides having flaking paint, the writing on it said
'NASA' along with a part number.

Handing it back, she said, “I have no idea.”

“It's one of the Guidance Computer Modules from the
Apollo program. The first use of integrated circuits. This is the
Block 1 version and it had 4,100 ICs, each containing a single 3
input logic gate. Made by Fairchild Semiconductor, it used
Resistor-Transistor Logic. That module there cost the taxpayers
well over $20,000 in 1965 dollars.”

He looked wistfully at it. “Now, your average
wristwatch has more computational power than the computers used to
put men on the moon.”

Setting it back in the tub, he said, “What can I do
for you?”

“I need to talk about what your company coded for
Nathan before he died.”

“He told me that you'd be coming to talk me about
this.”

She didn't know what to say. Was there not anything
that Nathan hadn't predicted she would do? She resented his
manipulating her life from beyond the grave.

“I really need your help.”

Jared said, “I've been here so much that they let me
use the break room whenever I want. We probably better sit down for
this.”

She followed him to the rear of the building where
an area had been set aside in the piles. A battered table and four
mismatched chairs sat in front of a dusty refrigerator and a
microwave.

After they sat, Jared said, “What do you want to
know?”

“Was there anything strange about what you were
coding for him?”

He nodded. “That depends on your definition of
strange. Nathan had been acting weird for the last two or three
years involving projects that defied logic. While I never saw the
whole picture, the pieces that I caught glimpses of scared the hell
out of me—some of it was cutting edge, others were really simple,
but very illegal.”

“Illegal?”

He looked at her with eyes magnified by his glasses.
“For the record, I didn't want anything to do with any of it, but
Nathan's money was always good—with the expansion of my business, I
needed it. And I figured out ways of breaking up the coding modules
so no one besides he and I had any idea what we were doing.”

“So, what were you doing?”

“You know that credit card swipe machine program
that White Hat sold?”

She nodded.

“Well, every so often, it takes the rounded off
calculations from a transaction and deposits that into an account.
Maybe two or three tenths a day from each machine, but with as many
credit card swipe machines as there are, it can add up quite
quickly.”