Kill Code (29 page)

Smiling, he put his rented van into gear and pulled
onto the street. He needed a break and was going to drive for a
couple of hours, find a hotel and pass out—blowing up buildings was
very hard work.

###

Jackie found a cheap laptop at a pawn shop. A
two-year-old IBM Thinkpad. It had a CD burner and a decent amount
of memory along with a built-in wireless card. Not bad for fifty
bucks. She saw the amount of cash she was carrying was rapidly
diminishing. It was sort of like the old days when she had been a
college student, Ramen noodles or more computer equipment. Rather
than be worried, she felt liberated. It seemed as though the last
couple of years with Nathan she had been just marking time. Now,
there was a different taste to the air, and everything looked
brighter.

The next stop was a book store where she found a
cheap magazine that had a Linux disk in it. It wasn't the variation
that she wanted, but it would do in a pinch. She hated all
Microsoft products with a passion—slow, inefficient, expensive,
buggy and vulnerable. She felt, like a lot of hackers, that the NSA
had hooks of various sorts into Microsoft products—and while unable
to find the code for herself, it was another reason to dump their
products and replace them with something else.

Since it was dark, she figured the library would be
closed, and she was sick of triple espressos, so she hopped on a
bus heading towards the University of Denver along with a trio of
drunken college students. She got off the bus with them and
followed them back to their dorm.

One of them was nice enough to hold the door open
for her, so she smiled and said, “Thanks.”

The girls staggered off towards an elevator. She
watched them go and then went and found the lounge. It was empty.
Soda and snack machines glowed softly.

Settling down in a corner, she booted up the Linux
disk and started setting up the computer so she could do some
serious work.

###

Jill had just finished offing her latest target and
was looking forward to getting out of Dodge. But her Blackberry
buzzed again.

“Shit!”

She pulled the rented BMW to the side of the road
and checked the message.

It was a very high priority target, and it paid
quite a bonus if she pulled it off. There was a strange request
added onto the file—not something that she normally did, but the
bonus if she pulled it off would make the few minutes it would take
to do worth it.

She could just make it, but she needed to stop by a
pharmacy to stock up on a few things before doing the job.

Turning the car around, she headed back into
Denver.

###

Leo had no idea as to why he had been released, and
whatever strings had been pulled in the background were of some
interest, but probably not anything that would make a difference in
his short-term future.

He calculated that he had been in custody for four
hours, enough time to wire everything in his possession for sound
and video. What he was most worried about was that his rifle had
been fucked with. No telling what the ham-handed FBI agents had
been doing with what he considered an essential tool for his
survival.

With nothing else to do, he drove back to the hotel
room that he had rented with Jackie. It was like it was a lifetime
ago that they had been together and he missed her, but that
couldn't get in the way of the mission.

He also missed the coin store. The heart pounding
sensation of having bullets zip past your head was, again, old and
he wouldn't have any problem in not experiencing that again.

Even before approaching the hotel, he pulled off and
examined the surrounding area with his binoculars. There were a
dozen places a sniper could be placed to hit him. He wouldn't even
hear the sound of the bullet before it smashed into him from some
unseen distance.

For almost an hour, he sat and watched. Nothing
moved at any of the sites he had picked out.

He parked the truck in the lot across the street
from the hotel. If there was someone hiding in wait, he could
minimize his exposure.

Picking up Jackie's laptop case, he tossed it over
his shoulder. At the back of the truck, he unloaded his rife and
all of his gunsmithing equipment. He had a long night ahead of him
and was going to tear the rifle down to the smallest screw and
spring to see if it had been messed with.

He pulled his hat down to conceal his features and
made sure that he walked with a pronounced limp. It was cheap, easy
and might save his life. No matter, the area between his shoulder
blades itched as though there was someone sighting in on him.

Holding the key in his hand, he walked one door past
where his room was. He made like he was fumbling with the key, then
quickly moved back to the correct room, unlocked the door and
pushed the door open.

There was a beautiful woman sitting on the bed and
it wasn't Jackie.

###

Allan Wells wasn't finding his rhythm. He'd missed
both his targets. He didn't want to even check his Blackberry as he
knew the news wouldn't be good. Years ago when he'd been recruited,
he had heard stories about company employees that had outlived
their usefulness and were either sent on a very well disguised
suicide mission or used as training targets for the next generation
of assassins. In this business, there were always youngsters
wanting to move into the major leagues by taking out a dinosaur.
The pay was awesome, you generally only had to do one or two jobs a
year to stay quite well off, but the retirement package left a
great deal to be desired.

What was going to be his next step?

The only way that he could see a positive outcome
for him was to complete his assignment—take out the FBI agent and
Leo Marston. But how to do that?

He mentally paged through the file. The FBI had
picked up Leo at a hotel and he had seen with his own eyes that Leo
for some reason had been released.

Leo wasn't from this area, so he had been staying at
a local hotel. That might be a great place to get a shot at him—if
he hurried.

###

Jim Fox, the Second Finger of the Black Hand, was
ready to get out of town. Lots of jobs in the same geographic area
made him nervous. He was used to only doing a couple of car
bombings a year and they were outside the country. Not that Denver
wasn't pleasant enough, and he'd made one hell of a lot of money in
the last week, but paranoia was an important trait in a
professional killer—it had saved his life on more than one
occasion.

He'd complete this final job and then turn off his
Blackberry until he was ready to work again.

There was something familiar about the picture, even
with the two-inch screen of the Blackberry. Not that it mattered.
He checked the vehicle information and probable locations for where
it could be located and made a plan. His supplies had been reduced
down to one Explosively Formed Penetrator and the type of vehicle
would be perfect for using it.

As always, he looked at the name last. Still no
recognition, not that it mattered. The target's name was Leo
Marston.

Putting the Blackberry away, he started assembling
the parts of the EFP.

Leo's hand moved without conscious thought. His hand
was empty and then it held his gun.

Good thing he had checked to see if it was
loaded.

The woman he pointed it at was sitting in the one
chair in the room.

She was dressed in a short skirt which showed off
her shapely crossed legs. A blouse with the first three buttons
undone revealed that the top was probably at least as good as the
bottom half. Startlingly green eyes and smooth features made her
pretty, but not stunning. Leo figured that walking past her on the
street would warrant a second look, but she wasn't pretty enough to
justify following her to make an excuse to talk to her. Not that
she was Leo's type anyway.

He dropped all of his stuff on the ground, and
kicked the door closed.

“What the fuck you doing here?”

She smiled, revealing white, perfect teeth.

“Waiting for you.”

She moved like she was going to stand up.

Leo stepped back and pointed the pistol at her right
eye.

“Don't move. The first two bullets will go into your
eye sockets and you'll be dead before you hit the ground.”

“Why all the drama?”

“Because I don't know who the hell you are, what you
are doing here, or why.”

She shrugged. “I'm here to meet you.”

“And I'm who?”

“Leo Marston, also known as Max Jennings.”

There was that name from his past. Another person
knew too much about his past.

“And what are you supposed to do with him once you
meet him?”

“Try and bring him into the fold. His skills and
talents are needed in the organization.”

“Alamut Enterprises?”

“That's one of several names that it goes by. There
are others, including the one that you worked under. But we need
you back now.”

“What's in it for me?”

“A life. Otherwise, you will be killed.”

Leo shrugged.

“The organization has tried before and hasn't
succeeded. What's different now?”

She started to stand up.

Leo snapped a shot past her ear. The gun made a soft
putting sound as the action cycled with a loud clack. He was
impressed. The sound of the slide cycling was louder than the
bullet.

“I warned you once before. You won't get another
chance.”

She settled down with a huff.

“I'm here to help you. Don't you understand?”

“Yep.”

Keeping the gun trained on her, he opened up his
duffel bag. He rummaged around until he found a large roll of duct
tape.

It had countless uses and Leo always had at least
one roll handy.

He tossed it at her and said, “Start with taping
your legs to the chair legs. Then your left arm.”

“Or?”

He pointed the gun to her face again. “Do it. At
least you'll be alive.”

She did as he asked.

When she was done, he walked over, keeping the gun
trained on her. He took the duct tape and he taped down her right
arm. Then he checked the taping job on the rest of her and added a
couple of extra wraps as a precaution.

Her purse was sitting next to the chair. He dumped
it onto the bed.

There were a couple of packets wrapped in foil. He
didn't touch them.

Holstering his pistol, he said, “You're the Fourth
Finger? Specializing in poisons, right?”

She glared at him. “How did you figure it out?”

“I have a lot of free time and spend it tracking
killers like you. Quite a career you've had. Too bad you're going
to retire today.”

“You're going to kill me?”

“I should. I killed the last person Alamut
Enterprises sent after me. But I'm just going to call the feds and
let them deal with you.”

Digging out her Blackberry, he found the card that
Agent Silver had given him. Dialing the number he was surprised
when it went to voice mail.

He left a quick message, just cryptic enough that
the FBI would have to send someone out to investigate.

Picking up his gear, he turned to her and said,
“Nice meeting you. The feds should be by shortly to talk with
you.”

Then he shut the door behind him. He'd have to check
his rifle and gear when he found a shooting site.

###

Jackie wasn't making much progress. There was simply
no way for her to search the Internet for a specific piece of code.
Given enough time, she could probably write a web bot to chew
through the entire Internet to find the software behind the
Children of the Constitution, but with 155 million web sites out
there, and an estimated five billion gigabytes of raw data that
changed every day, it could take years.

It might be possible to hack together something that
already had a database of the Internet, say Google, to search, but
that was way beyond her abilities and current hardware.

Taking a break, she fired up a news web site.

A lot was going on. Someone had blown up the Denver
Police Department's vehicle garage. It was a complete loss,
everything inside had been destroyed and a number of fires had
started in nearby buildings as a result of flying, burning
debris.

She watched the video. It was quite impressive. Most
of the garage roof was gone, as were all of the sides, and
firefighters crawled around the building dragging hoses around.
From the preliminary investigation, it appeared like some sort of
gas enhanced explosion, but that was only a tentative idea. Various
federal agencies were fighting to take control of the investigation
despite that the Denver PD wanted to keep it to themselves as it
was their building that had been blown up.

There had also been a shooting at the FBI building
in downtown Denver. At least two FBI agents were dead. No word on
civilians. A bystander with a camera phone captured video of the
shots landing.

While grainy and partially out of focus, her heart
jumped into her throat when she recognized someone who looked like
Leo. She backed it up, and went through it frame by frame. Yes, it
did appear to be Leo, or someone who could be his twin. He even
moved the same way she had seen Leo—smooth and cat like. Almost off
camera was what appeared to be his truck.

So, he was alive and had been released? Or was he
being transferred someplace?

She didn't know what to do.

Then another story caught her eye. An Internet
entrepreneur had been killed when he'd lost control of his vehicle
and slammed into a bridge abutment at a very high speed. She paged
down to the details and almost threw up when she read Jared
Becker’s name. He'd been alive six hours ago and now he was dead.
She was probably the only link to Nathan who was still alive.