Kill Code (9 page)

The people that he dealt with on a regular basis
were overwhelmingly male, and could only get a date if they paid
good money for it. Yes, there were exceptions to the rule. Leo was
probably worth almost a million dollars in hard, tangible
assets—gold, silver, precious coins and outright cash. But he
didn't care for a flashy lifestyle and lived as simply as he could.
His true passion was shooting. Everything else in life was merely
something to get him to that point. Yes, he did have an interest in
coins, but how many 1912 S Mercury dimes in MS-65+ could anyone
have? And who the hell would care, anyway? Yes, there were some
coins that were worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and he had
even owned some of them, but did it matter to the coin? The coins
themselves had seen history, some since man had started forming
precious metals into easily tradeable forms. But they didn't speak
to Leo any more—their stories, past and future, no longer had much
interest to him. They were reduced to simple commodities, not the
treasures that had transported him to different times and places.
As
Rob Gates once said, “At some point, it's just
stuff.”

This change in his life
may
have been sad, but he didn't have time to mourn that passing—he was
in the fight for his life.

###

Patrick Lackey held the key to his car in his hand,
juggling a bag of groceries in his other, loaded with comfort
food—a thick and juicy Porterhouse steak, a decent Chianti, a
pre-made salad and some red potatoes. It had been a long and
difficult day. But he felt a great satisfaction like he hadn't in a
while and felt he deserved his well-earned treats.

He had a good idea where the assets of the company
disappeared to. It had been tricky and complex to figure it out,
and in that, he felt akin to Sherlock Holmes, who said, “Once you
eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how
improbable, must be the truth.”

It had been like that. Not that Jackie would
appreciate his efforts. Though she was a great deal better at
acknowledging his skills than Nathan had ever been. That bastard's
death hadn't been painful enough for him.

They had been roommates in college. He was an
accounting geek and Nathan had been a computer geek. It would have
been perfect except that Nathan had cut a wide swath through the
female population of the small university, including a couple of
his professors. He always had the gift of gab—being able to talk to
almost anyone at any level, including women out of their
panties.

He remembered numerous times when he had to sit in
the hallway for hours, sometimes, waiting for Nathan to finish up
'entertaining' some coed or another. At least it was reasonably
quiet; no one bothered him to help them with their homework—which
is what would have happened if he had gone to the dormitory
lounge.

They had gone their separate ways, thank God, after
college. Nathan had gone off to start a computer software company
and he had joined an accounting firm. It was decent work, but mind
numbing—hundreds of hours for weeks on end. As the junior, he was
expected to produce at inhuman levels. The money had also been
pathetic—less than minimum wage at the number of hours expected.
The only hope for salvation would be if one of the more senior
partners croaked, and since they had all the time off they needed
to work out in the gym, that wasn't very likely.

He was also expected to bring in new clients. Yes,
the partners got all the money generated, but they promised that he
would eventually have a chance to buy into the partnership—in say,
ten or twenty years.

One night, he was trying to drown his sorrows at a
neighborhood hangout. All he could afford, given his slave wage,
student loans and the need to eat and put gas in his falling apart
jalopy, was to dink cheap beer in this dive. He was approached by a
stunning blonde, dressed in a low cut but classy dress. As Nathan
would have commented, “She was stacked, racked and ready to
go.”

She bought the next round of drinks and sat down to
talk. Dorothy was her name and the smooth silkiness of her voice
caused him to melt inside. He would have given everything to be
able to pull a Nathan on her, but she didn't seem to be that sort
of person.

The whole situation was refreshing. They got to
talking and drinking, mostly he did the talking and drinking, while
she nursed a glass of white wine.

As he finished talking about his mind-numbing job,
she asked him if he wouldn't mind doing some work on the side for
her boss. She added off the books and paid in cash. Not caring
about the implications, at that point he would have sawed off his
right arm with a rusty knife and eaten it in front of her if that's
what it took, he agreed. She left with his phone number and other
contact information. He about slid to the floor when she kissed him
gently on the lips before making her exit.

Dorothy's boss turned out to be a minor mob boss who
needed help in moving his assets around in ways that wouldn't show
up on the tax rolls. The money was great—paid in cash as promised.
He relished the challenge of outsmarting the IRS. He never did see
Dorothy again, much to his disappointment.

Being a mob accountant worked quite well for a
couple of years. Then the whole thing crashed in on him with the
FBI showing up at the accounting firm's office asking some hard and
difficult questions. He didn't receive any jail time because he
cooperated, and had covered his own ass quite well, but it still
was very close. The partners in the company were furious. He was
allowed to quietly resign.

The good times over, he had to go, hat in hand, to
beg his former roommate for a job. Nathan had agreed, but never,
until his dying day, let him forget it.

Unlocking the car, a battered Buick, Patrick tossed
his purchases on the front seat. He could almost taste the
porterhouse cooked medium rare on his grill. Get home, crack open
the Chianti to let it breathe, fire up the barbeque—no gas grill
for him, charcoal was the only way to go for providing the best
flavor. He'd toss some water soaked apple chips in the grill to add
a bit more flavor.

He stuck the key in the ignition. There was a click
and a roaring sound. He never finished hearing the explosion that
blew his upper body from the waist up through the windshield.

Jackie had a lot to think about. Had Nathan set her
up to be killed? What had he unleashed?

She was surprised that Leo was willing to talk to
about what he had been. He used to kill people for a living and,
according to him, he was decent at it. She couldn't imagine what it
would be like to kill someone, close, far or whatever, but it was
still very far outside her scope of experience. Give her a security
system to break into, an unlimited supply of Cherry Coke Zero, and
she was happy.

The man sort of appeared enamored with her for some
strange reason. She didn't have any feelings right now for Leo one
way or the other. But he would probably clean up pretty well. And
his loose clothing hid what she figured was a decent body
underneath. The most important thing was that he talked to her
face, not her chest, like most men did. His riveting eyes, when
they looked at you, were unsettling and seemed to hide more than
they revealed.

She didn't really want to learn how to shoot, but
she was afraid that she would have to do so to survive. She had
spent her whole life fighting, starting from being a female hacker,
being taken seriously by customers, dealing with the directions in
which Nathan wanted to take the company and much more. She was an
attractive—according to Nathan—woman trying to make it in a man's
world. While she couldn't piss her name in the snow like most guys,
she could hold her own against most men.

For something to do, she fired up her laptop. Might
as well see if she had made the news. As the page loaded, she saw
that it was true; she had made it, but on page two. But there was
breaking news: a Denver Building Inspector had burned to death in
his car. Brian Case was his name. It was familiar. She dredged
around in her head for the name. Then she recalled it with a shock
of horror—it was the building inspector that Nathan had gone to war
with over the construction of their current facility and had lost
in a very bad way. They had to pay several large fines and had
production seriously hampered on several big clients when the
inspector had padlocked the door shut after having the police
basically throw them out of the building. Nathan had vowed his
revenge—was this it? Murder from beyond the grave?

Leo must have heard the sharp intake of breath
because he asked, “What's wrong?”

She took a moment to gather her thoughts and then
said, “It's the building inspector that Nathan fought against. He
burned to death in his car this afternoon.”

“Do you think Nathan had something to do with
it?”

She shook her head, and said, “I'm not sure. He
could have. But I'm not sure as to how he would have done it.”

“What do you mean?”

She looked at him and said, “Do you think Nathan
could have arranged it?”

“Heck yes. That settles it, you will learn how to
shoot. There are probably some killers on our trail right now. In
fact, turn off that computer, remove the battery and do the same
thing with your cell phone.”

“They can track us with that?”

Leo shrugged. “I don't know. But it isn't worth the
chance.”

She considered what he had said. There had been
rumors in the computer security industry for a number of years
about the possibilities of remote tracking with a cell phone, it
didn't even have to be GPS enabled, but could find a pretty good
location based on the nearest towers and their signal strength.
There was even an oft whispered rumor that the feds could install
software on your cell phone that would allow it to listen in on
conversations around the cell phone and the phone didn't even need
to be on for them to work.

Jackie did as she was asked, putting both devices in
her duffel bag.

Leo pulled into the parking lot of a large brick
building. The weathered sign said, “Jack's Sporting Goods and Gun
Range.”

He turned to her and said, “Let me do the
talking.”

All she could do was nod. It seemed like everything
that she had worked so hard for had been yanked out from under
her.

Leo climbed out of the truck. Numbly, she followed
him.

He grabbed the bag that held Nathan's, no, her
pistol and the ear muffs that they had used. He also grabbed two
pairs of safety glasses.

She followed him into the store. It was wall to wall
guns, rifles hanging on the walls, cases full of handguns and racks
of ammunition. Holsters, slings and other gun related things
occupied the aisles. The place was a gun-nut's dream.

Leo stepped up to the counter. A hawkish looking man
with a thin black mustache and a shaved head nodded at Leo. “What
can I do for you?”When she got close, she saw that he had a
well-worn holster holding a shiny pistol on his right hip. On the
other side of his body were pouches holding something like what Leo
had pulled out of her pistol that held bullets.

“I need to rent some space at the range, a .22
pistol and a hundred rounds for it, and the same in 9mm.”

The guy looked her up and down like he was grading
meat. She did her best not to sneer at him.

“Taking the girlfriend out shooting? Could find a
cheaper place to have a date.”

Leo ignored the man. “A Browning Buckmark in .22, if
you have it. If not, one of the new Ruger Mark III's will do just
fine.”

The man said, “Sure. I've got a Ruger here that will
do quite nicely.”

He then quoted a price that caused Jackie to start.
The man was right, this wasn't a cheap date by any means.

Leo paid without comment out of a roll of bills that
would choke a boa constrictor.

The clerk said, “When you get inside, I'll bring the
ammo in. You have your own ear and eye protection?”

Leo nodded. They followed the man towards the back
of the store. Through a thick plexiglass window, she could see that
there were other people on the range—one was a woman shooting a
small pistol. A couple of guys were at the other end, and she
couldn't see what they were doing.

The clerk unlocked the door and motioned them
inside. Leo said, “Put on your eye and hearing protection.” She did
as he asked, still overwhelmed by what she had found herself doing.
When she had gotten up this morning, she had no idea that her car
would be blown up in front of her, that her dead boyfriend was
probably killing people from beyond the grave and that she would be
trusting her life to an ex-assassin.

Leo led her to a booth that was away from everyone.
The room smelled of gun smoke. Selecting a circular target from a
rack by the door, Leo put it on a clip that was connected to a wire
that ran from the booth down to the end of the range.

“We won't be shooting any live ammunition for a bit
so you can get used to the feel of a pistol. Then, when we do
shoot, you'll start with the .22 and work your way up.”

She nodded. He opened up the case containing her gun
on the bench and then pulled back the metal piece on top. He
quickly named all the relevant pieces. Then he had her hold the
pistol, pointing it at the target. He had her practice her aim,
trigger pull and hold with the empty gun. Leo corrected her with
gentle touches and a calm voice.

She hardly noticed that the clerk had bought them in
a pistol and some ammunition.

When she felt comfortable with the pistol, a
Beretta, they switched to the Ruger and started shooting. It was
fun! There wasn't much recoil and the pistol seemed, after her
training with Leo, to almost aim itself.

Then they switched to the Beretta and the man
silhouette target. It kicked more, had two different trigger pulls,
and when she didn't hold it right, it spit the empty shell into her
face.