Kill Code (15 page)

He didn't like being so close to where the target
could appear, but he couldn't help it—the tall buildings around the
site prevented any line-of-sight communications and there weren't
any wireless Internet access points that he could hijack for his
own use. His equipment had told him that there was a high speed
access point right in the building he sat next to, but with his
limited skills, he couldn't break into it.

Having gone over the targeting package on the
subject he was to shoot, he figured it was Jackie Winn who had set
it up. Damn the bitch, he mumbled to himself.

He stood up and stretched, careful not to bang his
head on the low ceiling of the van. It had started life as a
delivery truck for a bread company that had gone out of business
and he had picked it up for a little over a song. It had a new
engine, rebuilt transmission and had been completely gutted inside.
There was a decently equipped bathroom, a small kitchen including a
microwave and refrigerator, a hidden locker containing a rifle and
ammunition and a handgun. The rest of the van was outfitted so that
he could maintain and practically rebuild his rifle system. Off in
a corner was a futon, which was stacked with servos and
controllers.

After this job, he was going to take a little time
off while he figured out what direction he wanted to take with his
remote sniper system. There was a long list of improvements that
were possible, but he was working himself to the conclusion that he
should pretty much start from scratch. Sure, he could reuse some of
the software, but the rest of the design needed to be scrapped.
Technology had changed so much over the past five years that he
could practically build the entire system with off-the-shelf
components, micro-controllers, computer, sensors and servos. The
ideal system would be cheap, easy to maintain, could be fitted with
several different rifles—including a semi-automatic—and be a great
deal easier to calibrate and maintain. Heck, if he did it right,
there might be a decent market for such a system with the military
and police departments. The news was full of reports of unmanned
drones killing bad guys all over the world, why not an unmanned
sniper system? With facial recognition software, it could be hidden
someplace and wait for the appropriate target to come strolling by
and kill it.

There was a flash on the monitor, something like the
optical data stream had been interrupted. With a roll of the
screen, it settled back down again. All of the figures from the
rifle and sensor pack seemed to be within normal parameters. He
moved the joystick and the rifle seemed to track back and forth
like it should have.

It was the first time that something like this had
ever happened and he wondered what caused it. He opened up another
screen and checked another set of sensors—this one on the rifle
itself. There it was, one of the video controller boards was
running hotter than it should have. Prelude to failure? It also
seemed to be drawing more power than it should have. He wondered
how long it would be before it failed. Somewhere in the van was
another board, but he would have to power down the entire system,
replace the board, do a quick calibration, and then restart all
aspects of the system. If everything worked well, it would take at
least two hours for the system to be back on line. Damn it all.

He could see that there was starting to be
degradation in the video signal. How long would it last before it
failed completely?

Then there was a movement on the monitor. The rifle
started tracking it, numbers coming up on the screen with range,
ambient air temperature, humidity, wind speed and projected
readings of these values at the target. The computer made
adjustments to the cross hairs based on the data the sensors had
come up with.

Using the joystick, he zoomed in and then compared
the person on the monitor to the head and face shot of Jackie Winn
that he had taped above the monitor. It included height and weight
statistics. From all that he could see, it was Jackie, the right
hair cut, facial shape, build and height.

Flicking off the safety switch, he centered the
cross hairs on her chest. He felt that he could do a head shot at
this range, but with the equipment starting to crap out, it would
be best to take the sure shot rather than anything fancy.

She paused, seeming to stare right at him.

He flipped a switch to fire the rifle. The sonic
crack of the 180 grain boat tailed hollow point blasting past his
van at 2,900 feet per second was comforting.

The rifle settled down from its recoil and he looked
at the front door where Jackie had stood. The window was punctured,
but there didn't appear to be any blood—that round should have
blown her chest out through her back dumping close to three
thousand foot pounds behind the bullet. Had he missed?

A gunshot slammed through the parking lot, rocking
the van where he was sitting.
What the fuck?
The camera
system on the rifle was now twisted, like it had been knocked off
its base. There was another gunshot—the monitor went black,
tracking data fading from screen last. Was someone was shooting at
his rifle system? And had they killed it?

He turned off the monitor and then back on again.
Same black screen. Someone, a damn good someone, had counter-sniped
his rifle system. He stuck a key into a lock, turned it and pressed
a button activating a self destruct mechanism—ten minutes from now,
anyone close would be in a world of hurt. Now, it was time to get
out of Dodge.

Crawling up to the front of the van, he put it in
gear, retracted the vehicle lock down system and pulled out into
traffic. He hadn't fulfilled the hit, and wondered who had shot his
robot rifle system. Whoever it was, there was going to be hell to
pay.

###

Leo figured he had killed the sniper—two shots right
into the window where the bullet aimed at the front door of
Jackie's business. The clue had been that there was a window open,
the only one in that particular business, and he had seen the
curtains move as the shot came out. There wasn't a gunshot, just
the sonic crack from the bullet breaking the sound barrier. The
space he had shot into was big enough that he felt like he should
put another round into the same space to make sure of the kill.

The next task at hand was to assess the area and
confirm his kill. While there was no blood splatter after the rifle
came down from recoil like he was used to, the shots had felt right
on. If someone had been in that room shooting at Jackie, they were
dead.

He slid his rifle into a soft guitar case, tossed
the rest of his gear into a duffel bag and quickly screwed on a
couple of the screws of the industrial air conditioner. Someone
would replace them later, and besides, it was a major pain in the
ass dealing with the little screws while wearing gloves. It would
have to do for now.

He looked over the edge of the building leaning on
his hidden ladder. No one. Good.

Slipping the ladder over the side, he climbed down
it, still feeling the adrenaline coursing through his veins. It had
been years since he had shot at something with two legs and he
almost missed the feeling.

Collapsing the ladder, he tossed it onto the roof of
the truck and strapped it down. He had considered leaving it, maybe
tossing it onto the roof, but the less evidence that was left
behind the better. Besides, he might find another use for it.

He glanced down at his watch. From last shot until
now, two minutes and twelve seconds. Way the hell too slow; he'd
have to work on that. Figure eight minutes for the cops to show up,
was what he read that bank robbers practiced to be in and out of a
bank. He was going to have to work with the idea that he didn't
have a back up team to sprint him away, getting themselves arrested
if need be in order to slow up the authorities while he got the
hell out of Dodge.

Keying his radio, he said, “Ready to go on this end.
You clear?”

“Been that way for a bit. Pick me up.” Just for a
moment, he wondered how she had gotten the sniper to take the shot.
He hadn't seen her project herself in the window like they had
practiced.

He drove the truck over to the pick-up point, about
twenty yards from where she went in. Pulling up, he glanced around
and saw that there was no one around. Tapping his horn lightly, he
was surprised when she stepped out of the shadows.

“How'd it go?” he asked as she climbed into the
cab.

“Great. How about you?”

“I got off two shots into where I figured the sniper
was. How did you manage to get him to shoot at you?”

“For some reason, there was a huge wireless data
stream, pictures, all sorts of other information. I hijacked it,
inserted the pictures I wanted them to see and then there was the
sound of glass breaking. Which makes me wonder about
something.”

“Yes?”

“You wouldn't shoot at something based on what you
saw on a computer monitor, would you?”

“No. I have to have eyes on the target.”

After a pause, she said, “Well, given the data along
with the picture, and that I was able to intercept and hijack the
data stream, I don't think that there was a human behind that
rifle. Otherwise, why would they need to send so much data? I saw
stuff like humidity, range and a bunch of other things that I
didn't understand.”

Leo considered what she had said. It was logical, up
to a certain point. There were stories about Unmanned Aerial
Vehicles, UAVs, in the news all the time, taking out terrorists in
Afghanistan with Hellfire missiles while the pilots sat in some
bunker in Nevada. Why not have something similar rigged up
controlling a rifle? A remote controlled sniper was the next
logical step. Though there were some shots that were still more art
than science—even a sophisticated computer didn't have the
experience programmed in to take in the hundreds of variables that
taking a long distance, very accurate shot takes. Of the millions
of rifle shooters in the world, probably less than a hundred could
do what he did on a consistent basis.

He explained what he figured might have happened.
The plan had been to wait for a while to make sure that the backup
team, if there was one, had cleared out before going to where Leo
figured the sniper had been hiding, and then looking for clues as
to who had sent him. While Leo hadn't expected to find
anything—when he had worked, it had been without any ID, personal
belongings or anything. His last job, he had been instructed to
wear a Tyvek suit and in the urban heat, it had been brutal. But
there would have been no traces of hair or fibers for anyone to
find even if they had been able to discover the shooting site.

Now, there was more emphasis on getting to the
shooting site and seeing if there was anything that could help them
find out who was trying to kill Jackie.

He drove around to the front of the building.
Surprisingly, there were no police.

“Wonder why the cops aren't here?”

Jackie shrugged, “It's Saturday. Probably no one
around to hear any shots.”

He pointed out the window into which he had shot.
There were no bullet holes, but it was the only one of three
windows on that side of the building that was open.

“How do you want to do this?” he asked.

“There isn't a back door, just a loading dock, which
will be too loud to get open and be too obvious. If we go in the
front door, and are caught, we might very well be able to make it
look like we are supposed to be there.”

“How?

“Human engineering. Do it all the time. You look and
act like you are supposed to be someplace, you generally get left
alone.”

There was a loud whoosh. Flames shot from the window
where the sniper or remote sniper had been hiding.

Jackie knew that there was going to be no way they
would get any information now that what Leo had suspected was the
remote sniper was on fire. She would have loved to have gotten a
very close look at the computers running such a system. Mostly, it
was because she wanted to find out who was trying to kill her, but
also because she was curious about all things mechanical and
electronic.

“Thermite,” Leo muttered, putting the truck into
gear.

“What?”

“The flames look like they are
from thermite—a composition of metal powder and a metal oxide that
produces an a
luminothermic reaction.”

“I know what thermite is. How can you tell that's
what caused the fire?” God, he acted like she was so stupid
sometimes. She had played with it in college, upping the recipe
that she had seen demonstrated in chemistry class up the point
where it melted a hole in the concrete deck where she had been
living at the time. The landlord had been pissed, but she had
talked him out of calling the cops.

Leo said, “From the color of the flame and the
sparks. I think it's from an iron oxide based version. Quite
effective, but it's a bitch to light. I finally had to switch
mixtures to get reliable ignition, duplicating the recipe used in
military thermite, with my own ignition system.”

“You played with thermite?”

“Heck yes. A couple of hundred bucks spent on eBay
can yield wonderful and interesting experiments. It also has some
wonderful properties, like being able to melt tooth enamel, making
identification of a body that much more difficult.”

“And you've used it for this?”

Pause. “Yes. The man who was sent to either recruit
or kill me had such a treatment done to him.”

She noted that he said this flatly, like he was
describing going out the grocery store for a gallon of milk. Leo
sounded like a geek, concealed the body of a god under loose
clothing and was a stone cold killer. It made her wonder about what
really drove him. Though she still wouldn't want to get in the way
of anything that he wanted.