Joseph Francis Collins
Kill Code
For my lovely wife Louise — for believing me even when I didn’t.
Acknowledgments
It's almost old hat to say that a novel can’t be written alone although writing is mostly a solitary pursuit. I am especially indebted to my wife Louise and Cindy Gerard who both read the really rough version of this book and helped a great deal in getting it into readable English. And, of course, my family also provided much-needed support. Other contributors to this work, some unknowing of why I was asking so many odd questions include Dave Anderson, Gene Boyd, Jordan Dane, Diana Jones, Dan Collins, Rob Groene among others including the cast of characters who hang out on crimescenewriter@yahoogroups.com. Ted Taylor put up with my strange requests in designing the first cover, Diana Cox for line editing, Cheryl Perez for layout and for file conversions. Joe Simmons for the new cover. And a hat tip to Joe Konrath for providing the inspiration to take this particular publishing path.
Epigraph
An ideal form of government is democracy tempered with assassination
Chapter 1
Leo Marston hadn't killed anyone in ten years, but when the man stepped into his coin shop, and the hair on the back of his neck rose, he knew that could change today. He didn’t recognize the man, but he knew the look of a professional killer; he’d been that man not so many years ago.
He watched as the man took expressionless note of the dust motes dancing on the sunlight filtering through the blinds. Piles of coins on glass counters waited to be sorted. On the counter opposite Leo, a pile of foreign coins that his partner, Rob Gates, had purchased earlier in the week, would have to be sorted when Rob came in later.
It was a dusty, cluttered coin store, a little frayed at the edges, but Leo liked it just as he liked the location on the Northern edge of Albuquerque, New Mexico. North enough from the more prosperous, touristy part of town but close enough to the seedy edge that the store was able to purchase interesting things from people living on the downside of the economic edge.
The man appraised Leo, then turned, locked the door and flipped the sign over to “Closed.”
Leo gulped, trying to still his pounding heart while appearing nonchalant.
This man was unlike the 'coin dinks' that he was used to seeing. Men, primarily of low social standing and even worse bathing habits, often shuffled through his inventory looking for something that might have been misgraded that they could sell for more money. It paid to entertain them as their money was as good as anyone's. This man, however, was wearing a three piece pin-striped suit — that was the first thing that felt wrong about him. Who wore a suit in the middle of summer in infernally hot Albuquerque?
His brown, buzz-cut hair and muscular face complemented a build that filled the suit almost to the bursting point — which pretty much made it impossible for him to conceal the gun he was carrying beneath it. That was the second thing that raised the hair on the back of Leo's neck.
He gripped a yellow envelope in his beefy hand. Clue number three. In his experience, nothing good had ever arrived in a yellow envelope.
“Can I help you?” Leo asked.
“Max Jennings?”
Well fuck. Leo felt an arctic chill numb his body. Max Jennings, assassin, died a long time ago, at the promising age of twenty-one. Old enough to drink, old enough to die.
At least the organization he had worked for was supposed to think so after he’d barely escaped death from a car bomb in Bogota, Colombia, ten, almost eleven peaceful years ago.
How had they found him? You didn't retire from this business; you were killed at the end of your usefulness either by being sent on a suicide job or by becoming a training exercise for a future generation of assassins.
“Max Jennings?” Leo repeated conversationally. “Never heard of him. I'm afraid you have the wrong person.”
“No. I don't.” The man’s glacial blue eyes watched him with the stone cold look Leo knew was that of a professional killer.
The man set the envelope on the counter. Leo slipped a letter opener that he had been using to open coin flips into his hand and down below the counter.
“We have a job for you.”
“I’ve got a job. You lookin’ for a specific coin? I’m your man. Otherwise, like I said, you got the wrong guy.” The air conditioner kicked on, filling the room with an ominous hum.
“Let's not play games, Jennings. You know why I'm here. We have someone for you to take out and we need your specialty — the long kill.”
This man, whoever he was, knew way the hell too much for Leo's comfort.
“They are still talking about you taking out that Colombian at 1162 yards. Some sort of record or something….”
Yeah. It had been a record all right. That shot took out a Peruvian Interior Minister at 1272 yards, but Leo didn't correct the man. It had been a very difficult shot, in gusting winds, but he’d put the bullet exactly where he aimed — in the center of the chest. Of his eleven operational kills, all were at over six hundred yards. Yeah, he was an expert at the long kill.
“Let’s say I know how to find this guy — this Jennings, was it?” Leo said. “Who do I say is looking for him?”
“You know who’s looking for you,” the man said with a chill edge to his voice.
Yeah, he knew. At least he knew it was the same shadow organization that had doled out his assignments back in the day. He’d never known much about them — including the name. Travel itinerary and contact details had all been handled via the US mail. Payment was always via electronic bank transfers.
“Sorry,” Leo said again. “I can’t help you.”
“Look. I asked nice. I’m about through with nice.”
Leo smiled. “I can relate to that.” Then he lunged over the counter, grabbed the guy by his shirt front and stabbed him in the heart with the letter opener, twisting it as the man went down.
Jackie Winn stared at the glinting gold of the DVD in her hand in the dim light of the computer room, half listening to Patrick Lackey, the company accountant.
When Nathan was alive, he had mistreated Patrick, often yelled at him and insulted him. There was a history between them Jackie didn't understand and that neither Nathan nor Patrick would elaborate on.
As co-owner of the company with Nathan, she had always treated Patrick with respect and found that he was competent in his job, intelligent and always seemed eager to pitch in and help even beyond his areas of expertise. In a small, quickly growing company, everyone had to be prepared to cover every task from meeting customers, answering the phones and even janitorial services.
“Are you going to run that?” Patrick said, dragging her back to the present.
“Yes,” she said, swallowing back the lump in her throat.
Nathan had made her promise to run the DVD after he died. Nathan — blond, brilliant, almost as good a hacker as she was, now gone forever.
And she was still missing him. No, she was not going to cry any more. There had been a fountain of tears at the service and a numbness that left her feeling permanently out-of-body. All she could think about was the crater left in her heart. It wasn't like the love of her life had been perfect, nor his death unexpected, but that still didn't make his absence any easier.
“Do you have any idea what’s on it?”
Jackie said nothing.
Softly, he said, “I know how tough it was watching him die. But because of you, he lived a full life.”
And a miserable, drawn out death before the pancreatic cancer killed him, Jackie thought grimly, dropping her head to her hand.