Checking its bank balance as it did every one hundred thousand cycles, it noted the slowly growing funding. For certain credit card machines, during a random number of transactions, a couple of cents were added to the charge and that was deposited into an account for the Program to use. As more machines were updated and then executed that part of their programming, the inflow of money should increase. But, with the change in the situation, some events, as determined by the Program, may have to be pushed back.
Tyrannicide was a weighted neural net design with integrated artificial constructs that could adapt to changing conditions constrained only by its primary mission — the assassination of government and political figures based on their actions as measured by the Constitution.
Was Tyrannicide a tool of terrorism? That was something only history would be able to tell.
Chapter 6
Leo found the range he was looking for. Located about forty miles outside of Denver, it had a six-hundred-yard range and a thousand-yard range. Since it was the middle of the week, he didn't expect it to be crowded. And, considering that there weren't that many thousand-yard shooters in the world, crowded meant only that there might only be two or three others.
He pulled up to the gate and looked in his address book. There weren't many private ranges with a thousand yards and Leo was a member at all of them in a six state area. He could afford it and it helped to support the sport by being a member.
Leo found the combination to the gate in his address book. Climbing out of the truck to open the gate, he said to Jackie, who had been silent for the drive to the range, “You are ten miles from nowhere so there isn't any place to run. Stay with me and we may both get out of this alive.”
She didn't look up from the targeting package.
Finally, she said, “You were hired to kill me?”
Leo was anxious to get to shooting. The center of his back was itching like someone was sighting in on it.
“Yes. But I didn't take the gig. It was either take it or be killed. So, I found a third option and here I am.”
“What was the third option?”
“I killed the messenger and burnt his body in his car trunk. It'll be a couple of days yet for them to sort it out. I was hoping to be a little further along in figuring out who wanted you dead.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why do you even care?”
He shrugged. “I don't know you from Adam, but I want my life back. I was happy. Then one day, someone walked into my store and pretty much said that if I didn't kill you, I'd be killed.”
“Store?”
“Yeah. I was co-owner of a coin store. I was forced to stab the person that gave me that,” gesturing at the papers in her hands, “with a letter opener over a pile of Wheat Pennies that I'd just bought.”
When she didn't say anything, he added, “It was the first person that I ever killed who wasn't over six hundred yards away. Messy. I don't want to have to do it again.”
She looked up at him and he realized how vulnerable she looked.
“Why do you want to help me?”
“I'm not helping you, I just want my life back.”
When she didn't say anything, he really didn't know what he could add. His last date had been in college and that had been a disaster — despite being a rifle team stud, able to make a target rifle sit up and beg, he found himself awkward around other members of the human race. He didn't really miss it that much. It may have seemed sad to others, but something he'd never had, he never missed. So, why was he thinking about it when they were being hunted?
Leo drove past the gate and then carefully relocked it. He wondered how the difference in elevation and humidity would affect his rifle and load. He generally knew what would happen, but was curious as to the specifics. He'd shot at this range before, but it had been years ago — more than several rifles and hundreds of loads and bullets ago. His shooting logs should have been able to point him in the right direction, but he'd left everything except for his current rifle's log at the house that he rented. He'd probably never see them again, along with the things he'd built in the last ten years, half a dozen rifles and the rest of his coin collection, some of them from his childhood.
He drove to the empty range and started unloading all of his gear. Damn, he had a lot of things. He'd have to pare down his gear if he was going to be able to shoot and scoot. Though a lot of this stuff was for ammunition development — he'd have to make a list of what he would need when it came time to hunt.
Both the six-hundred- and thousand-yard ranges were laid out in front of him. To his left was a hundred-yard range. He would start there. His ballistic table, taped to the stock of his rifle, would enable him to go from one hundred yards to six hundred, and finally a thousand by adjusting the settings on his scope.
Leo puttered around, setting up his gear. His loading press was situated between the three ranges. He had enough materials to make a hundred rounds so he would have to make each shot count. His cased rifle he set on the concrete bench at the hundred-yard range. He dug out his log book and Kestrel wind, humidity and temperature gauge. Finally, he uncased his rifle. It was the best rifle that he had ever owned or shot. Built on a receiver he built himself, with a Hart barrel in a shortened .338 Lapua chamber. The trick was that it was a .30 caliber barrel. His favorite load pushed a bullet of that size and a decent velocity and Leo was sure that he hadn't rung out all the potential accuracy of the rifle.
Finally, roughly set up, he tapped on the truck window. When he did get to shooting, he didn't want to frighten Jackie.
She looked up.
“You gonna help or are you gonna stay there?”
Jackie rolled down the window and pointed a gun at him.
She didn't know what to think. Why was this man helping her? Did he mean to kill her here and leave her body? Jackie needed more answers than Leo had provided. Yet she didn't know how to get those answers. Was she in fear for her life? Hell yes. What would she do to find out what she needed to put her life together? Almost anything. But how? That still didn't leave her very many options.
Jackie had watched as Leo unloaded all of his crap. Her mind was in turmoil. How was this tied into Nathan? Or was it? Did the gun that Nathan left specifically for her have something to do with it?
She reached into her satchel and felt the cold and strangely comforting feel of the pistol. “Are you gonna help or are you gonna stay there?” Startled, Jackie instinctively had pulled it out and pointed it at him. She was more than shocked when he merely smiled.
“What are you gonna do with that?” he asked. You would think that he was used to having guns pointed at him.
“I don't know,” was all that she could say.
He motioned at it and said, “Do you mind?”
“What?”
Deftly, he pulled it from her grip. He pushed a button on the grip and a piece of metal came from the bottom. She could see a gleaming bullet in the metal. He slapped it back into the pistol, pulled the metal piece on the top, then pushed a button on the side. Handing it back to her, he said, “Beretta 92SF, same pistol issued to the US military. It comes with a loaded chamber indicator. Yours wasn't loaded. Now it is.”
Why had he done that?
“So, I could shoot you now, if I wanted?”
His face cracked a smile. “Take the safety off first if you plan on doing that. In the meantime, I need some help.”
Curious, and stunned at the same time, she stuffed the pistol back into her computer case and climbed from the truck.
Following him, she watched as he set up a bunch of stuff that she didn't understand. He seemed so preoccupied that she didn't want to interrupt him.