Leo read the article and said, “Anybody in power that he didn't piss off?”
“No, and that might be the thread we are looking for. What to do now, I have no idea.”
Jim Fox, the Second Finger of the Black Hand, had his work cut out for him. His next target was Fredrick Linn III, the head of the Department of Homeland Security in Denver. The guy was protected very well, and somewhat difficult to find, but for the money he was getting for this gig, Fox would make an extra effort. Besides, he had no loss of love for the DHS. They probably had a four-inch thick file folder on him, but couldn't prove a damn thing. He'd heard from some of his ex-army buddies that the feds had been around asking questions about him, his politics, performance and other snoopy things. Whoever the agency was, he didn't want to be snagged in its net.
There was a little bit of worry about this job. He'd done a lot of work in the Denver area, unusual in two respects because he had only worked outside the country up until that time, and he had only done a single job at each place before disappearing. Spending this amount of time in one area made him a bit concerned. Yes, he had such a low profile that even if they were looking for him, they would have to practically walk on him to find him and most likely not even know that they'd been in contact with him. But the government has unlimited resources and even in randomness, there are patterns that can be discerned.
So he was breaking his pattern in a new and terrifying way. He'd always been fascinated by IEDs, their construction, how they are used, detected and effects. US based terrorists hadn't discovered the utility of such devices, so now was the time.
From his understanding of the target, despite his $140,000 plus yearly salary, he only rated a company car and a driver/bodyguard. The car was standard government issue with no special armor or other protection. Not that it mattered much to Fox anyway, as he had tricks in his bag that could defeat even the armor on an M1 Abrams tank.
After a couple of days watching his next victim, he had a plan. The federal building parking lot turned onto a one-way street, so there was only one way for them to go and it was a narrow street. An army issue claymore mine was something that he had seriously considered and he had a couple stashed away. Instead, he selected an MM-1, “Minimore” command detonated mine. Developed for American Special Forces, it was a third the size of the M18A1 claymore mine, and produced a narrower arc of fragments than the claymore. At 50 feet it produced a pattern 16 feet wide and two feet high, compared with a 50-foot wide pattern for the claymore mine at the same distance.
He wanted to kill his target, not destroy an entire city block and kill everyone in it.
The mine was placed on a wall next to the road and painted to match the fading brickwork. He was dressed in tattered rags, sitting in the shelter of a nearby doorway, sipping from a container of soda hidden in a paper bag — anyone looking would think that he was homeless and quietly getting drunk. He knew he was outside the range of any cameras from the nearby federal building and there were no traffic cameras watching the intersection. There were no convenience stores or ATMs close with their ever present security cameras, and he had an escape route and backup route to get back to his car. Under his wino disguise, he wore khaki slacks, a button down Oxford shirt and tie. Shedding his disguise, he could easily become a businessman making his way to back to his car.
The target's car pulled out of the driveway. He pulled the safety bail on the M-57 firing device, also known as a 'clacker,' back and waited. The light changed as the car pulled to a stop — right within the kill zone.
He squeezed the clacker and ducked.
Chapter 18
Tyrannicide had been analyzing the stories about the killings in Davenport from news sources all over the country. The numbers of stories, their emotional content, readability index and comments from readers caused it to hit a preplanned point, starting a new subroutine. It was apparent that the government was going into crisis mode and the general population was close to panic.
It activated a previously unused mail server and sent a press release to hundreds of thousands of press and blogger e-mails gleaned from weeks of analysis. The e-mail said:
“The Children of the Constitution have struck a blow against those who blatantly violate The Highest Law of the Land. Every sworn office holder will now be held to the standard set by the Constitution. Consequences for those who continue to violate their Oath to uphold and protect the Constitution will be absolute and final. You have been warned.”
The next step was to kill that mail server and remove all traces that it had ever existed. There would be copy cats, and others wanting to take credit, but the next press release would set, in the world's eyes, the authenticity of the original e-mail.
Tyrannicide considered its target list. Two original targets were still alive, but with currently finite resources, they were placed to a lower priority. Soon there would be plenty of resources to deal with this niggling problem. Meanwhile, it issued more targeting packages.
The BMW X5 Ken Brody, the Fifth Finger, had crawled under had a wonderful braking system. But it could be subverted without too much trouble. He had developed a special technique for doing so. He found where the metal brake line came down to the rubber hose and worked his way back exactly one inch. Then he worked his way back and drilled a hole in the metal brake line. Before too much fluid dripped out onto the plastic he had placed just for that purpose, he wrapped where the hole was with Cerrolow 117. Made of Tin, Bismuth, Lead, Cadmium and Indium, it was easily moldable to almost any shape and, most importantly, it melted at forty-seven degrees Celsius or a hundred seventeen degrees Fahrenheit — a temperature easily reachable as close as it was to the hot brakes.
Since US Senator Jan Johnson liked to drive the back roads to her home, through some very rough, mountainous country, the plan was to have the brakes fail in an isolated area. The resulting crash would be fatal given the terrain — if not from the crash, from exposure or even other creatures, like a bear.
Checking his work, he nodded in satisfaction and crawled out from under the car. His Blackberry buzzed. Paging through it, he saw that it was another job. He had just set up to kill a US Senator, so the next target was a bit of a letdown. But he wouldn't let that prevent him from approaching it with professionalism.
Leo had a glimpse of what was going on around them. He and Jackie had been gathered up into a storm of epic proportions. Nathan White, God rot his soul, was probably at the heart of it. He had apparently put into place various mechanisms for some sort of political ends. How to strike it where it was vulnerable and make it stop before it killed them was the big problem.
He still felt that there was someone pulling the strings, directing the assassins, paying them, supporting them in whatever ways they needed. Based on the money he would have gotten for killing Jackie, he knew that there was one hell of a lot of money being thrown around.
Where did that money come from? According to Jackie, and the numbers that Patrick Lackey had printed out, Nathan had only subverted maybe half-a-million dollars or so. At say, $30K a hit, plus expenses, that money should be gone pretty quickly if not already be gone.
They had taken shelter in a hot sheet hotel.
Jackie was crouched over her computer, having already hacked into a nearby business's wireless network to gain Internet access. What good that would do, he didn't know.
She looked up from her computer and said, “Something of interest here.”
He looked over her shoulder at the screen.
“What am I looking for?”