Since the range was so short, less than three hundred yards, Allan Wells planned on trying for a head shot at his target. The target was short, bald and quite fat — probably too many years of good living working at the DEA. Allan didn't have any particular love loss for any federal agent, having had his share of run-ins with them over the years. The DEA particularly pissed him off as he was hassled by them every time he came back from one of his foreign jobs.
Apparently, he was on some list as a druggie, and had to endure the whole body cavity thing when he came back into the USA. They never found anything, but, like mindless drones, they continued to harass him because he was coming back from Central American countries like Colombia and Belize several times a year. Yes, there were people in those countries that grew, processed and shipped massive quantities of cocaine each year, but he was more interested in the wealth of targets that he could take out for decent money.
His rifle was a bone stock Remington Model 700 in .22-250. Normally considered a varmint round, the .22-250 was very fast, flat shooting and shot the same sized bullet as the .223 or 5.56 NATO — the same bullet the M-16 used. It had a Leupold 3.5x10 scope, a bit battered but still damn good glass. It was a great gun for shooting two- or four-legged varmints.
He'd purchased the rifle at a pawn shop, paid cash and used a fake ID. Any pictures that had been taken by the cameras in the pawn store would be next to useless as he'd artificially tanned his skin, wore a John Deere cap, a fake mustache, colored contacts and had stuffed his lower jaw with chewing gum to change the shape. The bored clerk had barely paid any attention anyway while selling the rifle — probably wanting his next fix. And the federal background check was only good if you were in the system as a crook, not if you didn't exist in any system whatsoever, like the ID that he had produced. It had an address that would have had him living at the Federal Building, so it showed up as legit and anybody getting this far, which he doubted would ever happen, wouldn't get any farther.
This was going to be too easy — the target lived in the country, an hour from work. From what he could see where he was sitting, in a thicket down the road with a view of the house, garage and driveway, it looked to be a nice house.
You could set your watch by the target's schedule. No variations, even for traffic. He left at six in the morning and was home by five every week night. No wife to worry about. He settled in on the shooting mat he'd brought with him. It was well worn, dating from when he used to compete and was molded to the contours of his body by use. It felt good to be back in the game more directly.
Yes, his remote robot sniper system was the coming evolution, but from a camera, you couldn't smell the air, feel the breeze or hear the birds chirping.
He'd already seeded a fake shooting site in the bushes next to the driveway with several cigarette butts he'd found outside a bus station and a shell casing from an M-16 that he picked up at a gun range. He collected shell casings, for just such purposes, to hide his real shooting site and screw with the investigating officers.
He'd set up his shot so he would be perfectly in line with the seeded site. All the distances to relevant landmarks had been drawn out on the notepad in front of him.
The sound of a car coming down the gravel road brought him back to the matter he was here for.
A brown sedan, the same make and model that the target drove. As it passed, he recognized the license plate.
Settling in behind the rifle, he waited. He clicked the safety off, slid his finger down on the trigger. Taking a full breath, he let out half and started to take up the slack on it.
The target's car stopped while he waited for the garage door to go up. His head, bald dome and all, was silhouetted against the back wall. The rifle went off, there was a splash of blood and gore on the windshield and the car slammed into the back of the garage, the engine racing.
He waited a moment, watching for movement or signs of life in the cross hairs. It was done and maybe he'd have enough time and money to do some more work on the next version of his robot sniper rifle.
Standing, he slid his rifle into its case, rolled up his shooting mat and notebook and then moved the leaf mold back to its natural position with the small rake he'd brought with him.
Looking around, he saw that he'd left no trace even down to his boots, which he'd put socks on over to conceal their treads. If anyone found his original shooting site, there was nothing that could be used against him.
He started back through the woods, a two mile walk to his car. The target's engine raced in the background, shattering the still air. With any luck, the engine would overheat and catch the garage and house on fire, further concealing his work.
Leo was still in shock about the previous night. It was as though his feet hadn't touched the ground and wouldn't for years. It was all that he had waited for and much more. He hadn't been a virgin by any stretch, but his previous sex had consisted of frantic coupling with one night stands — no love, nothing except the need to get off. As he made love with Jackie, he learned more about himself, and in her reactions to his touches, he discovered a whole new aspect of life.
The concern that still haunted him, sitting on his shoulder like a vulture waiting for an unprepared visitor to die in the desert so that it might have a meal, was that they might be killed in the next instant.
They were against something much more than either of them had anticipated. If he could see it, he could kill it. But a target fit for his rifle wasn't appearing and it didn't look like it was going to do so. He didn't know how to flush out the person pulling the strings, and having put Jackie's life at risk in trying to get a lead, he wasn't going to be doing that anytime soon as the return had been next to useless considering the amount of risk involved.
He figured that they were safe from the other members of the Black Hand. From his research, he knew that the poisoning expert was a woman. Probably accidents, fire and bombing were men, because that was more suited for them and could be done at a distance. Same way with the sniper — the only finger of the Black Hand that concerned him.
Leo was at the top of his game as a rifle shooter. Maybe ten people in the entire world could do what he did with a rifle, and he knew them all by name and reputation — none would even venture into the long distance killing profession. Precision shooting at extreme ranges was a rich man's game, you could spend several thousand dollars on just the action for a rifle, and by the time you added a barrel, stock, scope and forged them together with the black art of gunsmithing inhumanly precise rifles, you could have bought a decent car. Leo saved money by doing some of the work himself, but he lacked the machinery to make his own barrels, didn't have the CNC machine to manufacture his own actions and other similar problems. He had the best damn rifle you could build for the money he spent. But, against a machine that he didn't know the capabilities of, he didn't know how he'd fare.
Supposing that there were two or three of those robot rifles using software that was developed for military and police applications, they could find his location and counter-snipe him in milliseconds — less than the time it would take him to come off recoil.
He didn't know the range of the robot rifle, nor its full capabilities. If it had thermal imaging abilities, or other technology, it would be difficult to find a way to defeat the man behind the switches.
Dueling with men was something that he understood. When that man's capabilities expanded with high technology, it added another level of complexity to the problem.
He knew that at one point, Jackie had merely been a way for him to get his life back. Now, he really did want her to be part of his life. He didn't know if she felt the same way about him or if their night of lovemaking was a result of losing everything, nearly being killed but surviving, or something else, deeper and stronger than that.