Hell, he'd spent the last three days driving around in his truck with her always close by. They'd shared fear, deprivation, doubts and probably other things that he wasn't perceptive enough to understand.
Right now, he was at a loss as to what to do to continue moving towards resolution of their problem. Every aspect that they explored had ended in a dead end of sorts.
He'd really wanted to search Nathan's office, but someone had anticipated that move and burnt the place to the ground. Being in the place where Nathan had worked would have given him insights into the man and maybe have provided a clue as to what he was capable of doing.
Leo had never been driven to the point where he couldn't find anything to do to further one cause or another. He hated waiting on Jackie's hacker friend to come back with more information that may or may not help them find the puppet master.
Sitting around and waiting was something that he was used to, and he knew that he could pull himself inside and stay still for days if necessary. But all the times he had done that, it was to wait for the opportune time for the target to present itself. Now, he didn't have a target, nor any way to force one to present itself.
This 'Children of the Constitution' was another unknown. Who the hell were they and how did they affect what was happening to him and Jackie?
Somewhere, he felt that there was a thread that linked them, but it seemed that every time he reached for it, someone turned the lights off and moved it.
Jackie appeared happy playing with her laptop, but they had decided at breakfast that there wasn't much that they could do until they heard from her friend. And that might take all day or even longer — and who knew what information he could provide and even if it would help them.
He was sitting in the uncomfortable chair doing the word search puzzles in the book that he had bought. They were a way to keep your observational skills honed to a keen edge, and Leo did them inhumanly fast. The quicker you could pick up on details, the better chance you had for survival. Yes, he hadn't been in a situation in which he would have to identify and shoot a target in years, except for early yesterday, but he still kept in practice as best he could.
He wished that he could be doing something more than just sitting here, waiting for something to pop up.
Jackie said, “Hey, come look at this.”
Leo set down his word search book, that he was almost done with anyway, and leaned over her. Her scent was intoxicating even for someone who didn't drink anything stronger than Sprite.
“What am I looking at?”
“The list of people killed so far. Except for a couple of minor instances, they have all been members of the government.”
He looked at it. She was right.
“About time.”
“What do you mean?”
“It makes each IRS, DEA, BATF agent accountable for their every action. Adding in politicians effectively shuts down our government — everyone would be so afraid of doing something that could get them killed that they wouldn't do a damn thing. About fucking time.”
She leaned back into his chest. He stroked her hair, reveling in the smoothness.
“You sound like you like that idea.”
“In some ways. I firmly believe in something that I read a number of years ago, that the only function of government should be to provide for the common defense and repair the roads. They can do that without zillions of laws, regulations and taxes. Hell, I earn enough that forty percent of my income goes to taxes that pay for crap that I wouldn't want anyway. Why should I bust my ass to pay for politicians to line their own pockets?”
“So, you agree with this?”
“Not by any stretch of the imagination. Through years of coddling, at least ninety-seven percent of our population wouldn't be able to survive in a world where their lives weren't supported by the government in one form or another. There has to be some sort of middle ground, and stacking bodies of politicians high and deep isn't the way to do it.”
“How does this affect what we are doing?”
He considered what he had learned in the last couple of minutes.
“I don't know. But I think it's another cog in the bigger plan that someone has for this country. Just imagine what would happen if what happened in Denver happened throughout the country. Building inspectors, Congress critters and others in politics being killed or simply disappearing — there would be chaos. We'd all have to be responsible for our actions and lives and most people would rather riot than deal with that.
“I know that there are only five fingers in the Black Hand, so that means, in order to accomplish their apparent goals, they’re going to have recruit a bunch of amateurs.”
“Amateurs?”
“Yes. It costs a lot of money to train, equip, support and pay a professional killer. There are thugs out there that will kill for a couple of thousand dollars or a pat on the head from the right person, but killers on the level of the Black Hand receive at least $50,000 a hit, sometimes have support teams, and those don't come cheap, and that doesn't include training costs — who knows how many they recruit who can't drop the hammer when the time comes. As an example, when I was learning my trade, the rifle that they built me cost at least $10,000. And that was eleven years ago. That robot rifle that cooked itself must have cost a bunch more than that.”
“How does this affect us?”
“I don't have enough information to even begin to form the picture. I'm a detail guy — just give me one very tiny aspect of a problem to deal with and I'll excel. I'm not used to caring about the bigger picture. I got my targets, eliminated them and went home. I didn't care why or even who.
“I recall reading about riots all throughout a country over the death of someone who looked like someone I had taken out. Several hundred died, and all I had to do with it was three and a half ounces on a trigger.”
“How'd that make you feel?”
What a strange question. Probably it was why he'd never discussed his past with anyone.
“How do you feel about two thousand people dying in an earthquake in China?”
She shrugged.
“Same here. I did my job, the targets were dead, and I was alive. I didn't care why, didn't know much more than that and was happy to spend the money. I'd been so numbed by my childhood and any thread of humanity was carefully excised by my training, so all I could feel was that I did what I was supposed to do. Money is the ultimate in praise if you have nothing else in your life to live for.”
“That's sad.”
“No, it's not. You can read about ten-year-old soldiers in Africa. If all you know is violence in the midst of chaos, how can you know what is considered normal by society's standards? How do you find out how to live? It's not TV or books, and the people that I worked for gave me all that I was looking for. I created my own world and lived by rules created in that world.
“Someone has to be able to do the dark things that need to get done.”
She cocked her head. “What do you mean?”
“Most of those people that have been killed by the Children of the Constitution probably deserved it in one way or the other. I've never really met a fed or government official that I much liked, good riddance to all of them.”
She stood with a tense expression.
“Well, one of those people you said 'good riddance' to was one of my friends, a dear sweet man, who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Turning, she walked to the door. “I'm going to get some fresh air. It's getting too stuffy in here.”
He watched her go, wondering what the hell he had said to upset her and why.