He dropped all of his stuff on the ground, and kicked the door closed.
“What the fuck you doing here?”
She smiled, revealing white, perfect teeth.
“Waiting for you.”
She moved like she was going to stand up.
Leo stepped back and pointed the pistol at her right eye.
“Don't move. The first two bullets will go into your eye sockets and you'll be dead before you hit the ground.”
“Why all the drama?”
“Because I don't know who the hell you are, what you are doing here, or why.”
She shrugged. “I'm here to meet you.”
“And I'm who?”
“Leo Marston, also known as Max Jennings.”
There was that name from his past. Another person knew too much about his past.
“And what are you supposed to do with him once you meet him?”
“Try and bring him into the fold. His skills and talents are needed in the organization.”
“Alamut Enterprises?”
“That's one of several names that it goes by. There are others, including the one that you worked under. But we need you back now.”
“What's in it for me?”
“A life. Otherwise, you will be killed.”
Leo shrugged.
“The organization has tried before and hasn't succeeded. What's different now?”
She started to stand up.
Leo snapped a shot past her ear. The gun made a soft putting sound as the action cycled with a loud clack. He was impressed. The sound of the slide cycling was louder than the bullet.
“I warned you once before. You won't get another chance.”
She settled down with a huff.
“I'm here to help you. Don't you understand?”
“Yep.”
Keeping the gun trained on her, he opened up his duffel bag. He rummaged around until he found a large roll of duct tape.
It had countless uses and Leo always had at least one roll handy.
He tossed it at her and said, “Start with taping your legs to the chair legs. Then your left arm.”
“Or?”
He pointed the gun to her face again. “Do it. At least you'll be alive.”
She did as he asked.
When she was done, he walked over, keeping the gun trained on her. He took the duct tape and he taped down her right arm. Then he checked the taping job on the rest of her and added a couple of extra wraps as a precaution.
Her purse was sitting next to the chair. He dumped it onto the bed.
There were a couple of packets wrapped in foil. He didn't touch them.
Holstering his pistol, he said, “You're the Fourth Finger? Specializing in poisons, right?”
She glared at him. “How did you figure it out?”
“I have a lot of free time and spend it tracking killers like you. Quite a career you've had. Too bad you're going to retire today.”
“You're going to kill me?”
“I should. I killed the last person Alamut Enterprises sent after me. But I'm just going to call the feds and let them deal with you.”
Digging out her Blackberry, he found the card that Agent Silver had given him. Dialing the number he was surprised when it went to voice mail.
He left a quick message, just cryptic enough that the FBI would have to send someone out to investigate.
Picking up his gear, he turned to her and said, “Nice meeting you. The feds should be by shortly to talk with you.”
Then he shut the door behind him. He'd have to check his rifle and gear when he found a shooting site.
Jackie wasn't making much progress. There was simply no way for her to search the Internet for a specific piece of code. Given enough time, she could probably write a web bot to chew through the entire Internet to find the software behind the Children of the Constitution, but with 155 million web sites out there, and an estimated five billion gigabytes of raw data that changed every day, it could take years.
It might be possible to hack together something that already had a database of the Internet, say Google, to search, but that was way beyond her abilities and current hardware.
Taking a break, she fired up a news web site.
A lot was going on. Someone had blown up the Denver Police Department's vehicle garage. It was a complete loss, everything inside had been destroyed and a number of fires had started in nearby buildings as a result of flying, burning debris.
She watched the video. It was quite impressive. Most of the garage roof was gone, as were all of the sides, and firefighters crawled around the building dragging hoses around. From the preliminary investigation, it appeared like some sort of gas enhanced explosion, but that was only a tentative idea. Various federal agencies were fighting to take control of the investigation despite that the Denver PD wanted to keep it to themselves as it was their building that had been blown up.
There had also been a shooting at the FBI building in downtown Denver. At least two FBI agents were dead. No word on civilians. A bystander with a camera phone captured video of the shots landing.
While grainy and partially out of focus, her heart jumped into her throat when she recognized someone who looked like Leo. She backed it up, and went through it frame by frame. Yes, it did appear to be Leo, or someone who could be his twin. He even moved the same way she had seen Leo — smooth and cat like. Almost off camera was what appeared to be his truck.
So, he was alive and had been released? Or was he being transferred someplace?
She didn't know what to do.
Then another story caught her eye. An Internet entrepreneur had been killed when he'd lost control of his vehicle and slammed into a bridge abutment at a very high speed. She paged down to the details and almost threw up when she read Jared Becker’s name. He'd been alive six hours ago and now he was dead. She was probably the only link to Nathan who was still alive.
She was stunned almost into numbness. What should she do?
The very least was to contact Leo. For most people, it would be simple, find a phone and call them, or even easier, drop them an e-mail. Leo had neither. So, she had to punt.
The last contact with Leo had been at their hotel room.
But she had seen him dragged out in handcuffs by FBI agents dressed in black Nomex, carrying rifles and pistols out of a Star Wars movie.
Where, if she were Leo, would she go? Their night of lovemaking meant something to her, but what was it to Leo?
Probably just a way to get her bent to his will. Maybe. She couldn't take that chance, though. So she was going to have to make her way to the hotel room and maybe he would be there. If he had any thought for her in his heart, there would probably be a sign of something that he left for her.
Before she packed up her newly acquired computer, she researched the quickest route, by foot, to go back. She didn't have money for cab fare, not that any of them would come even if she called with the potential of having a drunken college student or six throwing up in the back of the cab.
Her route planned, she headed out into the night to find Leo.
If the day had started out as shit for Jeff Silver, it had gotten much worse. Some fuckwad had figured out a way to blow up the Denver Police Department's Police Vehicle storage garage. Now, he had not only DHS to deal with, but the BATF. And the Denver PD wanted to run the investigation.
Considering that the whole world appeared to be blowing up, Denver PD should have turned everything over to the feds and stepped back, but this was something they apparently felt they should investigate.
It was a longstanding feud between the feds and local LEO's as to who should have control of a particular investigation. Yes, the federal government often had almost infinite resources for dealing with situations, but they rarely knew the local area as well as the people who worked on the streets. With their arrogance, they tended to piss off the locals. But the hammer of time in a federal penitentiary was often enough weight to cause cases to break.