Not knowing what to do about the handgun, she stuffed it into her laptop case and zipped closed the compartment. She had no experience with them at all and knew she didn't know enough to use it. She noted down the model number — someone would have posted information on how to use it on the Internet so she could at least unload it.
One thing that seemed to make the car run better is if it was warmed up. Finding her keys, she pressed the remote start. An explosion rocked the building.
Leo had lost his prime parking to a battered Ford LTD. In fact, there were no spaces left in the parking lot where Leo had been hanging out. So he was reduced to checking for an empty slot at the building where Jackie had her business.
He glanced over at her car and saw a white hot flash as the explosion rocked his truck causing him to bang his head on the b-pillar.
Shit. Had he missed her getting into her car?
He pulled up, slammed the transmission into park and jumped out. The car was on fire. The windshield was completely gone, flames greedily licked the interior. Fuck. There was no way anyone could survive such a blast.
Leo had a déjà vu sensation. The car bombing that had nearly killed him looked almost exactly like this one. The area where the driver sat was destroyed, probably done with a sophisticated directed shaped charge. He'd have been dead except for the dumb punk that had tried to steal his car and ended up having his head blown completely apart and immolating any fingerprints, making identification of the body impossible. Running DNA might have narrowed it down, but it had happened in Bogota, Columbia, and the police had too many car bombings and murders to care about one more. Max Jennings, the name that Leo had worked under, had died that day for all who cared to know. That's when Leo tried to start a new life. It worked for a while, and now that it looked like Jackie was dead, he didn't have much of a chance of getting it back.
A crowd was gathering. It wouldn't be good to have to talk to the cops. He walked back to his truck. If anyone asked where he was going, he would tell them that he was moving his vehicle so that the fire trucks could get in and then drive on.
At the edge of the crowd stood a woman who looked familiar, black hair pulled into a pony tail, round face, intelligent eyes. Then it hit him — Jackie Winn.
Slamming the truck into gear, Leo rolled up next to her, popping the passenger side door open sharply, he said, “Jackie, get in, now.”
While she seemed to debate it, Leo scanned for potential snipers. The .300 Win Mag sniper round had twice the energy at five hundred yards than the heaviest loading of a .44 magnum at the muzzle and would punch through his windshield like it wasn't even there. They would be dead meat if she didn't get into the truck and both of them get the hell out of there.
Making up her mind, Jackie climbed into the truck. Not even waiting for her to close the door completely, he stomped on the gas, leaving a trail of smoking rubber.
He pulled out into traffic, seeing from the corner of his eye Jackie struggling to put the seat belt on.
“What happened?” her voice wavering.
“Someone tried to kill you. Car bomb. Why didn't it get you?”
“I used the remote start. The car has been running rough but worked better when it was warmed up.”
“The bomber was expecting a car door slam or something similar to set it off. You're alive because your car was running rough. If you had gotten into it and shut the door, it would have blown you through the windshield.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Because someone tried to kill me the exact same way.”
Jackie glanced at her rescuer. Probably in his thirties, completely nondescript. He was dressed in jeans and a worn flannel shirt. Soft features, high cheek bones and brush cut black hair starting to gray at the temples.
“Who are you?” Her pulse pounded in her head and her voice sounded on the edge of hysteria. “And how do you know my name? How did you come to be here, just when my car blows up?”
“Leo Marston. Just call me Leo. Someone gave me your name and address.” His tone was calm, but then again, he hadn't had his car blown up in front of him. Though irritated, she sensed that nothing would faze him.
She looked around the cab of the truck. A couple of maps were stuffed over the visor, a plastic bottle of water was perched precariously in a dashboard cup holder. The rest of the truck was immaculate. Her car, no, her ex-car, had the back seat almost filled with discarded fast-food wrappers, diet soda cans and bottles and other trash. Every couple of months, she had gotten disgusted and cleaned it out, but it quickly filled up again. When you ran a business, you ate when and where you could and for Jackie, it was often her car.
“You said that someone tried to kill you the same way, with a car bomb. Is there any connection?”
“I don't know. The person who tried to kill me used a charge under the front seat. It looked like they used a different kind of charge, maybe a more up-to-date designed shape charge, possibly something else, to try and kill you.”
“How did you get away?”
He turned his head, catching her eyes with his startling blue eyes and said, “Someone tried to steal the car and set it off.”
“Why is someone trying to kill me, and how do I know you won't try and kill me?”
Turning his attention back, “I have no idea, and was hoping you could tell me.”
That's when the rush of memories and feelings hit her like a bus causing her eyes to water and her body to sag into the truck's bench seat. Did this have something to do with Nathan's mysterious software and the strange doings at the company? Or was it something else completely? She didn't know and, more importantly, she didn't want to speculate with this complete stranger.
Then something else occurred to her.
“Have you been watching me?”
“Just got into town today and I was looking for an excuse to talk with you.”
He pulled off the road into a convenience store parking lot and looked at one of his maps.
“Where are we going?”
Not answering for a moment, Jackie watched Leo tracing his finger along the map.
“I'm trying to find a shooting range.”
“What the hell for?” She'd had her car blown up, almost killing her, and this guy wanted to go shooting? What kind of nut job was he?
“I need to dirty up a rifle.”
“That still doesn't answer my question.”
“Sorry. Things are going to get much nastier before it's all over. I know my rifle is clean, which means that I won't be able to predict exactly where the shot will go. It may be good enough for what I have to do, but it might not, and I don't want to take any chances.”
“What do you mean that this is 'going to get nasty'?”
He gave her a long look and she was chilled by the way he held her eyes.
“The people who are trying to kill you have enough money and resources to pay for some of the world's best assassins to come after you. Statistically, you have already beat the odds but that won't last. They will send someone else after you and unless I'm in the top of my game, with my equipment all ready to go, they are going to get us both.”
The enormity of what he said hit her. Someone was trying to kill her and had almost succeeded.
“How do you know all of this?”
He reached up above the visor and handed her a manila envelope.
“Because I was one of the people sent to kill you.”
Tyrannicide, if a piece of software could be annoyed, was starting to get irritated. According to the news wires, all pulled off the Internet and analyzed in real time, one of the targets had not been taken care of. A stranger had rescued the target and taken off for parts unknown.
Not really a problem as the rest of the schedule appeared to be on track. It issued several new messages with instructions to its operatives.