Corrector (9 page)

His relationship with Karin was clearly reshaping his thinking.  The first weeks after he’d attempted to disclose to her what he’d been doing had been extremely difficult for him.  He smiled as he recalled the evening he’d shared with Karin just over a week ago.  It had been like old times, and had brought back much of his positive outlook.  It had also started him thinking along the new path.  Of course, part of him didn’t believe what he was considering.  Otherwise why had he been intent on building up his supply of special arms?

With their relationship somewhat stabilized, Jake had been able to think clearly once again and had managed to complete the software project for NASA which he had sent off earlier in the week.  He had declined another assignment they had offered, at least for now.  To keep himself occupied he had started on a small iPad App, but hadn’t gotten beyond the first level blocking out of the project.

Zach and Cheryl had invited him for dinner this coming Friday, making him promise to bring Karin along.  Jake was certain that Cheryl had known of the rift that had been building between him and Karin, and was doing her part to be certain it was patched up.  More than once Cheryl had dropped hints his way that he should be careful and not let Karin get away.  She had become more open in recent months and clearly was adding a little push to move the relationship between the two into something more permanent.

His only partially thought through plan to curtail his correction activities had left him undecided whether to pursue another fake identity.  He’d been using the current one longer than he liked, but if he were really to stop, he wouldn’t need another.  Credit cards were less of a problem, and he had several different accounts loosely linked to the identity.  The ID’s required him to seek the kind of sources he wasn’t fully comfortable with.  Getting a card with an identity that wouldn’t bounce on the first check was necessary, and difficult.

Over the last few years he’d gotten clever with the credit card and ID linkage.  He assumed the police who might be looking for a specific card would probably have a means to obtain the names to which the cards were issued and look for commonality there as well.  That had led him to certain kinds of subterfuge.  When he used a credit card, he’d noted how casually everyone looked at the identification they requested along with the card.  People looked first at the picture, and sometimes at the last name.  They seldom looked at the first name.  He had even experimented when not back-tracking using his own card.  He’d had one made up with his supposed “wife’s” name on his account, and for several weeks had used that instead of his own.  No one noted that the card he handed them said “Amy” instead of “Jake”. 

After that, he started using cards with certain changes to make it harder for any legal authorities that might be looking for him to get a list of names that would recur.  He used initials instead of first names on the cards.  A “B” and an “E” look very much the same at a quick glance.  Couple that with a common last name, and the database was corrupted.  Sometimes he had the credit cards made up with a different name.  John instead of Jim.  The most effective deterrent was something he’d read about in an Internet mail that someone had sent him.  That was the ability of the mind to read words or names that were incorrectly spelled or to read the name that was expected from an incomplete or incorrect set of letters.  He would use names on the cards that if examined correctly weren’t the same as the name on his ID.  But by handing the ID first and having given the desired name, those who examined the credit card with it’s careful selection of letters for the last name, would “see” what wasn’t there.  As a result, he was certain that even if any attempt was being made to track him by the credit cards, the effort was not being successful.  The use of multiple cards with the same ID, and the conflicting names he’d been able to pass along with the ID should have totally confused the effort.

Even so, he thought it was time to get another ID, just in case.  Too long with anything increased the risk.  And, like the rifle barrels, he wanted to have supplies on hand.  He hoped to back away from his Corrector activities, but had found compelled to go forward in the past.  He couldn’t tell yet how successful he was going to be at making such a change to his lifestyle.

Brady Larken had done this before.  Twice before, actually.  The cops had never come close to finding him or developing a clue who he might be.  For one thing, he didn’t live anywhere near here.  He didn’t even live in Southern California for that matter.  His home was in New Mexico, and he had come a long way hoping for a chance like this.  He had planned on taking action over the 4
th
of July several weeks ago, but the security over holidays like that was still far greater than one might expect.  It hadn’t taken any real brainpower to decide that it was better to wait.  That had led to this trip.

His motorbike that waited nestled in the trees a few feet away was secondary transportation, something that fit on the back of his motor home which was parked at the campgrounds up by Santa Clarita, a long way from here.  Santa Clarita was far enough away that the police would be a long time before looking in that direction for the shooter, and by then he would be gone again.

He had found the location by a combination of searching maps and using the satellite photos for a likely spot.  Then he’d scouted a half dozen places he’d selected over the past week as he explored the area.  He’d liked this one best for several reasons.  To start with, the large regional park behind him gave an open area where there were few people, especially at this hour and in the middle of the week.  Also, the park had stands of trees, one group of which he was hidden in at the moment, that came up very close to the freeway in front of him.  The freeway was also somewhat special.  Within a short distance of where he sat, three freeways, the 10, the 71 and the 57 all joined and intermingled.  All of these were heavily traveled and provided key routes from the busy  downtown area out to the bedroom communities on the eastern edge of the city.  This morning the traffic was already starting to build, although it would be more than an hour before gridlock set in and the pace slowed to a crawl.  That was fine with him.  He didn’t want the traffic to be nearly stopped.  The kinds of reactions he hoped for wouldn’t be possible if everyone was moving slowly.  No, this time was perfect.  The early travelers were moving along briskly, many still half asleep as they made their way into work, retracing a route they had taken countless times before.  Some of the women were trying to put on makeup, even while moving at freeway speeds. 
Idiots
, he thought.

His rifle was already out of the case and assembled, the two halves fitting together smoothly as they had done countless times before on the range.  He had a twenty round magazine inserted and a round chambered.  He also had two more twenty round magazines, but he didn’t expect to use them.  By the time the one magazine was expended, it would be time to go.  He knew he could get off a number of shots before anyone realized what was happening.  Afterwards, he would jump on the bike, the rifle taken down and stowed in a special case designed to carry the two parts.  Disassembled and stored in the small case, the weapon wouldn’t scream to anyone what he was carrying. 

There was a small overpass not too far from where he was hidden.  At this time of day it was seldom used, and he could slip over the freeway and into one of the housing complexes in a matter of minutes.  With the winding and nearly random layout of the streets, he could easily lose anyone who didn’t know the area.  He’d made a point of learning the layout of the streets and had a mental picture of the best routes through the maze.

It was time.  He felt his pulse quicken as it had in the past.  The range would be relatively short and he’d chosen a low power setting on the military grade scope.  He focused on the busier of the freeways and selected the traffic moving toward him which gave him a clear view of the drivers behind their windshields.  The rifle was resting on a padded blanket over a large limb of the tree which he knelt behind.  He’d practiced his move, and could easily swing to cover almost a third of a complete circle easily.

He fired the first three shots quickly, the three vehicles moving almost parallel in the lanes toward him.  He saw the last of the drivers driven back as the small .223 round smashed through the windshield and hit him in the face. 

“Gotcha,” he exclaimed, seeing the bullet strike home.

All three cars swerved, out of control as their drivers died or were badly wounded.  The next shot killed the driver of a large truck carrying a load of caustic liquid in the large tank behind the forward cab.  As the driver died and lost control, the truck wandered across several lanes of traffic, pushing nearby cars aside effortlessly causing additional collisions.  Finally the truck jack-knifed and tipped, the large tank breaking open and spilling the load across multiple lanes of traffic.  Brady knew it would take hours to clean up the mess, ensuring a monumental traffic jam today. 

He shot a couple of additional passing vehicles on another of the freeways, counting to himself as he fired round after round.  His last shot went into a large SUV that was moving far too fast for the traffic and had been cutting in between other cars with far too little margin as he shifted between lanes.  Brady’s snap shot had been extremely lucky.  As the driver died, he pulled the wheel to the side, side-swiping an ambulance that was also moving fast, driving the emergency vehicle into the side of an overpass.  Both the driver and the pregnant woman who was in labor died in the resulting crash.

Larken had expended his planned twenty rounds.  For the briefest of moments he wondered if he could take the chance of firing another magazine.  He wouldn’t have to be as careful with his shots as he’d been with the first batch.  He could simply hose down the freeway before he split.  Better stick to the plan, he decided.  The word had to be getting out by now.  Everyone had a cell phone and a number of the drivers had to be calling into the police in panic by now.  He should be departing.

Quickly he stripped the rifle into two parts which packed neatly into the padded case.  He pushed the empty magazine into the empty slot next to the two loaded ones, then closed the case.  It no longer looked like a rifle, and the case sitting on the back of his bike would go unnoticed. 

He looked at the brass scattered around the ground.  There was little he could do about that.  Some of it he could retrieve, but some of the cases had bounced down the slope and were resting in the brush out of sight.  It would take too long to try and retrieve it and if he couldn’t get it all there was little point of going after any of it.  He’d never handled it without gloves, so unless the cops got their hands on his rifle, it wouldn’t matter.  He was confident they would never get close to him and have a chance to make that kind of a match-up.  Let ‘em try.

With the rifle secured, he stood and walked away from the tree that had provided him cover and support.  The pack was quickly strapped into place, and he slung a leg over and settled into the seat.  The bike started first try, and after a moment to let the engine settle, he twisted the throttle and bounced the few feet across the dirt and grass, over the sidewalk, and onto the small overpass.  Within minutes he was motoring along one of the larger back streets of the residential neighborhood, well away from the carnage he had caused.

Jake knew that time was running out if he were to act.  He had been tracking the story carefully for a number of days now and it was obvious the police hadn’t learned anything useful about the freeway sniper and were no closer to coming up with a suspect for the shooting.  The asshole who had done this was going to get away.  He had almost certainly gone to ground, if he was even still in the area.  Fifteen people had been shot by the killer, twelve of them dying from their wounds.  Another nine victims had died from accidents associated with the attack, and at least seventy more people had been injured.  The news had moved onto other stories the last couple of days so Jake didn’t know if any others had died since the last report.

For the first two days the media had been full of video and photos of the freeways and the snipers hide where he had launched the attack.  The man was a lunatic and careless to boot.  He had left a lot of evidence that would hang him if he was ever apprehended, but that was seeming to be more unlikely as each day passed. There was always the chance another encounter would eventually reveal who the culprit was, but that would more than likely be after more innocent people died.

Jake was convinced the shootings were random, and not a cover for a specific target.  It would have been difficult to ensure taking down a specific person as he passed by on the freeway.  The choice of weapon was telling as well.  The .223 was a small bullet, and wouldn’t have been the best selection for penetrating a speeding car window and ensuring a selected kill.  A heavier round would have been preferable.  No, the killer had used the most common center fire semi-auto rifle round rather than something designed to ensure a specific target.  He had wanted to cause as much general mayhem as possible.

What to do?
  Jake stewed about his options.  He had made a private pledge to back off on his personal involvement in such things.  Of late, he and Karin seemed to be getting back on track, and he didn’t want to jeopardize that in any way.  But it was unacceptable to him that this situation could stand.  He worked through all of the rationalizations regarding the number of people who died that he couldn’t help, but it didn’t matter.  A doctor couldn’t save the world, but that didn’t stop him from doing what he could for those he encountered.