Kill Code (25 page)

The Children of the Constitution, whoever the hell
they were, obviously had identified what they considered the
Schwerpunkt and were working to disrupt society by taking out key
individuals to achieve their goals. He thought that most people
wouldn't be able to function without the embrace of government
controlling their every action.

Leo had little or no use for government in any form.
He was responsible for his own actions and just wanted to do his
own thing without interference from agencies like the IRS, OSHA,
and most importantly, the BATF. There was a concept for a rifle
sound suppressor that he would have liked to develop, but he didn't
want to jump through all of the government mandated hoops to do
it.

And don't even get him started on the IRS. As the
coin store was largely a cash business, they were under constant
scrutiny and had been audited the past three out of four years.
Nothing out of the ordinary had been found, but it had taken many
hours to straighten out the mess generated by the IRS.

There were people who were probably cheering the
demise of all the government workers, feds and other power hungry
leeches. He didn't feel sorry for those killed. They had taken the
money to do their jobs and had finally been called accountable for
their actions.

He looked up and saw the time on the clock ...
almost noon. 

Where the hell did Jackie go and how long did she
figure to be gone? 

Settling his pistol into the holster, he set off to
look for her.

Jackie was exhausted to her very soul. Since
Nathan’s death, her world had been essentially destroyed and
despite finding Leo—which may or not have been the best thing to
do—what he did to her left her unsettled and uncertain.

She settled into the coffee shop next to the hotel.
The triple espresso latte seemed to help. Perhaps that was it; she
usually drank two or three of these coffees a day and she was way
down on her caffeine consumption. She could feel the stimulant
surge through her.

She looked around the coffee shop and noted the
people hunched over their laptops. They were probably watching the
headlines and reading alternative versions of the news.

Taking another sip of her coffee, which had turned
cold the way she liked it, she considered what to do next.
Authorities had apparently come to a dead end as far as finding out
who was behind the Children of the Constitution. That the attempts
on her life and they were tied together, there was no doubt. There
wasn't any direct evidence tying the two neatly into a bow, but her
problems started about the same time that the Children began their
reign of terror. Adding to the evidence was that, according to Leo,
professional killers had been sent after her, and had probably
killed Patrick Lackey, her accountant, in almost exactly the same
way that politicians and power brokers had been killed. They could
all be attributed to the Children.

So she was a target of the Children of the
Constitution. What had she done to deserve this? She had never even
registered to vote, and while she did tend to agree with some of
Nathan's anti-government rantings, she never took it to the extreme
that Nathan had suggested—the destruction of every government
function not specifically mentioned in the Constitution.

He was behind it, enacting his revenge from the
grave. And he had been responsible for the deaths of perhaps
hundreds of people over the years—that is, if had been behind the
assassination organization. Someone must answer for all of those
deaths.

According to the news report, only one or two
'innocents' had been killed since the Children launched their
campaign. The rest had been government workers all with lengthy
histories of violating civil rights, ranging from the EPA to the
IRS to OSHA and city, state and federal government workers. They
had died by poisoning, fire, sniper, explosions and strange
accidents. Somewhere, someone was taking stock of government
workers and measuring them to a standard—if they failed, they
died.

Government at all levels in Denver and the
surrounding areas was essentially shut down through fear.
Meanwhile, most people seemed to be continuing on with their
lives.

There had been some civil unrest, but it had been
quickly and quietly put down. Details weren't well known, but
rumored through various blogs were hints that the citizens took
care of their own problems and the police stood aside and
watched.

Then it hit her. Had she had something to do with
the start of this mess? The DVD she had loaded into the network.
What had been on it? Was there someone running the Children of the
Constitution, or was it something? The more she thought about it,
the more the evidence seemed to add up. But there were still some
pieces that needed to be filled in. She knew who she needed to talk
to.

She gulped down the rest of her coffee. As she
stood, a large black van, blue and red lights flashing, tore around
the corner accompanied by half a dozen squad cars.

They pulled in front of the hotel. She stepped onto
the street and moved back behind a mail box to watch what
happened.

A dozen heavily armed and armored police officers
jumped from the van and shuffled over to a hotel room. They knocked
the door in with a large battering ram. Then she recognized the
door—it was where she and Leo had been staying.

She couldn't break away, watching the door that the
police had stormed. Deep down, she knew that she should do her best
to put some distance between her and police, but she was stunned
into inaction.

A few minutes later, the door opened and Leo was led
out in handcuffs.

She slipped back into the gathered crowd of
spectators. She had to talk to a couple of her old employees.

###

Matthew Tudor had come up with a truly interesting
way to destroy the police department's armored vehicle. It was
stored in a very secure building and with all the recent problems,
it had more security than made him comfortable.

A scouting mission had given him an idea. The
building was simply a large concrete warehouse structure. As a
warehouse, it didn't have great ventilation, but did have automatic
carbon monoxide detectors that started fans if there was too much
exhaust gas present in the air—say if they were running a vehicle
without the doors open.

He surprised himself on how clever his attack was
going to be in making a gas enhanced explosive to take out the
whole building.

When most people thought of using gas to take out a
structure, they tried to use propane or natural gas, thinking that
any amount could be set off. Well, the Lower Explosive Limit on
propane was 2.1% and the Upper Explosive Limit was 10.1%. Below or
above those percentages, all you would get was a very interesting
fire. Yes, there may be an explosion, but it could simply blow out
the fire. Besides, propane was heavier than air and tended to sink
into basements and such, completely screwing up the desired effect.
He could use propane in a pinch, but the calculations required were
quite difficult to pull off.

The solution was to use a gas that had a broad range
of explosive limits. He had played with a gas called Silane—a
silicon analog of methane. Its explosive limits were between 1.5
and 98%. The problem was that it stunk so badly that it would make
you throw up and would spontaneously explode if you so much as
looked at it cross-eyed. It wasn't something that you could find
easily, though lots of it was made for various industrial processes
ranging from anti-graffiti coatings to a potential candidate for a
rocket engine that could work on Mars as it could use carbon
dioxide as an oxidizer.

The next candidate on the list was so much easier to
work with and could be found anywhere in the world, which made
working with something like Silane a non-starter. With explosive
limits of 2.5 to 81 percent, acetylene was the perfect choice. You
could get as much as you wanted at any welding supply shop, it
spread throughout an area equally, being about ten percent lighter
than air so you didn't have to worry about it diving into the
basement or other low-lying areas, and almost anything could set it
off.

The attack plan consisted of several layers. He had
two tanks of acetylene on a welding car and a manifold he had
constructed to connect them together. A hundred foot of hose along
with an ALA-17 Flare Cartridge at the end. That particular model
was designed for self-protection against heat seeking missiles in
the B-52 and he had picked up a crate of them at a military surplus
store quite cheap. They were electrically fired and ejected a very
hotly burning magnesium/Teflon pellet which would do nicely in
setting off his acetylene gas/air explosion.

The flare was connected via wire back to the tanks
and would be fired when the level of the acetylene dropped to a
certain point—one contact was wired to the gauge needle and the
other to a pin that the needle would contact when the gas got to a
certain level—a variation on the simple clock bomb. He had tried
using gas detectors tied to an electric match, but they were not
only expensive, but very unreliable. So, he went back to something
tried, true, simple and cheap.

There was a camera on the back of the building.
Crouching out of its view point as it panned the area, he
calculated how long it would take to come back around. Sure he
could have defeated it several different ways, but the instant
something went wrong with it, someone would come looking and may
discover him and his equipment.

He wasn't a burglar, but he had more than an amateur
level of ability in defeating alarm systems. The security system
around the police department garage didn't appear too sophisticated
and was comprised of what appeared only to be cameras on a rotating
sweep. No motion detectors, IR alarms, pressure plates. This made
sense as the building really didn't protect very much, just some
equipment. Who would be stupid enough to steal an outdated squad
car and what would you do with it once you had it?

The camera panned and as soon as it was out of
range, he crawled through the hole he cut in the bottom of the
fence and dragged the hose connected to the acetylene tanks along.
The camouflage job on the hose wouldn't pass close scrutiny, but it
would be more than enough to conceal it from the camera.

He made his way up to the building and stood under
the camera mount. Incidentally, it was right next to the exhaust
fan housing. Prying the vents open, he slid his hands in and cut
the wire to the motor. It might want to turn on, but now
couldn't.

Then he stuffed the hose in as far as he could,
being careful with the flare taped to the end. Of this operation,
that was the only thing that really scared him—that damn flare
going off. Magnesium burned at half the temperature of the surface
of the sun and he didn't want to be anywhere near it when it went
off.

He taped the hose to the side of the building, and
then waited for the camera to pan again. Then he made his way to
the fence and crawled back through. He looked at his work to see if
it would be detectible by the camera. In his best judgment, it
wouldn't be—the only way that someone could find it would be to
trip over the damn thing.

Closing the hole in the fence only took a couple of
minutes—he wasn't looking for undetectable as everyone would soon
be able to figure out what had happened, he just wanted to pass a
distant look.

Then he connected the firing device to the battery.
This was always the point where his pulse pounded in his ears—the
most dangerous part of the entire operation was providing power to
a device. Most explosives were reasonably stable, but detonators
were just looking for an excuse to go off, and often did, causing
all sorts of problems, the least being the loss of fingers. That's
why old demolition men often were a few digits short.

Nothing happened, which was good. He let out a sigh
and turned the valves to the acetylene tanks wide open and then
half a turn back. By his calculations, the building should be at
about fifty percent full with gas when the flare went off. Should
make for a very interesting explosion to say the least.

Checking his work again, he nodded and slipped into
the night.

###

FBI Special Agent Jeff Silver was at the top of his
game and he knew it. A patrol car had seen Leo Marston's truck
parked by the hotel and from there, it had been simple to pick him
up.

They found a silenced pistol on the night stand, a
laptop that the technical services guys were trying to break into
and some personal possessions. They had also towed back his truck
to the impound yard and were doing a complete inventory of it. The
most obvious finding was the rifle—unlike anything he had ever seen
before with a very heavy barrel, huge scope and strange stock. The
HRT sniper had looked at it and told him that it was one hell of a
rifle and who knew how accurate it could be—but the potential was
almost limitless, especially when they found the hand-loaded
ammunition and Leo's rifle log book.

There were other secrets in the truck and it would
probably require a complete disassembly of the vehicle to pry them
out—they had already found two hidden compartments, one containing
a quantity of gold coins and bullion and the other stuffed with old
series $100 bills.

The only sticking point was that Leo hadn't said one
word. He had complied with all of their commands, but was strangely
silent. Nothing they said could get him to say anything.

Silver looked through the one-way window of the
interrogation room at the shackled man seated at the desk. He
looked to be a statue that sat motionless for hours.

They had taken all of his clothes as evidence and he
was dressed in an orange jump suit that was at least two sizes too
big, but he still seemed to fill it with an eerie presence, like a
snake waiting to strike.