Junior ducked his chin and shook his head stubbornly. “Joan would never give me up to anyone. Never.”
Ames sighed. “Sooner or later your friend is going to be arrested for something. She’s a bad girl. If it’s a soliciting bust, it won’t be a problem, she’s in and out, but what if they catch her with serious dope on her? Or playing blackmail games with somebody who carries some weight? She knows how to do that now. You taught her the game. You don’t know that she might not get ambitious and branch out on her own. When they catch her — and they will — and if she’s looking at hard time, not in county lockup but in prison, and she’s got something to give them that gets her out of it, you think she won’t do it?”
“Not to me. Besides, she knows what I’d do to her if she did.”
“And you think some sweet-talking cop or fed can’t convince her you won’t be able to do anything because you will be locked away? She slept with this congressman and she knows that you were hiding in the closet taking pictures, Junior. When this guy turns up dead, she is going to notice, because it will be on the front page of every paper in the country and all over the radio, television, and Internet news. CNN will beat it to a pulp every half hour for days. She’s going to know one of the guys she set up for blackmail is dead, and unless she’s got cotton candy between her ears, she is going to know you probably had something to do with it.”
Junior just sat there, looking stubborn.
“Junior. She might be a great lay. She might be somebody who rings your chimes, but there are other women in the world, women who can’t send us to the death chamber. It’s a get-out-of-jail-free card, and you gave it to her. The murderer of a congressman? That’s a career-maker for any cop in the land if he solves it.”
“It wasn’t murder. It was self-defense.”
“You killed him in the commission of a felony. Blackmail. They’ll make it work. I sure could.”
“Joan doesn’t know about you.”
“But you know about me. And if you face the choice between giving me up or getting the gas chamber? I don’t trust you that much.”
“So what are you sayin’?”
“You know exactly what I am saying. And do it fast, before she has a chance to think about things too long. I don’t want this hanging over us.”
Junior didn’t say anything. He stood there for another moment silently. Ames could see his mind working, see him trying to figure out an alternative, but there wasn’t one. They both knew that.
After a minute or two, Junior gave a single sharp nod and left. When he was gone, Ames sat for another twenty minutes, thinking about the situation. This was never in any of the scenarios he’d postulated.
Junior, like the woman he’d hired to honey-trap his victims, was now a liability. Junior was going to have to go away, and Ames was going to have to do the deed himself — he couldn’t afford to get anybody else involved at this stage.
Maybe he’d have Junior meet him at the underground hideaway in Texas, do it there. He could grind him up, flush him away… no, better yet, once Junior was no longer among the living, he could leave him somewhere with enough evidence that he’d killed the woman and the congressman, something subtle, but something the investigators wouldn’t miss. Once they ran that down, that would dead-end the hunt. Sure, they would suspect Junior had been working for somebody, but once you had the actual shooter, the pressure would be off; that’s how it worked in cop shops around the world. “He did it” was much more final than “Maybe he was working for somebody who told him to do it.”
Ames nodded to himself. Yes. Once Junior was gone, there wouldn’t be any provable links to himself. Of course, the CyberNation legislation wasn’t final yet, there were still some things that had to be done, and Junior needed to be around to do those, but as soon as the last pieces were put in play, which wouldn’t be too much longer, then Junior would be leaving for his final destination.
John Howard looked at Julio and frowned. “What is so important that you are willing to irritate the Marines, Lieutenant?”
Julio grinned. “Well, sir, I believe anything we can do to irritate them is important.”
Howard didn’t grin back. He merely shook his head. They were at the Marines’ outdoor pistol/rifle range, not Net Force’s smaller, private facility. They were there because Julio had asked General Howard to meet him there.
Julio, seeing Howard’s expression, grew more serious himself. “Gunny won’t let us play with ballistic gel on his range,” he said. “Says it’s too messy, so I had to find somewhere else. This place was closest and most convenient. And speaking of Gunny, he says he’s got a line on a Hammerli SP20 target pistol in.22 LR, convertible to.32 S&W. It’s got an adjustable buffer and anatomical trigger and grips, and is supposed to be in Very Good condition. A real nice gun for Tyrone to learn with.”
Howard raised one eyebrow at him. “How much?”
“Gunny says he can make it happen for three hundred.”
Howard’s other eyebrow went up. “You’re kidding,” he said. “One of those in rotten shape ought to go for more than twice that. VG would run fifteen, eighteen hundred minimum.”
Julio grinned again. “You’ve been checking prices.”
“I want the boy to have a decent tool to work with.”
“Well, you know how Gunny works. He’s a horse trader from way back. He’ll swap something for something, kick in something else, and wind up with a deal that everybody is happy with. Should I tell him you’re interested?”
“Three hundred bucks for a world-class pistol that sells for five times that much used? Yes, I’m interested.”
“I figured. But you know, if you hold out, I expect Gunny will shave some off that — he sees Tyrone as the son he never had. Watching the boy shoot brings tears to his cynical old eyes.”
Howard nodded, then changed the subject. “Okay, so other than Tyrone getting some new hardware, why are we here?”
“You remember those trophy-winning XM-109A Wind Runner BMG rifles we got?”
“I seem to recall them,” Howard said, his voice as dry as the Sahara. He’d remember them as long as his memory worked — one of the BMG — for Browning machine gun — rifles had saved his life when that gone-bad federal agent started plinking at him during the California-druggie situation last year. In addition, the fifty-caliber takedown rifle had allowed Net Force shooters to win the most recent Thousand Meter Special Teams Match for United States Military Services at Camp Perry. First win ever. Outstanding piece of hardware, that weapon.
“Well, the fifty-caliber ammo our shooters used to win the match was made by RBCD, down in Texas. Stuff uses BMT — that’s Blended Metal Technology, a high-tech bullet design — and blended powder. We’re talking a real tack-driver here, John.”
“And we’re talking about this, here, now, because…?”
“Because RBCD makes handgun ammo, too. I don’t know how I missed it, but they do.”
“And…?
“And it will not only outperform just about everything else out there in accuracy, it also has some tactical advantages as well. Check out the targets.”
Howard followed Julio to the bay. Twenty-five meters downrange was a big deflective-steel target table, upon which were six large, rectangular blocks.
“The two on the left are ten percent ordnance gelatin wrapped in four layers of ballistic nylon. The next two are the same, but with a sheet of tempered glass set up a foot or so in front of them. The two on the right are clay blocks.”
“I can see that, Lieutenant.”
“Well, General, if you would, please put one round into the gel on the left side with that Medusa of yours.”