The Prisoner - Carlos J. Cortes [137]
After assembling the rifle’s collapsible stock, IR laser, and scope, Wilson linked the weapon’s Kestrel—a squat box housing temperature, wind, and atmospheric-pressure sensors—to his computer pad and set the weapon down on its squat tripod in the water. Then he assessed the puddle. He could try to lie partially on top of the case, but that would hamper his hold on the rifle. With a huff, he laid the case open on the water and next to the weapon, removed his jacket, folded it with care, and lowered himself into the puddle, stretching prone in the water. After turning and twisting to get as comfortable as possible, he reached to a side pocket in the rifle case and picked out a plastic box by feel.
Although designed almost five decades earlier, the precision-machined .408 cartridge remained state of the art: supersonic at over two thousand yards and with more punch than a .50 at shorter ranges. Out of habit, Wilson selected each gleaming projectile and rubbed it over the crook between his chin and lower lip for a film of body oil that wouldn’t affect the bullet’s performance but would give good luck. When the six-projectile clip was full, he rammed it in its housing, turned his cap around, leaned on the stock, and adjusted his eye to the scope, a finger slowly rotating the focusing piece until the view leaped into crisp detail. Slowly, Wilson panned vertically until he found the windows he sought: the upper story of a pent house in a building a mile away.
Although his bodyguards had not turned around when he got into the car, Lawrence Ritter recognized their necks and the mounds of solid flesh curling like doughnuts over stiff white collars: Demorizi and Bancroft, good ex-army muscle, loyal and unhampered by high IQs. His personal assistant, Bernard Gluck, traveled in a car behind with another security officer, although at times they would maneuver ahead or to the sides, in particular when slowing down at intersections or at traffic lights.
Ritter patted his case and was about to unclasp it when he thought better of it. The documents weren’t that important, and he had to think about the piece of flimsy paper with machine-code lines burning in his jacket’s inner pocket, returned to him—after the program was lodged in the satellite—by a friend from infancy who happened to have risen to the higher echelons of the NSA.
Genia Warren’s moxie the day before had taken him by surprise. Her codes to lodge what amounted to a dead-man’s handle in the satellite routing at Hypnos’s traffic, and the program printed on the paper, had needed deft footwork and time. Genia had an army of computer specialists and could have cashed in a quiet favor for the program, but the codes were another matter and hinted at someone high up. Yet Ritter found the details irrelevant before the real issue: time. Such a devious plan to cancel the disposal of center inmates needed not only intimate knowledge of the system but the time to mull over its chinks, gather the data, and shape the package. Since such a scheme would be useful only if the disclosure of Hypnos’s shenanigans was imminent, either Genia had developed the ploy since the breakout or she knew earlier that it would happen. Ritter had thought of little else since the day before, arriving at the unshakable conclusion that Genia hadn’t had the time to work out the intricate details since the prisoners escaped.
So, you’re planning a coup. Genia had been in Odelle Marino’s sights for a long time. He’d watched from the sidelines as Genia bowed to Odelle’s whims with a meekness he’d found maddening and at odds with Genia’s character and intellect. Now the pesky pieces slotted nicely into the puzzle, but Ritter viewed the evolving picture with foreboding. Odelle was a formidable opponent and wielded enormous power. He patted his jacket and felt the soft crunch of paper. For an instant, he pictured Genia’s fingers slipping into her bra, closed his eyes, and enjoyed the warm feeling. That he would never allow her to go solo—however