Kill Code by Joseph Collins

rounds so he would have to make each
shot count. His cased rifle he set on the concrete bench at the
hundred-yard range. He dug out his log book and Kestrel wind,
humidity and temperature gauge. Finally, he uncased his rifle. It
was the best rifle that he had ever owned or shot. Built on a
receiver he built himself, with a Hart barrel in a shortened .338
Lapua chamber. The trick was that it was a .30 caliber barrel. His
favorite load pushed a bullet of that size and a decent velocity
and Leo was sure that he hadn't rung out all the potential accuracy
of the rifle. 
    Finally, roughly set up, he tapped on the truck
window. When he did get to shooting, he didn't want to frighten
Jackie.
    She looked up.
    “You gonna help or are you gonna stay there?”
    Jackie rolled down the window and pointed a gun at
him.
    ###
    She didn't know what to think. Why was this man
helping her? Did he mean to kill her here and leave her body?
Jackie needed more answers than Leo had provided. Yet she didn't
know how to get those answers. Was she in fear for her life? Hell
yes. What would she do to find out what she needed to put her life
together? Almost anything. But how? That still didn't leave her
very many options.
    Jackie had watched as Leo unloaded all of his crap.
Her mind was in turmoil. How was this tied into Nathan? Or was it?
Did the gun that Nathan left specifically for her have something to
do with it?
    She reached into her satchel and felt the cold and
strangely comforting feel of the pistol. “Are you gonna help or are
you gonna stay there?” Startled, Jackie instinctively had pulled it
out and pointed it at him. She was more than shocked when he merely
smiled.
    “What are you gonna do with that?” he asked. You
would think that he was used to having guns pointed at him.
    “I don't know,” was all that she could say.
    He motioned at it and said, “Do you mind?”
    “What?”
    Deftly, he pulled it from her grip. He pushed a
button on the grip and a piece of metal came from the bottom. She
could see a gleaming bullet in the metal. He slapped it back into
the pistol, pulled the metal piece on the top, then pushed a button
on the side. Handing it back to her, he said, “Beretta 92SF, same
pistol issued to the US military. It comes with a loaded chamber
indicator. Yours wasn't loaded. Now it is.”
    Why had he done that?
    “So, I could shoot you now, if I wanted?”
    His face cracked a smile. “Take the safety off first
if you plan on doing that. In the meantime, I need some help.”
    Curious, and stunned at the same time, she stuffed
the pistol back into her computer case and climbed from the
truck.
    Following him, she watched as he set up a bunch of
stuff that she didn't understand. He seemed so preoccupied that she
didn't want to interrupt him.
    Jackie just tried to stay out his way. Finally, he
strolled out onto the range, set up something on a tripod, and then
put a target up. She figured it was only at a hundred yards—she
could see two other places to put targets up and they both seemed
really far out there.
    Leo tossed her a set of ear muffs and then put on a
set of his own.
    “You're gonna want to wear those until I'm
done.”
    Leo picked up a rifle. It had a heavy-looking
barrel, dull finish and had a huge scope on it. Leo carefully
placed it on a stand on the bench. Reaching inside a case, he
pulled out an electronic device and held it up in the wind. He
noted down some numbers.
    “What's that?” she asked.
    “A Kestrel weather meter. A lot of factors affect
the trajectory of a bullet and this takes some of the guess work
out it by providing elevation, humidity, temperature and wind
speed.” She realized that she was speaking normally and could hear
just fine. Probably some sound-blocking mechanism in the ear
muffs.
    He pulled out a pocket calculator and did some quick
figuring. Consulting a table that was taped to the side of the
stock, he twisted the knob on the scope. Then he took a bullet and
slid it into the