Free Kim Oh 2: Real Dangerous Job (The Kim Oh Thrillers) by K. W. Jeter

bastard.”
     
    That impressed me, too. I handed the bullet back to him.
     
    “They’re strictly controlled,” said Cole. “Only law enforcement officers are supposed to get their hands on them.”
     
    “Yeah, like a lot of the stuff you’ve got around here.” I glanced around the warehouse, then back to him. “But do we really need things like that? To do what we want to do?”
     
    “We might.” Cole dropped the bullet into the pouch at the side of his wheelchair. “If you’re imagining that this job is going to be a piece of cake, you’re way out of line. It would’ve been tough before – and now it’s going to be lot tougher. Michael’s really taking his job seriously, as the company’s security head. He’s really tightened things up. McIntyre doesn’t show his face out on the street anymore. They drive him in to the parking garage, then take him upstairs in the elevator. The whole way, he’s surrounded by his people.”
     
    “How do you know all this?”
     
    “I’ve got my sources.”
     
    “Like who?”
     
    “Doesn’t matter,” said Cole. “Some people tell me things because they hate McIntyre as much as you do. Not going to break their hearts when something bad happens to him. Other people – I’ve gotta pay them, to get them to talk. That’s one of the reasons we needed so much money. Information costs. At least the good stuff does.”
     
    I mulled it over. “So all that would be why a sniper operation wouldn’t work?”
     
    “Basically. We just wouldn’t have a chance of getting a clear shot at McIntyre. Not from a distance. So we’ll have to move in close. With the equipment we’ve got, the problem won’t be blowing away McIntyre and his bodyguards. We can do that. What we gotta work out, though, is getting in. Where we’d have a tight shot on him. We pull that off, you won’t have to worry about how good your aim is. You’ll be standing right on top of him.”
     
    “If,” I said. “If we can get in.”
     
    Cole nodded. “That’s the real job. The rest is just details.”
     
    “So how do we do it?”
     
    “I’m working on it. And you’re going to help me sort it out. You know stuff – stuff about McIntyre – that I need to know.”
     
    “What would that be?”
     
    “Think about it,” said Cole. “You sat on top of that guy’s business for over a year. Those weren’t just numbers. There were names attached. Go through that data the right way, and all kinds of useful things might pop up. You’d know who he meets, when he meets up with them, where they do it, even what they talk about. That’s what’s in those numbers. And –” He pointed with his finger. “In your head. You probably know more about where McIntyre comes and goes than he does.”
     
    “I’m . . . not sure about that.”
     
    “I am. I’ve done jobs like this before. Trust me on this one.”
     
    “Okay.” I sat down on the weightlifting bench, laid my arms on my knees and looked over him. “So we figure out where McIntyre comes and goes. And when. What good does that do us?”
     
    “Dig it.” Cole picked up a dumbbell from one of the racks and started doing arm curls. “When McIntyre’s home safe, with his bodyguards, or he’s in that office of his, then he’s protected. He’s hard to get at. But when he moves from one place to another, the protection thins out. That’s just the nature of reality. Nobody is ever as safe when they’re going from Point A to Point B, as they are once they’ve arrived. So that’s when McIntyre becomes vulnerable. That’s where we get at him.”
     
    It seemed to make sense. If anything did anymore.
     
    “One more thing.” Cole switched the weight to his other hand. “That we gotta think about.”
     
    “What’s that?”
     
    “What else do you want to do? Besides kill McIntyre?”
     
    “Huh?” I felt my brow crease. “What do you mean?”
     
    “I mean,” said Cole, “do you want to be alive afterward