He huffed out a laugh as his imagination ran riot, conjuring bullets tipped with poison.
I’m in neck deep…
The swish of the door opening had Jackson looking up.
Randall had returned and walked towards him. “Are you all right?”
Jackson turned his head to face him. “You’d prefer honesty, yeah?”
Randall nodded.
“No, I’m not all right. A part of me wants to know what the hell you’re up to, but another part?” He shook his head. “Jesus, I don’t want to know. See, I kill people, I explained all that, but when I’m doing it, I’m getting rid of a bad person.”
“As I will be tonight if everything has come together as it should have and the software doesn’t hit a glitch.”
“Yeah, and I get that. But this selling of the software? Bugs the fuck out of me. How can you be sure you’d be selling it to the right person? Or what if that person sells it on to someone else? Someone bad? You mentioned a bidding war, but what if the one with the most money wins—you’d sell to them, right?—and that winner has a different use for the software to what you intended? What then?”
“That’s been my issue for a long time, since the idea of the software came along. I developed it for my own personal use, then got stupid and wanted to tell people about it. To share what I’d done because it was so bloody amazing. I put the word out there on a secret forum that it would soon be finished, and I knew it would be wanted by many—after all, who doesn’t want to quietly eliminate people who want to eliminate them? It was meant for people in my situation. A covert acquiring of the software for those in the know. They could obtain the alarm system and software and it would keep them from harm. But others found out about it.”
“Others?”
“People in various governments.”
“Oh shit. Didn’t you realise they would once word got out?”
“Clearly, I didn’t think. My need to be recognised somehow overtook common sense. Although the information was put out there without my name being mentioned—I did it via my computer, used an alias—I knew it wouldn’t take an expert long to track it back to me, even though I took preventative measures.” He shook his head. “And it was tracked back. By my father—or someone working for him. I should have known they would have some kind of monitor on my computer anyway. They probably have all the data and now just need the actual software to run it from.”
He paused, biting his lower lip. “So, despite tonight and my immediate threats being taken care of, I may possibly gain more threats in the future if my father has told other people I’m the one who created the software. I shouldn’t have let the word out. Shouldn’t have been so damn needy for recognition.” He went quiet, then added, “Shouldn’t have wanted to show him I was worth something—that even though I was a bastard, we could… Fuck it.”
“Look, I get that, I really do, mate, but what’s done is done, and we need to deal with clearing this shit up. If this software is so good… They think it’s complete, do they? The people who know it exists, I mean.”
Randall nodded.
“So what kind of nutter would risk coming here to take it from you when they know it’s set up here, when they know what it can do?”
“Because some people want it very badly and would be prepared to risk lives to get it. Why do you think my father sent that last man here? Why do you think he set up a bloody timetable of return visits if previous ones didn’t work out? Because he knew the men he was sending to kill me, sending to get the software, would die.”
“Then you shouldn’t be here! If he has people in his employ like you, who know what they’re doing, who are able to figure out just from your data how it works, they’ll be working on ways to dodge being killed, to shut down your system in order to seize your software. They don’t have to be on your property to have your electricity supply stopped. I’m assuming there needs to be a steady supply for your software to work?”
“Yes. Generators come in handy there.”
Jackson shook his head and stared at the coffee table. “So no matter what they try, providing your generators don’t pack up, you’d be safe from them.”
“Pretty much. I wouldn’t have been, but that deer going down…”
“And say they got through, got to the house somehow. What then?”
“The software… I think I’m there with it.”
“So I’m just here in case your software doesn’t work?” Jackson got up and walked to the window he’d watched Sid through earlier. Anger burned inside him. If the software was basically complete, if there was something else that could kill the assassin instead of him…
“You do understand why I needed you here, don’t you?” Randall asked.
Jackson did, but it didn’t mean he liked being used. Then another thought struck him. What did it matter anyway? He was being paid, wasn’t he? He’d been employed to do a job. Whether or not he ended up doing it was neither here nor there—he’d get paid anyway. Sid had already been given the money. He didn’t need to know how their visitor had got killed, just that he was dead. And Jackson doubted Randall would be telling Sid his secret. Jackson would tell Sid he’d dealt with the body, so no one would be any the wiser.
“Yeah, I get it,” Jackson said. “I’d prefer
