Intelligence Kills

Chapter 13

Thirteen-

Rouse's Point of View:

Click... Click...

Sniper quit moving. His eyes were empty, staring straight out in front of him. His face paled his eye lids started to drop. He seemed to have trouble breathing. It seemed to take forever as Sniper's hand was pulled out of Athena's. He fell backwards, his eyes shut and Athena screamed.

"What happened," I asked. Athena seemed like she was going into a momentary state of shock. I snapped my fingers in front of her face. "What the heck happened?! Athena Hoffman, get it together! Answer me now!"

Still, nothing happened with her. It wasn't going to happen anyway. Jack was already on his knees, ripping off Sniper's shirt. He had his ear pressed against Sniper's chest. The sun glared off of the metal plates in Sniper's stomach and it made me feel sick. Jack sat back on his heels and shook his head. There wasn't a heartbeat.

I sat by Sniper's head. Gravely, Jack readied himself for CPR. I nodded to Jack. "Start chest compressions."

Jack put all of his force down on Sniper's chest. There several crackling noises in Sniper's chest. I was reminded of the CPR videos from the seventh grade. Breaking ribs was good. It meant that the person doing chest compressions was doing them correctly. Athena stood to the side, her eyes widened. She was still in shock and it would take her a few moments to snap out of her stupor.

"This isn't working," Jack said angrily. He blew out all of his air and glared down at Sniper's motionless body. "Why now of all times for Sniper to just drop dead?"

"It probably wasn't his choice," I retorted. Jack glared at me.

"How the hell would you know? None of us know what happened and it's not like Sniper tells us anything anyway. He may have kept this whole thing to himself just so none of us would find out," Jack growled.

"Oh shut up. You don't know that," I started.

"Both of you shut up," Athena said, venom dripping from her voice. She ripped off the rest of Sniper's destroyed shirt and signaled for us to pick him up. She opened the car door and helped get him into the backseat. Once we were all settled in, she said the words that could only make sense.

She stared at us solemnly and I was reminded of a funeral service. "The kill switch was hit."

Jack and I exchanged glances. Athena rolled her eyes as both us kept looking at her in confusion.

"The clicking noises were caused by the chip relaying the message for his whole body to go into shutdown. That's why there was a delayed reaction before Sniper fell. His kill switch was activated."

Athena's Point of View:

They stared at me stupidly. Sniper's head rested in my lap, his face was colorless, and eyes shut. His long dark lashed rested in the hollow beneath his eyes. I ran my fingers through my hair before looking back up at the stupidest federal agents I'd ever seen in my life.

"How'd you figure it out," Rouse asked finally.

"The facts are basically bitch-slapping you in the face right now. The message from Mace, Sniper's obvious facial expressions of dread when he learned he had the kill switch. Then there was Cathro's warning and the next thing we know, Sniper's out on the ground," I pointed out slowly. How many agents does it take to think like a single agent? Two because Jack and Rouse are dumb and dumber.

"Oh." Jack's voice was really small. He looked helpless and hopeless. "So what do we do now?"

"Well we can't just sit here and expect them to hit the revival switch, if he even has one. That would be the wrong sort of thing," I said slowly. "We need to go by at least a few of Sniper's plans."