Among Charlie's crew, the one Hunter feared most was undoubtedly Lyle, the top hacker who excelled at computers.
That guy could break into and control all of Los Angeles's traffic systems at any time and bend them to his will.
After Slater returned to the city from the farm her father had left her,
though Charlie was still hospitalized, his partners quickly came looking for her.
They wanted to learn from Slater exactly what had happened that night,
and who had rescued her!
But Slater kept her lips sealed.
She only told them that a friend of hers had saved her.
Such an answer clearly didn't satisfy Charlie's crew.
However, because Charlie was secretly in love with Slater and was the team's leader,
after that, Slater—who had never been close to Charlie's partners—became completely estranged from them.
In the half-month since returning from the farm, she told Hunter she had visited Charlie in the hospital only twice.
Both times she ran into his partners, but they barely spoke.
Because Slater refused to tell them who had rescued her,
Charlie and the others, eager to find out who had stolen the gold bricks Steve had taken, were furious.
But now Hunter was exposed!
He didn't suspect Slater of lying to him.
So odds were Lyle had traced the ford mustang—now registered under Hunter's name for some time—and dug up his information.
With Lyle's skills, Hunter didn't doubt he could uncover those details,
allowing Charlie and the others to lock onto him—and even onto his several lovers!
Hunter had dealt with Lyle before; to master the man's top-tier hacking skills, he'd flattered him for a while and actually got on pretty well with the shut-in.
He also knew Lyle was physically weak—there was no way he'd ever raise a hand against him.
But if Lyle helped Charlie and the others dig up information on him, Hunter would still be in a very passive position.
On one side were new friends he'd known for only a month or two; on the other, partners he'd worked with for years. Hunter had no doubt which way Lyle would jump.
Still, although he was wary of Lyle, the hacker hadn't made it onto Hunter's must-die list.
After all, he was just a shut-in—once his teammates were taken care of, the guy couldn't possibly threaten Hunter.
The ones who truly stirred his killing intent were Charlie, Playboy Rob, and the black guy in their crew who specialized in building bombs, Left Ear.
Charlie was still in the hospital, but he kept thinking about Slant.
Hunter refused to believe Charlie knew nothing about investigating his identity or planting the note and homemade bomb in his car.
Yet he suspected the mastermind behind the whole series of events wasn't Charlie.
Hunter had heard from Slater that Charlie had only just woken from a coma.
That night, to rescue Slater, the guy had taken several bullets and nearly ended up a vegetable.
Right now Charlie was still lying motionless in a hospital bed.
At most he could only be having ideas.
Hunter suspected the one who'd planned to plant the paper—and even the bomb threat—in his car was Playboy Rob among Charlie's companions.
The guy was good at handling women and smart and well-read enough to be a very troublesome opponent.
Unless he was eliminated, Hunter worried that, for those tens of millions of us dollars in gold bricks, Rob might actually make a move against him.
The black bomb-maker Left Ear couldn't be left alive either.
The guy excelled at crafting every kind of explosive—who knew when he might slip into Hunter's place,
or plant a bomb under his car.
In short, both men were now unstable factors in his eyes.
Deal with them early and there'd be fewer headaches later.
The motorcycle wove rapidly through the streets, and Hunter soon reached a particular road.
He'd spent the past few days tailing Charlie and his partners, and had tracked down the one who worried him most—Playboy Rob.
The guy had recently hooked a beautiful nurse from the hospital where Charlie was staying; she was completely smitten with Rob.
Every few nights she used the excuse of working late to sneak off and enjoy herself with the playboy.
Barring surprises, Rob should be meeting the nurse again tonight.
Still some way from the target, Hunter stashed the bike in a deserted alley.
Wearing a wig, cap and mask, he hurried along the quiet lanes toward the objective.
Soon he arrived at an unremarkable apartment building.
Having already scouted the place, Hunter climbed the stairs straight to the top floor.
Finding the door to the rooftop locked, he wasn't annoyed.
From his private space he quickly took out the lock-picking kit Slater had specially ordered for him.
Opening it, Hunter selected a tool.
A few seconds' fiddling at the lock, a soft click, and the rooftop door swung open.
He stepped through and glanced around the clutter-strewn roof, walked a short circle,
then, recalling the layout, positioned himself in a corner and produced a military night-vision scope.
Raising it, he aimed several hundred metres away at a forty-degree angle toward a five-storey street-side apartment.
Playboy Rob's place was on the top floor of that building.
He'd bought the entire fifth floor and the rooftop as well.
Though the block was an old one and not especially large, each storey still held over three hundred square metres.
A conservative estimate put the price at several million us dollars.
And that was before Rob had remodelled the fifth floor,
knocking down walls and installing huge glass panels that gave excellent natural light.
Clearly the playboy had plenty of money.
Two days earlier Hunter had meant to scout Charlie at the hospital, but had unexpectedly run into Rob visiting him.
Following him all the way, Hunter had found Rob's residence.
Adjusting the scope's magnification and focus, he soon saw lights on in Rob's apartment.
'Perfect.'
With Charlie Clock immobilised, Playboy Rob was the most dangerous member of this international heist crew.
Good at charming women, Driving anything with wheels—and apparently no slouch in a fight either.
Unless Rob was removed first, Hunter feared they might lash out wildly.
After a careful search he finally spotted the playboy in one of the rooms,
through the huge glass wall on the building's fifth floor.
Hunter could clearly see that Playboy Rob was currently 'tussling' with a certain dark-haired hottie on a large bed in a bedroom.
Looking at the frequency of his vibrations, although not as good as his own...
Compared to an ordinary person, it could be considered quite excellent.
"No wonder he can change bed partners every few days!"
With the help of the binoculars, Hunter had already discovered that the dark-haired hottie was not the beautiful nurse he had seen Rob pick up earlier.
However, it didn't matter.
He quickly took out a police Remington M700PSS sniper rifle, which he had previously obtained from Stanfield and was ordered by the Drug Enforcement Bureau, from his private space.
Hunter quickly calculated the distance and wind speed in his mind, then adjusted the Shooting angle and the magnification of the scope.
"About three hundred and fifty to three hundred and eighty meters or so..."
With his finger on the trigger, Hunter quickly determined the optimal angle.
Without hesitation, he pulled the trigger.
Bang!
Accompanied by a loud and dull gunshot in the dark night.
On the fifth floor of that apartment several hundred meters away, Playboy Rob, whom Hunter had aimed at the chest and was currently outputting rapidly while propped up over his new bed partner lying on the bed, was accurately hit in the chest by a sniper bullet.
His body staggered for a moment, then he collapsed onto the woman.
Even though Hunter couldn't hear it from several hundred meters away...
Through the scope, he could still see it clearly.
The dark-haired hottie who was being outputted suddenly panicked and then violently pushed away Playboy Rob, who was pressing down on her back.
As Rob fell, half the bed was quickly stained red with blood.
First target, resolved!
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