Disclaimer: I don't own Human Target and intend no copyright infringement.
Shakeema frowned. "Seriously, you think this is about me? Someone wanted to kill me to kill me, not to hurt my dad?" She sat back in her chair in astonishment.
"I don't have any enemies. I'm not my dad, I don't believe in the philosophy of creating fear in others to keep myself safe. In fact, I don't need to keep myself safe. Not the way he does. I'm a teenager, I go to school, I hang out with friends, I go shopping... Despite who my dad is, I live a pretty normal life. Why should anyone be after me because of me?" She shook her head, dismissing the idea with a rather determined gesture.
"Have you argued with someone lately?" Chance had seen this kind of behavior before. Some clients simply refused to believe they were in danger... till a bullet so barely missed their head, it singed the fine hair on the back of their neck.
In his old job, Chance had loved these kind of people. Minimum of planning, no need to invest time into getting to know them and their routines better (= less lack of sleep afterwards) - easy money.
In his new job, these were the clients who made his life hardest. They called relatives from traceable cell phones. They opened doors to strangers who posed as delivery men. They reacted to the order to DUCK with the speed of a turtle under sedatives.
"It's a ridiculous idea. You obviously don't know much about the motivations to kill someone." Shakeema sounded like she knew all about it. Guerrero raised an amused eyebrow that she interpreted as a challenge to expand on the subject.
"It's either about money, fear, power or hurt feelings." She counted the different reasons one by one, using her fingers as visual support, so that Chance and Guerrero didn't miss a single point.
Well, she had definitely inherited her father's self-confidence.
"I don't owe anybody money and I didn't lend anybody money. I have never threatened anyone in my life except my friend Katie..." Here Shakeema hesitated, swallowing hard. Seeing her friend die on the floor of the biology room...of course it had left a mark and only the years to come would tell how deep. "I told her if she mentioned to anyone that I'm still sleeping with my ... with a stuffed animal..." Actually it was a Ms Piggy puppet, but this was something she would kill for to keep quiet.
Chance was just about to take her hand and squeeze it when she apparently decided that this side of her was not for the men to see. With visible effort - she was still a child after all - she pulled herself together. "I do not exert power over anyone except it's a math competition", she kept on counting. "And I don't hurt any feelings except in a math competition. I'm the fastest mental mathematician on the west coast, period. You can't deal with it, eat a parabola."
Her emphasis on her mathematical abilities didn't escape Chance and Guerrero. She had quite an attitude. If she had rubbed somebody the wrong way...
"Tell us about the opponents you've beaten lately..." Chance asked her. A request that was answered with an impatient roll of the eyes.
"Do you really think one of my opponents in a math competition tried to poison me with potassium? Because I'm better at algebra?
Chance shrugged his shoulders. "Young people sometimes don't think their actions through..."
This time Guerrero rolled his eyes. Look who's talking...
The noise of something heavy and metallic crashing to the floor in the kitchen divided their attention momentarily. "Ouch! I didn't think it would be THAT hot!", Ames cursed.
Shakeema angrily pushed her chair back and got up. "You know who my father is. You know about the things he does. How can you seriously even consider me being the actual target? You're wasting your time and energy. Do your job and protect me. Leave the rest to dad." And thus she stomped off. Somehow the idea that Katie had had to die because of what she was instead of what her father was made everything even worse.
Half-way to the guestroom, almost through the door, however, Shakeema overheard Chance: "What if she did a Harry and stumbled upon something dangerous without noticing?"
Do a Harry? Interesting word choice. She hesitated, listened more intensely.
"She worked on mathematical codes in her last school project, didn't she?"
"Some mercury puzzle shit? Dude, didn't we have enough shocking revelations of military secrets lately?"
Shakeema pursed her lips in contempt. Another ridiculous idea.
"Do you still have that program that searches the web and cross-references codes to encrypted texts?"
"We can give it a try, bro, but that's a needle-in-the-haystack thing…" Silence followed in which they probably activated the program. Shaking her head, Shakeema proceeded to further approach the bedroom.
"Whoa."
Whoa? Shakeema stopped again. What did they find? She had worked months on her school project, aiming at cracking a certain type of mathematical codes. It hadn't worked out to her complete satisfaction, the code breaker was only applicable to a small group of codes, mostly used by the Navy in the Sixties for operations in Southeast Asia. But it had been enough to earn her a prize.
"Dude, that's seriously…"
"…cool." Chance finished his friend's sentence, unable to take his eyes off the screen. Jeez, generations of people had tried their luck with these messages and a fourteen year old girl... hopefully she'd never take over her father's business. In this case law enforcement would have quite a problem on its hands.
"Kareem Aquam's daughter developed a code breaker that decrypts the Zodiac's letters?" Guerrero still couldn't believe it. "Thought we had made it to the top of "unlikely shit that happen nevertheless"-list with the virus that killed my father."
"Let's walk this through…" Chance was excited. They were just about to solve one of the greatest mysteries in criminal history! "Some of the messages the Zodiac sent have never been decoded... And he repeatedly stated his encrypted texts would reveal his identity... so now, the Zodiac found out Shakeema developed something to break his code. Why the murder attempt? Because the code might lead back to him... because he wants to protect the mystique around his murders..."
"Maybe he's just pissed off because a fourteen year old figured it out." Guerrero carefully deleted all traces that they had used the cross-referencing program. The site it had accessed belonged to the FBI. "He must be in his sixties now. Let's ask Shakeema if she's met some old dude lately."
At this very moment a soft alert went off. Chance frowned. It was a different kind of alert than the usual ones – "intruders on the roof", "unauthorized use of elevator", "breach of front door", "attack on the computer system"…
"Somebody is using a non-registered cell phone in here", Guerrero explained. "I made a list of all cell phones that are in general use here, including the one that Ash uses and Ames fancy little toy. All others set off the alert system."
"Shakeema must have smuggled one in. You've got the jammer signal activated that disturbs the GPS signal, don't you?"
Guerrero gave him a "seriously, dude"-look. "Let's hear what she's got to say." He hit a button. A split second later Shakeema's voice could be heard through the computer's loudspeaker.
"Dad? I know who tried to kill me! My new math teacher, Mr. Kramer. You won't believe it, but…"