Seven Six Two Divorce

Seven Six Two Divorce

Servando sighted along the barrel of his Remington 700, then slowly peered through the powerful telescopic sight. He could see the small, red, front door of the condo across the street. Without hesitating he inserted a round into the chamber.  He noticed how the late afternoon sun glimmered off of the brass casing. This, he thought, was the part he had wondered about. The point where he placed the bullet into the rifle was to him, that point where he knew he was committing himself to the action. He knew that he would never see that bullet again. He would see the hollow, spent casing at the end of the evening, but the round would be buried in human flesh far beneath his hide position, hopefully followed by several others. He had chosen this round, as well as the rifle, his firing position, everything carefully and he was filled with both anxiety about his plan as well as excitement. He felt some degree of comfort in the motions he took and the equipment. He had used this weapon system before as a Sniper in the Marines, but when he was in the military they had called it an M24 and he had shot a 7.62 mm round. He would be using a much heavier caliber bullet for his work today and he frowned unhappily that this chore was being brought to his doorstep for this final conclusion.

The plan started truly taking shape once the alibi was in place. Servando had been dreaming of this night for several years. The plan had morphed and changed some, but always there was the problem of an alibi. It was Kier who ultimately had provided that final catalyst that kicked the plan into action.  Kier, Servando’s old friend from high school was flying up to Seattle on a flight using Servando’s ID, while Servando was flying up five hours later using Kier’s. They looked enough alike that it the plan was destined to work, and it gave Servando five hours within which to operate. Five hours to do what he wanted without the worry that the police would want to know his whereabouts. They would know his whereabouts and according to the airlines he would be two miles up, winging his way from Houston to Seattle. He worried whether or not he could trust Kier, but Kier accepted Servando need and not asked a single question about why. He was the one variable that was not completely in Servando’s control.

Servando tightened the tripod mount, focusing the rifle not on the door but where he expected his target to stand upon exiting. He calculated the distance at just under two hundred meters. It was an easy shot and he knew that he would have no trouble with it. The only problem would be that the target was moving. He had been adept at shooting far longer shots, with less favorable conditions, and with far poorer sights than the Leopold ten power scope that was currently mounted and zeroed onto his rifle. Despite the fact that the target would be moving, Servando felt confident he could take him down. His work zeroing in the rifle had also been conducted under an assumed name, using a license that he had moved heaven and earth to procure. But now, at four minutes to five o’clock, with only a few short minutes until the operation kicked off, all of the planning, the meticulous questioning, and delicate, almost military style maneuvering, had come together to find Servando looking down the barrel of his rifle waiting patiently for his father in law to exit the red door.

Servando thought about all of the preparation and planning that the last few weeks had included. Buying the rifle from an out of state dealer, fake email accounts, fake pay accounts, and worst of all the innumerable drives to the far side of town to use the internet at different seeding copy stores to ensure that each piece of the lethal puzzle he was assembling would be completely and wholly untraceable.

Servando snuggled in behind the stock of the M24 and felt the cool comfort of the composite stock against his cheek. He loosened the tripod and swiveled the weapon from the door to the intersection that was just a hundred meters further away. These shots would be more difficult, but Servando knew that by the time he had to make these shots, his accuracy would not be as important. These shots would not have to be perfect, just close enough to give Servando time. Just long enough to make his father-in-law, Jake, suffer.

Again, Servando swiveled the tripod around to focus on the door. The light was graying in the horizon and soon it would start to turn dark. It was during that transition from daylight to dark that he planned to strike. He remembered the many times he and his team in the Marines had taken advantage of dusk and dawn to begin raids or attacks, and the training he had perfected in the Marines would serve as the basis for what he considered the most secret and perhaps most important mission of his life.

Whenever Servando thought about his wedding he smiled. Both he and Cynthia had planned the wedding carefully and had not fallen victim to the whims and desires of their parents of friends. They had an eleven o’clock wedding followed by a jazz brunch reception where a trio of jazz instruments and a singer strolling the reception hall. The wedding was tailored around their own personalities and desires. They had met over brunch and enjoyed going out to eat in the mornings. Naturally they wanted to share that type of enjoyment with friends and family. Servando remembered how much he had enjoyed hearing Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, and Dean Martin songs echoing slowly through the reception area. He frowned as he thought of Jake, and how he had stood up and toasted the wedding and the marriage.

“Everyone who knows me knows how much I love Cynthia.” Servando remembered him sayings as he stood near the bar to get everyone’s attention. “Cynthia is my only girl, and there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for her. I’ve had to protect her all my life and have done so with pleasure if only because protecting my family is important to me. Family is important to me. There isn’t another aspect in the world that I consider more important than family.” Servando remembered how he rambled on for what seemed like eternity, extolling the virtues of love and family, talking a great game as anyone who knew him would expect. Jake was a wonderful presenter. He was a partner in a law firm so naturally he had the gift of delivering a wonderful monologue. But the words were as hollow as a drum. Servando had realized just how hollow when just three months later Jake left his wife of twenty-seven years. Three months of wedded bliss before the reality of his new family came crashing home. Three short months of nights where Cynthia’s mother did not call crying, and Cynthia didn’t cry herself to sleep. Three short months where Cynthia wasn’t ashamed of her family and apologizing for them. Too short a time. It left an acrid, bitter taste in Servando’s mouth whenever he thought about, a taste that he was never able to swallow.

Servando checked his cell phone and accessed up a website that was saved on it. He saw that the flight he was ticketed on, the flight that Kier was now on, departed without delay. He smiled slightly, not at the thought of what he was about to do, he carried no illusions about the ignominy of killing or murder. A combat veteran with several confirmed kills in two countries, Servando knew that death did not bring glee, but he was happy that he was executing his plan as he had imagined. He was happy that the waiting was finally going to come to and end.

He pressed the quick dial feature on the phone and the phone automatically began to dial Jake’s home phone that was located in the condo across the kill zone.

“Hello?” Jake asked picking up the phone.

“Hey Jake, its Servando.” Servando said quickly his voice echoing through the empty shell of a room he was hiding in.

“Hey Servando.” Jake replied in the light hearted manner he always assumed when they talked. He had been trying to establish a friendship for the past three years, a friendship that Servando completely and utterly refused him. “What’s up?”

“Something’s wrong with Cynthia’s car, can you come give me a hand?”

“Sure, Servando….what’s the problem.”

“I’m not sure.” He replied. “I’m out in the garage, I’ll wait for you before I break anything.”

Servando snapped the phone shut and put it in on the ground next to him. He would need it again before the night was over, and he wanted to make sure it was by his side. It was a burner, a throw away phone he had bought with cash, and he was happy that Jake hadn’t asked why he was calling from a different number. Servando had thought about what type of lure to use to get Jake out of the house. He wanted something that would bring Jake out, but not an emergency. An emergency might generate calls to Cynthia’s brother or Jake’s girlfriend. Jake loved cars, and had several times tried to foster a friendship with Servando around cars. Servando felt that providing Jake with that chance for a relationship was just the impetus he would need to come out of his house to help.

Servando waited, his focus never leaving the door of the condo. He knew Jake would emerge quickly, and wanted to make sure he was ready for him. The movement would be sudden and swift and he knew he would have to traverse quickly on the first shot. The others would be far easier physically, but perhaps not spiritually. Jake could feel his skin tightening and his hair standing on end.  He felt like a mongoose standing outside of a cobra’s den, smelling the cobra approaching quickly.

The crosshairs started to shutter as his breathing accelerated. He started to count slowly backwards from ten, trying to calm his heart has he had practiced for so many years in the Marines. He softened his breathing, inhaled deeply, then let his exhale roll out of his mouth like a wave, his breath sounding excessively sibilant almost mechanical in the empty room. He had learned how to calm his heart and quiet his panic in Scuba training. He still used it during high stress times in his life. He began to whisper the numbers backward starting at ten. As soon as he softly whispered the number six, his heartbeat had already slowed from a rabbit pace to a snail’s, He could see that the crosshairs were again making the lazy figure eight pattern that he recognized and could work with.

The door opened as Servando whispered three, and he squeezed the trigger as the first hard sound of the word two hit his tongue. He fired as the crosshairs traversed the upper portion of their figure eight pattern, just as Jake’s right knee was moving toward the intersection of the reticle. The rifle’s kick caused Servando to lose his sight picture momentarily, and the soft sound of the silencer releasing the expanded gas sounded like a titanic explosion through the vacant room.

Servando struggled to regain his sights and slammed another round into the chamber of the weapon in case he had missed Jake and a second shot would be required. His heart beat had spiked following the shot and Servando realized that he was fumbling with his motions. He tried to steady himself, but now, with not time to count backwards slowly.

“Slow is smooth, smooth is fast, Buddy.” Servando said to himself, muttering the mantra he had learned though his years of service.

His sights resolved on the door again, and Servando scanned quickly to try and find Jake. He found him on the grass to the right of the walkway. He was on the ground holding his knee. Servando was amazed how the confusion and shock written on his face was so similar to the look that he saw when hunting deer. From the way that Jake was moving it looked as though the large bullet hit him just below the knee, enough to bring him down, but a wound that would definitely allow him the chance to hobble away.

“Calm down, you can do this.” Servando whispered to himself hoping to chase away the creeping panic and concern. Servando refocused the rifle on Jake and this time targeted his left knee. Although rocking slowly back and forth in pain, and obviously confused, Jake was not moving his left knee and it offered a nice secondary target. He saw the impact of the second shot and noticed the short quick ejection of blood, muscle and bone from Jake’s left knee just before the kick of the weapon upset the tripod and Servando had to re-find his target.

As he adjusted the rifle with his right hand Servando picked up the cell phone on the floor next to him and thumbed it open, hurriedly pressing the same speed dial key as before. He knew Jake would have his cell phone with him and Servando needed him to answer his call before he realized he needed to call 9-1-1. Servando heard Jake’s line engage and saw through the scope as Jake pulled his phone out of his pocket and tried to position it on his ear. 

“Jake”, Servando said innocently. “Are you alright?”

“Servando?” Jake said loudly. “I think someone shot me, I need help. Call 9-1-1.”

“Someone shot you? What are you talking about?” Servando tried to sound innocent.

“It’s my knees.” Jake groaned. “Someone shot me in my knees.”

“No.” Servando said coldly. “I missed your right knee, gotcha a little low on that shot. But the second shot, that was right on point. I’d be surprised if your knee cap isn’t somewhere out in the street.”

The line was quiet, and through the scope Servando could see the look on Jake’s face. The confusion was evident but a look of realization was beginning to resolve slowly on his face like a slow moving graphic on a video screen. Servando watched as that realization spread quickly and descended down Jake’s face like a curtain dropping on a play. Jake knew of Servando’s past as a sniper. He might not know the full story, but to Servando it looked like he just realized he had been ambushed.

“Don’t say anything Jake, and don’t think about calling 9-1-1. In fact, I’m going to do that for you.”

“What…?” Jake began.

“I said don’t speak, Jake. I have my rifle aimed directly at you left foot, another word and you’ll lose it.”

“But Servando…?” Jake said. He was interrupted by a third bullet whiffing silently from the suppressor on the end of the Remington and striking home in his foot.

“I mean it Jake.” Servando said realigning the crosshairs on Jake. “You’ll get to speak later, but for now listen to me.”

Servando watched as Jake laid back into the grass on his front lawn curled up on his side and tried to stop the pain in his knees and foot. It looked like he was in agony and having never been shot himself Servando did not envy the pain he must be feeling.

“I’m going to hang-up and call 9-1-1 for you Jake. While I’m doing that your body will start to go into shock.” Servando said slowly and methodically, like someone telling a waiter how to prepare their favorite meal. “Listen to me Jake. You need to listen to me cause your life depends on how you react in the next few seconds.”

He watched as Jake continued to writhe on the ground like a worm. “You’re going to start experiencing some shock. Your body is going to divert blood to life sustaining organs, and you’ll most likely begin to lose the feeling in your legs. But don’t think that it will make things easier on you. I can still bring you some serious pain, Buddy. If you try to use your phone, if you try to call out for help or crawl to cover, I’ll see it, and trust me Jake, it will only make things worse for you.”

Servando saw through his reticle as Jake started trying to work his phone. His fingers were shaking, and he was having trouble moving. Servando saw that Jake was beginning to try and crawl. He wondered if perhaps his talking about finding cover had made Jake realize he might have an escape route open to him. Servando centered the crosshairs on Jakes elbow and fired.

“Jake!” Servando almost yelled into the phone. “I told you not to try and get away. You’re playing with your life here, Jake.”

Servando saw through the scope as Jake rolled over to try and grab hold of his left elbow. After the first shot, Servando had changed from the powerful Magnum rounds to a less damaging load. Initially he needed the power and stopping capability of the Magnum, but now, as he wanted to only keep Jake from moving away he was shooting to wound not to kill.

“Jake.” Servando said loudly again. “I need to know that you are hearing me. You need to show me that you are listening. I can’t see your phone, so raise your hand if you can hear me.”

Servando saw Jake slowly raise his hand.

“Okay.” Servando said his voice lower now. “I’m going to call an ambulance for you. Wait a sec. Don’t go anywhere.”

Servando hung up and dialed 9-1-1. He quickly requested an ambulance and reported shots fired. He hung up as fast as he could and speed dialed Jake’s number.

“You still there, Jake?” Servando said. “You can speak now.”

“I’m here.” Jake said quietly through the phone.

“The ambulance is on the way, Jake. You should hear the sirens any moment now. They should be coming from the hospital off of Augusta. Won’t take any time at all.”

“Thank you.” Jake said. “But why….” He stammered.

“Don’t thank me, Jake.” Servando said quickly. “They aren’t going to be able to help you.”

“What?” Jake asked his voice rising anxiously.

“Nope.” Servando tried to say lightly. “Watch this Jake, I see the lights coming down the street. They’re going to be stopping in about ten seconds.”

Servando had already swiveled the weapon to the secondary position and was sighting along the path of the ambulance. He centered the crosshairs on the windshield between the two drivers when it was about three hundred meters away and fired. A moment of confusion exploded like a volcano within the cab of the ambulance. Thankfully Servando saw that the driver was smart enough to stop immediately. Both the driver and passenger were now low in the cab of the vehicle. Just to ensure that they didn’t get any ideas Servando took aim on the driver’s side mirror and put a hole through it. Then he hit their front tires. He saw them begin to reverse quickly and grab frantically for the radio. They continued to back up for about a hundred meters then they stopped and continued to stay down low.

“See Jake?” Servando said into the phone. “They’re going to be a while.”

“Why are you doing this?” He croaked.

“I don’t like you Jake.” Servando said simply. “You are an asshole, but most of all I hate what you did to Cynthia.”

“Cynthia?”

“Do you know what a hell my life has been lately Jake?” Servando said slowly into the phone. “Do you realize what you’ve done to my wife? She cries on a nightly basis Jake, and it’s been three years. Each successive revelation that comes up about your divorce is filtered through my wife and ultimately me, Jake. She has had to deal with your rotten ex-wife’s crazy late night calls and she has had to console your son when he won’t admit that the dissolution of his family is killing him inside. She’s had to deal with that for three years now Jake, and I don’t want her to have to deal with the eventual discovery of a girlfriend and ultimate re-marriage.”

“But..?” Jake tried to interrupt.

“Don’t deny it Jake.” Servando said quickly. “I’ve seen your friend, and I would bet my next paycheck that you’ll get married within a year. Don’t deny it was what you were planning. I don’t want Cynthia to have to deal with that as well. How old is your new girl, Jake? She looks like she is about Cynthia’s age. I can just imagine the phone calls that your new girlfriend will inspire.”

“She’s…” Jake tried to interrupt again.

“Hold on Jake.” Servando said quickly. “Your potential saviors are trying to be brave. Give me a second to let them know they need to wait a bit. I’m not quite done.”

Servando leveled the rifle on the ambulance again. He saw that the EMT’s were trying to find a better vantage point. They looked like little prairie dogs poking their heads out from behind cover, trying to see if there was a victim to save or not. Servando doubted that anyone else would have heard the shots, and he hadn’t seen any vehicles stop or take undue notice. The dark was coming on quickly and Servando realized that without the capability for night vision this operation would be coming to a close quickly. He was still on schedule, and there was still enough light to shoot by, but he realized that this might be the last shot he took at the EMT’s. He squeezed the trigger and thought he could hear the metallic plunk of the metal street sign he had been aiming for. He saw the EMT’s retreat around the corner quickly.

“Jake?” Servando asked. “You still there?”

Servando heard Jake groan.

“Jake?” He said again, almost drawing the answer from his father in law like a teacher would from a young child. “Are you there Jake? I’m going to let the EMT’s get to you in just a minute Jake, but I have two things I still need to tell you.”

“Why?”

“Why am I holding off the EMT’s, Jake?” Servando said posing the question for his father-in-law. “That’s inspired isn’t it. I wanted you to be able to see your salvation, but not be able to reach them. I wanted you to experience a little torture Jake, I want you to feel bad for a bit. It would have been too easy to just kill you Jake. I needed you to suffer a bit, just like your family has.”

“What!” He heard Jake scream into the phone. He could sense that the shock was wearing off and waves of pain were probably settling in like an incoming tide.

“That’s all right Jake, I’m sure it hurts. But let me tell you two more things, then the EMT’s will be free to come help you….I promise.”

“Okay?” He heard Jake say weakly.

“First, Jake, I want to let you know that the next shot I take is going to be with a .300 caliber magnum round, very similar to the first one I shot you with. This one though will be hollow point and cause significantly more damage. I don’t know if you know this but hollow points mushroom as they travel, and when they hit flesh they tumble.”

Servando heard a guttural almost animal groan on the other end of the line.

“Not only that, Jake, but I’m going to be aiming for your liver and kidneys. It’s darker now, but I feel confident I can hit you there. And when I do Jake, you’ll probably only live for five minutes, and that’s if you are lucky. The toxins that those organs hold are going to course through your circulatory system pretty fast. It’s going to contaminate your system Jake, and you’ll die unless you get help immediately. And I hate to break it to you; those guys in the ambulance won’t be able to do much. They’re going to have to wait for the police to come escort them to you, that’s going to take at least five minutes. It will probably take another five just to find you.”

“Why?” Jake groaned again.

“Cause I’d rather have Cynthia deal with the shock of your death, than the slow shock of your divorce. Despite the nature of this mission, I like to pull Band-Aids off quick, Jake. I’m doing this for her.”

He groaned again, and Servando watched as he rolled on the ground his face contorted like some strange marionette doll.  Servando was still able to see his father-in-law’s midsection and he trained the crosshairs on the lower portion of his abdomen, preparing himself for this final shot.

One more thing Jake, then I’ll leave you alone. I just want to tell you something that I heard three years ago, something I think you need to remember and perhaps re-learn. It’s an ethos I’ve learned to live by, and one that I believe I’m following now.”

He heard one more groan from Jake.

“Everyone who knows me knows how much I love Cynthia.” Servando said into the phone.  “Cynthia is my only girl, and there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for her. I’ve had to protect her all my life and have done so with pleasure if only because protecting my family is important to me. Family is important to me. There isn’t another aspect in the world that I consider more important than family.”

Servando paused.

“Sound familiar, Jake?” He asked. There was silence on the other end.

“Bye Jake.” Servando said and snapped shut the phone. He squeezed the trigger and watched the hollow point round smack home. He saw how the hazy, figure rolled over in the dark like a whale descending beneath the water’s surface. 

Servando dropped the phone and left the rifle and tripod where they were. He checked the surroundings for any foreign objects he might have left other than the shell casings and quickly left the building. He had less than an hour to make his flight. He felt confident he could make it.