Time to post another short story. I started this little, now-blossoming tradition a few months (see here and
here). So here's a snippet for one I wrote in 2010 and a link if you want to read more. Funny, but this isn't the final, this was the draft 1 final, but I changed the story to a different version. So I'll be interested in knowing if readers see a difference.
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.
Feel like reading the rest? See it all HERE!
