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Kara Snow - Present Day
Theconcreteledgeiscold, dampness seeps through my black clothes as I lay against it, taking my position. The heavens opened about ten minutes ago, which has lessened visibility, but I’m a pro, and this is a simple hit.
Piece of cake.
That’s what Andrews had told me when I took the job.
I pull out my binoculars and peer through them, scanning the location where I’d take the shot.
The streets were unusually busy for a Thursday afternoon. An amateur would be nervous, but as I peer through the glasses and assess the streets, I’m nothing but calm.
I have one window, one shot—but that’s all I need.
His convoy will pull up outside the glamourous hotel where he is staying. There will be a single moment as he exits his vehicle. It will take his security a moment, a breath, a heartbeat to get back into position. That’s when I’ll strike.
“Two minutes out,” Andrews’ deep voice rumbles through my earpiece.
“Couldn’t we have chosen a warmer day? I’m soaked.”
His gruff chuckle fills my ear, making it feel like he’s right next to me. “Stop bitching. You love the British weather adding to the challenge. You’d be bored otherwise.”
I snort. “Easy for you to say; you’re sitting nice and cosy in the office.”
“That I am. Look, come in after. I’ve got another assignment.”
“Not a chance. There’s a bath and a bottle of Radox with my name on it. Besides, we had a deal.”
“Tut, tut, little one. Two more jobs, remember, then you’re free. But I tell you what, I can renegotiate your employment term with you—”
“I would have never gotten in the car that day if I knew you were going to be so high maintenance.”
He chuckles. “One more job after this one, then you’re done. We’re even.”
“That means it’s going to be an absolute shit show. I know you; it’s a horror show delivered in a folder.”
I see the convoy through the binoculars, three black SUVs that scream to literally anyone that someone important is on the move.
Heads instinctively turn to see who lingers behind the blacked-out windows.
I shuffle my body into position, lying prone at the top of a building, the ledge three feet higher than the roof.
The perfect location for a sniper. London is full of them. Lots of high-rise buildings, new and old, blended together, making the eyeline rugged and hard to pick out any specific object on a roof.
The perfect camouflage.
I pop the binoculars to the side and peer down the sight of my DXL-3 long range sniper rifle.
Intel suggests he will be in the middle car, and standard operating procedures of security details has me agreeing.
“Need I remind you of the code?”
The sodding code. The bane of my existence. He saved my life, now I owe him. An eye for an eye, a life for a life.
If I’m being honest, indebted or not, if it wasn’t for him, I’d be dead. And that’s as far as I want to go down that avenue of thoughts whilst freezing my tits off on the top of a building, peering down the lens of a sniper rifle.
“Thirty seconds. Coming from the North,” Andrews says.
