Surveillance

Chapter 1: Iron Sight

      Louisiana Clarke lay on her belly atop a fifty story building.  The cold cement seeping through her clothes and into her bones.  She could see the sun setting, the liquid gold beams peaking through the gigantic buildings of the NYC skyline and casting shadows on the city below.  She flicked her long auburn braid over her shoulder and shifted slightly to peer through the scope of her assault rifle, her finger on the trigger.
      A voice in her earbud crackled through her thoughts,  "Weezy, Winds kickin' up.  Adjust two clicks east."
     "Yeah, yeah. I got it,"  her lazy and rich southern accent showing no signs of anxiety.
     A slight winter breeze swept the bangs from her forehead as she breathed in slow and deep.
     "Do you have the target?"
     Weezy scanned the zone, "pas encore, cheri."
     "You're losing light."
     "Thanks so much."
     At that moment there was a flicker of light out of a window in a skyscraper two buildings to her left.         Weezy zeroed in, "Target acquired.  Ten O'clock.  Third window, fourth etage."
     "Confirmed.  Take the shot."
    Without a hint of hesitation, Weezy pulled the trigger and felt the kickback from the gun against her shoulder.  It was always a feeling of strange comfort.  She often wondered what that said about her.  She wondered of that kind of powerful and familiar sensation was what pro athletes felt or a well trained performer.  She'd always had a talent for weaponry, but a gun...she could make it sing.
     "Target decimated.  Extraction initiated."
     "Callie girl, why can't you just say- you got it, now get out?"
     "It's so normal. Who wants that?"
     "Right."
     Weezy deftly disassembled the rifle, fit the pieces back into the case and hefted it over her shoulder.  She attached a carabiner and thick wire to her belt.  She threw a final glance over to where she took her kill shot.
    "Yeah.  Who wants that?"

   She lept over the edge of the building and rappelled down.
----




     Weezy yanked open the side door of the unmarked van and nimbly jumped in.  Callie Lee took the rifle case form her as she plucked out the earbud and tossed it on the dashboard.
     "We're getting A-levels on this one for sure, Weeze.  Check out the damage."
    Callie gestured with her thumb towards the backseat as she climbed behind the wheel and started the engine.  Weezy leaned over the seat to see a small stuffed bunny rabbit attached to a stick.  A bullet hole straight through the eye.
     "Wascally wabbit."
     Callie laughed as she pulled out of the deserted parking lot and maneuvered through the massive traffic, "Shell casings recovered, easy clean up. So what tipped you off?"
      Weezy picked up the rabbit and showed her the metal collar around its neck.
     "Reflected off that sun you kept reminding me about."
     "Nice.  That's 8 out of 8 for us.  That may just have put us tied for top."
     "Yeah."
     "You could be a little more excited, Louisiana."  Callie made a turn into a gated entrance, she rolled down her window and pressed her hand to a small screen, "Phoenix. 3. Alpha."
     There was a short beep and then the click of the gates as they swung open into a secured facility.
     "I am."
     "Good.  Because I'm pretty stoked.  A perfect record for 3rd year sniper teams are unheard of and for it to be two girls? It's never been done."

     Weezy smiled at Callie as she tried to roll the tension from her shoulders.  She still felt cold to the bone.  As the van descended into the darkness of an underground parking lot, she played with the ears of the poor destroyed rabbit and wondered what she had gotten herself into.