LOADED
Bradbury's Jar Challenge No. 145, May 2014 by Katharine (KFM, Disturbed in NorCal) Characters(c) Tatsunoko Productions and Sandy Frank Entertainment. Please do not reproduce without permission.
"Sonoma is leaving now."
The voice of Lieutenant Jun Himuro was just a bare whisper in the earpieces of her commander and his second, so low it could not be discerned by normal human hearing above the susurrus of wind through the tall grasses that covered the Calaveras hillside, nor the drone of insects that flew nearby.
Yet to the heightened hearing of the G-Forcers well hidden in that tall grass and the shadow of a large oak tree beside, her message was clear, the appearance of their objective was imminent. This one they'd codenamed "Sonoma" for the wineries he owned and used as a cover for his dealings with the Gallactor Syndicate.
Stretched out behind a spotting scope, Commander Mareccu Dumeneau sent back one click through his communicator to acknowledge her and relay their readiness. At his left was Lieutenant Commander Jay Randall, lying very still and calm behind a sand-colored Heckler and Koch carbine rifle.
"Black Mercedes C-class," Jun reported. "Driver in front, Sonoma left rear passenger. No other seen."
"Loaded in the trunk," Marc lowly surmised.
"Probably. Hope so."
From their elevated and east-facing vantage point they could see where the two-lane rural road below made a sharp curve westward, putting the afternoon sun directly into the driver's eyes. Farther up the road, workers were in the process of necking the lanes down into one with traffic controls, and a heavy excavator began cutting into the embankment alongside, dropping freshly dug dirt and stone into a waiting dump truck, the commencement of a road-widening project.
A flagman stationed himself on the road just in time to be spotted by the approaching Mercedes. Slowing to a stop, the driver lowered his window, squinting into the sun as he hollered at the worker.
"Now," Marc ordered.
Jay lightly tapped the trigger.
The driver's body jerked then listed to one side, held up by his seatbelt.
"Shoulder down into chest cavity," Marc spoke. "No splatter. Perfect."
Jay thumbed the rifle's bolt action, expelling the shell and chambering the next round. By the time his motion was done, they both saw through their scopes the passenger leaning slightly forward, as though trying to talk to his driver. In Marc's scope, Sonoma's head tilted far enough forward that his face could be seen through the opened window.
"Six centimeters right," Marc advised.
Beside him, Jay only scarcely shifted; the tensing of one arm and the relaxing of the other, just enough to minutely move the rifle's muzzle a hair's breadth of space. They both saw Sonoma's face go from quizzical to florid in the span of a heartbeat, as he realized what had just happened...and what was about to.
Jay's shot entered his neck just above the collar of his Kevlar vest, and angled downward through his chest to the small of his back. Contained by the vest, the round did not exit into the seat of the car. Just as the similarly protected driver had gone, so had he.
"Cleanup on aisle four," Marc then relayed.
"Done," Jun acknowledged.
Immediately the flagman waved down the excavator and dump truck, and both vehicles approached the Mercedes. They watched as the worker and truck driver dragged the bodies out of the car and rolled them into the truck's hopper, and the excavator's operator dropped a fresh load of dirt over them. The road worker stripped out of his safety vest and tossed it and his hardhat into the dump truck's cab. As the truck drove off with its load, he popped the trunk of the car, glanced in, and then gave a quick signal of affirmation.
They saw him make a second gesture, a calming, quieting motion. They easily read his lips as he spoke at the trunk's interior: It's okay, you're safe. Stay still.
Then, gently, he closed the trunk, and slipped into the driver's seat. Another flagman in the crew stepped forward, and waved him through.
*****