Living Darkly V

The assassin made his preparations for the evening's activities this was a mental ritual as much as a practical one. Mental focus was a key component to the successful termination of the target. And tonight his target was speaking at a famous beachside club called The Breakers, and it was during that speech that his life would end.

Philip Caerone a French born transplant to South Florida had been the CEO of a French/Swiss conglomerate who in the early 90's had negotiated a deal with Somalia war lords to dump radioactive and chemical waste in that war torn country. This saved Cicerone's company millions in what other wise would have been a long and tedious process to properly dispose of these toxic materials. Hundreds of locals had died from radiation poisoning and more were affected for the long term, with birth defects and other medical complications from radioactivity and exposure to other chemicals that were dumped on land and offshore. Some areas in Somalia were so toxic that it would be decades before they would be habitable again.

Someone was upset enough at Caerone that they had paid to have him killed. The assassin had identified his perch several days before it had been quite simple really. He contacted a local premiere real estate company with specific requirements. He wanted beach front property near The Breakers. He spent two days viewing these gawdy mansions with their overdone interiors and ridiculous number of bathrooms until he found the right location.

The perch he had chosen put him close to 1500 meters from his target right at a mile, it was considered the gold standard for snipers and he had chosen a different weapon for tonight's shot. The Cheytac M 400 that fired a .408 round and a ballistic computer to support the shot. Since he had no spotter this was a definite advantage. He consider this rifle to be the finest long range weapon in the world he had made shots cold bore up to 2200 meters with this weapon.

It was time he drove the twenty minutes to West Palm and parked. He carried the rifle in a cloth style backpack which made him appear that he was walking home from the beach and never even drew a second glance from the casual passersby. There was no guard on the property and he made his entry beachside, scaling the wall easily. The alarm system was designed to alert for those entering the house and he had no interest in the inside. Using a simple grapple hook he climbed to the balcony on the north side of the house.

His view was unobstructed to the open air pavilion of The Breakers, in moments he was setup and ready to take the shot. Now it was a matter of waiting and he was very good at that. The air became still as evening approached, he watched thru his spotter scope as guest began to arrive. From his vantage point he could also see the service entrance on the south side of the building and staff that was arriving to support the night's events.

The time was approaching he scanned the area with his spotters scope again to confirm all was as expected. His eye caught sight of a van entering the service area. He focused for a moment on that van because it appeared out of place. He watched as someone approached the van clearly telling the men in the van to leave and pointing for them to turn around. Men exited the van quickly, he saw a sound suppressed pistol drawn and fired the man fell. The men quickly began pulling weapons from the van, AK-47's they were terrorists. Two men were now hauling a metallic object from the back of the van. It was conical at one end and from this distance almost appeared to be an arterially shell that had been broken out into component parts. They placed this on a wheeled cart and covered it with linen.

The assassin understood these men had an explosive device of some kind and meant to make some idiotic statement about Allah, Islam and whatever else their deluded minds believed to be important. No doubt they were prepared to martyr themselves and kill as many people at this event as possible in the process. If the terrorists had known that they had just been identified as targets by a man with a .408 in his hands they would have been very afraid.