Chapter 16
He just had to time his shots, wait for the gusts of heavy snow, though that made it harder for him to see his targets, even through the lens of his telescopic sight.
Using a scope on a rifle was a skill it took a long time to learn. He heard idiots who’d never tried it say shooting a deer through a scope wasn’t playing fair. That it was fish in a washtub. He always wanted to hand his Winchester to one of those assholes and say, here, you try it.
The scope’s magnification was so strong, it was difficult to sight in on a faraway target because the objects between you and the target were magnified too and got in the way. Leaves, branches in a deer blind, and from here, the bare branches of the trees beside the slope.
Here, there was the added challenge that his targets were moving.
The objects he’d sighted in on in his life weren’t moving.
You shot a deer when it was standing still, not running across a meadow or through the woods.
And the glare was far harsher and more disorienting than he’d ever dreamed it would be.
With the LED lights shining out bright into the black sky, all the shadows were deep and black and through a scope looked like solid objects.
He took his eye away from the sight, took another deep breath, then another and let it out slowly.
When he put his eye back to the sight, he was settled again, calm, assured.
The sight was warm now where he’d had his eye on it, and most of the lift chairs coming past him now were carrying passengers.
He’d not taken into account the difficulty of determining identities when fully half the people in the crowd were wearing black ski jackets, black helmets, goggles and mittens, all identical.
Looking down at the crowd, he could pick out what looked like a flock of penguins interspersed with spots of bright color.
But none of the unexpected difficulties was a deal-killer because he’d planned ahead, had marked his target so he could sight in on it.
The secondary target would be harder to identify, but he’d just have to do the best he could.
It would work out or it wouldn’t. What mattered most was the kill shot that would end forever the life of the victim whose death would set everything else aright.
With his eye to the scope, he moved the crosshairs around, following a moving ski lift chair as it slid slowly upward.
A tree got in the way, and when he sighted again, he had trouble finding the chair.
He’d used one of the light standards as his mark in the beginning, then sort of got sucked into the challenge of following the target with the sight.
No, it was back to the light standard mark method.
He’d sight in on the standard, and as a ski lift chair passed it, he’d move the crosshairs to the occupants until he found his target.
He inhaled another breath and let it out slowly.
The fog of steam in front of his mouth momentarily obscured everything.
That was another thing. He hadn’t counted on the unseasonably cold weather either.
But he was making do. He was adapting. And that’s what successful people did.
He had heard once that every battle plan ever devised was scrapped the moment the first shot was fired. And his plans were mostly intact.
Suddenly, there it was! His mark, ghosted across a solid-color surface.
Not bright, not noticeable, but off, and in his magnified circle it read like a name tag.
He was elated that it’d worked just like he thought it would, even a little surprised, maybe, that it could be this simple.
He smiled, positioned the crosshairs in the center of the front of the ski jacket, whispered under his breath, “… lean over now and kiss your ass goodbye …,” and squeezed the trigger.