There was the larger world, and then there was the smaller world. That smaller world was the only one that mattered. Outside, in the larger world, there was a giant white target surrounded by glittering smaller targets, all of them suspended on a pitch black sheet of paper, draped across a seemingly endless stretch of shrouded desert. There was a heat that filled Low-Light’s lungs with each breath. But none of that mattered because that was in the larger world.
Low-Light was no longer a person. He was a half-man, half-weapon fraction of the desert, an unmoving gray blot that blended with the rock formation around him. His breathing was shallow, his heart rate slow. His entire field of focus had shrunk to that afforded him by his starlight scope. The bright white target in the sky would blink before him.
Across the pale desert, a plume of dust approached. A tractor trailer purred down the single lane road.
“Low-Light to base. Target acquired. Going radio silent.”
“Acknowledged,” the voice said. Low-Light removed the headset.
The tractor-trailer slowed and then stopped. Low-Light was far enough away that he could hear the rumble of the engine and the whine of air brakes as only distant noises, like the smell of a barbecue from the next block over.
The meeting was scheduled for 0200 hours. Low-Light had been here for three hours. The Emir and his convoy had been here for two of those hours. Their arrival had not been so ostentatious; a handful of black SUVs and one nondescript black sedan. Low-Light could smell the armor plating and bulletproof glass through his scope.
Same for the Semi. The large windshield was tinted. The trailer was jet black. He doubted anything less than a full-on strafing would do much to tweak that thing.
When Low-Light removed his eye from the scope and looked out into the darkened desert, he saw only faint gleams in the distance. The larger world crashed around him, looming wide. He could smell the dirt, could feel the heat, the sweat, and he was suddenly aware of how stiff his joints were. He put his eye back to the scope and the larger world went away again.
None of that was important. His job was at the other end of this scope. It took place between breaths. Between heartbeats.
The passenger side door of the semi opened. A burly man in plainclothes jumped out and went around the back, glancing towards the black vehicles to his left as he did.
He disappeared around the back of the trailer. To the left, the door to the black sedan opened. Low-Light got a glimpse of several well-armed men piling from the SUVs simultaneously. The Emir waddled out. He was a short, fat man with well-groomed facial hair. Low-Light recognized him from the news reports.
He wasn’t the target. He returned his attention to the semi.
Crimson Guards appeared from around the back.Dressed to impress, full regalia, faces hidden behind inhuman masks, weapons at the ready, bleeding from the back of the tractor like lords of death. The Emir’s guards all stiffened. Each held a small submachine gun tightly to their bodies. Big men with small, nervous fingers and unyielding expressions.
Then Low-Light saw his target. The world shrunk further.
Mr. Cobra High Command himself.
He slithered from the back of his nest like he owned the desert. The Emir’s hands were rooted to his pocket as he began walking towards the Crimson Guard. He was efficiently frisked, then allowed to walk closer. The guards were held at bay by the blood-red wall.
It had taken months for this meeting to be set up, and it had taken a lot of digging to find the location.
Low-Light’s world shrunk even more, down to a gleaming silver helmet. Cobra Commander’s helmet would be well armored, but Low-Light was locked and loaded with depleted Uranium.
One shot could change the war.
Low-Light’s heart slowed. He could recite sonatas in the space between beats.
The world shrunk to the size of an imagined bullet hole in an armored helmet. He held his breath, eager to sketch that hole.
Cobra Commander moved aside. Low-Light’s heart shivered.
A second Cobra Commander appeared beside the first. Then a third. A fourth.
Low-Light counted fifteen Cobra Commanders when the deluge stopped. Identical in dress, in movement, in height. Fifteen gleaming silver helmets. Fifteen targets.
The Crimson Guard raised their rifles as the Emir’s guards moved forward. They froze. Tension bubbled.
The multiple Cobra Commanders surrounded the Emir. Fifteen gleaming silver helmets. Fifteen potential targets.
Low-Light calculated how many headshots he could get off in as short a time possible. He thought about the mad scramble that would occur microseconds after an armored head erupted into a mist. The chaos. The confusion. Fifteen chances. And that was even if the High Snake himself was there at all.
Horrible odds.
Months of preparation. Fonts of information that would never flow again; Cobra Commander would see to that.
“Dammit.”
Low-Light let out a breath and blinked.
“Low-Light to base. Mission aborted.”
There was a silence, and then a flat response: “Acknowledged.”
A brilliant white target hung in the jet-black sky and cast a mocking accusation down at him overtop a desert filled with snakes.