Hitmen - Contract Killers

It was a crisp autumn night in the city of Busan, the sky a deep grayish and purple haze, the result of high albedo caused by light pollution and intermittent cloud cover. The streets were loud and smelly, the odorous vapors visibly emanating from sewers, storm drains and from the lit ends of the cheap cigarettes that everyone in Korea seemed to enjoy smoking. A mild breeze wafted through the skyscraper city from the Korea Strait, carrying with it memories of sea salt and fog.

From the roof of a decrepit Japanese ramen shop a little over a kilometer away from the Lotte Department store, a two-person sniper team lay in wait, stretched prone over a green tarp while taking turns reaching into a tin of Danish butter cookies.

“Wind adjustment plus 0.6km/h south east. Come right, 2 clicks. ” Garnet T. directed after confirming the change through the combination of an expensive looking optical laser range finder, an anemometer, and what appeared to be a notepad with a chart. He looked like a tourist here in South Korea with his dirty blonde hair, his sneakers, his hoodie and a pair of jeans – he practically screamed it if not for the military-grade binoculars that he held in his hands and the grenade-capable M4A1 Carbine resting closely by his side. “And I have no idea what you’re talking about; I’ve never watched The Room.”

“No waaaay!” Amber K. trailed off in disbelief as she turned the knob twice and adjusted the telescopic scope on her match-grade L115A3 sniper rifle, all without losing situational awareness around the entrance of the department store. Although it wasn’t clearly visible beneath her red and white striped bobble-cap, she had short chestnut brown hair and a cute pixie face. She was wearing a black, woolen jacket, cropped black trousers, and a pair of heavy boots that wanted to kick people in the nads. “How could you have never watched The Room?”

“I don’t know; it’s just one of those things that never happened,” the spotter shrugged disinterestedly. Then, he reached into the tin, pulled out a biscuit and popped it in his mouth before grimacing something awful. Yuck! Raisin - the fruitcake of cookies.

“But The Room’s like, the greatest movie of all time!" his partner exclaimed.

"I think you're the only person who would say that," Garnet scoffed. “From what I’ve heard, it’s a terrible movie.

“Oh it is, it is the absolute worst,” Amber vigorously concurred.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” said Garnet.

"That's because you’ve never watched The Room," Amber asserted.

As Garnet shook his head in bewilderment, he proclaimed, “I will never understand your taste in movies."

"Nobody ever does," the sharpshooter ruefully sighed.

They passed the next minute in relative silence, considering they were perched on the roof of a ramen shop during dinner hours in a port city. They had each managed to get at least one more cookie from the tin before they noticed some unusual activity on their lens.

“Target’s on the move,” Garnet reported. “He’s exiting Entrance C.”

“I see him,” Amber replied in the affirmative.

From both their sights, they tracked a balding, yet important-looking Asian man in a well-tailored suit who walked out of the department store with a young, gold-digging lady-friend on his arm and a small entourage of bodyguards packed around them.

“Distance 1250. Wind…holding at 20.4km/h south-south east,” Garnet reported after checking his instruments. The anemometer was handy, but even without it, he would have known the wind speed and direction judging by the flightpath of the windsock he had set up earlier. After consulting his chart, he arrived at the firing solution. “Hmm. I’d say…3 clicks right.”

“Pshh, no way, it’s 4,” the sniper disagreed.

“It’s 3,” he reiterated.

“Nuh-uh~!” she trilled.

“50 bucks it’s 3,” Garnet goaded.

“Oh yeah!? Fine!” Amber confidently agreed before twisting the knob 3 clicks and immediately taking the shot.

There was a thunderous boom that followed after she pulled the trigger as a 16.2 gram penetrator round was propelled at 900m/s, raising heads from the passerby’s beneath them as they tried to determine where exactly the lightning had struck. A second later, after the bullet had travelled one and a quarter kilometers away, screams, shock, and alarm consumed the blood-splattered scene of the shopping center.

As the vapor trail from the expended .338 Lapua Magnum round dissipated into the wind, a gradual crescendo of police sirens began to grow in the distance. If Busan were a smaller city, it might have been possible to tell apart the red and blue glare of the first responders apart from the general, bright luminescence of city life, but it wasn’t. It was a city of 3.4 million people and for almost everyone living there, it was business as usual.

“Tango down,” the spotter smugly reported with a smirk. “See? Told you it was 3. Pay up.”

“Aww,” Amber groaned in disappointment. After a brief pause, she sheepishly suggested, “Double or nothing?”

Garnet visibly scowled as he scrutinized his partner and shook his head disapprovingly. “Annd this is why I don’t leave you alone in casinos.”

“Uugh…” Amber griped dejectedly. As she started disassembling her weapon, she muttered to herself, “Man, why didn’t I just miss?”

Hitmen – Contract Killers: Chapter One End