by Marie Flanigan
T settled on a roof across from the arcade. He unzipped his gear bag and began assembling his rifle. In less than a minute, the gun was mounted on a tripod and T lay prone behind it, sighting two pigeons wandering across the covered walkway. To the naked eye, the birds were just two blurry spots of gray and white moving across the tan concrete, but through the high-powered scope he could see the iridescent feathers gleaming around the birds’ eyes. Moving the sight to the right, he saw a couple eating lunch and playing cards. He targeted the king of hearts—he could put a hole through the king’s head with ease. He smiled at the memory of learning his trade and to play poker at the same time. Checking his watch, he slid the sight over to a set of stairs curving down to the arcade. Any minute now.
The congresswoman descended the curving exterior stairway in a purple suit, as if she were hoping to blend in with the columns of the arcade. Camouflage wouldn’t save her though. Not from him.
“Torin.” Her voice was firm, but it felt more like a whisper caressing his ear. “Don’t.”
He kept looking through the sight. Two more steps and he could take the shot.
“Don’t,” she said again. “You pull yours. I pull mine.”
He knew she wasn’t lying. They didn’t lie to each other. He eased his finger off the trigger, left the gun on the tripod, and rolled over to face her. “You say the sexiest things to me, Tyra.”
She snorted but didn’t lower her pistol. “We agreed you would stay out of—.”
Still on the ground, he held up his hands. “I had every intention of keeping our agreement, but…” He shrugged. “You look good.” If ‘good’ meant strong, healthy, and pointing a gun at him.
“You look ridiculous. I should just shoot you.”
“In the face? While I’m flat on my back? Imagine the paperwork. The reprimand.”
She shook her head. “This has to stop.”
“I did stop. I had every intention of keeping our agreement, but this is beyond my control. Beyond yours. I didn’t shoot her. Someone else will.”
“Someone else? Who?”
He shrugged again, self-conscious now of how silly he must look. If Tyra was amused, she didn’t show it. Her pistol remained disturbingly steady and her expression grim. That expression hadn’t changed since they were children, brought into the same Romanian orphanage in the month for T names. “She has ideas. Plans about changing the status quo that appeal to the masses, and that makes the status quo nervous.” He wasn’t sure why he bothered with the explanation. He supposed it mattered to him that Tyra understood that there was one.
She frowned. “I’m going to have to arrest you.”
“Might as well. I’m a dead man anyway. Failure wasn’t an option today, but then you know that.” Of course she did. They had the same training. It was after the military that their lives had radically diverged.
She ignored his last comment. “Perfect. Turn state’s evidence. Do some good for a change.”
He laughed. “I don’t know about that. I mean, there’s dying and then there’s dying slowly. Not sure I’m up for the latter.” He felt a trickle of sweat slip down his neck despite the pleasant day.
“We can put you in witness protection, someplace obscure.” She seemed so sure, so resolute in her uniform that he almost believed her, but he knew that wasn’t really her call.
He closed his eyes, remembering the shimmering purple iridescence around the pigeons’ eyes, and reached for his gun.
She did the predictable thing.
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