I KILL RICH PEOPLE 2 Read Free Page A

wipe sweat out of his eyes. Spencer began his micro-exercises as both a discipline and a distraction; starting from his toes and working all the way up to his neck and out to each arm, he tensed every muscle once, followed by four quick contractions, and repeated the routine another two dozen times.
    The finger hurt like a motherfucker. Spencer stored it and moved past the pain. His right hand touched the ammunition. Picking up one of the nearly five-inch-long bullets, he imagined the warm heft of the cylinder in his palm before thumbing it into the magazine. Without looking, he touched again up and right, adding the physical memory for exactly where the next round was awaiting his fingers, and continued loading until his primary mag was filled. He always loaded his one-mag immediately prior to mission-fire. That routine was as important for centering himself as his breathing. His one break from standard was using his opposite hand to open first the end cap on the Leupold Mark 4 scope and then the eye-cap, avoiding touching anything with the tender finger. Balancing right and left hemispheres was important and it was too often overlooked, but this time he had his left shoulder rolled uncomfortably to compensate for the fucked-up index finger.
    Then he spotted his primary. His muscles clenched, on point from jaw to toes, before he steadied his breathing, leaned into the Leupold scope, and relaxed his finger along the trigger. The intel coming from Miller, Spencer’s “lead”, proved to be on point. The teenager had on the same red Manchester United FC t-shirt he was wearing in the briefing photos. His features were caved-in all down the right side; no jaw or cheekbone, one side ghoulish and on the other a handsome kid. The whole of Afghanistan, captured in a face.
    Even without the distinctive red beard, the elder man’s hooked nose and deeply set green eyes would have been a clear match. The woman with them was covered entirely in her chadri; Spencer had to identify her by association with Manchester United and Red-beard.
    He made one subtle sweep until the targets were in frame, and then adjusted the sight to clarity. Three-hundred-sixty meters.
    He switched his sat-phone on and popped twice, waited, and then popped twice more. He could already have taken the targets—one by one he ranged them in the crosshairs. At this easy range he had no need to compensate for wind or distance—but he held to the discipline, waiting for the response chirps. Forty solo missions . You respect the routine.
    Where the hell was his counter? Strykers need to get their thumbs out of their asses. Respond already!
    One chirp. Two chirps. Right. They had the signal.
    “OK boys, let’s wrap this up and get on home.”
    The three, father, son, and the black-clothed specter, routinely strolled out into the field, straddling the furrows out toward the irrigation culvert’s water gate. The elder walked first, followed by the primary, with the mother hopping her way along. The kid stopped and used his toe to flip up a donkey turd, then soccer-dribbled it on his Pumas a half-dozen times. Spencer popped twice, waited, and popped the sat-phone three times, signaling the Strykers to move in fast.
    The mother lifted her burqa, exposing her sandaled feet, and mimicked soccer-boy’s dribbling skills before she side-kicked a pass toward her son. The turd broke into dry bits when he caught it on the toe of his shoe. The father held his head down and walked fast, both hands folded behind his back. He forced soccer-boy out of his path atop the furrow until they turned, moving out perpendicular to the farm rows. Every time the woman leapt from one furrow to the next, she passed in front of the soccer kid, bringing both of their heads into a single crossing frame. Spencer considered the pattern. It brought a little challenge into his routine. Could he take out the bomber and the woman with one bullet?
    The three were well out into the field, 200 meters