Domino by Ivy Black

Chapter Twenty-Five

Domino

The sun beats down on us, and unlike Blue Rock, the heat out here in this wasteland is unrelenting. Cosmo and I are both in desert camouflage, laying prone on the dirt of the rise that looks down over the gas station. Our getaway vehicle is behind us, unable to be seen from Ortega’s meeting point. I checked it myself before we hunkered down to wait.

“Christ, is being a sniper always this boring?” Cosmo grumbles.

“It’s a game for those who have patience.”

“So, what you’re saying is yeah, it’s always this boring.”

“I told you not to come,” I reply.

“What? And miss all this?”

I laugh despite myself and shake my head. Cosmo can be damn funny when he wants to be. And right now, I do appreciate his attempt to lighten the mood. I certainly need it. With nothing better to do than wait, I check the sights on my rifle again, adjusting the scope, and take notice of the wind. It actually seems like it’s lessened as we’ve been sitting up here. It’s a break I’m as thankful for as I am surprised by it. Lucky breaks have been in short supply recently.

“What time is it?” I ask.

“Ten minutes after the last time you asked.”

“Don’t be a shithead. As my spotter, it’s your duty to answer my questions.”

He sighs. “Ten forty-three.”

We’ve been sitting up on the rise for the last hour and a half. We arrived well ahead of the meeting time that Bala had provided for us to settle in. And as expected, the sun is at our backs, which should make us all but invisible up here.

“So, how are things going with Ashley?” Cosmo asks.

I nod. “Good. Really good, actually.”

“What happened to playing the field for a while. You know, dipping that quill into as many inkpots as you could?”

“That was never my idea. That was Trig, if you remember right.”

“You didn’t seem all that opposed to it.”

I shrug. “Maybe I found something I liked.”

He laughs softly. “I knew you would. You aren’t the kind of animal Trig is. You know the value of a good woman.”

“I suppose I do.”

“I have to say, ever since you met her, you’ve been slightly more tolerable than usual. So, I assume she makes you happy.”

Her face floats into my mind’s eye and I smile. Just the thought of her fills me with a happiness that’s still so foreign to me. But it’s a feeling I think I can really get used to. Provided we survive the day, or course.

“Yeah, look at that smile. That’s the smile of a man in love,” he says.

“You’re sounding a lot like Derek with this obsession with my love life, you know.”

“It’s like I told you before, your love life is the most interesting thing happening with the MC lately.”

“The rifle in my hands would beg to differ.”

There’s a brief lull in the conversation and Cosmo shifts his position again. He looks over at me.

“How in the hell do you do that? Lay in one position forever like that?” he asks.

“Training. When you go through sniper training, they teach you to lay in the most uncomfortable positions for the longest times. It’s part of the job. You just learn to block out your discomfort.”

“Glad I never went through sniper training. I would have sucked at it.”

“Tell me about it.”

I watch as a lizard with a gray-green color with blue stripes down its side scurries by. It stops when it spots me, then takes off again, moving rapidly away. Not a muscle on me twitches.

“Great. Now, we’ve got the creepy crawlies out here with us,” Cosmo mutters.

“They’re probably saying the same thing about you.”

He smirks, then looks up at me. “How much have you told Ashley about the MC? About what we do?”

“Everything,” I reply.

“Everything?”

I nod. “I owe her my honesty. Didn’t you tell your wife everything?”

“I did. Took some time, but I did eventually, yeah. It’s how I knew I was serious about her.”

“I feel like you’re trying to make a point,” I say.

“Smartass. But yeah, I am. I’m sayin’ it sounds like you’re serious about this girl. You risked her running away for the sake of being transparent with her. That’s no small thing. And the fact that she didn’t run away and is sticking by you, that’s an even bigger thing. It’s a rare, good woman who doesn’t balk when she hears the kind of shit we get into.”

I make a minor adjustment on my scope as I replay the conversation with her in my head last night. Ash is scared as hell for me right now and I know she has to be sitting on a razor’s edge, waiting to hear from me. I hate that I can’t call her until this is all over with just to let her know I’m all right. But I won’t break operational security for anything. It’s the cardinal rule.

I doubt there’s anybody out here packing the kind of surveillance equipment that can detect cell phones, but when I’m in the field, I don’t take chances, and I don’t make assumptions. That’s a sure way to get your team killed and I won’t risk Cosmo’s life like that. He’s got a wife and kids to think of.

“Well, she wasn’t too thrilled with what we’re up to today,” I say.

“No?”

“Was Cathy?”

“I… uhhh… I didn’t tell her what we had planned for the day.”

“I thought you were transparent with her.”

“I am. Mostly. Dude, she would have kicked my ass and tied me to a chair to keep me from coming out here.”

“Maybe I should have called her.”

“Maybe you should make sure we both get out of here in one piece and back to those fine women we love?”

“That’s the plan.”

“Heads up,” he says, his voice suddenly firm. “I think it’s go time.”

Through my scope I follow to where he’s looking, and I see a cloud of dust rising. Vehicles moving this way. My gut tightens and I clench my jaw, doing my best to settle my nerves.

“Lay still. Completely still. I have no doubt they’ve got men scanning the area. And if they catch sight of us, we’re toast,” I say.

Cosmo says nothing but flattens himself against the ground. He raises a pair of binoculars and looks toward the vehicles headed this way. With the sun behind us, I don’t have to worry about the light glinting off the lenses of his binoculars the way it’s hitting the windshields of the inbound cars, giving away our position.

“One black SUV, two white follow vans, and three bikes. Looks like Ortega and his crew,” Cosmo says.

“To the east,” I say, catching movement from the corner of my eye.

Moving slowly and deliberately, Cosmo looks to the east. It takes him a minute before he spots it.

“Two black panel vans. Likely Zavala’s boys with their product. Looks like we got ourselves a party here,” he reports.

It takes another twenty minutes for all the interested parties to arrive at the gas station. We watch as the men dismount their bikes and pile out of the vans.

“I count thirteen,” I say, pitching my voice low.

“Baker’s dozen confirmed. And Ortega’s the one in the dark blue suit,” he says just as quietly.

“Who’s he trying to impress?”

“Zavala probably. Too bad that prick’s not here.”

“Would make shit a lot easier, that’s for sure. At least Ortega’s made it easy to mark him out.”

We watch for a minute as Ortega talks with one of the cartel men. The rest of the crews are helping unload the black vans and load it back into Warrior’s follow vans. Ortega walks away by himself, looking like he’s on his cellphone. He’s alone and isolated at the moment. It’s the perfect shot.

“We good?” I ask.

“Take him when you’re ready.”

Letting out a long breath, I settle myself and put the crosshairs in my scope right on the back of his head. My training and discipline kick in as I draw in a shallow breath and hold it, not a tremor or twitch in my body as I gently squeeze the trigger. The sharp crack of the rifle echoes across the land around us, and as the people below start reacting to it, I watch with a grim satisfaction as Ortega’s head explodes in a violent red mist that splatters the side of the white panel van. He falls to his knees, then down onto his face.

The gas station below is suddenly a hive of activity as they men scurry around, looking for the source of the shot. It’s only then one of them finds Ortega, signaling everybody else to join him. If they’re smart, it’s not going to take them long to figure out which general direction the shot came from. I don’t credit them with an abundance of smarts, but it’s a pretty simple trajectory to figure out.

And right on cue, a couple of the guys in Warriors kuttes unleash a hail of bullets from their ARs. Bullets slam into the earth all around us, with no one shot even really getting close. But I don’t want to push my luck too hard.

“I think it’s time we back out of here,” I say.

“Yeah, you’re probably right. But it sure would be nice to take a couple of more of those pricks down.”

With the sun behind me, I’m not overly concerned they’ll see my exact position. But it seems foolish to push our luck. Unless, of course, we take them all. This starts the war, and like I said, it’s going to be a war of attrition. Might as well get started.

I line up another shot and squeeze the trigger. Then another. And another. Every shot I take strikes home and adds another body to the growing pile on the ground below us. After eight of the original thirteen have been killed, the wild spray of shots from below start to get closer to our position.

“They’re starting to home in on us. I think it’s time we go,” I say.

Cosmo nods. “I think you’re right.”

I squeeze the trigger once more, sending a shot straight through the heart of one of the cartel men.

“Nine for nine. Damn, I’m good,” I say.

“Yeah, you’re all right.”

“Eat shit. You’re not going to dull my shine.”

Moving slowly, Cosmo and I both back down the rise until we’re in a spot where we can stand without being seen. I quickly break down my rifle and stow it in the case before slamming the lid and throwing it in the back seat. I swing into the passenger’s seat and slam the door as Cosmo is throwing the car into gear. Our rear tires kicking up a spray of dirt and gravel as we roar out of there.

A few minutes of rough riding, we’re on the highway, flying along as we head for the town where our switch car is waiting for us. I turn around in the seat and look behind us, letting out a small breath of relief.

“Road’s clear. I think we’re good.”

“For now,” Cosmo says.

“Like I told you, you’re not going to dull my shine today,” I say and flash him a smirk.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. The good guys finally got a W today. Go us,” Cosmo says. “All we did, though, was touch off a war that’s going to be ugly as shit.”

“At least we’ll only be staring down one enemy. That’s something.”

He frowns but nods. “It is something. And I’ll take it.”

Out on the horizon, I see dark clouds building in the distance, leaving me to wonder when the storm is going to break.