There is no rain. I had been warned about the rain here. One of the older officers who smiled with empty eyes warned of pummeling, beating rain. He warned how the streets seemed to smell pungent after each rain in Belgrade. The scent was biting, staying with you for hours at a time and lingering with you even after you returned home.
There is no wind. Wind was the enemy of operations such as this. A thousand variables were already taken into consideration and the wind added more at half the number minimum. To have no rain was a blessing. To have no wind on top of it was to make one wonder if something else down the line would go wrong on top of it.
There was less cold than even home. It was better that way, I decided. Familiarity was unwelcome for the situation. Familiarity invited comfort and in comfort there was only death. Only atypical could be welcomed. To feel atypical was to feel paranoia and paranoia was key to survival. Paranoia invited caution and better caution than comfort any day. It was better caution than comfort every day. There was no getting around that concept in one’s mind.
There was no moon.
All in all a perfect night.
That was what I would remember most of Belgrade. How the blanket of night seemed to have made everything stop. All of Mother Nature’s great elements, her wonders were put on pause so reverently. Perhaps it was I who just imagined it now, convincing myself with each personal retelling in my thoughts after this night came to an end.
This night.
This night in Belgrade.
They had told me it was of the utmost import that Српска напредна странка (Serbian Progressive Party) took a firm seat of power in Parliament. The relations of our home country and their own depended upon it. That meant that messages had to made clear to certain dissenting voices. Those who could mean the difference between complete control and a power struggle even at the most local level. The protests, the rallies, political upheaval had been pushing harder since the last year and beyond. There was little doubt that the people wanted the SNP but those with my leash saw even the most tiny amount of resistance as resistance all the same.
That could not stand.
That would not stand.
They spoke this to me but it was as if they spoke it around me. Over me. All I would dare respond with was nods of resolute agreement. Yes. Yes. Of course. Yes. I worked as intelligence for as long as I dared remember. It was nothing for me to wonder.
There was nothing for me to ponder.
There was only the predicament and the end result. I was the merely the line drawn between the two points.
That attitude was what made me the perfect choice to sit on this rooftop.
One can be trained to shoot.
One cannot be trained to shut off what comes at the end of the shooting.
A complete departure from your morality cannot be trained. How could it be? How does one train another to casually snuff out life in such an impersonal manner and then close themselves off from it all? With time and patience one can be trained to make better shots, more accurate hits on a target. One cannot be so easily trained to close their eyes to suffering, to close their minds to lingering doubts that creep up months, years, and into decades later.
My eyesight wavered to dark shapes lingering along the faces of stalwart architecture. The lights made the movement lessen to the point of resembling shimmers or vibrations. Twisting ink that barely contoured into things I would dare not humor; they moved in time with the occasional passerby, with the two and three cars that disappeared into the night. My fingers flexed awkwardly, a practiced motion that steadied the nerves.
Mental checkmarks. Bipod placement. Alignment.
Taking into consideration the suppressor and the unfortunate circumstance of a wandering zero.
Check. Check. Check.
It was not my place to question the result, or to question the potential fallout that would come. It was only my place to take aim. To be ready at the slightest instance. To pull the trigger.
It would have been simpler to find someone who had been in Sarajevo. Someone who had been right there in Снајперска алеја (Sniper Alley). Yet my superiors wanted someone familiar, someone native. Were I in the position to, I would have brusquely commented on the biting irony of pushing for more close knit foreign policy but not trusting anyone from said country to get the job done.
Instead there was a nod. Nod. Nod. Resolute agreement.
The lights in the designated window turned on. The lights in the designated window turned off.
The eye looked through the scope watching the body moving in darkness, uncoiling fabric and linen from the skin. The fingers clenched and unclenched once more before preparing for the trigger and the subsequent recoil.
The glass shatters.
Sound.
Chaos.
Scrambling.
A view so near but physically so far away. I know the wails will come before I see the lights come on in the bedroom. The screaming so far away as the larger figure hugs the smaller figure to chest, and another large figure scrambles for a compress, for a phone, for a thousand things that none of which will make this better.
“Ударил (Hit).”
I hear it over my earpiece as I sit up and begin my move.
