Standing securely on the limb of the pine tree he was invisible. Like smoke on a moonless night, his profile was masked within the Loblolly needles, invisible to the naked eye. The only problem was that he knew it was not the naked eye he needed to remain hidden from. Somewhere, hidden in the trees around the cabin, were people looking for him, laying in wait, ready to fire first if they could detect him.
ALERT: Scan in progress
His opposites inside the terrorist cell were sweeping again. Routine enough, he thought. Every 8 to 12 minutes for the past 5 hours they had swept the area looking for anomalies. Depending on the systems employed they would be looking for certain signatures or markers. Fluctuations in body heat amongst their own comrades, digital traffic in or out of the compound, dark areas in the surrounding countryside.
It was the ‘dark area’ he had to fear. A dark area is defined as a location in space that contained no data. His SymbioTech suit could mask almost 100% of the digital traffic in and out of itself, it matched the ambient external temperature perfectly, it even disposed of any waste internally, but offering material to mask the dark area was something you had to master yourself.
He shifted his weight on the limb with the breeze, he moved centimeters out onto the limb and then back again snug to the trunk. It must be working because only a few minutes ago an owl had landed on the limb above him and perched there still.
ALERT: Scan terminated
Becoming an assassin is not what most little boys dream about. It is not a glamorous job, he couldn’t tell the truth to anyone he met, and people always ask what you do for a living. Military, sure, he could tell them he is in the military and some people let it drop there. But others pressed, so it was best to be the person that no one noticed. He had become a living embodiment of dark area. In bars and cafes he went unnoticed by the patrons, on transports he sat down and slept until they arrived at port, in his own apartment building none of the other residents could tell you what he looked like. He is a walking dark area.
The door to the porch swung open and a man walked out, he lit a match to fire up his cigar and it was then that Major Thomas Nguyen acquired the target.
IDENTIFICATION: Gustav Haas
The targets face was mapped and scanned in 0.03 seconds, sixty-three points of commonality were mapped and remapped from hundreds of video and photographic records, confirming his identity and issuing the death warrant allowing Nguyen to proceed.
Nguyen released the safety on his rifle with a nanonic burst. His weapon, more a extension of his suit that not, offered him an array of data. The system was 100% operational and fully powered, humidity and wind negligible. The flechette block contained 1400 munitions that could be fired at an almost continuous volley until exhausted without generating heat beyond operational standards. Carrying two more flechette blocks on his suit he felt comfortable with his firepower.
Holding the weapon in his right hand, he dropped to the ground, firing in mid-fall. The thirty round burst impacted on target, ripping through bone, muscle, soft tissue and extinguishing the life on one Gustav Haas, supplier of narcotics to millions and financier of terrorist cells all across the world.
The easy part was done, evasion was always the hardest part of any mission. For the briefest moment Nguyen considered moving to the cabin and dealing with the bodyguard contingent, but that was not his mission. In seconds they would find the body and then all hell would break loose. Already a computer somewhere in the world had registered the connection to Haas was lost and was seeking to reestablish the stream.
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