Crosswind

by Pete Parsons

It had to be today. Though perhaps not. The previous two, he reckoned, had been too windy. The window as still open but today was the last chance. He squeezed himself into his red cycling shorts and pulled the white hoodie over his head, smoothing out both arms so that the “ME” logo was clearly visible. There could be no mistake in that regard.

Entering the garage he flicked on the lights. At the far wall he unlocked a black, steel cabinet from which he lifted out “Giselle”, his unused Timberwolf C14 rifle. Amorously, he kissed her from the tip of her barrel to the end of her butt. She felt as smooth as his shaved legs and reminded him of Cuban whores from summers past. He promised her — yet again — that it wouldn’t be long before she would fire her first bullet. Then he locked her away, with barely a glance at the multitude of other, previously jilted, lethal weapons in the cabinet.

He exited the garage pushing a canary-yellow 21-speed racing bike. It was a formidable specimen of engineering, weighing in at a mere six pounds and built entirely of space age composite materials. Both wheels were solid, framed by slick black tires so thin they were almost invisible when viewed head-on. Each wheel had a black and white corkscrew swirl emanating from its center, reminiscent of nosecones on WWII fighter planes. The optical illusion as the wheels spun was hypnotic. The whole thing had cost him two months’ salary.

He mounted the bicycle and rode off towards the river parkway, hoping that today he would at last be admitted to The S-Club.

***

Veteran S-Club member Naomi Kriskin couldn’t remember a time in her life when she had not been besotted with toddlers. It had started when, momentarily unsupervised, she’d witnessed the uncensored birth of a human baby on television — on her fifth birthday. Her direction in life had never been a mystery to her: she had become the be-all and the end-all of mothers and kindergarten teachers.

She looked out of the classroom window and smiled at the umpteen tiny-tots flitting around the playground randomly, like cute little ladybugs. Her assistant Leslie stood with two other colleagues surveying playtime with eagle eyes. She thought lovingly of her own four boys, aged between three and seven. Ask anyone and you’d hear that she was the model mother. Her husband, nicknamed “Black Nick” because he was a chimney sweep, was the model father. The Kriskins were The Perfect Family. In fact, they were so perfect that their flawless white teeth had recently been featured in a televised toothpaste commercial.

Naomi glanced at the clock on the far wall, behind the tiny chairs and desks. She’d stuck all the children’s birthday cards to her on the wall so that she could see them at all times. They reminded her of how much she loved her life and her job. Ten ten. She had a full twenty minutes before class resumed. Leaning over, she reached deep into her backpack, past the Tupperware lunch box and water bottle. She pulled out two long, thin boxes. From the first she pulled a photo-collage of all her current students, mounted on a one inch thick Kevlar backplate. From the second, made of Congolese mahogany, she lifted out a gleaming rifle barrel and a stock which she proceeded to click together with rehearsed precision. The scope was not necessary at this range but the silencer was, so she screwed it in. Smiling, she walked over to the far wall and hung the collage directly beneath the clock. Ten twelve.

Naomi skipped over to the classroom door and peeked into the hallway. All clear. The sunlight filtered through the maple trees outside the window, casting dappled shade over the collage and a slight breeze kept the shadows moving erratically; this exercise would be even more realistic than she’d hoped, thanks to the constantly changing light. She liked that.

Back at her desk she clipped a magazine into the rifle and stroked it adoringly. Then she took aim at the window and the kids outside. Eeny, meeny, miny, moe … Pausing, she giggled before swinging the gun back towards the collage. She let fly thirteen shots in quick succession. Her new silencer really was the business, making a barely audible puff of sound as she took each shot. She’d have to thank Miles for the recommendation.

She retrieved her collage-cum-target for inspection. The results were excellent. Eleven head shots directly between the eyes and two strays: one through Jimmy Enright’s four year old throat, the other through Chantal Levesque’s fifty five month old heart. Very satisfying. She was coming along nicely. Not perfect yet, but it ought to suffice.Ten fourteen. She checked that none of the rounds had fallen out of the Kevlar backplate onto the floor, before stowing her gear away in the backpack. She was ready. Stretching, she sang a couple of verses from Frere Jacques and rearranged the pot-pourri on her desk before joining her colleagues on the playground sipping a cup of herbal tea. Some of her class raced over, wanting her to play with them.

***

“Anytime between nine and five. You must keep moving. You must never be stationary,” were his instructions. Lionel Nordstrom was getting impatient. It was nearly three thirty. He’d cycled around the parkway for nearly seven hours, stopping only momentarily to pickup his quotidian “Mighty Shite,” an egg sandwich made with awful, soggy, Mighty White bread. The window was getting narrower every second.

Sweating heavily, he looked around trying to spot the person but he didn’t know who he was looking for. He drank from his water bottle. The sun was warm, the clouds high. Ahead of him a group of roller-skaters was about to set off. He had knots in his stomach. His head hurt and his breath was ghastly, even to himself. Was his halitosis caused by his body beginning to consume itself from the inside out? His nerves had prevented him from eating anything really substantial in the last six days. Although athletic, his endurance was being severely tested by this routine.

He wondered how it would be when it happened. Would he see the projectile? Would he see the shooter? Would it hurt a lot? Would he live? For days these questions had ceaselessly replayed themselves like a stuck record in his head. If it didn’t happen today, that was it — there would be no further opportunities. Ever. He thought of Giselle and said a silent prayer, willing a bullet to come his way.

He turned around and set off back along the riverbank towards the bridge, shifting rapidly through the gears as he gained speed, tires whispering over the bike path. The black, silent, oil-like river slicked downstream on his left. This was unusual. He was more accustomed to it roiling noisily as it sought the distant ocean.

Comfortable, and having guesstimated the recalibration of her scope to cancel out the crosswind, Naomi tracked the yellow bike, crosshairs glued to the cyclist three hundred yards away on the opposite bank. She released the safety catch.

He saw a glint across the river at about the same time that the bullet smashed into his leg, launching him off the bike. Lionel felt the soft ground give a little as he landed on it with a thump. He was grateful for this. Relief engulfed him. It had happened and he was alive! Looking at his leg though, he became puzzled: he’d been hit in the thigh, not the calf as per the arrangement. He let his head fall back onto the grass and fumbled with his earpiece which crackled to life just then. A female voice said,

“Congratulations Mr. Nordstrom. This completes your initiation. You are now an S-Club amateur sniper. We will see you at the next club meeting on the fourteenth when you will take the Oath and be assigned a mission. The meeting location will follow. Now, Please dial 911 using the mobile phone you were given.”

There was a lot of blood. Too much, surely? And not much pain beyond a dull throb. Weird. Lionel reached into his right pocket, groping around for the mobile phone which was not there. He spotted its antenna sticking up, out of the grass several feet away. “Must have fallen out when I got hit.” He crawled towards it but the effort was too great. Resting instead, he laid his head back and stared up at the seagulls flying against the wind. Two were fighting over a tasty morsel. In the back of his beclouded mind he could hear the faint clicking of a bicycle wheel as it slowly span to a halt. He felt dizzy. His vision cycled through the spectrum, ending on violet, before he lost consciousness and bled out through his femoral artery.

Naomi cooked perfect macaroni for supper that evening.