With Ease

-With Ease-
by
Keaton Foster

“When killing becomes too easy.”

In the distance predator drones buzz the sky. Spent of all munitions they circle wide and identify targets for ground forces. They can circle for nearly a full day before they need to refuel. Enemy mechanized machines of death have long since sat silent. Most, old Russian T-72’s well past their prime. Many of them had been destroyed or abandoned in the first days of this hundred day war.

In this twenty first century warzone anything that moves risk being terminated from the sky above. Few battles these days are up close and personal. Technology has added much distance between killers and their foe. Anything that shows itself as a threat is easily wiped off the map. Anything that stands in opposition is quickly taken down.

The winding days of this war have been a tedious hell. The NATO forces are bored of being here. The enemy forces, the remnants of the Republican Guard have been fighting in wars since the eighties, so for them it has always been about killing time. They have little at stake, and really little left to fight for. But oddly some of them still do.

I am part of the cleanup crew, a specialized unit of operators meant to provide cover and intelligence for the retreating NATO forces. The war is winding down, all of us have been ordered home by months end. All combat operations are to cease and this war will then become a public service mission. But regardless of all that, we still have a job to do and so do the enemy. A killer never relents because for us truthfully battles never completely end.

In my scope he appears, certainly less of a man. More beast than anything else or so I have told by those who control my reins. I have been commissioned to kill him and I will not fail. I am a consummate professional and in this, a battle of attrition, whenever possible it is a life for a life, set on a stage of epidemic proportions. Killer or be killed placed in such ridiculous circumstances.

The distance between him and I couldn't be any greater. However, such distance is insignificant because for me doing what I must has become an informal act repetitive in nature. I show no mercy, I have no sympathy and no regret worth noting. Easy killings if such a thing should ever be so possible.

My empathy pulled up and left town a long time ago. This is about him or me. Life and death. In such a twisted relationship right and wrong simply do not belong. The act of killing is all about timing, both his and mine. Whether it is he that is in the wrong place or it is me, that is in the wrong place matters none.

With ease I place my crosshairs upon his chest. Even from such a distance I can still almost hear his heartbeat. I am sure that he hears nothing of me. If he did, if he could, if he had a chance, he would flee. Run for his life, hiding away until this conflict comes to its end.

But on this fleeting day he will not escape his doom. He stands completely still, easy pickings for an expert marksman like me. I count down his end as I always do. Then I breathe, relax, aim, and squeeze.

Bang!

Down range hurdles death, easily cracking the air between the sound of my gun. The noise of his end will never be heard by him. Only me and those here within proximity.

Just as the round finds its home, a split second before his heart explodes he looks at me. Or so it seems. Our eyes meet in the distance between. Under my breath I mutter a small prayer for him as well as well as for myself. It’s the least that I can do. The least that I should do.

Death slams into him with brutal force. He never stood a chance because I am just too damn good at killing men like him from such an impersonal distance. He slams to the ground like bag of stones. To his feet he will never again rise.

He is dead, and seemingly, after all that I’ve done here,

So am I.


With Ease
by Keaton Foster Copyright © 2014