Cold Blooded Killer
Copyright© 2026 by Megumi Kashuahara
Chapter 7
Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, September 2010
The compound sat in a shallow depression twelve kilometers southeast of the city, mud brick walls the color of the ground they’d been built from, invisible from the valley road until you were almost on top of it. From the ridgeline nine-hundred-eighty-eight meters northwest it was an open book.
She’d been in position since 0130.
The team had inserted ninety minutes behind her — six operators moving through the dark in the silence of men who had done this until silence was their natural state. She’d watched them cross the open ground below her and disappear into a wadi two hundred meters short of the compound wall and go still.
Paterson’s voice in her earpiece. Low and flat.
“Team is set. Talk to me Sand Viper.”
She swept the compound slowly. Filed what she saw.
“Guard tower, northeast corner. Single occupant, weapon visible, he’s smoking — I can see the coal. South wall, one lit window, single figure inside moving around. Technical on the backside of the eastern rise — engine’s running, I can see heat shimmer off the hood. Compound is otherwise cold.”
“Copy. Confirm two hostages?”
“Negative visual on hostages. South window figure is moving like someone doing a check, not a prisoner. They’ll be inside, lower level.”
“Agreed.” A pause. “ROE is clear. Guard tower, technical, anyone who presents a weapon. Hostages do not — I say again do not — get caught in a crossfire. If it goes wrong we abort.”
“Understood.”
“On your call.”
She settled behind the CheyTac and let her breathing drop.
Forty-five beats per minute. The dam at the edge.
The man in the tower took a long pull on his cigarette and looked out at the desert and saw nothing. She put the crosshairs on him and waited for the exhale.
Hold it. Hold it.
“Sand Viper ready.”
“Execute.”
The trigger broke.
The cigarette disappeared.
She was already moving to the south window where the figure had stopped moving — something had registered, some sound or instinct — and a shape came into the frame with a weapon rising and the trigger broke before the weapon finished rising.
Two shots. Five seconds.
“Tower and south window down. Team is clear.”
“Moving,” Paterson said.
She swung the CheyTac to the eastern rise and steadied her breathing and waited. The engine note from the technical changed pitch — someone had heard the suppressed shots or seen the tower man drop and was putting it in gear.
The hood came over the rise.
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