Fuzzy Navel

6:53 P.M.
MUNCHEL

MUNCHEL GRUNTS in satisfaction after the CD shatters, and then he moves the scope ever so slightly to watch the split-tail. He’s ready for her to fire back. Hell, he wants her to fire back. That’s why he didn’t kill her when she went for the rifle, even though he had a bead on it. Confirmed kills are great, but real snipers must also contend with return fire. The cops in the street, they’re all too far away, their guns not powerful enough to reach him. There’s no threat or danger.

He wants a little danger. And the ultimate danger is when you go up against another sniper. An anti-sniper.

Munchel doesn’t expect her to come close to him. Her rifle is a toy compared to his, and she doesn’t even have a scope. But this will be a much better story to tell Swanson and Pessolano if the cops send a few rounds his way.

“Show me what you got, baby,” Munchel says, baring his yellow teeth in a grin.

When her first bullet connects with the concrete planter he’s resting his gun on, Munchel jerks like he’s had acid thrown in his face. He drops the TPG-1 and ducks down.

How the hell did she make that shot?

“Lucky,” he says aloud, his voice cracking.

As the word leaves his lips, another shot blasts into the planter, tossing up stone chips, burrowing a hole into it.

Munchel backs the hell away. He checks his clothing. Why isn’t the camouflage working? Is she using night vision?

A bullet zips over his head, its wind practically parting his hair before burying itself into the building behind him. He hunkers down even lower, thinking he should be returning fire, knowing he should, but too scared to move.

One more shot, and the planter shatters, large chunks falling to the ground, a puff of dirt forming a cloud that settles in his eyes and on his lips.

Munchel holds his breath, waiting. His bladder feels like a water balloon being squeezed in a vise. Sweat pops out of his body in places he didn’t even know he had pores. He doesn’t dare move, convinced that she can see him.

A full minute passes.

He wonders if she’s out of bullets, or simply toying with him. Maybe she has the shot, has him all lined up, and is enjoying watching him squirm.

Sirens, in the distance. Munchel knows that must be SWAT. He needs to break camp, get the hell out of here. His heart is thumping. His mouth is dry. His palms feel like he just soaked them in water. He’s more scared than he’s ever been in his life.

But he’s also exhilarated.

This is what combat is like, he thinks.

The feeling is intoxicating.

Munchel knows the news cameras are rolling, knows that the split-tail can see him, knows that what he has in mind might be suicidal. But he decides to go for it anyway.

No one expects a pinned down man to charge. So Munchel charges.

The suitcase in one hand, the TPG- 1 in the other, he sprints across the sidewalk, across the street, daring the woman cop to shoot him. He knows to zigzag, to make himself a harder target. He maybe even yells a little, an animalistic war cry, the sound of a hero facing certain death.

No bullets hit him. No one even shoots at him. Munchel pauses behind a car to catch his breath, marveling at his own bravery. It’s dark, and the streetlight he shot out earlier helps him hide in the shadows. But if the cop has some sort of optical enhancer, it’s possible she can still see him.

The sirens are getting closer. He needs some kind of distraction, something that will confuse the night-vision goggles the woman cop must be using.

He unzips the suitcase, removes one of two whiskey bottles. Inside is kerosene mixed with laundry detergent. Poor man’s napalm. Munchel would have preferred real napalm, or a grenade, but he couldn’t get those. He tried to order some, on the Internet, and the prick took his money and didn’t send him shit. Hopefully the homemade stuff will be good enough.

Munchel unscrews the bottle cap and shoves in a braided wick from a camping lantern. He uses a Zippo to light the wick and then shouts, “Semper fi!” as he throws the flaming bottle at a parked SUV. It bounces off the hood and shatters on the sidewalk, soaking someone’s lawn with liquid fire.

He doesn’t stop to acknowledge his handiwork. He’s on the move again, tugging the suitcase behind him in a crouch, changing direction several times, making it to the Chevy Nova parked in the center of the street.

The split-tail’s car. He considers using his second Molotov cocktail to set it ablaze, to teach her a lesson, but changes his mind and reaches for something else instead. Something electronic, that Pessolano let him borrow.

This woman is a worthy opponent. It isn’t enough just to destroy her car. Munchel wants to best her. To beat her. And he’s already formulating a plan on how to do just that.

He turns on the device and attaches it to the underside of her rear bumper. Then he lights the second bottle of napalm, yells “Recon!” and chucks it at a patrol car.

Munchel runs back the way he came, slipping between houses, making it to his car a block away. It had taken him almost forty minutes of circling to find that parking space, and even though he was clearly the required twenty feet away from the fire hydrant, he still got a ticket. Assholes.

Rather than dwell on it, Munchel throws the suitcase and the rifle into the backseat, hops behind the wheel, and beelines for the rendezvous point, imagining Pessolano and Swanson watching his heroics on CNN and cheering him on.