Fuzzy Navel

10:31 P.M.
PESSOLANO

THE COP IS SMART, doing that with the lights. Pessolano’s night-vision scope is too bright. Useless. He switches back to the Leupold scope, and the outside lights still make it impossible to see inside the house.

No big deal. He just needs to shoot out the lights, then switch back to night vision.

The first two are easy. Especially since he moved eighty yards closer. Even a child could have made those shots.

Pessolano doesn’t have any tree cover this time. He’s flat on his belly, legs out behind him, the TPG-1’s bipod legs resting on the wild grass across the street from the house. His pose is identical to the sniper that came in those packages of plastic green army men he used to play with as a child. Pessolano wishes he had a bazooka – he can picture the toy figure on his knee, a rocket launcher perched on his shoulder, ready to rain hell upon the enemy. That guy was his favorite.

He nudges left, seeking the lights on the garage, and frowns.

The dead cop – the fat one he shot on the driveway.

He’s gone.

What the hell is going on? First he shot the woman cop in the head, and she got back up. Now this.

Pessolano shakes his head, trying to clear it. He peers through the scope again.

Definitely gone. Just a small puddle of blood where he’s fallen.

No. It’s not blood. The liquid on the driveway isn’t red.

It’s brown.

Chocolate milk, Pessolano thinks.

The fat cop tricked him.

Pessolano begins to sweep the grounds, looking for where he ran.