Chapter 18 - THE RELEASE OF THE THUNDER
Kane felt his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. "He's about to fire! Claire, he's pulling the trigger!"
"Inhale," Claire whispered to herself.
Her shoulders settled. Her chest expanded slowly, drawing in the dry, dust-laden mountain air.
"Exhale half."
The world seemed to stop spinning. The wind howling through the rocks faded into absolute background static. The wail of the sirens, the crackle of distant gunfire, the smell of burning metal—everything evaporated from Claire's consciousness, leaving only a microscopic black crosshair hovering over a silhouette hidden beneath a shadow fifteen hundred meters away.
"Target settled," she whispered.
Her index finger, scarred and weathered, applied smooth, relentless pressure to the two-pound match trigger.
*BANG.*
The TAC-50 fired with an earth-shattering roar that shook the very bedrock beneath them. A massive muzzle blast exploded outward, kicking up a blinding cloud of limestone dust that washed over Kane’s face. The heavy rifle recoiled violently against Claire's shoulder, but her athletic body absorbed the shock without shifting an inch from the firing lane.
Kane blinked through the dust cloud, trying desperately to focus his binoculars on the distant eastern cliff. "Did you hit him? What happened?"
"Flight time is 2.3 seconds," Claire said, completely motionless behind the optic, her eye tracking the trace. "Wait for it."
Across the vast canyon, the heavy .50-caliber projectile tore through the sky at nearly three times the speed of sound. It cut through the lateral wind shear, rode the invisible wave of the thermal updraft, and sliced downward out of the blinding desert sun like an unseen lightning bolt.
Two point three seconds felt like an eternity.
Then, through his optics, Kane saw it.
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On the distant ledge, the limestone wall directly behind the enemy sniper exploded into a crimson cloud of pulverized rock, blood, and shattered equipment. The 750-grain bullet had struck the enemy marksman dead center in the chest, smashing through his body armor, his weapon receiver, and the limestone shelf behind him with terrifying kinetic energy. The impact threw his lifeless body backward off the ledge, sending him tumbling three hundred feet down into the canyon abyss.
"Hostile shooter neutralized!" Ellis roared into the radio, his voice shaking with fierce jubilation. "Direct hit! Target eliminated!"
