Rewinding the clock to a minute ago, after seven or eight hours in the observation deck, Jack had been tempted to shoot the moment he saw Vasiliev in his scope. The problem was that there were a ton of trucks and buses traveling on the viaduct today.
The sniper position Frank had chosen for him was incredibly well-hidden, except for its distance. Any higher and he'd lose sight of the room, while any lower would be obscured by the viaduct's guardrails and the passing traffic.
This position was perfect; aside from the extremely tall double-decker buses and container trucks that would obstruct the bullet's path, an ordinary car was just out of reach.
Like the previous raids in Paris, Jack didn't wear a radio for this operation, relying entirely on pre-arranged signals.
This was easy to understand. No matter how incompetent the French security services were, they were still one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and, after all, part of the state apparatus.
The weapons and ammunition Frank had provided were from his previous inventory stored in the safe house, so there was no need to worry about them being traced later. However, the same couldn't be said for communication tools. While they weren't always reliable, they could easily be traced.
Jack was actually more curious about Frank's timing. He'd said someone would provide wind speed markers and that he'd know when the time came.
Jack couldn't understand why Frank was being so secretive about such an important matter. He also doubted that anyone other than someone as skilled as himself could accurately hit a target two kilometers away, across a busy overpass.
While the height of most vehicles wouldn't affect a bullet's trajectory, the air currents created by passing vehicles did, and these volatile currents were impossible to predict.
Just as Jack was thinking this, a container truck passing on the overpass suddenly lost control and crashed into the central guardrail. The driver reacted quickly, swerving, and narrowly avoided the oncoming vehicle. Simultaneously,
a car in the opposite lane, unable to brake in time, also swerved, scraping past the truck's rear end and slamming head-on into the oncoming lane.
Fortunately, due to the dense traffic, both vehicles were traveling at low speeds, resulting in only a minor collision. However, the consequences were severe. The two cars, along with the guardrail they had knocked down, blocked both lanes, bringing traffic on the entire overpass to a standstill.
As if on cue, a small yellow balloon slowly rose from the park at the same moment the accident occurred. Coincidentally, a red balloon also appeared behind the overpass.
Seeing the two balloons drifting up into the sky, caught in Jack's scope, he couldn't help but sigh in admiration. "Frank, that veteran agent, is truly amazing! He's thought of everything!" He immediately pulled the trigger.
"
Guard! Guard! Sniper!"
By the time Anna realized what she was doing, Chenkov had already tackled Vasiliev, who was standing opposite her, and was shouting for help.
Vasiliev wasn't quite dead yet, his legs still twitching slightly. A large hole had formed in his left shoulder, where his collarbone met his neck. Blood spurted everywhere, even onto Anna's face.
The girl suddenly couldn't help but smile, her lips curling upwards slightly before quickly retreating to her usual icy composure.
She quickly retrieved a first aid kit from a nearby cabinet, found some gauze, and pressed it firmly against Vasiliev's wound.
But such a wound clearly required more than two layers of gauze. Vasiliev's neck was practically half gone, his left carotid artery severed, his trachea severed, and his spine, bare and exposed to the air.
Even with a team of expert surgeons on hand, it would have been impossible to save Vasiliev from death.
Anna's actions were less about trying to save him than confirming his injury was fatal.
Everything that followed became hazy again, and Anna felt like she was watching a movie she had no connection to. People kept appearing and disappearing before her eyes, surrounded by panicked shouts and harsh shouts.
She even caught a glimpse of herself, her face and body covered in blood, standing there in a daze, as if nothing in this situation had anything to do with her.
"Anna? Anna!"
Chenkov shook the girl's shoulders. "Calm down. The general wants to see you."
"General? Isn't he dead?" Anna came to her senses and glanced at the body on the ground. Two embassy military attachés in military uniform were covering it with a white sheet.
"It's General Petrovna. She just received the news and rushed to the embassy." Chenkov's eyes were suspicious. Anna's distraught demeanor didn't seem like a professional operative.
But he didn't have time to dwell on it. As they spoke, another military attaché appeared with several guards and immediately produced two pairs of handcuffs.
In contrast to Chenkov's uneasiness, Anna calmly held out her hands. She knew her mission was accomplished and she would soon be dead.
Anna's mission was accomplished, but Jack's wasn't. He was running for his life. Through his 16x scope, he clearly saw Vasiliev being hit by a bullet and began to quickly dismantle his gun.
The TAC-50's construction was simple; the stock and the front, floating barrel could be easily disassembled, along with the bipod underneath.
The sniper rifle, having served its purpose, was quickly disassembled into its component parts. Jack picked up the small blanket spread on the ground, wrapped the parts, and stuffed them into his backpack.
Then, donning gloves, he began dismantling the sound traps he had previously set at several entrances, finally gathering the dust that had already gathered nearby and began to sweep it away.
After this, Jack tiptoed backwards away from the observation deck as an electric golf cart pulled up alongside him. Brian, wearing a sunhat, drove up.
Jack accepted the offered hat, put it on, and hopped in. The cart drove around a horse farm, onto a paved road, and headed towards the Seine River on the western edge of the park.
Behind them, a thick column of smoke rose into the sky. The fire wasn't at the observation deck where Jack had fired his weapon, but at the small bell tower less than a kilometer from the embassy.
It was true that there were FSB agents lurking there, but that didn't stop Brian from pretending to be a tourist and taking some small gifts with him.
This was a trick Jack had come up with to deceive the real thing. After all, the observation deck was too far away compared to the small clock tower, and normally no one would think of it as a sniper point.
So Jack designed a double insurance policy, drawing the FSB's attention to the small clock tower, firstly to buy them time to retreat.
Secondly, if they really fell for it and focused their investigation there, by the time they realized what was happening, the observation deck, which had been rebuilt, would have been gone.
There were many cruise ships on the Seine in autumn, and Jack and Brian didn't go downstream, but went upstream. Like ordinary tourists, they commented on the buildings on both sides of the river from time to time.
When passing the Eiffel Tower, Jack took out his camera and took a lot of pictures. In this world, such landmark buildings should be kept as souvenirs, because one day you might never see them again.
(End of this chapter)