Dominoes

The air was crisp, cold, and carried with it the smell of the city. A dozen different odors, from pleasant to rank, seemed to waft up on the November winds to the rooftop. It didn't help Elias, that his partner Raymond, was smoking. "Time?" Raymond asked, muttering around the cigarette he had currently. "What I'm supposed to do everything for you?" Elias said rhetorically. Still, he pulled back the sleeve on his all black fatigues, checking the watch he wore. "Ten minutes till," he said. Looking over at Raymond, then the lit end of the cigarette, he said "Those things will kill you Ray."

Raymond snorted out a small laugh, clouds of smoke coming from his nose and mouth. "In our line of work?" he said, taking the cigarette and smothering it against the roof. "I should be so lucky...." He crawled over to the edge of the roof, where his snipe rifle lay, ready and waiting. Elias in the meantime grabbed his spotters scope, looking out at the street stretching out below. The parade was in full swing, rounding the corner now. And then the guest of honor, their target, arrived. Elias gave Raymond the information he needed--distance and wind direction, speed--to line up the shot.

Raymond peered through his scope, finger resting on the trigger. For a moment, the rest of the world became a distant concept to him. The only sound he heard was his heartbeat. The only thing he saw, was the target in his sights. He exhaled, squeezed the trigger.

And mere seconds later, the first domino fell.