Anand was happy as he was getting married soon, he had just spoken to Sharmila, his first love and ironically his first cousin too, though a good 11 year elder to him, the bliss of her company and her touch used to fill him with passion, they had a very strong love for each other, yet they had to hide it as it brought them ill fame . They had just finished their lovey dovey talks and emotional exchanges as they were reaching the end of what had been a steamy affair due to his upcoming marriage, when he felt stuck by an iron fist over his chest, sudden loss of blood pressure to brain paralyzed his body, yet he could feel the fire inside his chest till the lights dimmed and all went black.
A few seconds ago : The unert rifle-scope zeroed on 500 meter, filled the eye piece with the image of the torso of a man some 600 meter away. X opened his left eye for a moment, looked at the treeline right across his target and judging from the movement of branches adjusted for a windage of 5kmph, The precision mechanism shifted the cross hair to left with 5 clicks. Elevation to compensate for extra 100 meters needed 2 half turns on the upper knob of the scope.
"All set, lets send some brass home", he thought, he exhaled half and held half in, his index finger had just finished touching the light pull competition trigger set at 2lbs pull gently, when the .375 Remigton 700 SP coughed bright white smoke and a muffled loud thud.
The figure on eye piece dropped in a pile of motionless mass, he could see people running away, some apparently shouting, others looking around at the tree line through which the bullet might have passed giving impression that the shot came from that direction.
"Science and intent, there is nothing you can't pull through", the smile of a hunter started to appear on his lips as he unassembled the receiver and stowed the rifle in custom cushioned gym bag with industrial foam inserts, making sure that nothing was directly touching the scope. "The wait was worth the end results", he muttered as he left the abandoned apartment building he had used as his nest since the early morning.
Fifteen minutes later :
"Saahab wo pedon ke peeche maine ek aadmi ko dekha tha", the vegetable vendor was trying to narrate to the police officer. The cops were doing the "Panchnaama" , the process of bagging the body, while the officer in-charge was collecting information and taking particulars of everyone who was around that spot at the time of the deadly deliverance of "a stray bullet" which left a 31 year old man dead on the spot.
"Arre nahi sahab wahan pedo ke baajoo se awaaz aayi thi, yehi koi 50 kadam ki doori se, wo oppar ki taraf se, maine apne kaano se suna", another man was trying to give a more accurate description of what he thought was the origination of the shot.
"Jab maine kaha maine dekha pedon ke peeche se aadmi ko nikalte hue teji se, to itni jaldi wo ped se neeche kaise utar gaya ? Arre sahab maine dekha us aadmi ko neeli tshirt and kaali jean pant mein tha, yehi koi bees ek saal ka raha hoga sahab", the vegetable vendor was excited as if he had the most precise information on earth at that moment of time.
The officer was not able to understand how come everyone is talking about sound coming from around the treeline yet, none saw a man carrying anything. Assuming that some spent casing or probably the weapon used would be found around the treeline, few cops went to take a look around. It turned out that a broken water pipeline had left the soil muddy over the path leading to the treeline from the main road, there was no foot print on the soil to be seen, yet the job was to carried out. few hours of intense search yielded nothing ,forensic team was later called in to help collect evidence.
Two days of intense search yielded no result, the eyewitness accounts were all too confusing and were leading to nowhere. No human could walk away from the tree line onto the main road without leaving a print on the wet soil, there was no lead to start building the suspect's profile.
The guy with blue tshirt turned out to be a local resident who had gone towards the side of the road to relieve him, he had performed the ritual a good 30 meters away from any tree at the time of the incident. He was acquitted soon after preliminary questioning.
Post mortem report mentioned -"Fragments of bullet of an unknown caliber, probably a high power rifle round, were found lodged in parts of right atrium and right ventricle of the deceased, its apparent that the hydro-static shock had lacerated the heart, part of which were expelled out of the body through the exit hole measuring 37.5x41.2 mm. Cause of death - sudden cardiovascular failure.
Somewhere else X was sipping coffee, looking at an image of Sharmila, his partner of 11 years, his thoughts were racing, "Happy Christmas Princess!!!" , he laughed.
