Take Your Pick

Off to the east, the man clad in white has observed everything as it has happened and slowly shakes his head in disgust, grins slightly before he removes his mittens and slowly raises his rifle. Using the telescopic sight and focusing as though it were a spyglass, he locates Father David standing at the base of the tower, gazing upward at the confusion on the tower deck. The crosshairs of the telescopic sight zero in on the head of young priest, pauses momentarily as the sniper recalls, remembers Bishop O'Conley's directive, 'No one is to ever harm this boy'. The man slowly, but carefully moves the scope upward to the gathering on the rooftop. He is thinking, 'that young lad has done no harm to anyone, so why does Burns want him dead?' The scope moves until it finds the white hair and bloody face of the monsignor, stops with the crosshairs centered on the right ear. Without emotion or compassion, he squeezes the trigger and hears a muffled sound of an explosion while feeling the rifle recoil gently against his cheek. Through the scope he professionally watches the bloody explosion as the soft bullet blows the monsignor's head into fragments.

The sniper quickly returns the rifle to its protective pouch; zips it shut and loops the pouch over his shoulder. He hurriedly jumpstarts his snowmobile and spins the winter-tread-runners before gathering speed and wildly traveling through the dense forest along the familiar trail down the mountainside. He knows ever inch of this slope having worked for the local ski resort for the past three years as an instructor, having come to the United States from the Italian Alps on a visiting instructor's visa.

The sniper laughs, thinking, 'I have never trusted that pious bastard from the day we met. I warned the governing commissioners to be careful because he has always been an overly conceited egomaniac'.