American variety show: Sniper Elite

Chapter 103 Exposed?

Beta removed the high-powered scope and then unscrewed the suppressor. The two metal tubes were reconnected, and the elbow handle clicked back into place. The trigger assembly was removed, the anti-slip pads covered the interface, and the muzzle plug was securely screwed back on.

In less than three minutes, two seemingly ordinary medical elbow crutches lay side by side on the workbench, their true nature unknown to anyone.

Beta put them in the trunk of the car, but the real test was yet to come: live-fire testing of the guns was necessary to ensure that the ballistic performance and firing mechanism were flawless.

Sitting in the driver's seat, Beta carefully checked the documents: his Russian immigrant work permit, Brooklyn gym membership card, and used car transaction receipt. The photos on each document matched his current disguise.

After confirming that everything was correct, he pressed the remote control, and the warehouse roller shutter door slowly rose.

The car slowly backed out of the warehouse, the sound of the tires rolling over gravel particularly clear in the quiet passage.

Just as the rear of the car was about to completely exit, a black sedan suddenly sped from the side, screeching as it came to a stop just centimeters from the rear of Beta's car.

Beta slammed on the brakes, simultaneously reaching into the armrest with his right hand to retrieve his pistol, which he tucked behind his waistband. He glanced at the black sedan in the rearview mirror, took a deep breath, and got out.

A short-haired man stepped out of the black sedan. He had a buzz cut, wore a jacket and black sneakers, and exuded a certain aura that Beta recognized.

After confirming that the two cars hadn't collided, the man raised his hands in a reassuring gesture: "Sorry, we didn't bump into each other. Shall we go our separate ways?"

“Yeah,” Beta replied briefly, subtly scanning the other person’s facial features.

The man nodded, glanced at Beta, turned and got into his car and drove away.

Beta stood there watching the black sedan disappear around the street corner. As he turned back to the car and his hand touched the door handle again, a memory flashed back, and he remembered who the man was.

On the streets of London, there was a man in an orange sweater who easily escaped a police ambush. Matilda even asked Beta at the time, "Was that man the killer?"

Beta walked quickly back to the warehouse entrance, his gaze sweeping across the empty street. Several fresh skid marks on the ground proved that what he had just seen was not an illusion.

Beta's expression gradually darkened.

The coincidence was too strange. The man had appeared in his sight twice: once when he witnessed him knocking down a policeman on the streets of London, and once when he nearly had a car accident here.

The probability of such a coincidence was almost zero, and his professional intuition made him somewhat uneasy.
But there were more pressing matters at hand. Beta glanced around, slowly backed the car out of the warehouse, and remotely closed the roller shutter door. After leaving the storage area, he didn't head straight to his destination, but instead pulled over two blocks later.

After getting off the bus, Beta ran through the alleyways, taking a shortcut back to the vicinity of the warehouse. He hid in an abandoned factory building, silently observing every inch of space around the warehouse.

During the 60-minute stakeout, his eyes constantly darted between his watch and the surroundings, ensuring no suspicious persons or vehicles appeared. Only after confirming it was safe did Beta quietly withdraw.

When he got back to the car, the back of his shirt was soaked with sweat.
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New York's traffic is always like a pot of overcooked spaghetti, sticky and slow. Even a ruthless professional killer like Beta can only helplessly accept the city's traffic rules at this moment, patiently following the snail's pace of the traffic.

Just as he was slightly distracted, a shadow fell to his left, the glaring red reflection illuminating his profile. Beta instinctively turned his head, and a bright red Cadillac Escalade was parked alongside him. The familiar candy-colored paint made him pause for a moment. His gaze slowly moved upward, and Beta's eyes met those of the girl in the Escalade's passenger seat.

Matilda sat listlessly in the passenger seat of the "Strawberry General," fiddling with everything inside the car.

She pressed the lock screen button on her phone repeatedly, and turned the air conditioning knob from the coldest setting back to the hottest. Finally, her attention fell on the power window buttons; the glass rose and fell with her movements, emitting a soft buzzing sound.

As a silver-gray Toyota Camry slowly merged into the adjacent lane, Matilda glanced at it casually. The instant her eyes met those of the strange man in the driver's seat, her finger froze on the button.

A strange sense of familiarity, indescribable as it ran through her spine like an electric current. The unfamiliar face with stubble and black-rimmed glasses gave her an eerie feeling of warmth.

Matilda leaned forward, almost sticking half her body out of the window, trying to find answers in the stranger's eyes. The window frame left shallow marks on her waist, but she was oblivious, stubbornly staring at the driver who inexplicably concerned her.

Beta deliberately avoided Matilda's burning gaze, but that gaze pierced through the car window, making him feel like he had a thorn in his side.

He glanced at it casually three times, and finally on the fourth time, he saw that almost half of Matilda's body was hanging outside the car window, her short hair flying in the wind, like a cat about to fall out, as if she might fall out of the car window at any moment.

He turned his head helplessly and met Matilda's probing gaze.

The girl clung to the window frame with both hands, practically hanging outside the car window, staring intently at the "stranger driver." Then, the stranger driver suddenly raised his hand and gave her a standard middle finger gesture.

Matilda's eyes widened as she watched the other person's familiar gesture of alternately raising their middle finger with their left and right hands, and she suddenly realized what was going on.

She almost blurted out "Sa," but swallowed the rest of the syllable back down.

Beta disguises himself as a stranger and appears in New York without contacting her or John. Although Matilda doesn't understand why he would return to New York in hiding, she guesses that he must be doing something he can't reveal.

Although Matilda managed to retract her name, her hands didn't stop moving.

Matilda made exaggerated gestures with her hands in the air, her ten slender fingers twitching twice, raising her middle fingers high, and giving a double middle finger in return without hesitation. She also deliberately shook her fingers, swaying them left and right like conducting a symphony, and flipping them up and down, giving this vulgar gesture a touch of playful rhythm.

To anyone else, this just looks like a rebellious teenage girl arguing with a stranger.

As the car window began to slowly roll up, she composed herself, made a "making a phone call" gesture with her index and little fingers, and put them to her ear, her eyes becoming serious and knowing.

The glass was completely closed, and she had reverted to being that listless, ordinary girl, lazily nestled in the leather seat, as if the silent conversation had never happened.

Only the slight upturn of her lips revealed her joy at discovering Beta's little secret.

(End of this chapter)