The Art of Survival

Chapter 5

This is my favorite chapter yet, hope its yours too :) -Sherr 

I smirked at my girlfriend before I aimed and pulled the trigger. There was some friendly competition between the two of us. Ten bullets left my pistol in rapid fire with deafening booms and I felt the vibrations from the force of the gun run through my arms.

The airborne metallic buds pierced my target right in the chest at lighting speed and I beamed in satisfaction.

The cardboard cutout man never stood a chance to be honest. I brushed off my shoulder off with my free hand I could see Lauren roll her hazel contact equipped eyes through the clear goggles that covered her face.

It's been a week since Lauren and I left Miami for California and it's been non-stop work. Our newest target was an ex-agent so we had to be five hundred times as prepared for the homicide to make sure things went as smoothly as possible. He was probably extra suspicious of everyone in his life and he had all the right to be.

That night in Miami when we got back to the hotel from Lauren's parents' we'd begun our preparations. We didn't sleep a wink that night. Laptops, tablets and phones were glowing with life long after we stopped hearing footsteps and voices in the hotel halls.

Lauren only took an hour to find him Jacob's fake social security number through the employee records of the school he was working at. The website even provided a clear picture of the pale redheaded middle aged man.

It wasn't his fault necessarily, it seemed that he was just be trying to start over with his life away from all the crazy murdering and spying. I almost felt sorry for him... almost. But a check was a check and that six hundred thousand was definitely enough for me to put a rain check on sympathy.

I was put in charge of tracking his card transactions and together we narrowed down a half mile wide circular area that we were positive he had to be living in.

That part was just slightly more difficult than it would be because Jacob's was definitely careful but not careful enough. His credit card usage was seldom and sporadic.

A McDonalds in the heart of San Fran then a Jewelry store in downtown Oakland. He was definitely trying to throw anyone on his trail for a loop, apparently he'd changed his identity over 4 times his seemed pretty dedicated to survival..

Anyways, naturally there was a concentration of purchases near the area we squared off. And they were quite recent as well. Luckily for us San Francisco was where me and Lauren called home. It was far away from her family but it was also a town where you could easily be a no one and everyone around would respect. Contrary to that the people were friendly enough that you could make friends in a heartbeat if that's what you really desired

So once we'd done all the electronic research that we could it was time for some of my expertise which was our disguises.

We flew to California as ourselves simply because we flew to Miami on a non-business related trip was last year and we went disguise free so there wouldn't be anything to suspicious about us going back under our real identities. To do our research on Jacob's it would require watching him in his daily life so we would definitely have to switch things up as not to draw any of his suspicion towards us if he were to get onto us.

I went full on beast mode once we arrived here in San francisco (in my humble opinion). I used molds to create different prosthetics like fake baby bumps, love handles, butt pads, and even realistic bra stuffers. Anything that could change our appearance mildly enough for us not to be recognized in a police line up for example. It was always better for us to be safe rather that sorry and the untrained eye wouldn't be able to spot me with a couple love handles, a properly laid wig and a slightly different walk.