Disclaimer: The character in the story belongs to Kathy Reichs and the creative staff of the show Bones. Apart from that any other resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. The religious aspects contained in the story are not to be intended as an expression of the personal stand of the author on religion.

A.N.: This story is very marginal to the Bones universe and it is set during Booth's period as a sniper well before the show. If right now you feel the need for a light-mooded happy-ending story, this is probably not the right thing to read.

Booth was at 2400 yards from his target. He was sitting on the terraced roof of a two-storey residential building. A team had cleared the houses before they entered, they have arrived an hour before and made sure that no one who was in the building left to tell the story. As he and Parker, his spotter, crossed the second floor to access the stairs to the roof he could see through an open door what was most likely a living room. A small family was there, they were clinging to each other in terror. The two girls in their matching cream dresses were burying their faces in their mother's robe, a young woman closer to her twenty than her thirty. The boy instead was holding onto his father and stared straight at Booth when he entered, a mix of hate, fear, and awe in his huge eyes. Sgt. Ellison nodded in greetings as he passed by.

The house was not particularly high, nor particularly close to their target, but still it offered a decent view through two of the window of the mosque. Which meant at that distance roughly 500 square foot of the inside were visible from Booth's nest. But they had solid intel placing his target directly inside those 500 square feet visible through the western window.

So that's part of what brought them to choose the building. Part of the choice of the building had been dictated by having a quick exit strategy that would bring the team out of the city if things went south. The bigger risk was people noticing the absence of the family, from the prayers or otherwise, that's why they usually try to avoid the time of the prayers. But for that specific target, they could not find another good solution. Sadly, but luckily, in that area, an absence was most time easily explained by a family leaving the fire zone, or killed in some crossfire. It was like the worst-case scenario had become the normality for those people. Booth tried to push that thought away from his mind. Like every time before a kill, he repeated himself that with every target he took out the situation was going to get a little bit better for everyone. He pushed away some sweat from his forehead. It was still thirty-three minutes before the prayers started.

"Conditions are still perfect, Sarge." Parker told him. "3miles/hour wind at the target. 1.5miles/h here." "Humidity extremely low as usual" Booth mentally took note of all the information and adjusted his line of sight. Despite the fact that the kid was almost a rookie, he was really good at reading the conditions. He had worked four missions with Parker so far and they have been practicing a lot at the base. He was fairly quiet, but constantly present and Booth was starting to trust him.

Booth blinked once, slowly and deliberately, trying to bring some wetness to his eyes that were drying out in the desert heat. He tried to focus again through the scope. The distance was challenging, the bullet was going to take more than two seconds to reach the target, but he knew he could do it. He did even further distances in much worse conditions with practice targets. He loved the challenge so much that he could almost forget what he was actually about to shoot at, but there were a few things about that particular assignment that put him on edge.

Parker who was keeping an eye on a bigger area through the binoculars informed him that the first people were arriving at the mosque. That was one of the things Booth hated about that particular operation, the target was not going to be in the middle of a crowd, and that day started to look particularly crowded. They usually tried to find a window where the target was isolated or worse case surrounded by bodyguards that are themselves guilty of unspeakable crimes. Their target today was going to be surrounded by innocent bystanders. That was adding a lot of pressure because at the least error someone else might be injured in the place of their target.

The second thing that he really hated about that was that those people were going to pray. He hasn't gone to mess in a long time since he deployed to Afghanistan. He was conflicted. He believed in God and everything that Christ had taught during his life. He also believed in what they were doing with the army in Afghanistan and he believed that every single life they ordered him to take was strictly necessary. He felt that his religious beliefs and his commitment to his job were at war. He tried to talk to the base chaplains about it but still, he could not find comfort or peace in the priest's words. On that particular assignment, his inner conflict was stronger than ever. His mind kept drawing the comparison between him killing someone during prayers and someone randomly killed during the Sunday mess. It would have been a scandal and a witch hunt back in the States. A crime that was unspeakable by itself. An act of terrorism. He was pretty sure that the press would have happily glossed over the fact that the dead person was a warlord, who traded people for guns.

He pushed those thoughts aside and focus only on the last part. The target was trafficking humans and weapons alike. It needed stopping and that was their best chance. They had studied its movements. There was no place it was passing by twice. It had five safe houses and it picked almost at random on a day-to-day basis which one to use and there was no easy way to get near any of them. It had no regular business meetings. No markets it attended. The mosque was the only place the target was going on a regular base and on the way there it used armored vehicles and had a two-car escort, the bodyguards surrounded the target completely on the short path from the vehicle to the entrance of the mosque, making a clear shot impossible. No one liked the idea of getting to the target through the mosque window. He heard that it took some extra bureaucracy to get the operation approved, because of its peculiar location, but in the end, it was approved.

"They are about to start" Parker stated bringing his higher focus to the present. Their cultural liaison spent the last couple of days teaching the two of them the order of ablution, prayers, and the way the ranks moved. They went through it so many times that he could almost recite some part of it in his head. Almost the same way he recite the liturgy when he went to Mass. They had chosen a particular moment of the prayers where the audience was supposed to prostrate with their heads gracing the floor. That was minimizing the movement of the people surrounding the target, and minimize the risks

The wind and light conditions were optimal, he knew he could do it. He pushed aside all his ethical doubts and just focused on the challenge 2400 yards, 1.3 miles. It was not going to be a record, but he knew there were only a few people able to pull it out. And even if it was a sin he was proud of it.

As the ranks moved he kept repeating in his head the sequence and the time of each part. And he kept track of the specific way the target moved. As the moment approached he kept adjusting his aim and Parker's updates became more and more frequent. He knew they were going to prostrate down anytime now and then he had a narrow window. Parker reminded him one last time about the wind conditions.

The moment the ranks prostrated, his target head ended up exactly where he predicted. They only have a few seconds.

Booth shot.

As always, he kept looking through the scope and held his breath. His finger was still on the trigger. Like time stayed still while he waited out the 2.8s that the bullet will take to land. Even though he knew that it was a good shot, he could feel it.

One Mississippi.

Two Miss…

The target disappeared from his scope. He was suddenly covered by a kid that was now standing in his line of sight after breaking the ranks.

The kid fell down.

The target behind him was unscathed.

"Fuck it. Fuck it. Shit. We have to go for it again. We can't let that motherfucker get away." Parker started to shout seeing the same thing that Booth saw.

Booth ignored everything and focused on the scope again.

But chaos had erupted in the mosque. A huge crowd rounded around the boy. Another large portion of people run for cover. Some people left the building entirely. No one was staying still for the two and half seconds that would take him to shoot again. There were too many civilians. Too many innocent bystanders like the kid had been.

Their target was appearing and disappearing in the crowd, his bodyguards already surrounding him.

"I do not have a clear line of sight for the target." He called in the comm. The answer was immediate

"Abort mission and get to the rendezvous point"

Booth turned around, removing his attention from the scope. The weight of what he had just done threatened to take him, he needed to get back to the base first. He disassembled the sniper with a well-practiced routine and case it away. Parker removed all the other traces of their presence.

The team was still downstairs. News of what happened had reached them through the radio and they were now in full alert mode, checking nervously out of the windows for any sign of immediate danger.

"We need to get the hell out of here Sarge."

Booth didn't need to be encouraged and he was already by the door waiting for the all-clear signal to leave the house and enter the street.

The signal arrived almost immediately and the team ran in a compact line toward the rendezvous point. Their location was so far from the Mosque that no one was paying attention to them yet.

It took only ten minutes running before they saw their vehicles arrive.

Behind them, no sign of someone following. Looking at the street from afar, it appeared as nothing had happened, but Booth knew well.

He had just killed a kid that was there to pray.

A.N.: This story takes inspiration from a dialogue between Brennan and Booth that I didn't manage to find (probably first season) but was similar to:

Brennan -you never had a kid in your crosshair

Booth - what makes you think I didn't

Brennan - yeah but you never had your finger on the trigger

Booth - before you keep asking questions be sure you want to know the answer.

The piece was born as a prologue for a long story set in around season five, but as often happens with stories it took his own direction.