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((The Mon/Wen/Fri Double -- page 2 of 2))
A sudden thought struck him, and Raul hesitated.

He pulled his right hand out of the dirt and grabbed his phone out of his pocket. He texted his brothers, informing him that he was in position and waiting on them.

If they were to be discreet, then it would be best if both roads were blocked simultaneously. Two landslides happening at the same time might instead seem like one incident. Which would be less suspicious.

He didn't bother to articulate all of that in his text just now, but he doubted he would need to. They'd understand.

So he waited a bit longer for word from his brothers. They were taking a while, which was unsurprising. They had farther to go than he did.

He pulled out his binoculars and spied on the town. This wasn't a very good vantage point compared to the one he'd used earlier in the day, but it let him see a few of the buildings at least. He could see a handful of apparent guards on duty.

Hold on.

Was that someone using binoculars, too?

They turned this way.

Raul turned off his flashlight.

The guard was still looking in this direction. They weren't using binoculars equipped with night-vision, were they?

He hunkered down a bit lower, enough to let the treeline block his line of sight.

Hmm. These Abolishers were more vigilant than he thought. The Killer of Krohin had a reputation for brutality, not competency, but perhaps in this case, they went hand-in-hand. You couldn't maintain such notoriety without at least a little bit of the latter, Raul supposed.

The text arrived from his brothers. They were in position, too. Good.

He was tempted to pop his head up another time and look toward Miro again, but he resisted. He sent his response text, telling his brothers to go ahead, and then dug his fingers back into the dirt.

He tried to go deep with his friction. He needed to shift a lot of ground. Moving the topsoil would be easiest but probably not enough.