Стивен Хантер - Game of Snipers

“You’re a very lucky young man,” said the Jewish fellow.

“I owe it all to clean living and a fast outfield,” Jared said.

“If I may, one thing. This other man, Ali La Pointe. Interesting.”

“He’s out of the picture,” said Jared. “I mean officially, as per my agreement.”

“Yes. However, it is interesting that Ali La Pointe is the name of the charismatic and illiterate terrorist hero of Gillo Pontecorvo’s Battle of Algiers .”

Was that a twitch engulfing the young man’s Adam’s apple? A swallow, a flick of dry tongue over dry lips?

“Now, that could mean three things,” said the man. “It could mean this chap was really named Ali La Pointe, after the movie role. Possible, perhaps. Or it could mean that an intellectually promiscuous, rather smart-ass young man decided to put one over on the dumb American police and use a name that every highbred radical Arab teenager in the world would recognize but no DEA functionary would. Or — and I believe this one, actually — as an inexperienced junior terrorist undergoing his first interrogation, he chose the first name that came to his mind, which was from his subconscious memory of that movie — it’s superb, by the way — and named the mystery figure in the narrative, Ali La Pointe. Later, he possibly regretted it but was stuck with it. This last possibility, I must say, seems more like you.”

“Who is this guy?” Jared asked Chandler.

“He is assisting us,” she said.

“Okay, who’s us ?”

“Us is the Federal Bureau of Investigation. You would know that if you’d been paying close attention.”

“Yeah, but my DEA deal still holds. I don’t know what you guys are here for, I really don’t. This is straight drug shit, I’m going to help them get Menendez; otherwise, I go into the general population at Kinross and last about six seconds before they kill me.”

“Actually, your deal is now off the table,” said Chandler. “It was conditional on your willingness to tell the truth. In all things. You rather artfully constructed a narrative that gave DEA what it wanted and yet you hid your real mission, which was to help Juba the Sniper. So your deal is undone, and off you go to Detroit and then Kinross. If you want, I can help you pick out panty hose for your new life as a bitch.”

The ranch

The new rifle was fine, the new translator a great improvement. He too was elderly, calm, seemingly amused by this situation, so clearly he did not know what had happened to the man he had replaced. His name was Alberto, and he was one of those awkward figures caught between opposing cultures, the Mexican part of him not happy with the Arab part, or maybe it was the other way around. He was skinny and thin of hair, but he had about him a teacher’s air. He also had watchful eyes, a trait Juba admired.

As for the rifle, it was indeed Remington’s 700, the police model, with an oversize bolt knob and a shorter barrel for easy maneuvering, in some kind of spongy camouflaged stock from Hogue, the whole thing in a sort of coyote gray or dun desert camouflage, not so much for practicality but so that American shooters could get a sniper buzz off of it. The scope, a Leupold 4–12×, was also new and had been mounted in the gun store, wherever that was, by an armorer using Leupold rings and mounting hardware. The kit included a new Leupold range finder with proprietary ballistics software.

The armorer was a sound craftsman, and Juba found everything tight, the scope properly indexed to dead zero, and was pleased. Additionally, it was prethreaded for a suppressor with the standard dimensions of eight by twenty-four, and from somewhere in Menendez’s store of armaments, among the gold-plated AKs and the ruby-crusted Glocks, a Gemtech suppressor had been found that fit those dimensions, and it screwed right on. The range finder was preprogrammed and indexed to common commercial loads, and Juba’s 140-grain Hornady Match was one of them.

He zeroed in with several shots at a hundred yards and discovered that it delivered sub-one-inch groups at that distance, through the suppressor. The next day, he moved the target to two hundred yards, and then to three hundred, zeroing carefully each step of the way. This new cartridge, the 6.5 Creedmoor, was living up to its hype. It kicked less than a .308 and yet was more accurate. The cartridges fit perfectly into the magazine well, being essentially a .308 round necked down to accept a .264 bullet. It would have made a great sniper round, he thought. Working with the Leupold ballistics software program proved without issue. He dialed in the weather and the velocity — as tested, not listed by the manufacturer — and came exactly to the right windage and elevation clicks at three hundred yards. As a midrange shooting system, the outfit was up to his standards.

On the fourth day, Menendez brought him explicit diagrams.

“This is no good. I must see it myself.”

“You will. I bring you this for familiarity only. You will see how professional my people are. They know many things.”

The sniper said nothing, eyes betraying nothing, body betraying nothing. He simply addressed the document.

He saw a street grid, one block marked 4th Street, on which stood an immense building, as described by a rectangle, some kind of official structure, judging from its size. A diagonal line had been drawn across the map, passing over two blocks, tracing the trajectory of a shot. Its source was a circular structure, part of some kind of connected complex. Sounding out the letters, he could tell that the name of that street was Market.

“You have no issues using an infidel religious site for your work?” asked Menendez.

“It is nothing to me. If it offers the position, I will use it.”

“You will be in the dome of a Catholic church called the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. It’s perfect for our purposes. One of its six windows faces the target zone exactly, clean, unobstructed shooting. It’s easy to access, at that time of day likely to be largely empty, and its priests will yield quickly and without drama to our functionaries. A glazier will accompany you to the selected window — it’s an ancient building, everything is at least a hundred years old — and he will remove the glass from your shooting position.”

“I will have to examine it myself and make certain that all is as you say it is.”

“Why would I lie?”

“You would not lie. But you might see what you want to see, not what is there. I also will need a tripod on which to place the rifle. You can acquire one at any camera or large sporting goods store.”

“Of course. Your target will be the stairway into the Fourth Street entrance of the federal courthouse. At two-thirty that afternoon, a carload of U.S. Marshals will deliver this witness to the courthouse. In the brief seconds that he is ascending the steps, he will be accessible to you.”

“Your intelligence is very good.”

“And expensive. Now, if—”

“There is more. I want a demolition, radio-controlled, placed nearby. Its point isn’t to destroy but to stun. When it detonates, the party will halt, look around — all of them — for the threat. It’s basic animal behavior. It must be detonated as they reach the top step. He will be frozen for perhaps a second, and I will take him. Time in flight from that range is less than a second, and he will still be at least that before everybody realizes what is happening and pushes him forward. It’ll be too late by then.”

“I appreciate your confidence.”

“I do not miss. Now, tell me how we shall escape.” He parsed the diagram closely.

“No elevator down,” he said. “It will take some time. Upon detonation, a car should pull up outside. Probably best to leave the rifle, as its awkwardness makes it difficult to maneuver.”