Bardwell had no need of the amateur information provided by the warm body to his left. Boy, girl, they left only a hazy impression, like a graphics rendering. Outline only, nebulous and indistinct.
Through the rifle’s own scope, he could work out the range from the size of a standing man without anyone’s help. Done it often enough, and these were easier than most. They weren’t prepared for the possibility of a sniper. Dug in, fortified, running between their sandbagged enclosures bent over and jinking like chased hares.
The targets he observed now walked slow and unhurried, stopping for minutes at a time, standing, chatting, as if taunting him with the brazenness of their own exposure.
As for the atmospheric conditions, he knew with ingrained instinct what effect the current temperature and the humidity would have on the shot. He’d absorbed the landscape between hide and target and read the intervening crosswind with narrowed eyes, taking in every ruffle of the grass, every shiver of the trees. He waited for the rhythm of nature to make itself clear, to find the lull before each breath. Art, as much as science.
Just before, he closed his eyes, let out a long exhale, opened them again. His dominant right eye was still settled close up behind the scope. The sight picture hadn’t changed. His position was perfect.
And then, between heartbeats, Bardwell’s right forefinger tightened on the trigger.
Most shooters, he knew, were totally ignorant of what happened between the moment the finger squeezed the trigger, and the bullet left the gun. He was not. An almost-subliminal chain reaction went through his head every single time.
The leap of the hammer, the firing pin striking the primer cap with effortless precision. Its delicate mix of chemicals igniting, flaming through to the main charge. The instantaneous explosion.
Obturation. The superheated gases expanding at an exponential rate within the confines of the cartridge case; the casing itself deforming to create an airtight seal against the wall of the firing chamber and loosening its grip on the bullet.
The projectile launching into the constriction of the barrel; swaging to fit as it forces through the tapered aperture; moulding to the internal contours, engaging with the rifling to gain maximum acceleration from the erupting gases backed up behind it. The round branding itself with the distinctive lands and grooves along its length that tie it uniquely to the weapon from which it’s fired.
In this case, the barrel of the rifle has twelve grooves with a right-hand twist. The rotation generated is a finely balanced compromise between the round’s velocity, stability, and ultimate penetrative power.
And the round itself is no ordinary bullet. The outer copper-nickel jacket is precision-milled on a CNC lathe. The inner core is lead, with a hollow cavity in the nose, helping to shift its centre of gravity rearwards.
The ultra-precise profile produces very low drag, flattening the round’s trajectory, reducing its lateral drift in crosswind, and causing it to decelerate less rapidly in flight, so that it arrives at its point of impact with its maximum kinetic energy intact.
By the time the half-inch diameter projectile spits from the end of the Barrett’s muzzle, it is travelling at a shade under two thousand miles an hour—almost tri-sonic. Born amid a rage of conflagration and on its way. Dazzlingly lethal, superbly streamlined, it will arrive at its target, more than a mile distant, in a sliver under two seconds, towing its soundwave a fraction behind.
The recoil as the trigger broke slammed the butt back into Bardwell’s shoulder. A kick like a World Cup Final striker presented with an open goal. Bardwell momentarily lost the sight picture.
By the time he reacquired it, there was nothing left to see.