The range
He thought it might be the climate. So target number two paid with his life for that experiment. Clearly, the weather data from the service was too generic. It would have been downloaded from the nearest regional U.S. weather station, and that could be miles away. Good enough for TV, good enough for government work, but not good enough for man killing at a mile’s distance.
So instead of doing it that way, as FirstShot allowed, he laboriously filled in the blanks of data from his own Kestrel there at the range. Tedious, but tedium was a material snipers trafficked in. Wind speed, direction, altitude, temperature, humidity, and other subtleties of weather reality that only meteorologists knew, stuff so arcane, no TV guy even bothered with it.
He took his shot.
Better, but not good enough. The first one hit about fifteen yards shy. And although he dispatched target number two on the second shot, on The Day he would not be allowed a ranging shot. It didn’t work that way in the real world. He had to know he was on with the first press of the trigger.
There was really only one thing to do: check the precision of the scope clicks and do the math. So the next day, instead of shooting at a mile, he shot at a hundred yards, at benchrest targets.
The exercise: five targets vertically arrayed a hundred yards out, stapled to blank cardboard and mounted in a frame. But the hundred yards itself was not simply lased for distance, it was hand-measured—again, not from the muzzle of the rifle but from the elevation knob of the Schmidt & Bender—for the most accurate possible hundred yards. He started at the bottom, fired a three-shot group. He moved the elevation knob up one click and fired three more at the second target. Then the third, the fourth, and the fifth, in the same one-click increments. Of course, for every click, the three-shot cluster moved up a bit. But how much? Was it the one minute-of-angle Schmidt & Bender’s brilliant minds said or was it more? Or less? Working the target sheet with calipers, he determined that each click produced a rise in strike of not 0.552 inch, as per specs, but 0.489. It was so tiny an increment, it would have meant almost nothing out to three hundred yards, but with each leap in distance, it grew larger and larger. Thus, he was able to reconfigure FirstShot algorithms so that the click measure was 0.489.
Target number three: first shot, via FirstShot, was an ankle hit. The man—large, black, and dissolute—slid down, screaming, his lower leg shattered. Not good enough. Juba corrected a click, fired again, and eternally stilled him.
Target number four: close—closest yet—but low stomach. Probably not survivable, but given the speed of arrival of emergency personnel and the sophistication of trauma medicine, survival could not be ruled out. He had to hit the chest, destroy the heart and both lungs, sever all arteries and veins converging at the nexus of the heart. That hit, with a thousand pounds of energy and a sharpened missile more than a third of an inch wide, was the only guarantee.
Target number five.
Target number six.
Target number seven: a tough one, a fighter, he wouldn’t stop moving, he yanked, pulled, twisted the cuffs that restrained him and was still squirming heroically at the arrival of the bullet.
But all succumbed to the first shot of the finally correct program.
He was done with prayers. His food had been delivered and eaten. He had worked out, sweated hard, spent forty minutes on Systema Spetsnaz, sparring with a bag, and finally showered. Now he settled down for a good reread of Jack O’Connor’s The Complete Book of Shooting, a favorite text. He could read what might be called shooter’s English, having taught himself first rudiments, then technical terms. At first, it was very slow, but with dedication, energy, and time, he’d mastered enough to read texts that dealt with his subject, and his mind could stay with the math, which most could not. He was absorbed in “Revolution Theory II: The Wind Factor” when the knock came.
He opened the door to find Señor Menendez, accompanied by Jorge, the translator, and by the fellow with the black sock over his head.
“Yes.”
“My friend, we must talk.”
“Certainly.”
He admitted them. He sat on the bed. Menendez took the chair, the socked one stood behind him, at his right shoulder, quickly assuming perfect stillness. More twitchily, Jorge positioned himself to the left of Menendez, but somewhat forward, where he could hear both men clearly.
“I have heard that the shooting is going very well,” said Menendez, absent recently at the range.
“I have addressed the system to the scope and the ballistics of the ammunition so that the precision I require is attainable. Other factors, of course, must come into play. These sorts of things are always delicate, and what happens if The Day arrives and it’s rainy or blustery? What happens if there’s a change in schedule, some sort of confusion or event near the target area? These are all factors I cannot control, yet I worry about them still. But not for much longer.”
“Yes, yes, then your time with us is limited?”
“Yes. There comes now the shipment of the rifle to certain people, who will place it where it must be, and my own progress toward that destination, which must be carefully handled. The effort is exhausting. If I were not so true a believer, I would have long ago faltered. But I am no fool. I know Señor Menendez is not here to chat about my fortunes and my mood.”
“No.”
“How may I assist?”
He could see Jorge swallow, a sure indicator that something thorny was coming up. He felt the eyes of the man in the sock on him intently. Did they fear his reaction may cause Juba to attack? This was not promising.
“Yes, well, I’m afraid there have to be some changes made to your schedule.”
“The schedule is set,” said Juba. “I will adhere to it.”
“If only it could be so, my friend, but it cannot.”
Juba said nothing, wondering where this was going. Had the Jews found out and offered Menendez more money for Juba’s head than his sponsors had paid for their assistance?
“You are aware that I control a considerable empire. I have built it from nothing, I have learned on my own and from my peers all the hard lessons, my discipline for security is intense, my arrangements have been brilliant, my mastery of many elements that people frequently take for granted has been exemplary. And so I have power.”
“I have assumed as much.”
“In all this time, I have never been seriously threatened. Neither by competitors nor by law enforcement.”
“But now?”
“It’s the turning of luck. You can plan for everything except bad luck. And now by a stroke of misfortune, it seems I am in jeopardy. I, me, myself. And if it comes to pass that I am arrested and put in jail, even for a few years, things become tenuous. It cannot be then ever again as it is now. The system I have built will erode without me, its caretakers—good men all—will make wrong decisions, competitors will see weakness, potential defectors will be emboldened, law enforcement efforts will double and redouble. You can see why I am concerned.”
“I can,” said Juba. “But you must know that my mission is a mandate from God Himself. I cannot be deflected from it due to your concerns.”
“Alas, it seems I need a man of your skills. Badly.”
“What about this fellow right here, in the mask. He is said to be a technical of the highest degree.”
The man in the sock made no acknowledgment.
“He cannot do what you must do. And that is, kill a man, from afar.”