“By a factor of several million, I’d guess. You need a more precise limiting function. The smaller, the better. Region: too big. State: too big. County: probably too big. Sector of county: now you’re talking. We can task a bird to snoop it out, we can design a program to hunt for the things your eyes looked for and saw, all that shooter stuff, and we could probably find it. But until you get me that, I can’t do much for you.”

“Okay, I’ll put that one on hold for a bit. Now, another question.”

Bob explained about the sustenance of a long-range shooting program, via reloading tools, powder acquisition, premium bullets in .338 caliber, perhaps virgin shell casings, a chronograph, wind direction vanes, a Kestrel Pocket Weather Meter, perhaps a computer and app for solving the necessary algorithms for sight adjustment, as well as the optics and mounts and cleaning tools themselves, and other things too numerous and Mickey Mouse to mention. “Not available at your local Sportsman’s Warehouse,” he said. “A couple of retail outlets, one in Colorado, one in Pennsylvania, both of which also do considerable mail order, plus a bigger outfit, called Sinclair International, all of which service that community. It’ll grow; we’re lucky it’s still pretty small. The big lick in competition shooting is something called Precision Rifle Competitions, popping up wherever there’s room, the west mostly, but the big suppliers haven’t really gotten on that bandwagon yet.

“If we can we get into their mail-order systems and determine if anyone has made a big purchase of this stuff recently. If we come up with something odd, we could check his name against the lists of competitors at various competitions and see if he’s legitimate. If he checks out, okay. If not, if it’s a sophisticated order from an unusual person—say, a city address, an address next to a mosque, something like that—then that would be worth looking into.”

“You didn’t come up with a question.”

“Sorry, too tangled up in my own thoughts. The question—two of ’em, actually: Can we get into those records from here and is it legal? And if it’s not legal, can we get away with doing it anyhow?”

“It’s legal,” said Neill. “We can put it before the FISA court for a ruling. FISA is the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, passed in ’78 but punched up after nine-eleven to give us some latitude in our pursuits. Juba is clearly a representative of a foreign intelligence agency, no matter who he’s working for now. The Israeli documents prove that. So you’d work with Legal—Chandler’ll set it up for you—and you’ll draw up a request. It has to be tight, limited in scope, not a fishing license.”

“I can live with that.”