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.”