He could see them now. Still too far out, but sharply outlined in the Schmidt & Bender, two figures, next to the golf cart. A good one hundred and fifty from the green. The tall one—too far to make out details, he was an amoeba to the eye, even blown up twenty-five times due to the genius of Germanic glass grinding—addressed the ball, concentrated, and rotated back smoothly to equipoise, paused a second, unleashed a swing.

Through the scope, Juba could not follow the ball, but he could tell from the instant dejection in the tall man’s posture that the shot had not gone well. But instead of relinquishing his club and jumping into the cart for taxi service onward, the man reached into his pocket, took out a second ball, and dropped it on the grass. The same ceremony of addressing, shifting, fidgeting, adjusting and counteradjusting, gathering, squeezing his concentration to an even higher degree, and the silver shaft flashed in the sun, and another slashing stroke was delivered.

This time, success, as the tall man pivoted in follow-through, turned back, putting hand to eyes to shield them from sun, following the ball as it went where it had been directed. He could not contain a bit of leap as the ball must have smacked on the green and rolled toward the hole. Elated, he accepted a handshake from his assistant and got into the cart, which now began its short journey to the green, some 1,847 yards from Juba.

1459

“Whenever he’s in town on a Thursday, he goes to a certain course and has a private round. It’s secure, because it’s on a military post closed to the public, and of course the MPs do a security sweep and close the place down for the afternoon. They close the whole post down, in fact. It’s just our guy and his caddy, for therapy, for escape, for fun. Every Thursday. He carries a bucket of balls, and he’ll hit—”

“Who?” yelled Nick.

“Renegade.”

It made sudden, savage sense. Renegade was beloved by millions, a beacon of racial pride, honor, and integrity, a hero to the left. Dump him with a .338 to the thoracic, and those millions would go insane with rage, especially as it came out the shooter was a white racist who’d just unleashed a ton of vile racist hate speak under his own name—Brian A. Waters—on the Darknet and had escaped, cleanly and mysteriously, as if abetted by some Deep State conspiracy. Would we ever come back from that one?

“Where?” said Nick.

“The golf course at Fort Lesley J. McNair in the southeast, off the Anacostia. About a mile from you.”

“Is there any spot on the course where he’s vulnerable—”