“Stay low, due east, Lieutenant, you’re zeroing in on the National War College at river’s edge, can’t miss it, huge building, like a temple, or a capitol, or something.”

“Yes, sir,” the pilot was saying.

“You have to go beyond to the middle of the river. We’ll be looking at the tallest building in Anacostia with river frontage—say, a mile off the War College. Your copilot is on binocs, I’m on binocs, we’re looking for an upper-story window that’s open. He won’t be hanging out, he’ll be well back. You want to insert yourself between him and his target. We’ll take the shot if we have to, Swagger will counterfire if he gets—”

“Sixth floor,” shouted Bob. “He was sixty-seven feet higher than the target in Wyoming. Each story ten feet. He’ll be on the sixth floor!”

And at that point, Neill spilled onto the roof, rifle in one hand, box of red Hornady ammo in the other. Chandler was just behind.

“It’s Juba’s,” he said. “It was one floor down, so much closer.”

Swagger and Nick ran to the chopper and climbed in, and Neill reached them a second later. He handed the weapon to the sniper.

It was familiar to Swagger, knowing its curves, its feel, its distribution of weight, its easy pointability. He’d used it in Vietnam, Remington’s classic 700, as solid and tight as any assembly line could turn out.

“They haven’t touched it?”

“Not yet,” said Neill.

Swagger rotated into the hatch of the helicopter, going naturally to prone, rolling slightly to the right to pry open the red box of Hornady 6.5 Creedmoor—one was missing, and he knew what had happened to it—and began threading them into the well in the receiver revealed by the pulled-open bolt.

“Time to hunt,” he said, but nobody heard him.

1503

The man walked to the ball on the green, bent to examine it, walked to the pin, bent to examine it—had he never seen one before?—but would not be still. He was mapping his stroke to the most precise degree, he stopped for a brief chat with his assistant, who offered him some sort of counsel, he stepped off the green to squat and peer at the ball in relation to the hole and the course its trajectory had to follow to arrive squarely, then stood up.

It was evidently an important shot, even if he had balls in his pocket and in the golf cart.

But he would not stay still, he would not begin his fatal address of the ball, which would put him in the kill box.

Juba monitored his own breathing, enjoying the fact that he was so calm, that things were progressing so well.

He had a brief flash of what happened after the shots.

Close the window.

Launch the hate pages to the Dark Web.