That appliance threaded and screwed tight, he reached back to the gun case, found a zipper denoting a pouch, unzipped. And removed three ten-round magazines with the Bulgarian yellow-tipped heavy ball. He left nothing to chance. Each of the thirty rounds was selected from a larger cache of them, all weighed and measured to exact sameness, each tested for runout and found to have come out of the manufacturing process with perfect circularity. No group of mass-produced cartridges could be more accurate. He laid two magazines under his right hand so they’d be easy to access. The third he placed into the magazine well, rotated it into the gun until it clicked and was stable, then drew back the bolt and eased it forward, setting shell in chamber and firing pin at full cock. He was as ready as he could be.

He tried to relax, letting his body settle, letting his lungs oxygenate, letting his heart still. The moral aspects of that which he was about to do had been utterly replaced by the technical aspects. Before it was anything else, and after it was everything else, it was a pure shooting exercise, and he knew that Allah had put him on the planet to shoot infidels, he knew that his mission was blessed.

He prayed himself toward the nullity of complete relaxation and concentration, where he wanted his mind to be. Praise be to Allah, the wise, the benevolent, the merciful. Praise be to He who watches over and favors His people so that they will always be under His protection no matter the ordeal. Praise be to the mission to which He has assigned me through his mullahs. Praise be to my training, my experience, my will, and my belief in Allah. Praise be to them all. And praise be that which is about to happen, and may its purpose be achieved.

In that steadiness of incantation, which evened his breathing and sharpened his vision, which calmed his hands and his nerves, he passed the time, not knowing if it were an hour, a day, or even a month.

When he opened his eyes and came back from the realm of prayer, it was light. A crisp day, still very early. Now and then, a sedan negotiated the street where he had concealed himself, usually a BMW or a Mercedes-Benz, but nobody was out for walks. The sky was clear and blue, though still blurred by the illumination of the rising sun. It had not yet cleared the small rise that had offered itself to him some two hundred and thirty-four meters down the road. From nowhere, it seemed, a woman and child had come from one of the great houses, she in bathrobe, he with a small briefcase, and stood at the curb. That meant it was time.