“He doesn’t need much. We think of shooting ranges as broad plains, but that’s only for armies, cops, or hunters, for unit- or community-scale shooting exercises. This is one man. He needs a line, nothing on the lateral. So if you’re looking for a field, you’ll never find it. You have to look for a passageway or a lane. Because there are no regulations here, it will make no difference to him if he shoots over a road or even some houses. He’s too good to whack some wandering peasant wheat farmer. On the other hand, accidents do happen, but it’s not something he’s concerned about. Again, get me some more resolution and I’ll tell you if I see indentations from prone shooting or indications of a portable shooting bench being wheeled in. Can’t tell from this altitude. If you want to be certain, send the drones in lower or with bigger cameras.”

“Anything else? Temperature, humidity, rotation of earth, sunspots?”

“Not really. This ain’t benchrest, where you try for a group of five in the same hole. He’s shooting at men, has to hit them in the thoracic cavity, heart, lungs, spine, spleen, so his kill zone is about eighteen inches by eighteen. That’s all the combat accuracy he needs.”

“Night shooting? Will he use night vision?”

“Not at longer ranges. That stuff can clarify to maybe two hundred yards maximum. Fine for sniper work in a city, but not the kind of reach-out hit he wants for this. And that worries me. A lot.”

“Why is that?”

“He’s teaching himself to hit from way out. Beyond security service worry zones. Really, beyond infantry ranges. He’s not training for battle but for assassination. It seems in this last operation, the one in Dubai, that he was out farther than he’d ever been. He’s teaching himself how to hit the long ones off the cold barrel. I have to tell you, that’s way outstanding stuff. The long shots in Afghanistan came at the end of a sequence, where the shooter was either able to walk his rounds in unnoticed or had already zeroed in on that spot the day before. Juba can’t afford to walk rounds in against high-value targets; he’d give up his position and get return fire in a second. Choppers, SWAT, the whole security apparatus, silencer or no. So he’s got to train himself to the cold barrel. That’s another advantage of the dirt backdrop.”

The comment was met by the sound of men breathing.

Finally, Cohen: “Again, you go with this one? No second thoughts, no doubts, no little suspicions?”

Bob put his finger on A-4511.