“One small advantage we may have: the distance of the range he was practicing on was only 1,023 yards, if I recall. There’s not really any advantage to the .338 Lapua over any one of a dozen other long-range cartridges at 1,023. The point of the Lapua is the long, long shot. No point in going to all the trouble they’ve gone to if it wasn’t a long one they were planning. So my thought is, he ain’t done. He’ll have to find somewhere to test his stuff out to Harrison’s range, another thousand yards or so. He’ll need to have made that shot a hundred times in practice before the real thing. So maybe that gives us a little time. He’s got to find someplace to shoot where the distance, the climate, the wind patterns, the weather all match up with his target zone. But it’s taken him a bit of time—we don’t know where in his program he is—to get to 1,023. If he’s planning to take someone further, he’s got to move on to that next stage and become friends with it. Seems like in Syria there wouldn’t be too much trouble finding fifteen hundred or two thousand yards to go shooting.”

“No, but it’s the climate,” said Gold. “Syria is desert, as is Israel. Much less humidity, much more wind, odd temperature patterns. Maybe shooting at that range elsewhere in Syria wouldn’t teach him what he needs to know because he’s not operating in Syria. He has to travel to wherever that is, or to its duplicate.”

“It’s a damned shame we don’t know where he’s gone,” said Swagger.

“But of course we know,” said Cohen. “We’re Mossad. That’s what we do.”

13

On the run

He would be all right. The preparations were in place, the contacts set, the logistics arranged, the codes known, the schedule activated. It would all happen as planned, nothing could stop it.

False leads, clues within clues, switchbacks, deviations, deceptions, booby traps, the full genius for Ottoman deception and betrayal woven into one grand plan certain to do horrendous damage. Cities would topple, fire would engulf infidels, the mighty would fall, death would be general. It couldn’t fail.

But it depended on a cold bore shot only one of the best in the world could make from a distance until a few years ago thought unreachable. Maybe Harrison of Afghanistan could make it, maybe not.

But even that was not enough, for Harrison was safely within his own lines and had no difficulty slithering through enemy territory. He could have had a nice cup of tea before he shot and then gone back to bed behind the barbed wire and sandbags. Juba, on the other hand, would be the most hunted man in the world afterward, and it was mandatory that he escape, leaving only hints that pointed to another man.