Bob looked up the teetery structure of rods and lumber. It didn’t seem too damn steady. But it had him. His vanity was pricked. Could he hit this shot, especially where some federal fool had failed, using up several lives in the process?
Suddenly, for the first time in his stay in Maryland, Bob let the tiniest hint of smile crease his face.
“Let’s do it,” he said, for the moment not giving a damn about Accutech but eager to the point of glee to take on Willie Downing and Nick Memphis.
They told him the real Nick Memphis had fired off of sandbags in a fifth-floor windowsill, and way up in the scaffolding, after a long climb, he discovered that setup, necessarily jury-rigged, but stable enough.
He put on the earphones and hands-free mike, and switched as instructed to Channel 14, the FBI Control Channel.
There was the hiss and crackle of static, then he heard, “Ahh, Charlie Four, do you read, Charlie Four, do you read?”
“Am I Charlie Four?” he asked.
“Affirmative,” came the response. “Charlie Four, please advise as to your position.” It was Hatcher, playacting Base.
“Well, I’m up here, dammit.”
“Bob, let’s put ourself in 1986 for the sake of the exercise,” said Hatcher over the earphones. “Just reply in standard radio argot.”
“Read you, Base. Ah, I’m situated in the fifth floor of Tulsa Casualty, I have a clear view east down – ” he tried to remember from the map the name of the street down which Memphis took his shot, “down Ridgely.”
“Ah, okay, that’s an affirmative, Charlie Four, you just hold steady now.”
“What’s the situation?”
“Ah, Charlie Four, we have suspect heading your direction down Mosher. He’s gone through two ambushes but on-site command wouldn’t authorize a go because nobody could get a clear shot at the suspect. He’s surrounded by these damn hysterical women and we think he may have tied himself to them.”
“Read you, Base.”
“Please stand by.”
Bob took a second to look at the rough “street” down which he’d be shooting. The problem, of course, was range. Known-distance shooting was easier, because then you can calculate the bullet drop by the ballistics tables and your own experience. But Bob had no natural feeling for range. Some men could look at something and by the weird mechanics of the brain simply know what the distance was. Not Bob. So he had worked out a crude naked-eye system in Vietnam. If he could make out eyes, he knew he was inside a hundred yards – the rare shot. If he could make out face, he was under two hundred yards. If he could just make out head he was under three hundred. If he could make out only legs, he was under four hundred. If he could make out body, he was under five hundred; if he could only see movement, he was under six hundred.
From his vantage point, he watched as technicians scurried over the killing ground beneath him, examining the chain that would tow the car, fussing with the engine that would pull it, adjusting video cameras mounted on tripods down the roadway. He fixed them in his mind, reading their shape and making his calculations off them. He figured the shooting site would be about 320 yards out.
Meanwhile, the crackle and hiss played against his ears, as he heard other reports from police and FBI units checking in for instruction; it was a constant chatter, a torrent of loose noise. Why hadn’t poor Memphis had a spotter with him, someone to run interference and to shelter him from the hundred distractions?
Though Bob could only see blue-humped mountains and rolling forest and though the breeze played against his skin, cooling it, he had no trouble imagining Memphis in the hot little office behind the sandbags and the rifle, his tension and agitation growing as he waited alone, his excitement bounding as the situation drew nearer and nearer to him.
It was the excitement that fucked him, Bob thought. You don’t shoot from excitement or haste or urgency. You shoot out of calm professional confidence, rooted in the belief, built up over a thousand hours’ practice and a hundred thousand bullets fired, that if you can see it you can hit it.
“Charlie Four, you there?”
“Affirmative, Base.”
“Command advises that suspect vehicle has just turned down Lincoln, entering your district.”
“I have that, Base.”
“ETA four minutes.”
“Read you, Base, back to you.”
“Ah, Charlie Four, I’m getting real bad reports from people in the field, they’re telling me this guy is waving his gun and screaming at the hostages and that every time he sees a police vehicle he acts a little crazier. He’s bad news, bad, bad news.”
“Reading you, Base.”
“Charlie Four, you think you’d be able to make that shot?”
Bob squinted through the scope at the road down which the hostage vehicle would travel.
“I have it big and clear, Base. The shot is there for me if it’s there for you.”
“Charlie Four, this guy could go off at any moment and hurt some more people.”
“I read you, Base. You got an ETA for me?”
“He’s at Lincoln, Charlie Four, Lincoln and Chesley, and a uniformed officer says he’s really flipped out. Makin’ me nervous, very nervous.”
“Base, I make the shot three hundred twenty yards. I can put it in a fifty-cent piece at that range. Confidence is high here.”
“Ah, Charlie Four, I’ve been in contact with command and it’s getting real hairy in that car. We’re, um, we’ve decided to authorize a green light for you, Charlie Four.”
“I’m reading you, Base, and making ready to shoot. I’ll be off the air now.”
“Ah, Charlie Four, that’s a negative. I’ve got two spotters here; I’ll be notifying you when suspect gun is pointed in safe direction and you can go for a head shot, Charlie Four. We can’t risk a spasm shot, do you read?”
“Negative, Base, I can’t be concentrating on anything but my shooting.”
“Then, stand down, Charlie Four, I won’t authorize a green light unless I’ve visually verified suspect’s gun position, just like the book says.”
So there Nick Memphis had had it. Caught right on the horns. He’d have some guy yelling in his ear as he was shooting, or he’d have to stand down and walk away from it.
“All right, Base, you talked me into it. I’m sliding into shooting position now. You sing out when your people say it’s clear.”
Bob slid the rifle into his shoulder, watched as the scope came up big and bright and clean, a movie-screen world, all in primary colors bold and furious.
“Charlie Four, he’s turned down Ridgely, he’s coming into your kill zone right about now.”
Bob threw the bolt, feeding one of the Accutech.308’s into his chamber. He drew the rifle to him, found the hands-free mike got in the way of his spot-weld, and thus quickly and savagely bent it out of the way, to take his place behind the gun.
It was a modified sitting position, with the weight on his left ham, his body canted slightly as the rifle was pulled to him, while resting solidly on the sandbag barricade. It felt completely moored to the bags, its weight entirely on them. His upper body supported itself on elbows, and the rifle rode a fulcrum of the sandbag, guided by his hands pulling it tight against his shoulder. His hip flared a bit under the strain, but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle.
As he looked through the scope, Bob made subtle corrections in his grip and body position, trying to find, given the circumstances, an equipoise: one position where everything was tucked just right, where he felt most comfortable, less stressed, where his breathing was natural and loose, and yet through it all he still felt anchored into his chair and the bench and the bags.