Point of Impact by Stephen Hunter Page A

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 hisears, 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,