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.
Through the scope, he watched the slight tremble of the cross hairs, matching his breathing. That was the enemy, really: not Willie Downing or Nick Memphis or Accutech or anything—no, it was his own heart, which he could not quite control (nobody could) and which would send random messages of treachery to the various parts of his body. At these last moments, the heart could betray anyone, firing off a bolt of fear that would evince itself in
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