The ground below swept past in a rush, a blur of desert shadows. He resisted an urge to lean forward to catch a glimpse of his target. For that he relied on Clark. He was standing up front, directly behind the pilots, and would provide range estimates asthey approached the GAZ. When the chance for a shot came, it would come fast. Ding had to be ready.
His breathing was rhythmic, his mind clear.
“Five hundred yards!” Clark called out.
Ding was two feet back from the starboard edge of the ramp, the SIG grounded on a makeshift stand. He wished he had a bipod, or for that matter, a better long rifle, but the scavenged wheel chock and a half-full sandbag felt solid beneath his weapon. In his favor, if all went as planned, he would be shooting from a distance normally found on small-arms firing ranges.
With his body and elbows on the ramp, vibrations from the twin turboprop engines translated straight into his bones. There was a change in the vibration as Ross pulled the power back. He felt the aircraft begin to descend. The night air was cool and dry.
“Three hundred yards.”
Ding’s breathing slowed. He tuned out everything. The wind and the propeller wash. The sensation of hovering above the earth. Thankfully, the air tonight was smooth, only an occasional burble of turbulence.
He’d been told they would descend to between fifty and one hundred feet above the ground, a variance that depended on the terrain ahead and the copilot’s nerve. Flying low at night over unfamiliar ground was a major challenge, even with the enhanced vision devices the pilots were using. Ding had calculated that his lateral offset, the distance the bullet would travel to reach its target, would be less than one hundred yards. How much less depended, again, on the terrain conditions and the skills of Captain Ross. The airplane would also be flying at minimum speed, meaning the controls would be mushy and minimally responsive. Ding would also have to add a correction for a shooting platform thatwas inducing an eighty-mile-an-hour crosswind. It would be like shooting in a hurricane.
Given those extreme variables, he’d done his math as best he could, estimating a corrected sight picture for his scope. He would at least have an accurate range to target—Hyori was behind him with the laser range finder.
Ding was secured to the aircraft by a tether, a standard precaution for working near the edge of a ramp in flight. The airplane descended and the shadows below gained definition in the light of the low moon. Ding’s senses were fully alert, his mind a balance of focus and serenity. This shot would be a challenge. But then, every shot was in its own way. He was confident in his skills, and also those of Captain Ross.
“We’re aborting this pass!” Clark called out suddenly. “Hang on.”
Ding felt the tether attached to his midsection go taut, one of the team members taking out the slack. The C-41 banked left, away from their target, and the engine noise rose. They didn’t seem to be climbing, only veering into a tight turn.
“What the hell?” Ding said.
Clark replied, “Headlights coming in the opposite direction. They were going to be too close at intercept, so we’re going to do a quick orbit. We’ll be back on track in two minutes.”
As he’d done so many times over the years, Ding fell back on a sniper’s most important attribute—patience. He never doubted that it was the right call. He didn’t want to take out the GAZ’s driver only to have the truck slam into a family traveling on vacation. Soon they were back on course, the C-41 flying straight and level.
“Two hundred yards to intercept,” Clark called out.
The tether went slack. Ding recalibrated, putting himself in the zone for a second time.
“I’ve got a visual,” Hyori said in a perfectly level voice.
Moments later, Ding saw it as well. To his left, a dark shape barreling up the road, the beams of its headlights juddering over asphalt. He saw a car pass in the opposite direction. It kept going and soon was out of sight to his right.
“One hundred twenty yards,” Hyori said, taking over distance callouts with the range finder. “Altitude seventy feet. Predicted lateral distance will be forty yards. She’s bringing you in tight.”
If she brings me in much tighter, I can just club the driver with my gun, Ding thought, but didn’t say. His finger touched the trigger.
He got his first good look at the driver’s-side window. The window was up. He’d been hoping the driver would have it rolled down, removing the chance of deflection on the slightly oblique angle. That, however, had always been a long shot given the chill of the night and the noise of the engine. He doubted this model of the GAZ would have ballistic glass, but even so, the opaqueness of the window and potential reflections might make it hard to see the driver’s silhouette.
“Fifty yards,” Hyori said. It was the last briefed callout.
The rest was up to Ding.
He had a clear view of the window through his scope. They were going to pass close—very close. The whole aerial circus reminded him of a stunt he’d seen at an airshow, a biplane picking up a flag from a moving car. All too late, he realized that minimum range was a double-edged sword. It gave more room for slop when it came to aiming, yet also increased the relative motion between himself and his target.
He tracked the window as smoothly as he could, an odd blend of supported prone shooting and tracking a flushed quail. Nearly abeam, he discerned a vague silhouette inside the cab. In the last instant, the silhouette shifted.
The driver turned his head.
He was looking directly at Ding when the trigger broke cleanly.
—
The sound came out of nowhere and lasted only milliseconds, but it put Conza instantly on edge. He didn’t realize what it was in that moment. He only knew it struck a basal chord of fear somewhere deep in his brain.
