Dar took great care that Tuesday afternoon to zero the M40. His modified Redfield scope was fitted with mil-dot reticles as well as elevation and windage turrets. He adjusted the elevation turret according to the different ranges he was firing, and clicked the windage turret left to right to compensate for the lateral effects of wind on the bullet. The “zero” of the weapon was simply the setting required to put a shot exactly on target center at any given range with no wind blowing. Here the ravine came in handy because it blocked the prevailing winds from the west and allowed Dar to zero the weapon at all distances during lulls when there was no breeze whatsoever.

During advanced sniper training at Quantico and again in Vietnam, Dar had set his own accuracy requirements. Firing match-grade ammunition such as he was using now, Dar was not satisfied unless he could group his shots within a diameter of 20 millimeters at a range of one hundred yards, 125 millimeters at six hundred yards, and 300 millimeters—regularly—at one thousand yards. The final goal was not as generous as it sounded, Dar knew, because it took a bullet fired from his M40 approximately one second to travel six hundred yards, but a full two seconds to travel one thousand yards. Two seconds is an eternity in ballistics. Wind variations come into play over such a huge amount of time, and if the target is moving…forget it.

Dar spent five hours on Tuesday firing the M40 from all four positions—prone, sitting, kneeling, and standing. He would assume the position, feeling the sling snug tight and right, the stock tight against his cheek, a “spot weld” of contact between his cheek and his thumb on the small of the wooden stock, trigger finger positioned on the trigger with no contact with the side of the stock, his breathing so calm as to be imperceptible. And then he would close his eyes for several seconds. If, when he opened his eyes, the crosshairs in the scope were still precisely on his previous aiming point, he knew that he had obtained a so-called natural point of aim.

The hardest thing for Dar to recapture was trigger control. This had come natural to him in the Marines, but he knew from firing-range practice that he had to work to find it now. Trigger control was nothing more complicated than taking up the slack at precisely the correct point in his breathing cycle while he fine-tuned his aim, then squeezing the trigger the extra millimeter needed without moving the rifle in any way. It was not complicated, but it took mental focus, muscle control, and breathing control.

Having zeroed the M40, Dar took targets down into the open field below the cabin and fired scores of rounds in actual wind conditions. Tuesday was a windy day, and in a steady 15-mph wind, the 7.62 mm bullet would drift 4.5 inches off target at two hundred yards, a disturbing 20 inches off target zero at six hundred yards, and a ridiculous 48 inches off target at six hundred yards. Of course, the wind was almost never steady.

Dar knew that the new generation of snipers went into battle with pocket calculators or—in the more sophisticated weapon systems—minicomputers in the actual scope with electronic wind sensors attached.

Dar thought that this was a waste of human brainpower and basic senses. He had been well trained to gauge the wind. Less than 3 mph and one can hardly tell if the wind is blowing, but smoke drifts. Gusts of 5 to 8 mph will keep tree leaves in a constant motion, and Dar had long since learned the sound of different wind values in the ponderosa pines and Douglas firs that surrounded his cabin. Any wind between 8 and 12 mph kicks up dust and grit, blows loose leaves, and can be seen in swirls and dust devils. Between 12 and 15 mph the tiny birch trees in the field would be constantly swaying.

Dar had instinctively known, even as a young Marine sniper trainee, that the wind’s speed is only a small part of the equation. The wind direction must also be properly sensed and factored in. Any wind blowing at right angles to his direction of fire—from eight-, nine-, ten-, and two-, three-, four-o’clock positions—was a full-value wind. Any oblique wind—one, five, seven, eleven o’clock—would be accorded only half value, so a 7-mph breeze from his nine-o’clock position would be rated as a 3.5-mph wind when he made his lateral adjustments to the scope. Finally, if the wind was blowing directly at his firing position or from the rear—six or twelve o’clock—Dar would factor in only minimal effect on the bullet: a slight drop in velocity firing into the wind; a corresponding rise in velocity with a tail wind. Being a sailplane pilot had honed his skill in sensing wind velocity and direction.

Once these factors of range and wind were taken into account—preferably in microseconds—then Dar just used the old Marine marksman formula of range, expressed in hundreds of yards, multiplied by wind velocity expressed in miles per hour, and divided by fifteen. Dar could perform this calculation instantly and instinctively even after all these years.

Lying and kneeling out in that long, grassy field all Tuesday afternoon, Dar kept the small video monitor tuned to camera one activated beside him—making sure that no one was driving up to the cabin while he was practicing. Sometimes wearing his ghillie suit, sometimes in his green slacks and field shirt, Dar fired at regular range targets and Paladin targets and concentrated on achieving m.o.a. and sub-m.o.a. groups. Even after he was achieving these groupings regularly—in slightly gusty conditions and at all of his preset ranges—Dar reminded himself of one crucial point.

These targets are only paper.

On Wednesday evening, just before dusk, all of the FBI men on the Russians’ ranch-house perimeter came to full alert. By this time, eight tactical team snipers in ghillie suits had wormed their way to within 150 yards of the house and all three sides of the property bordering the street. Three of the snipers were in the tall grass less than five yards from the manicured lawn.

At 4:30 P.M. the only telephone call of the day came in. It was trapped and played back on the FBI tape recorders.

Voice: Your dry cleaning is ready, Mr. Yale.

Voice thought to be Gregor Yaponchik: All right.

The FBI traced the call within seconds—it had come from a Pasadena dry-cleaning establishment. Warren had an agent call the place and ask if Mr. Yale’s dry-cleaning was ready yet. The manager said that it was and confirmed that he had just called to inform Mr. Yale of that. The manager apologized for not being able to deliver the dry cleaning, but explained that the unincorporated area north of Pasadena was outside their normal delivery area. The agent calling assured the manager that this was all right.

At 8:10 P.M. a white van pulled up and three Hispanic men in gray shirts and work pants got out. The van had a yard-service ad on its side and Special Agent in Charge Warren had his people on the phone within ten seconds, checking with the company to see if this was a legitimate visit. It certainly did not seem kosher at this hour.

It was. The yard-service people assured the special agents that this was the weekly service and that it had been held up because of van problems and “complexities” at the previous customer’s home. Syd later explained that Warren was tempted to tell the service company to call their people and to get them the hell out of there now, but the three yard men had already begun their work—mowing the yard, clipping the shrubs, and cutting up a small, dead tree—and the FBI man decided that it would draw less attention to let them finish. It was almost dark.

One of the workmen went to the front door, and agents in the house a quarter of a mile from the Russians’ place got a clear photograph of Pavel Zuker talking brusquely to the quickly nodding yard worker. Zuker closed the door and a second later the garage door went up. In the dim light the FBI people could make out heaps of leaf bags next to the two Mercedeses in the garage.