“He’s talking to you, Swagger.”

“That’s a negative. But if they’re there, they probably came in late last night; and they’ll be real quiet. Tell him that. Lack of activity is to be expected.”

“Uh, Ginger Dragon Six, this is Dragon Two, uh, spotter has a negative so far.”

“Is he sure?”

“Oh, Christ,” said Bob. “Tell him they’re there, goddammit, and that I’ll sing out when I get a visual confirm, and that that will be at the point of shooting, and goddammit, he better get set to bounce his people in there fast.”

Now wasn’t the time to begin doubting the scenario. They all believed in the scenario, they’d discussed it dispassionately all afternoon yesterday.

“Uh, confidence here is still high, Dragon Six,” said Payne.

That’s what ruined operations and that’s what killed people in the field – that sudden, last-minute spurt of doubt, like the lash of a whip: it made people morons. So many times Bob had seen it; it was exactly what sniping wasn’t.

“We may have to go early,” said Ginger Dragon Six.

“Do that, and you got nothing,” said Bob. “He’s there. Goddamn, I can feel him. Oh, he’s there and he’s on his rifle, and he’s just settling into it.”

He wished he had a rifle too.

“Okay, Alpha Team, this is Base Six, Flashlight’s ETA is now just five minutes.”

“Base Six to Alpha, Flashlight is now in your zone.”

“We have Flashlight, thank you, Base Six, good job.”

“Roof Team, this is Base Six, any activity?”

“Negative, Six, all clear except for our people.”

“Keep me informed, Roof Team, we are near maximum vulnerability now.”

“Have you, Six.”

“All teams, Max V condition, on your toes, people, on your toes.”

On his toes! Nick felt so out of it he almost had to laugh. This is your life, Nick Memphis. He sat in the car alone in a zone so barren of life it seemed despoiled, or some vista in a sci-fi movie set after the end of the world. All the tourists had hustled on by to get a look-see at the president. Here he was, on the far outside.

Now he saw it. The motorcade hurtled down North Rampart, and just briefly the gates to the park were opened, and through it sped Flashlight’s three-million-dollar Lincoln which no bullet could penetrate, sixteen New Orleans motorcycle cops, the Security Detail quick reaction van, and two cars of reporters and TV people. And then they were gone.

Man, he thought, I’m so far to the outside there is no inside.

He tried to stay alert out of respect for the ritual, and the big Smith in the pancake holster was some help. It gouged him but in his curious way he enjoyed it.

Yet always he felt a little guilt. He’d gotten the easy part: for he knew that the forty minutes of Max V as Flashlight was exposed were absolutely the most terrifying – and exhilarating – for the Secret Service agents who now ran the show.

“Ah, Alpha Four to Alpha Response, I have a squirrel in the fourth row left, can we get a team on him, please, like really fast, guys.”

It was the Crowd Squad, working the people.

“Alpha Four, the Hispanic guy, right, black over-coat?” came Mueller’s response from the roof of the Municipal Auditorium just beside the podium that had been erected in front of a wading pool.

“That’s my squirrel. Guy’s got a shifty, stressed look and his hands are in his pockets. I can’t tell if he’s by himself.”

“Ah, okay, Alpha, we’re moving in.”

The crowd squad maneuvered quickly to neutralize the guy they’d ID’d as a possible. Nick envied them the action even if, as it did 999 out of a thousand times, it turned out to be groundless.

“Okay, Alpha Four, the squirrel just lifted his little girl up to see the Man, and he’s got three other kids with him.”

“Back off then, Alpha Four, good work.”

Nick heard cheers and laughter echoing through the empty streets; the president had made a joke. He checked his watch. They were running a bit behind schedule. It was almost noon and the speech was scheduled to have started at 11:45, but it had just gotten under way. He’d seen the site plan, amazed at how precisely these things are choreographed. There’d even been a rehearsal for the Security Detail to get them used to body moves, to the look of the situation, so that if something ungodly happened, the place at least would be familiar to them.

But Nick could remember from the site plan where Flashlight would be standing, where the archbishop would be, flanked by his own bodyguard. The rest of the guys up there were Service beef, two staff assistants, and Mr. Football, as they called the Air Force staff colonel who was always a discreet ten feet from Flashlight with a briefcase full of that day’s nuclear go-codes. Nick could imagine them up there in the love and glee of the crowd, these happy men who ruled the world, and who would not even in their older age remember this day.

“Ah, Chopper Four, this is Base Six, can you take a right-hand circle about half-mile out? I have a New Orleans police report of some roofline movement. I’m looking at Grid Square Lima-thirteen-Tango, I got a cop in that area says he thinks he saw something. My countersniper team in that zone has called it a no-show, but take a look, will you, big guy?”

“That’s a big rog, Alpha Six,” came the voice from the chopper, and Nick heard the thing roar overhead, a black Huey.

“Ah, Base, I’ve got an all clear, your cop must have seen a mirage.”

“Okay, Chopper, good work.”

“I’m out of here, Alpha Six.”

The bird’s roar fluttered and diminished.

Nick was alone again, on the face of the moon.

“Time,” asked Bob, and lost the answer in the roar of the chopper.

When the bird cleared, he asked again.

“Eleven-fifty-six, pal,” came Payne’s answer.

Bob breathed out heavily, a stupid move, because it somewhat jittered his eye’s placement against the scope; he blinked, lost his image, came back to find a black half-moon of eye-relief error cutting into the cone of his vision because he wasn’t properly aligned. His heart was pumping.

Goddamn! he told himself, be cool, man.

And there it was again, the arch in the steeple, in perfect clarity, its black dullness sealing off his vision, simply a maze of ancient slats. He stared at it as if pouring himself through it, willing what he wanted to be there to be there, so far away, fourteen hundred yards from the target but just within the range of a world-class shooter like T. Solaratov.

Where are you, you bastard?

And then he saw him. He saw the sniper.

It was a subtlety in the light behind the slats, a shifting, a certain tightening, a certain coming together. As his mind raced to put the various-molecules of light and dark together into a picture, he realized that fifteen or so feet back, the sniper, at a bench like any rifle bench, was feeling his way into position. And in the next second or so, the whole thing assembled in his head; for now he saw also the solemn drift of the others in the room, very slow, very steady, but moving ever so slightly, a man on a scope next to the shooter, two men well back from the window. Then he watched as one by one, with the slowness of a glacier’s move, a slat and then another and still a third was removed. The diagonal slash in the arch was three inches wide. Behind it, he saw something move or tighten.

Very quietly, Bob said, “Payne, he’s there, I got his ass, he’s minute or so from shooting, send the boys in, now goddammit, send ’em in, he’s there, he’s there.”

“Ginger Dragon, we’ve got him, go, go, go, go,” said Payne.

“You got him,” yelled Timmons, the cop, “you got him.”

“Send those damn boys fast,” said Bob, “he’s set.”

Christ, he wished he had a rifle. It was his shot. It was a shot that kept him alive all these years – to have the motherfucker there, the man who did Donny Fenn, the man who blew out his hip and ended the life he was born to live, to have him right where the Remington wanted to go, right where he could put it. His trigger finger began to constrict and he imagined the buck of the rifle as he fired. He could take the trigger slack all the way down and ship a.308 hollowpoint out there and send that fuck straight to hell, drive his heart and spine all over New Orl -