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its natural balance by making it top heavy. The suppressor wouldn't stop the bullet's supersonic crack, but that didn't matter because the noise would be down-range and well away from the fire position, and covered anyway by the device going off; what it would stop was the weapon's signature being heard by hospital staff or Italian tourists eating their overpriced ice cream on the embankment just a few feet below.
    The Portakabin's windows had to be slid open. Firing through glass would not only alert the tourists, but would also affect the bullet's accuracy. There was a risk that someone might think it unusual for the window to be open on a Sunday, but we had no choice. As it was, the suppressor alone would degrade the round's accuracy and power, which was why we needed supersonic rounds to make the distance. Subsonic ammunition, which would eliminate the crack, just wouldn't make it.
    It would only be once she was happy with her fire position, and had checked that her commercial hearing-aid was still in place under her hood, that she would sign on. Her box of tricks didn't have lights, just a green wire antenna that would probably be laid along the desk then run along the floor. A copper coil inside the box emitted three low touch tones; when I hit my send press el they picked that up through the hearing-aid.
    There was one other wire coming out of the box, leading to a flat, black plastic button; this would now be taped on to the weapon wherever she had her support hand in position to fire.
    Hitting the press el five times, once she was ready to go, was what lit up my number-two bulb five times.
    There was nothing left for her to do now but sit perfectly still,
    weapon rested, naturally aligned towards the killing area, observe, wait, and maybe listen to the comings and goings just below her. With luck the other two were going to be doing the same very soon. If anyone from hospital security attempted to be the good guy and close her window, a woman dressed like an extra from the X-Files would be the last thing they ever saw as she dragged them inside.
    It was only now that she was in position that her problems really began. Once she'd zeroed the weapon in Thetford Forest, it would have been carried as if it was fine china. The slightest knock could upset the optic sight and wreck the weapon's zero. Even a tiny misalignment could affect the round by nearly an inch, and that would be bad news.
    And it wasn't just the possibility of the optic being knocked, or the suppressor affecting the round's trajectory. The weapon itself, issued to me by the Yes Man, was 'take down'. So, once she had zeroed it for that one, all-important shot, it had to be taken apart for concealment, before being reassembled at the firing point.
    Thankfully this bolt-action model only had to be split in two at the barrel, and because they were brand new, they wouldn't have suffered that much wear and tear on the bearing surfaces. But there only had to be a slight difference in the assembly from when it was zeroed, a knock to the optic sight in transit, for the weapon to be inches off where she was aiming.
    This isn't a problem when an ordinary rifleman is firing at a body mass at close range, but these boys and girls were going for a catastrophic brain shot, one single round into the brain stem or neural motor strips. The target drops like liquid and there is no chance of survival. And that meant they had to aim at either of two specific spots the tip of an earlobe, or the skin between the nostrils.
    She and the other two would need to be the most boring and religious snipers on earth to do that with these weapons. The Yes Man hadn't listened. It annoyed me severely that he knew jack shit about how things worked on the ground, and yet had been the one who decided which kit to use.
    I tried to calm down by making myself remember it wasn't entirely his fault.
    There had to be a trade-off between concealment and accuracy, because you can't just wander the