Die Trying by Lee Child

Pulled the stock to him and snuggled it in close. Dragged the bipod

legs an inch to the left and swung the butt a fraction to the right. He

smacked the bolt in and out and pressed himself close to the ground.

Eased his cheek against the stock and put his eye to the scope. Joseph

Ray stepped from the edge of the crowd and offered Reacher his field

glasses. Reacher nodded silently and took them. Held them ready.

Borken’s finger tightened against the trigger. He fired the first

shot.

oco

The Barrett’s huge muzzle brake blasted gas sideways and downward. Dust

blasted back up off the matting. The rifle kicked and boomed. The

sound crashed through the trees and came back off the mountains,

seconds later. A hundred pairs of eyes flicked from Borken to the

target. Reacher raised the field glasses and focused eight hundred and

thirty yards up the range.

It was a miss. The target was undamaged. Borken peered through the

scope and grimaced. He hunkered down again and waited for the dust to

clear. Reacher watched him. Borken was just waiting. Steady

breathing. Relaxed. Then his finger tightened again. He fired the

second shot. The rifle kicked and crashed and the dust blasted upward.

Reacher raised the field glasses again. A hit. There was a splintered

hole on the target’s right shoulder.

There was a murmur from the crowd. Field glasses were passed from hand

to hand. The whispers rose and fell. The dust settled. Borken fired

again. Too quickly. He was still wriggling. Reacher watched him

making the mistake. He didn’t bother with the field glasses. He knew

that half-inch shell would end up in Idaho.

The crowd whispered. Borken glared through the scope. Reacher watched

him do it all wrong. His relaxation was disappearing. His shoulders

were tensed. He fired the fourth. Reacher handed the field glasses

back to Joseph Ray on the edge of the crowd. He didn’t need to look.

He knew Borken was going to miss with the rest. In that state he’d

have missed at four hundred yards. He’d have missed at two hundred.

He’d have missed across a crowded room.

Borken fired the fifth and then the sixth and stood up slowly. He

lifted the big rifle and used the scope to check what everybody already

knew.

“One hit,” he said.

He lowered the rifle and looked across at Reacher.

“Your shot,” he said. “Life or death.”

Reacher nodded. Fowler handed him his magazine. Reacher used his

thumb to test the spring. He pressed down on the first bullet and felt

the smooth return. The bullets were shiny. Polished by hand. Sniper’s

bullets. He bent and lifted the heavy rifle. Held it vertical and

clicked the magazine into place. He didn’t smack at it like Borken had

done. He pressed it home gently with his palm.

He opened the bipod legs, one at a time. Clicked them against their de

tents Glanced up the range and laid the rifle on the matting.

Squatted next to it and lay down, all in one fluid motion. He lay like

a dead man, arms flung upward around the gun. He wanted to lie like

that for a long time. He was tired. Deathly tired. But he stirred

and laid his cheek gently against the stock. Snuggled his right

shoulder close to the butt. Clamped his left hand over the barrel,

fingers under the scope. Eased his right hand toward the trigger.

Moved his right eye to the scope. Breathed out.

Firing a sniper rifle over a long distance is a confluence of many

things. It starts with chemistry. It depends on mechanical

engineering. It involves optics and geophysics and meteorology.

Governing everything is human biology.

The chemistry is about explosions. The powder behind the bullet in the

shell case has to explode perfectly, predictably, powerfully,

instantly. It has to smash the projectile down the barrel at maximum

speed. The half-inch bullet in the Barrett chamber weighs a hair over

two ounces. One minute it’s stationary. A thousandth of a second

later it’s doing nearly nineteen hundred miles an hour, leaving the

barrel behind on its way to the target. That powder has to explode