“Your man bought the Celtics, didn’t he?”
“Yeah.”
“Chill.” Still scanning, Lowenbaum unlocked the case. “Decent room, decent place. He could’ve gotten a flop a lot cheaper, done the job. Longer odds us nailing that location.”
“He wasn’t alone.”
Now Lowenbaum looked up. “Is that so?”
“Younger—undetermined gender. Desk guy thought teenager, but we can’t narrow it there yet.”
“Changes things.”
Eve stepped closer as Lowenbaum opened the case and began, with quick, practiced efficiency, to assemble the weapon.
“How much would that weigh? Case included.”
“A solid fifteen, with the extra batteries.” He took out the bipod, tapped a button, telescoped it out.
“First window right of the bed,” Eve told him. “The housekeeper saw the depressions left in the carpet from the bipod, and from a chair.”
“You’re shitting me now.”
“Truth. They’re observant here at Manhattan East. And the window opens, about five inches from the bottom.”
“Handy.” After setting the bipod in front of the window, Lowenbaum retrieved the rifle, secured it. “Thanks,” he said when Peabody brought over a chair.
He sat, looked through the scope, made some adjustments, walked the chair over a half inch. “Pick ’em off like flies,” he murmured.
“You could make the strikes from here?”
“Yeah, I could. I’ve got another two on my squad I’d count on to make it, and another three who’d at least wing the targets from here.”
“Moving targets,” Eve reminded him.
“I could, the two on my squad could. Moving targets, let’s give the other three a fifty-fifty at this range. Take a look.” He got up from the chair; Eve took his place.
The scope made her field glasses feel like a toy. She studied the empty rink, the barricades, made her own adjustments to widen the field, and watched gawkers taking photos of the rink.
She put a woman with a blue pom-pom cap and scarf in the crosshairs.
Powerful, she thought again.
“Makes me feel I could make the strike, but that’s not factoring in wind, temps, and all that other crap. Could the younger guy have been here to do those calculations?”
“You have a weapon like this, and you have the skill, you do your own. It’s almost innate. And it’s . . . you’ve got to say intimate. You and the weapon, I mean. You and the target, that’s not.”
Nodding, Eve rose. “You’d verify this is the location?”
“I would, but why not use the toys we’ve got to lock it down.”
He sat again, took out his PPC. “I can plug in this location—the exact position of the weapon, the exact position of the targets, and do a reverse calculation.”
“You can?”
“I can now because on my way in I had a conversation with Roarke about doing that using this new program. I figured, why the hell not ask the guy who came up with the program—more advanced than we’ve been using—and give it a try?”
“I should’ve thought of that.”