From their van two men watched the front of the gun shop that sat cattycorner from them. Sweating, as much from his nervousness as the heat, Special Agent Tim Werner squirmed about in his seat. He toyed with the idea of removing the windbreaker he was wearing. But every time he was on the verge of doing so, Werner would drop that idea. While it was bad enough that their muted red delivery truck literally stuck out like a sore thumb, the sight of one of its occupants dressed in a bulletproof vest would have made their identity and purpose even more obvious. Of course, the idea that they could sit parked on the street as they were for as long as they had without being noticed was laughable. Yet Werner and his partner, Albert Zimmerman, weren’t laughing.

With darkness falling and traffic in this part of town trailing off, without any sign that the owner of the gun shop was about to appear, the likeliness that their stakeout had been compromised was becoming all but impossible to deny. Given the background of the individual they were waiting to arrest, and the incident in Wyoming two months prior, the two agents in the van knew that anything could happen.

As the special agent in charge of the Boise field office, Tim Werner had tactical command of this operation. Nervously he looked at his watch. “Five minutes,” he announced. “We wait another five minutes. Then we go in.”

Without comment, Special Agent Albert Zimmerman looked at Werner, then back at the door of the shop that was clearly displaying the “Closed” sign. Without making any effort to hide his actions, Zimmerman lifted a small radio to his mouth. “Stand by,” he announced. “We go in five. Repeat, we go in five.”