A sudden shiver of apprehension rolled down his spine. A reaction to the operation, or something else? He raised his hand to signal the others to stop. Then he edged forward and poked his head quickly over the banister. It was pitch black, but the night vision revealed a flat green world that appeared empty.

Shane wasn’t sure what had bothered him. In all likelihood the tangos had gone to ground in one of the offices.

He gave the hand signal to move forward. At the bottom of the next switchback the dog growled and Shane felt the hairs on his neck rise.

He knew what he was going to find before he even saw him. The defendant. Del Renfro. An asshole who’d driven from Idaho to DC with a trunk full of explosives, prepared to carry out an attack on a federal building. He hadn’t cared which one.

A flat tire on I-95 and a sharp-eyed traffic cop had ended the man’s evil intentions before they’d come to fruition, but not without a bullet hole in the brave law enforcement officer. Now the asshole held a young Black woman in front of him, the marshal’s 9mm sidearm pressed to her cheek.

Shane put a bullet in the guy’s fat skull, calculating and praying the ricochet off the wall didn’t hit the hostage.

Del slid to the floor and the young woman stood there, screaming, her hands covering her face. Shane put another bullet into the man on the ground to make sure he was dead.

He touched the woman’s arm so she knew where he was because he doubted she could see anything and must be terrified.

“FBI. You’re safe now, miss.”

He nudged the bad guy’s weapon away from the body and Cadell picked it up.

“Gold Echo unit to TOC. Dead tango on lower north stairwell. We have a second hostage we are bringing out the side door.”

He held the young woman by the arm and looked up to scan the area as they approached street level. Everything happened in slo-mo as she stumbled in her high heels, holding onto his left arm with the strength of the Rock on steroids and he knew he was going down, too. He tried to roll so her fall was cushioned by his body as they crashed headfirst down the stairs.

Panicked, she twisted and somehow landed with all her weight on the midpoint between his wrist and his elbow. He heard the double snap at the same time she let out a scream that could shatter glass.

Or maybe that was him.

The others held their position and he didn’t tell them his arm was fucked. They’d heard the bones break. They knew. He carefully pushed himself to his feet using his right arm and then pulled the woman upright with the same hand, steadying her.

“You okay?” he asked.