He acknowledged the spotter’s report and switched his radio to VOX. “Alpha and Bravo teams, take defensive positions and prep for possible incursion. We have unknown incoming vehicles. I repeat, prep for possible incursion.”

While Vance raised the retractable steel balusters on the access road, Sanderson unlocked the gun cage and pulled two Sig Sauer assault rifles from the rack. He checked the magazines and chambered rounds into both. Then he handed one to Vance, slung the other across his chest in a combat carry, and turned on the perimeter spotlights.

“Gate, Spotter—I have good eyes on the convoy now. Looks like three INKAS Sentry APCs,” the spotter said.

Sanderson clicked his acknowledgment and cursed under his breath. He knew that vehicle well because Trinity had three INKAS Sentry APCs in its own inventory. Was it possible this convoy was a Shepherd team inbound to augment their presence? The coincidence seemed almost too much to ignore.

No, he told himself. They would have radioed ahead. Technically those assets belong to Trinity Security Group and it would need clearance from me.

The first gust of rain from the rapidly approaching storm spattered against the guard shack windows and roof, but his thoughts were focused on the inbound APCs. Built on a Ford F-550 platform, the Sentry armored personnel carrier was a SWAT infiltration unit. Equipped with armor plating and hardened everything, the all-terrain vehicle was capable of transporting up to ten shooters and resisting 7.62mm assault rifle rounds and grenades. There was no telling how many shooters were incoming, but he’d only brought five shooters with him to augment St. George’s normal after-hours security force of four. To make matters worse, he had no hardware capable of damaging or even repelling an INKAS APC. On top of that, the academy’s perimeter defenses were nothing compared to what was installed at Trinity Loop—no vehicle flipper, no remote-deployable tire-shredding chains, no hardened antiballistic guard shack, and no concealed heavy machine gun nest. The only defenses here were the retractable steel balusters on the access road and a very clever bit of landscape engineering where a “berm and moat” design had been used along the entire southern fence line. The only positive compared to Trinity Loop was that the school campus was heavily wooded on three of four sides, making the only possible vehicular approach from the south.

So we got that going for us . . .

“Inbound tangos passing my pos,” the spotter said. “Do you want me to shoot their tires?”

Sanderson debated the question. His first inclination was not to engage unless the APCs turned down St. George Promenade, the entrance road leading to campus from the county road it intersected. But the sooner he engaged the enemy, the better. Trinity’s Sentry APCs were equipped with off-road run-flats, but he didn’t know if that was an INKAS standard or an upgrade.