She took several seconds to come back, probably querying the pilot to get the answer. “No.”

“Check,” he said, disappointed but not surprised by the answer. The tactical picture would have been immensely better if the drone had two Hellfire missiles, but despite all their capabilities, the Shepherds were not the US military. The fact they even had a Predator drone was beyond impressive.

“What’s the plan, boss?” Eli said in his ear. “We could set up here to defend against the incoming on the high ground—pairs on each side of the road.”

Taking covered positions on the berms was the logical choice, and yet he didn’t want to end up like Sanderson’s team, which from the look of things had done exactly that. He racked his brain for options. “We could set up an ambush for them.”

“You thinking about using those abandoned APVs and set up a kill box at the gate?”

“Exactly. They’re going to expect resistance. What if we don’t give them any? What if we let them get past us and engage from the rear when they think the gate is undefended? We’ll have cover inside the abandoned APVs and they’ll be on foot out in the open,” Jed said.

“It could work,” Eli said. “Only problem is if we don’t get them all, then anybody that squirts past will have a free vector to the school.”

“We could leave a sniper on the berm,” Johnny said, chiming in.

“All right, that’s the plan,” Jed said. “Eli and Bex, you’re with me; Johnny, you’re overwatch.”

He got acknowledgments from all three of his teammates. Using hand signals, he directed Bex to the left, Eli to the right, and assigned himself the middle APV.

“Stay frosty—just ’cuz they look abandoned doesn’t mean they are,” Jed said, scanning over his rifle as he advanced down the berm in a tactical crouch to check out the abandoned APVs.

“Roger that,” Eli said.

Jed’s heart rate picked up as he closed on the imposing black armored personnel carrier, which had been left with the headlights on parked in front of the defensive ballusters. The rain had stopped, but he knew from talking with Nisha that wouldn’t last long. As he slipped into combat mode, time seemed to slow, allowing his senses to collect and process every little detail as he scanned and listened for clues that he was walking into a trap. The driver’s-side doors—both front and rear—were hanging wide-open with windows rolled up. Index finger tense on the trigger, he dragged his targeting laser over the windshield, looking for a shadow inside, then under each door looking for legs. Seeing nothing, he accelerated, keeping low in his crouch but legs churning to a sprint that set his quads burning.