He reached the driver’s door, using it on the final approach as a shield, then whipped around the edge of the armored window frame to clear the front. Finding the front seats unoccupied, he cleared the back seats and empty rear cargo compartment, the latter requiring him to climb momentarily into the APV.

“Lead APV is clear,” he reported on the open channel as he climbed out. Only then did he notice another vehicle parked behind the APV . . . a Dodge Charger.

That looks like Maria’s car, he thought, dragging his targeting laser over and around the Nashville PD sedan.

“Right APV clear,” Eli reported.

“Left APV clear,” Bex added a moment later. “But the bad guys left some hardware in this one that could be useful.”

“Like what?” Jed said.

“Like a box stenciled MBDA Enforcer—which I believe is a shoulder-launched missile system.”

“Just one?” he asked.

“Yep,” Bex said.

He circled the Charger, confirming that it was abandoned and belonged to Maria Perez based on her license plate number, which he’d committed to memory when applying for her unescorted visitor clearance at Trinity Loop.

What in the world is she doing here?

“What do you want me to do with it?” Bex asked.

“Pull it and run it back to Johnny.”

“Hooah,” Johnny said. “This day keeps getting better and better. Getting to shoot one of these bad boys is also on my bucket list.”

Jed shook his head, but his lips curled at his teammate’s bravado. “Two, what about you? Anything?”

“Nothing so exciting over here,” Eli said. “Just a five-gallon fuel jug.”

“Is it full or empty?”

“Hold on, let me check. . . . It’s full,” the veteran reported.

Jed nodded as a plan began to come together in his mind. “Grab it and we’re gonna start moving bodies. I think I might have an idea . . .”

CHAPTER
FIFTY

FRONT GATE

“Mother, One—sitrep on our incoming?” Jed said as he doused the inside of Perez’s Dodge Charger with gasoline.

“Sword, Mother—the drone is on station. Incoming vehicles still heading your way. Two mikes out,” Nisha reported.

“Check,” he said and tossed the spent gas jug inside the car. Then pulling a lighter from his kit, he set his girlfriend’s police car on fire.

Sorry, Maria, he thought as the inside of the sedan went up in flames, but it’s for a good cause.

His mind still screamed with questions about what Maria could possibly be doing here, but there was simply no time to go down that path now . . .