Gentry pitched forward, striking the brick stairs with his head, the grenade rolling down the sidewalk—pin and safety lever still intact. Clark whirled to his right, snapping off two shots into the darkness, before a long burst of bullets thumped into his head and chest, knocking him backward like he’d been hit by a bus. He slammed into Jolene, who lost her balance and stumbled sideways until she tripped over her own feet.

Rudd launched forward and broke her fall with one arm, keeping her head from bouncing off the sidewalk. He kept his pistol hand extended, for no real reason other than to feel as though he were doing something to protect his wife. He hadn’t seen a single muzzle flash, and the sidewalks were empty. Whoever had positioned these snipers had orchestrated this moment perfectly. They’d probably been behind everything that had gone down today. All leading to this stoop, and the annihilation of his team.

He managed to say “sorry” to Jolene before a bullet hit the crown of her head and switched her off forever. Rudd pressed the Glock’s trigger repeatedly, aiming at nothing in particular, before he joined her.

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 30

Jared Hoffman searched through the night vision scope attached to his suppressed rifle for any movement, finding the stoop and sidewalk completely still aside from the occasional postmortem twitch. He took his eye out of the scope and observed the entire street. Nothing. The three sweltering hours he’d spent hidden in the back seat of this car had come down to a five-second, very-one-sided gun battle. Well worth the price. He pressed the transmit button hidden inside his shirt collar.

“Melendez. You see any unfinished business?” he asked.

His earpiece crackled. “Negative. Six targets down. The couple and the four that arrived in the second SUV. Down hard.”

He agreed with that assessment. Hoffman had fired nothing but head and neck shots, connecting with each burst.

“Graves. You got any funky chatter out there?” asked Hoffman.

“No. Satellite push-to-talk traffic went quiet right before the vehicles moved in,” he said. “I’m monitoring the police frequencies closely. We heard the shots from here.”

Hoffman was mad at himself for that. He should have plugged the husband first, especially when he didn’t drop the pistol to catch her. Those five shots would guarantee a dozen or more 911 calls. The first two, fired by the other guy, might have kept people inside the townhomes guessing for a while before they finally decided to play it safe and call the police.

“Copy that,” said Hoffman. “Miralles. It’s all you. We’ll keep you covered.”

A car started on the other side of the street, down toward Foster Avenue. He caught a brief glimpse of Miralles’s ski-masked face and a gloved middle finger when her vehicle raced by.

“I saw that,” said Hoffman over the net.

“You were supposed to,” she said.