Nathan dashed across the pavement, tearing off his shirt as he ran. He wrapped it around his hand and used it on the door handle of the overturned SUV. After two hard yanks, the passenger door opened. Hanging upside-down, two small girls were strapped into car seats, screaming bloody murder as flames licked at their skin. Nathan reached into the SUV and singed his arms unclipping the seat belt holding the first girl’s car seat. It fell into his grasp and he yanked it out of the flames.

Harvey and Henning sprinted over.

“Get the other side,” Nathan yelled, and hauled the car seat away from the burning wreck. He set the child down and rushed back to the SUV. Ferris was running from the convenience store with a fire extinguisher. He pulled its pin and flooded the interior of the SUV with carbon dioxide gas. Harvey reached into the cloudy discharge and freed the second car seat. When Harvey pulled back from the interior of the SUV, his shirt was smoldering. Ferris nailed him with a discharge of CO2. Grangeland ran around the island and grabbed the first car seat. She sprinted for the restaurant and disappeared inside. A few seconds later, she returned for the second little girl and ran her into the restaurant. Nathan looked for the SUV’s owners but didn’t see them. He suddenly realized he hadn’t checked the front seats.

Nathan yelled over the crackling of flames, “Ferris, nail the front seats.”

Ferris stepped forward, stuck the nozzle through the broken driver’s-side window, and pulled the trigger. White cloudy gas filled the cab, starving the flames of oxygen. The reddish-orange glow from the interior winked out. Nathan grabbed his shirt and used it on the door handle. It wouldn’t move. With a roar of anger, he pulled with all his strength and the door screeched open. A woman was crumpled into a ball on the SUV’s ceiling, which was now the floor. Her clothes and hair were burned and smoking. Fortunately, her skin wasn’t too bad. As Nathan and Harvey dragged her away from the SUV, she cried out for her daughters.

“We got them out,” Nathan said. “They’re okay.”

Running from window to window, Ferris continued to spray the SUV’s interior.

“Get the tires.”

Ferris aimed high and dowsed the flaming wheels. He hurried to the opposite side and sprayed those tires as well.

Nathan looked up and saw the blacktop moving all around him. No, not the blacktop. SWAT teams. What the hell were they doing here? Lansing….

MP5s at their hips, at least ten SWAT agents were advancing toward their position, some of them fanning out to cover the property’s exterior boundaries.

At the exact moment Nathan turned back toward the SUV, he heard the supersonic arrival of a bullet combined with the boom of the discharge.

His right arm jerked. Shit! “Sniper!” he yelled.