Laid out across Barnhart’s lap was a Benelli semiautomatic combat shotgun with a rubber-coated pistol grip, nonreflecting synthetic black finish, and barrel-mounted target light. The tubular magazine he had slapped into its stock contained six 12-gauge sabots, each of which would peel away upon firing to release a fin-stabilized CS tear-gas bomblet. In pouches on the nylon utility harness worn over his chest were a half-dozen additional magazines filled with rubber stingball cartridges, blunt-impact foam rounds, incendiary rounds, and other types of disabling and distraction projectiles. Also attached to the crisscrossing straps of his rig were pen-shaped aerosol canisters of dimethyl sulfoxide, or DMSO, a chemical sedative which human skin would rapidly absorb like a sponge. There was a high-voltage taser baton in the scabbard clipped to his belt.

Cross-legged on the floor, Noriko was carefully arranging her lockpicking tools on the tabletop, her black hair in a tight ponytail, her dark Asian eyes narrowed in concentration. Holstered at her hip was a Foster-Miller suppression weapon she called her webshooter, after the device used by the Spiderman comic book character. About the size of a flare gun, it discharged filament-thin netting coated with a polymer superglue. On the carpet to her right was a lightweight jamb spreader that looked something like a car jack, which she would strap over her shoulder and use only if doorway entry became more a matter of speed than stealth.

Beside her on the floor, within easy reach, was the hard plastic capsule of a Saber laser-dazzler. Before they moved out, the last thing she would do was to insert the Saber into a 40mm grenade launcher, itself fitted beneath the barrel of an M16 rifle. A targeting control box for the optical weapon was snapped to the underside of the grenade tube. The ammunition she had fed into the gun’s banana clip consisted of 5.56mm bullets encased within .50-caliber plastic sabots. Fired at a low muzzle speed from the specially designed VVRS upper receiver, the sabots would remain in place as blunt, less-than-lethal cushions. At a higher velocity they would split apart to release the deadly metal rounds within them.

Nimec smiled a little. It was all so very high-tech, wasn’t it? A far cry from some of the improvised SpecOp gear he’d carried way back when. But old habits died hard and he was still something of a traditionalist. He would go in carrying smoke and flash-bang grenades, OC spray canisters, and his 9mm Beretta—loaded with standard ammo in case lethal force was needed despite his intentions to the contrary.

He checked his watch.

It was seven-forty-five, almost time to roll.

“You think Roma’s going to stick to his routine even in that mess?” he said to Barnhart, nodding his head back to indicate the sheets of wintry precipitation outside the sliding doors.

Barnhart glanced over at him.

“Unless Nicky’s snowed in to his ears, he’ll stay true to form,” he said.