“According to the neighbors across the street, there are a lot of people living in each apartment, so you should expect there to be as many as half a dozen people in the apartment. They should all be immediately restrained, unless they point weapons at officers, in which case you should respond with armed force. Any questions?”

“Yeah,” said a burly young man sitting at the table. “You have any idea what they might be armed with?”

“My best guess is handguns, but you should be ready to deal with automatic weapons.”

“If automatic weapons are a possibility, then I suggest we use a stun grenade before going in.”

“Negative,” Dino said. “There may be women or even children in there, and since that incident last year when the woman died of a heart attack after a stun grenade was used, we can use them only in dire emergencies when we’re certain who’s in there.”

“Have we used any listening devices on the place?”

“We’ve pointed a mike at an upstairs window from across the street, but the blinds are drawn, and all we’ve heard is a kind of low muttering, which we take to be men’s voices, and not much of that. We think they may be sleeping.”

The man nodded.

“Anybody else?”

The SWAT team leader walked to the easel and pointed. “Going in, try to confine any shooting to this direction, to the east, because we’ve got a double-brick wall there. If possible, avoid shooting toward the walls, here and here, that have windows. Even though we’re using frangible ammo, I don’t want any rounds going through an open window and flying around the neighborhood. Clear?”

Nobody said anything.

“Is the search warrant here yet?” the leader asked Dino.

“It’s on the way,” Dino replied. “We won’t go until it’s in hand. It’s for the whole building.”

“Do we have arrest warrants for anybody but Rodriguez?”

“Not specifically, but anybody in the apartment should be arrested for harboring a fugitive.”

“Women, too?”

“Yes. There’ll be a couple of people from Children’s Services on hand to take charge of any children in the apartment, and one of them is an Arabic speaker.”

“One of my people speaks Arabic and Urdu, too,” the leader said, pointing at one of his men. “He’ll do all the talking until we’ve established who speaks English.”

“Trini Rodriguez speaks English,” Holly said.

Everybody turned to look at her.

“He might pretend not to, and I’d suggest that if he’s armed and he’s slow obeying commands in English, somebody shoot him.”

“This is Chief Barker from the Orchid Beach, Florida, PD,” Dino said. “She’s had considerable experience with Rodriguez. Anything else to offer, Holly?”

“He’s a stone killer,” she said, “and he’ll do anything to avoid being arrested, including shooting police officers. He won’t hesitate, and neither should you.”