“Well, go on and activate the alarm then,” Kruger said. “We wouldn’t want the police to be late for the party.”

Chapter 6

Nic Juliano had thought he was done with army green after eight years divided between the military police and the explosive ordnance disposal team. But when he’d come back to the States and was blacklisted by Las Vegas SWAT, he’d settled for army green again. The standard fatigues and tactical gear for Henderson SWAT had been acquired from Department of Defense surplus and were a dark green camouflage, which went well with their army green ballistic helmets. The only part of the uniform that was black was the body armor, which said Police across the front in bold white letters. Even the armored vehicle he was riding in was DOD surplus and army green, but he couldn’t complain. The army had been good to him. Henderson Police Department had been good to him. Still, he yearned to put on the black uniform of the FBI’s SWAT team and then, one day, the uniform of their elite Hostage Rescue Team.

Nic closed his eyes and focused his mind on the task at hand. His own aspirations were of little concern to him at the moment. Right now, all that was important was rescuing the hostage and keeping his guys safe while doing it.

The team was normally packed into the transport like sardines, but today they were three men short, which really opened up some leg room. He looked around at his brothers, five of them huddled together knee to knee in the back of the BearCat armored transport, with one more brother and a sister riding in the cab up front.

He yelled up to the driver, “ETA?”

“Five minutes.”

Nic leaned in and said, “Strom, give me a full sitrep.”

Hank Stromberg, their newest team member, was a big, blond farm boy from Iowa. He looked like he could bench press a Cadillac. Over the roar of the engine and the road, the rookie said, “A 911 call came in that a woman and her husband had got in a fight three days ago, and he locked her in a closet and has been holding her prisoner there ever since. She managed to snag her phone and call 911. She’s still in the closet. The husband is a bit of a survivalist type and has a lot of guns registered to him, but he doesn’t have anything significant on his rap sheet.”

Nic knew that wasn’t necessarily a good thing. It was a bit counterintuitive, but usually the people with the longest criminal records came along with the least amount of necessary force. Because they had already been through the system and had beat it. It was the people with clean records and a strong desire to stay out of prison, no matter the cost—those were the people who worried Nic.

“What about the house?” Nic said.

“It’s a ranch style,” one of the other officer’s replied. “One level. No basement. Should be pretty straightforward.”