Meanwhile, Wohl knocked twice on the rear bulkhead. Behind the pressurized cabin was the unpressurized baggage compartment, which in Patrick’s plane was normally mostly filled with an auxiliary fuel tank. But gloved fingers popped the false steel cover off, and two Night Stalkers emerged from the space normally occupied by the fuel tank. They were clothed in heavy winter-weight flight suits Jackets, boots, hats, and gloves, and each had a green oxygen bottle and mask. They, too, took a few moments to stretch and get their limbs going again, then donned FM commlinks and readied automatic pistols. “Cargo One is up,” one of them reported.

“Stand by,” Wohl said. “One guard in sight. Pop your hatch and get ready.” The Night Stalkers unlatched the baggage compartment door as quietly as they could but did not open it.

Meanwhile, Briggs made his way to the split clamshell entry hatch, unlatched it with a twist of its handle, opened the top half just an inch or two, then unlatched and lowered the lower half. He hoped the guard couldn’t see the open lower half from where he was sitting. Briggs stepped out and then lowered the upper half of the door all the way. “Let’s go, Sarge—”

“Freeze!” he heard. “Hands where I can see them! Now!” The lone guard had seen the hatch open and had quickly sneaked around the Aerostar, his rifle lowered.

Briggs shot his hands up in the air. The guard braced his rifle against his right hip, then pulled his walkie-talkie from his web belt and keyed the mike button: “Unit Three to Control...”

“Cargo! Out now! Hard!” Wohl whispered into his commlink.

The lead Night Stalker in the baggage compartment threw himself out the baggage compartment, landing about five feet in front of the startled FBI agent. The agent pulled the trigger on his rifle. The single round missed the Night Stalker by a few inches, then ricocheted off the side of the Aerostar, missing Briggs’s head by scant inches as well.

The second Night Stalker inside the baggage compartment aimed and fired his weapon. Tiny crystalline darts about the size of a short golfer’s pencil hit the FBI agent. The darts instantly exploded into a fine dust that penetrated the agent’s black fatigues. The agent had just enough time to realize that he was hit before the nerve agent in the dust completely immobilized his entire voluntary nervous system and he collapsed to the concrete hangar floor.

Briggs, Wohl, and the two Night Stalkers quickly split up, taking separate exits into the building. They were gone before any other FBI agents had responded.

Special Agent Norwalk was in the middle of a sip of coffee when he heard the shot, and he nearly dumped the coffee on himself. “What the hell... ?”