The strategy was to take out each perpetrator, one by one. Gonzales, who had been the Chicago inside man, shifted from his position behind a small shrub, near the garage door, to the kitchen door. He silently pulled open the storm door, propping it open with the slide catch on the closer mechanism before picking the lock of the main door, eliciting a subdued ‘snick’. He slipped inside the dimly lit room and pushed the door closed, stopping a moment for a count of several heartbeats to check if anyone had heard the slight noise.<\/p>\n
Moving through the kitchen to the dark dining room and on towards the first of the bedrooms, the infrared goggles helped Gonzales to avoid bumping into the scattered furnishings. Once inside the bedroom, he quickly located the man sprawled on the bed, one arm flung over his eyes and the other stretched out to the side, near the nightstand. As Gonzales came within reach of the bedside, a squeaky floorboard spoiled the surprise. The suspect started up and went for the handgun on the nightstand, bellowing out a warning. A well-placed kick from Gonzales broke the suspects arm, while a karate chop to the throat silenced his shouting, albeit too late. A second chop fractured his neck, eliminating this threat.<\/p>\n
Through his open throat-mic, Gonzales alerted the rest of the team to the conflict inside. Two other team-members followed Gonzalez’s lead, racing toward the kitchen door, kicked it open, then rushed through the house. Hearing the commotion from the bedroom and resounding crash in the kitchen, the pacing fellow guarding his captive in the living room, darted behind Mike. He jerked a large knife from its belt sheath, placing the blade tight against Mike’s throat. He faced the front door, anticipating a frontal attack from that direction.<\/p>\n
Suddenly, a small, blurry round dot flashed on his temple, lingering there less than two seconds before being replaced by a slightly larger round hole, as the driveway side window crashed inward reacting to the bullet’s trajectory. Once again, Hawkeye had hit his mark perfectly. From his vantage point he first had used the infrared goggles to find his target. But was then able to gain a line-of-sight through the side window, albeit dimly through the sheers.<\/p>\n
As the kidnapper’s body fell away, his knife skidded across Mike’s throat, but lightly, leaving the equivalent of an oozing paper cut. A couple of minutes of pressure would stem the bleeding without the need for so much as a bandage, much less stitches. Calamity averted, the partially sedated Mike was a very lucky man, indeed.<\/p>\n
Approaching cautiously and entering the second bedroom with weapons drawn, the pair of team members following Gonzales, Charlie Cook and Ralph Jacobson found the third suspect on his knees with ankles crossed and his fingers tightly braided together on top of his head. “I’m not resisting,” he called out. Shoving him down flat on the floor, the team members frisked his person for weapons and securely bound his wrists behind his back with a nylon zip-strip. By the time he was hoisted to his feet and frog-marched into the living room, Mike had been freed from his restraints by Steve and a couple of other team members and the bleeding staunched. Suspect number three was shoved down onto the chair, which had previously been occupied by Mike for the greater part of the past four days.<\/p>\n
Turning to Mike, Steve began, “Mr. Miller, you might not remember me, but my name is Steve Thomas and you and I have something in common. Our wives are both orbiting Mars in the Bolo One. Now, while we interrogate this guy to find out who he is, who he’s working for, and determine what the hell is going on, you’ll need to relay a message to your wife. There isn’t much time left to do so, but you have to convince her that you are safe and they can go ahead with the landing and in a few minutes, I’ll send the same to mine. Can you do that?”<\/p>\n
“Gladly!” Mike replied, rubbing his reddened wrists, massaging where the quarter inch nylon ropes had dug in deeply from his attempts to struggle free.<\/p>\n
“You won’t get any useful information from me,” the suspect snapped, heatedly. “I am a Chinese citizen, attached to the Chinese Consulate in Richmond. I possess Diplomatic Immunity, so it is illegal for you to hold me captive like this. Release me immediately and my government will not file a grievance against your government.”<\/p>\n
As he was speaking, Ty entered from the dining room, wanting to get a better look at the bound Chinese agent. Steve spotted him across the room as he entered, but figured the situation was contained now, so there was no harm in him being there. Glancing over at Ty with a malevolent grin, the suspects eyes brightened as he declared, “Oh, I see you appear to have recovered nicely from your little mishap with the car; my fault for not following through. That is one mistake I shall not make, again. Sorry I can’t say the same for your lovely wife. Such a shame that her life ended in such a brutal fashion.” Ty’s face first went ghostly pale, then turned crimson as the meaning of these words sank in. Brandon had not provided Ty with all of the details of the suspected conspiracy, but what this man was saying now, filled in a lot of the remaining blanks, bringing total clarity to the situation.<\/p>\n
“Steve cuffed the agent on the back of his head, “I don’t think you realize the situation you are in. You are in no position to demand anything, and we are the ones with a grievance, asshole. You’ll be lucky if you make it all the way to Guantanamo. And what do you know about this man’s accident?”<\/p>\n
Suddenly, a cell phone in the suspect’s shirt pocket trilled loudly. Quickly removing the phone from its hiding place, Steve pressed the barrel of his automatic tight against the man’s temple. In a deceptively calm and quiet voice Steve told the agent, “I’m going to put this call on speaker. You will reply as if nothing is wrong. Do you understand me?” With eyes narrowed and glancing sideways up at the gun, the fanatic slowly nodded his head up and down. The phone trilled for the third time and Steve thumbed it open and pressed the button to answer the call. There was a pause before the kidnapper began speaking, as if debating whether he should cooperate or not. Steve jammed the gun harder against the man’s skull, with the tip of the barrel grinding into flesh.<\/p>\n
“Hello.” The man in the chair barked into the phone. A disjointed voice on the tiny speakerphone said, “Yeah, it’s me. In just about ten minutes, I will be transmitting a command to the spacecraft, ordering them to fire the thrusters for the trans-Earth injection. It will take about eight minutes for the message to reach them, but once the thrusters are fired, they will be on a return trip to Earth. Well done! Our efforts have at last succeeded in aborting the landing. Feel free to dispose of our friend, Mr. Miller, and get the hell out of there as soon as you can.”<\/p>\n
CRACK! A shot echoed in the enclosed space, but it did not originate from the man in the chair following the orders he had just received, nor had Steve or any of his crew fire it. Six weapons swiveled and locked on the figure across the room. Ty, still standing near the dining room entrance with arm extended, had discharged his own .380 automatic. Steve pressed the cell phone’s button, hanging up on the caller, before dropping the phone on the nearby end table. There was nothing more to say to the person on the other end. The shot said it all. The man in the chair was now slumped forward with a major portion of the back of his head messily decorating the floor. His sharp tongue and diplomatic immunity proved no match for Ty’s PPH, though he had been right about one thing: he wouldn’t be making that mistake again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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