Chapter 12 - The Tactical Trap
The heavy glass of the rear patio door shattered with a deafening crash as one of the thugs smashed it with a baseball bat. The four men spilled into the darkened living room, crunching over broken glass, their flashlights sweeping wildly across the empty furniture.
"Check the bedrooms!" the lead thug barked, a bulky man with a shaved head and a leather jacket. "Mr. Vance said she keeps the laptop and the hard drives in a black Pelican case. Grab the girl, break a few of her fingers so she knows to shut her mouth, and let’s get out of here!"
They never took a fifth step.
From the shadows of the kitchen doorway, I raised the X26 Taser and fired. The twin electrified darts struck the lead thug squarely in the chest. Fifty thousand volts of electricity locked his muscles instantly; he let out a strangled, guttural shriek and stiffened like a board, crashing face-first onto the hardwood floor.
Before the remaining three men could even turn their heads toward the sound, the front door of the safehouse flew open. Marcus and the two Force Recon veterans surged into the room like a tidal wave of precision violence.
It wasn't a fight; it was a tactical dismantling.
The second thug swung his baseball bat at Marcus, who stepped inside the swing with textbook close-quarters combat training, trapped the man's wrist, and delivered a brutal palm strike to his chin that dropped him instantly into unconsciousness. The third man tried to run back through the shattered patio door, but one of the Marines tackled him around the waist, driving him hard into the lawn and securing his hands with heavy-duty zip-ties in less than three seconds.
The fourth thug dropped his baton, raised his hands in the air, and fell to his knees, trembling violently as I stepped out of the shadows, the laser sight of my Beretta M9 resting steadily between his eyes.
"Don't shoot! Don't shoot!" the man sobbed, putting his hands behind his head. "We were just hired to scare you! A guy named Vance paid us five grand in fifties at a parking garage three hours ago! He said you were just some crazy ex-wife!"
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"You were misinformed," I said coldly, keeping my weapon trained on him while Marcus kicked the weapons away and zip-tied his wrists.
Ten minutes later, Special Agent Vance and a team of FBI investigators arrived at the safehouse. They confiscated the thugs' cell phones, which contained text messages and voice notes from Arthur Vance giving explicit instructions to break into the house, assault me, and steal federal evidence. Arthur had just added Attempted Murder of a Federal Witness and Armed Home Invasion Conspiracy to his impending indictment.
