“Who’s that?” Cassie asked in a low voice.
“Justice Department,” Frank said.
The FBI had a wide latitude when it came to the pursuit of domestic terror subjects. But calling Justice was the way you assured that latitude. Or made it wider.
“When the FBI revised the rules of engagement in 2010,” I said, crossing my arms, “they made it clear that domestic terror suspects could be interrogated without a Miranda warning when the questioning was needed to collect timely intel. Poulton also sent them our case notes about the previous three deliveries of ammunition and weapons.”
“These guns are unregistered,” Frank added. “Two men inside have criminal records, and it’s a violation for them to carry here.”
The District of Columbia also required firearm registration within forty-eight hours of arrival, and the first three loads of weapons had been here for over a month with no such filing. Add to that the fact that assault weapons were banned in the nation’s capital.
Poulton and Kemp returned, and I checked my watch. Thirty-nine minutes had passed.
Barry Kemp cleared his throat. “Listen up, people,” he shouted. “You are facing off against domestic terror suspects. Any adult male or female seen with a weapon will be treated as a threat, and deadly force can and should be used. If animals are used as protection, they should be eliminated. Any subjects presenting threats of death or grievous harm to our team, take ’em out.”
A new group of six men and women arrived, and Mackey poppedout of the conference room to speak to them. Counterterrorism in D.C. has a fly team, and he briefed them before they left the building. They were headed via jet to J. P. Sandoval’s home in Georgia for an intercept and arrest, presuming Sandoval wasn’t found in the house across the street.
Two FBI armored trucks moved to “position one,” the other side of the building from the target house. The soldiers turned on their helmet cams and headed down the stairwell.
Tech had arrived in the intervening ten minutes and set up a bank of monitors in the conference room. We listened as Poulton engaged D.C. police via cell phone. Traffic cops were ready to block off New Hampshire Avenue, and the Bureau’s Hostage Rescue Team was on standby.
Frank, Cassie, and I stood with Mackey, Poulton, and Kemp, our eyes trained on the green night vision glow emanating from eight screens that corresponded to the cameras on the soldiers’ helmets. The FBI armored truck began moving through the darkness, and someone from SWAT descended on the back of the building, ready to cut the place’s power.
“Time to go off,” Cassie said, rocking on her heels.
Forty-seven minutes.
The armored trucks turned the corner at speed. On the monitors, we could see the jostling of men in the back.
The eight screens bumped simultaneously as the armored truck hopped the sidewalk and flew up onto the lawn in front of the house. Our only audio was from the two lead CIRG agents, but we could hear noises coming through a window that Kemp had opened.
The power was cut, and men and women in tactical gear poured out of the back of the truck and moved up the steps, the first of them carrying a sledgehammer.
I watched the monitor on this man’s helmet cam as the focus swung all the way toward the street. Then it arced back to the left as the sledgehammer flew down, tearing the front door apart with a crack we could hear up on the fifth floor.
A flash-bang went off inside, and for a moment, a cloud of dust filled the green haze across six of the monitors.
My eyes followed the lead man into the house, and a sound echoed.Crack. Crack. Crack. Crack. Crack. Crack.
The noises were too rhythmic in nature—the breaks between them too consistent. On the audio, I heard the wordstwenty-two-caliber blanks.
Our men moved forward after this, and through the green haze, a camera found a man and gave him a verbal warning: “FBI, on the floor!”
The man fired back and was downed in two quick shots.Pop. Pop.
Another man. Same result.
Outside our window, we could hear an announcement sounding: “This is the FBI. Anyone on New Hampshire Avenue, stay inside your home.”
More pops could be heard; the flash-bangs continued as the team took the second floor.
One of the cameras on a helmet hit the ground and went static, the view unmoving, fixed on a floor molding. Cassie stiffened, her face draining of color. One of our men, down to militia fire.
A police helicopter moved above the residence to watch any movement out a side door or back exit, and my eyes followed the lead CIRG agents up to the third floor.
Pop. Pop. Pop.
Each time a man was downed, we heard a live count. We werealready at twelve, two more than the number we’d seen enter the house, including Hemmings, who’d driven the U-Haul.
