Through the pulverized breach, moving with that fluid, terrifying, synchronized mechanical velocity of an active direct-action assault element…
Poured twelve operators from the **United States Navy Special Warfare Development Group (DEVGRU Red Squadron)** and the **United States Marshals Service Special Operations Group (SOG)**!
In sterile dark-charcoal Nomex cold-weather drysuits, Level IV boron-carbide plate carriers, and Ops-Core ballistic helmets with four-tube panoramic night-vision brackets folded onto their foreheads, they swept the room!
Across their chests hung suppressed SIG Sauer MCX Rattlers, their weapon-mounted PEQ-15 infrared lasers cutting through the parlor darkness in twelve razor-sharp needles of incandescent crimson light!
“FEDERAL INQUEST!
CORDON ESTABLISHED!
SPREAD YOUR FINGERS FLAT ON THE SURFACES!
DROP THE WEAPON RIGHT NOW!”
Two crimson laser dots locked dead-center onto Marcus Vance’s forehead!
Two locked onto the breast pocket where his hand remained frozen on his gun!
Marcus stopped moving.
His breath hitched in his throat in a dry, spastic, uncoordinated rattle:
*k-k-k.*
*TACK.*
*TACK.*
*TACK.*
The sound of hand-welted naval leather bridge boots stepping through the pulverized oak splinters of the foyer was unhurried, rhythmic, and concussive.
Every step fell with the mechanical, heavy cadence of a naval battery firing across an enclosed harbor.
Walking through the breach behind the tactical stack…
Wearing his full Service Dress Blue uniform, his four solid-silver cast stars catching the emergency searchlights, his broad chest covered in ten dense rows of decorations including the Navy Cross with gold star, the Silver Star with two oak leaf clusters, and the Distinguished Service Medal…
Was my maternal grand-uncle.
**Vice Admiral David Mercer**.
Seventy-four years old.
Chief of Naval Operations.
Surgeon General Emeritus of the United States Navy.
Arthur Mercer Senior’s surviving younger brother.
Beside Admiral Mercer walked **Major General Michael Grant**, Deputy Director of Special Operations Command, and **United States Attorney Marcus Cooper**, Chief Federal Prosecutor and Special Admiralty Master, holding an unsealed, four-hundred-page federal grand jury indictment stamped with the raised red-wax dry seal of the **DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY // SPECIAL ADMIRALTY CHANCERY**.
And trotting through the doorway onto the Persian rug, his massive golden head held high, his amber eyes scanning Marcus Vance’s throat with silent, predatory discipline…
Was Barnaby.
An eighty-pound retired military working dog.
A Belgian Malinois whose dark muzzle bore the jagged white scars of combat operations across sixty miles of subterranean bedrock.
Barnaby trotted straight across the parlor, passed the weeping relatives, stopped directly beside Leo’s chair, sat squarely upon his haunches in textbook mechanical symmetry, and let out a soft, contented sigh as his heavy golden tail gave one single, definitive thump against the floorboards:
*thump.*
