Gregg Hurwitz - The Program

Miller stretched out the blueprint and squatted over it.

The ART members were heating up, checking shotgun slides, testing the portables, changing out flashlight batteries.

For a moment Tim took it all in – the vehicles jammed along the road, Denley snugging his goggles into place, the grind of steel-plated boots into dirt, the smell of gun oil, the big-barreled shotgun breach-broken over Maybeck's arm, Guerrera tugging on thin black gloves, the splotches of dried sweat staining the tactical vests, Bear thumbing round after round into his magazine.

Tim came out of his reverie, and everyone was staring at him, stacked back three deep, curved in a fat arc around the front of the

He realized that the circle had re-formed around him, that he was standing in the center.

Miller nodded at the unfurled topograph. "Your show, Rack."

Maybeck firmed two tempered steel hooks around the bars of the gate, and the APC lurched back. The cable groaned, and then the gate popped free, skidding in the mud. The abandoned guard station seemed a pretty good indication that The Program's ranks had been thinned by the unsuccessful colloquium, but Tim wasn't going to count on it.

The sheriff's deputies lined out across the gap, guarding the staging point, Dray and Tannino holding back with them. Bearing his various weapons like a downsized Rambo, Rutherford paced ravenously, pausing to flash the ART squad a flight-deck officer's thumbs-up. Waiting between Rooch and Doug far from the deputies' vanguard, Will caught Tim's eye and gave him a serious nod.

Tim and Bear were the first over the fallen gate, the others drawn behind them, stacked in two-man cells with their shoulder weapons low-ready, sweeping up the hill like a force of nature. Tim's badge bounced on his belt. His head buzzed with adrenaline. The five thrusts of cypress, the jagged ice plant like shag carpeting along the drive, the sharp tree-bark taste of the breeze – it was all disorienting yet familiar, a place he'd visited in the hazy grasp of a dream. They pierced Cottage Circle, the full authority of the federal government blazing its way through forbidden land. The Pros on the circular lawn gaped at the rapid approach. Tim noted bodies in the windows – he'd guessed right, catching them in their cottages before the nighttime Orae.

"U.S. Marshals, we're here to serve a search warrant," Tim shouted.

Miller forged forward, Chomper straining on his lead. Denley and Palton peeled off to run a recon loop around the treatment wing and Growth Hall. The others began knocking and moving through the buildings, two cells per cottage. The first rule of any operation -clear and contain before progressing.

Tim and Bear took Cottage Three, Leah's last-known, Thomas and Freed covering their rear. Most of the rooms were empty. In the kitchen Lorraine was bouncing up and down, rubbing her arm as if trying to erase a stain. She looked aged beyond her years.

"Where's Leah?"

She kept scrubbing, her voice a panicked whine. "Everything's falling apart."

Tim left Bear to frisk her and headed down the hall. He let his muzzle lead as he shoved through doors. The first two rooms were empty.

In the next, Don Stanford and Julie huddled together on an unmade bed. Tim lowered the MP5 and shuffle-stepped toward them, patting them down.

Julie started to cry. "The Teacher said people were coming to kidnap us."

"We're not here to harm you."

Freed stepped in and asked them to move outside.

Heart pounding, Tim headed to the final bedroom. Aside from a few raised voices, torn away in the wind, it was quiet outside. No gunshots.

He saw two feet shadowed beneath the door gap, so he stood to the side of the jamb and shouted, "U.S. Marshals. Open up."

No response.

"Open the door now."

He pivoted and kicked, the in-swinging door striking flesh and eliciting a pained grunt. Janie spilled on her ass, gripping a swollen wrist, a kitchen knife on the rug beside her. "Asshole."

He kicked away the knife, and she scrambled for him, nails tearing against his bulletproof vest.

Slinging the MP5, he flipped her, cinched flex-cuffs around her wrists and ankles, and frisked her. Beside one of the beds, a spray of wild-flowers leaned from a cone of cardboard.

"Where is she?"

Janie tossed her head to the side, laughing. "She got hers."

Tim hauled her outside and handed her off to Haines. She was still struggling against the flex-cuffs, so he had to put her on her chest.

About thirty Pros milled around on the lawn under Miller's watchful eye, looking dazed but compliant. Even Deano, the burly bouncer who'd tangled with Tim at the Radisson, was deferential in the face of the ART squad's authority. Weapons lowered, ART members were moving the last Pros and Protectors – save for Skate – from the cottages to the lawn. No struggles, no flex-cuffed suspects except Janie, no white tear-gas smoke seeping from doorways.

The area was now cleared, the population safely contained. His dread growing, Tim moved among the scattered Pros, spinning a few of the girls around to peer at their faces.

Palton cut in on the primary channel to declare the treatment wing and Growth Hall empty – that meant Leah was downslope in Skate's shed, TD's bedroom, or the woods. The thought drove Tim toward the trailhead. Bear met him at its brush-funneled entrance, Thomas and Freed falling in behind them. Guerrera, Maybeck, and Zimmer joined their wake from one side, Palton and Denley sweeping in from the other. Danner jogged to catch up, leaving slack in Cosmo's lead, and Roger Frisk from ESU brought up the rear.

Elephant grass and chaparral crowded them at the shoulders. Tim tapped his belt to reacquaint himself with his can of pepper spray; they were entering Doberman country. The wind whipped upslope, carrying the reverberating wail of an opera singer.

They broke into the clearing, which sat still and peaceful, bathed in an orchestral swell from TD's stereo. Save the smoke splitting the rain cap of the shed's chimney like languid steam, there were no signs of life. Denley started his preentry hum.

"Seek, girl, seek." Danner unsnapped Cosmo's lead, and the German shepherd bounded off into the woods. Raising the shotgun across his chest, he lumbered after her.

A blast of Italian reverberated off the trees. "…in Ispagna son gia mille e tre!"

Tim and Bear stormed the shack first, kicking in the door.

No Skate, no dogs, just the potbellied stove spewing sparks, the mail tub sitting empty before the open loading door.

Bear keyed the portable to the primary channel. "Be advised assault dogs are unaccounted for."

Maybeck shouldered his tear-gas shotgun, trading it for a crowbar he kept hooked in his belt. Moving swiftly toward the mod, he hand-signaled Denley, Palton, and Frisk, though the music would have drowned out a shouted command.

Already Tim was moving across the clearing toward TD's porch. MP5s raised, Guerrera and Zimmer were spread on either side of the door. Freed held open the screen.

A swift peek ascertained that the front room was empty. The stereo volume was cranked so high that, even through the closed bedroom door, the crackle of interlyric static sounded like bubble wrap being crushed.

Tim sidled in, Bear at his shoulder, Thomas and Freed riding their tail.

Tim paused before the closed door and drew in a deep breath. Jamming the stock of the MP5 to his shoulder, he raised a steel-plated boot and kicked right beside the handle. The door splintered inward as they exploded into the room.

TD jerked upright in his bed, bare chest slipping into view beneath a silk robe. A naked girl – maybe Leah – was on her knees on the floor before him, sobbing and covering her face.

"Hands up! Hands up!"