Page 153 of Hard Rain

“Ready at the back,” Grant said.

“On your signal, Boss,” Whip said.

“Go.” Boone’s command was strong and clear.

The front stack surged forward. SWAT slammed a battering ram into the front door.

Boom. The frame splintered. Wood chips flew through the wet air.

“United States Marshals! Search warrant!” Axel shouted.

Whip crossed the threshold first with Axel at his shoulder, rifles sweeping opposite directions as two SWAT operators flowed in behind them.

“Clear left.”

“Clear right.”

The living room was empty.

A television still played somewhere deeper inside the house.

Children cried upstairs.

“Move.”

They flowed through the dining room toward the kitchen while boots thundered through the back entrance as Grant’s team made entry.

“Rear’s inside,” Grant called over the radio.

“Copy.”

“Clear the kitchen.” Whip pivoted around the doorway.

The kitchen stood empty. A freshly cooked dinner still sat on the island.

Back into the hallway, he took the stairs with Axel on his six. A SWAT operator covered the landing while three more secured the hallway behind them.

Stepping inside the master bedroom, he swept the area.

Beyond the wide walk-in closet, a woman clutched two young kids against her, all three frozen in terror.

Three bodies littered the rug.

The woman’s wide eyes fixed on them.

“United States Marshals.” Whip lowered his muzzle a fraction. “Stay down. Stay where you are.”

She nodded frantically.

“Family secure,” Whip called. “Got three bodies up here.”

“Nothing down here,” Knox responded.

Axel walked over and crouched before the family of three.

“You’re going to be okay,” his partner murmured to the young boy sobbing against his mother. The teenage girl and her mother were in shock, the little boy terrorized.

One of the SWAT turned over the bodies.