My parents used my old power of attorney to sell my house and handed my sister $400,000, but they had no idea who was really buying it.

The two shots from Sarah’s M4 sounded like thunderclaps inside the small dining room.

The brass casings spun through the air, clattering against the hardwood floor, smelling of sulfur and hot oil.

Outside, the two rounds struck Victor Ruiz squarely in the center of his chest. But Ruiz wasn't wearing civilian clothes under that black compression shirt; he was wearing a concealed Level III Kevlar vest.

The impact hit him like a two-hundred-pound hammer, knocking him off the porch steps and sending him sprawling into the gravel driveway. The breath exploded from his lungs in a wet, ragged gasp, his pistol flying from his fingers and sliding beneath the bumper of the gray Mercedes.

"Move!" Sarah shouted, vaulting through the open front door onto the porch.

Julian Cross was screaming. He was on his knees, his hands clamped over his ears, his Brioni coat covered in gravel dust, rocking back and forth like a terrified child.

"Don't shoot! Don't shoot! I’m an attorney! I’m an attorney!"

Sarah didn't look at him. She cleared the top of the stairs, her carbine tucked into her shoulder, her eyes fixed on Ruiz, who was rolling onto his stomach, his hand clawing toward his ankle holster.

"Don't touch it!" Sarah commanded, stepping down the stairs. "Don't you move!"

From the rear of the property, the sharp, rhythmic chatter of automatic gunfire erupted.

*Pop-pop-pop-pop-pop.*

It was Jackson’s service weapon, followed immediately by the heavier, throatier boom of an AK-pattern rifle firing from the orchard.

*“Jackson!”* Crawford yelled into his mic, emerging from the doorway, his weapon covering the tree line. *“Status!”*

*“Two shooters in the trees!”* Jackson’s voice crackled through the earpiece, strained, competing with the sound of splintering wood. *“They have a Romanian drum! They’re pinning the kitchen door! Miller is flanking through the barn!”*

Ruiz looked up at Sarah from the gravel.

Even with two cracked ribs and the wind knocked out of him, his face was a mask of pure, reptilian malice. Blood was leaking from the corner of his mouth where he had bitten his tongue on impact.

"You're a dead woman, Marshals," Ruiz wheezed, his eyes burning with hatred. "Moretti... Moretti knows your name. He knows your face. He knows this whole fucking farm."

Sarah didn't argue. She stepped forward, drove the steel toe of her tactical boot into Ruiz’s solar plexus, knocking the remaining air from his lungs, then reached down, snatched the backup pistol from his ankle holster, and tossed it twenty feet into the grass.

"Crawford!" Sarah yelled. "Take these two! I’m going around the kitchen!"

"Take Miller’s side!" Crawford ordered, grabbing Julian Cross by the scruff of his expensive coat and dragging him toward the stone porch like a sack of laundry. "Go!"

Sarah didn't run across the open lawn.

She dropped into a low crouch, moving along the eastern foundation of the farmhouse, where the stone wall met a thick hedge of overgrown boxwoods.

The air here was filled with the smell of shredded leaves and pulverized wood. The shooters in the orchard were walking their fire across the back of the house, three-round bursts tearing through the clapboard siding of the pantry, shattering the kitchen window into a thousand silver shards.

Through the gaps in the boxwoods, Sarah saw them.

Two men.

They weren't dressed like street thugs; they wore dark cargo pants, tactical softshell jackets, and baseball caps pulled low over their eyes. One of them was kneeling behind a stone well-house fifty yards out, reloading a stamped-receiver AK-47. The second man was moving laterally through the apple trees, trying to get an angle on the cellar bulkhead.

They weren't here to negotiate. They weren't even here for the gym bag.

They were here to sanitize the site. If the Mitchell family died in a "tragic home invasion," the paper trail died with them, and the federal subpoenas Evelyn Ward was drafting would hit a brick wall of dead witnesses and burned files.

Sarah reached the corner of the house.

The apple orchard was a maze of twisted, low-hanging branches, the trees planted in tight, parallel rows that created narrow corridors of fire. The ground was covered in rotten windfalls and tall, unmanaged grass that rose to mid-shin.

She checked her optic. The red dot was steady, glowing sharp against the green shadows of the trees.

She waited.

The man with the AK-47 slapped a fresh drum into his rifle, racked the bolt, and stood up from behind the well-house, preparing to lay down another volley of suppressive fire.

Sarah leaned out from the stone foundation.

She took half a second to acquire the sight picture—the red dot settling directly between the shooter’s shoulder blades.

She squeezed the trigger.

*Crack.*

The shooter jerked forward as if kicked by a mule, dropped the rifle into the grass, took two staggering steps toward the apple trees, and collapsed face-down into the dirt.

The second shooter froze.

He had been twenty yards deeper in the orchard, moving fast toward the barn. When his partner went down without a sound, he spun around, his weapon—a short-barreled tactical shotgun—coming up toward the corner of the house.

He saw Sarah.

For a fraction of a second, their eyes locked across forty yards of dappled sunlight and drifting smoke.

He didn't fire. He recognized the tactical discipline, the stance, the body armor. He realized he wasn't fighting an old supply salesman and two frightened women; he was fighting an active federal tactical team that had already flanked his position.

He turned to run, breaking toward the dirt track where the black Expedition was parked.

From the shadow of the barn, Deputy Miller stepped out.

Miller didn't shout a warning. He leveled his patrol rifle and fired three rounds into the shooter’s pelvis.

The man went down with a sharp, choked shriek, the shotgun flying into the weeds, his hands clawing at the dirt as Miller closed the distance with his weapon up, kicking the shotgun away and dropping a knee into the small of the man’s back.

"Clear!" Miller bellowed, his voice echoing across the orchard. "Rear perimeter is clear! Shooter is down and secured!"

Sarah lowered her carbine.

The silence returned to the farm.

It was even heavier than before, thick with the smell of burnt powder, vaporized wood, and the iron tang of fresh blood soaking into the Pennsylvania soil.

From the front of the house, the high, warbling wail of sirens began to rise in the distance—the first wave of Pennsylvania State Police cruisers, clearing the roadblocks and speeding down County Line Road to secure the scene.

Sarah stood by the corner of the stone house, her chest rising and falling in slow, measured increments.

She looked down at her hands.

They were covered in soot and gray brick dust from the dining room window. But they were steady. Completely steady.