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hostage out kind of guy when they needed it.
    Takahiro had the eyes, sharp shooting was his specialty, but so was leading his men into the thick of the moment and getting the hostage out when ceiling entry to take the kill wasn’t even an option. He was one of their best in many ways, but on this he would take lead. His Captain had already told him if the devil came to his town he would want him to send that devil back to hell. This was not their standard mission. This was a rescue the hostage at whatever the cost, even if that meant not worrying about apprehending the criminal. It was the first time in the history of Takahiro’s eleven and a half years on the team that he had heard those words spoken unveiled. He had been a cop since his twentieth birthday with which his skill led to a promotion to detective by twenty-three but he only lasted there six months because he wanted SWAT so he fought for the recommendation, got it and went in for the training, certifications and everything else needed to be a member of the team. By twenty-four he was the newbie with the unit and rapidly progressing faster than anybody before him. In all his years there he had heard a great many commands; he knew the masked words of save yourself and forget worrying about not taking the kill shot, but those words were always masked in a way that told him if the chips fell wrong his commanding officer would sell his soul to the Devil and think nothing of it. But this, direct orders, were hard to hide in the paperwork.
    “This is a picture of what she looks like.” The eight by ten size natural landscape portrait came up. God she was a beauty, he thought as he looked at the gray eyes, the beautiful brown skin and the perfectly styled hair. She was a classy dresser too. The pictures they had been handed had her looking like a better version of classic old Hollywood, and from what he heard from Sergeant Aura Blake from Scottsdale, the woman was class personified. It wasn’t just the clothes in her closet or the pictures on her wall, but the men who came running from her office the moment they saw the footage had shed light on the woman that shocked them all—or so she had said.
    She couldn’t figure out why anybody would do that to her, but they had all been on the force and in the world long enough to know that evil didn’t need an excuse to be evil.
    “It’s nearing ten o’clock, men. The media is swarming. Every political higher up is ready to split their head wanting to make sure this comes out clean with a happy ending that won’t taint the city of Scottsdale or the state of Arizona. Let’s make sure we’re ready if we’re…”
    “Sorry, Sir.” Julia Limpkins rushed into the room. “Deputies Fuller and Farmington went out on a call of a bloody shirt wrapped in a rug with bloodspots on it. The rug was out for the trash, but you know trash hunters and all. Well the guy who picked it up just got it home, unrolled it and found it. The rug was picked up on Cheyenne Road. He gave them the address. They need to know what you want them to do.”
    They were about to be on and he knew it. The rug could have just been placed on somebody’s lawn but even if it was the guys who took her had to either still be in the county somewhere or had just been passing through. But who would just go driving around a neighborhood, drop a rug with blood soaked clothing on the lawn and take off? Nobody with a brain would do that because they would know the homeowner wouldn’t miss a rug big enough to hide a body in on their lawn. And if it were an empty house people would notice trash where nobody lived.
    “Are they sure of the shirt?”
    “Farmington says it looks like the one in the camera footage, but you know, it wasn’t the best footage. Either way, it would be odd, don’t you think, to have something like that show up on the lawn right now.”
    “Odd indeed,” he said. “Suit up men. We have open permission from those in power to kick in