LTAB - 11/11/02

Music - Mind — Machine

"Echo Leader to Patrol 1, come in," the voice crackled on the helmet radio. Yoshiro Takagami checked the bolt on his MP5SD submachinegun with a nervous, spastic gesture. He had lost count of how many times he had done this in the past hour. Yoshiro could feel his muscles cramping as he crouched behind the blacked-out SWAT van, the rest of Patrol 1 shivering behind him, their faces masked behind combat helmets and chemical warfare gear, their bodies formed into amorphous blocks by the body armor. Equipment was draped across their tense forms like spiderwebs - MP5s, knives, flash-bang grenades, emergency medical packs and morphine syrettes.

"This is Patrol 1, reading you five by five. We are in position." Yoshiro wanted to tell the dispatcher that they had been for over an hour, but the commands were to keep readio silence to a minimum.

"All right. We're just about finished closing the net. Get ready to move on my mark. Thirty..."

Yoshiro chanced a look from behind the blockade. A sudden glimpse of motion backlit by the doorway of the compound...

"Twenty... Ten..."

The gates to the compound blew off of their hinges in a hail of metal and actinic sparks.