not to smile, but he’d started his career in the Desert as a beat cop. Going back there wouldn’t be a hardship, although at almost forty-seven, working patrol again would be a grind. “Yes ma’am. I copy.”
She nodded and glanced at the rest of the men in the room. “Gentlemen, get your people organized. You’ve got seven hours until we pop those doors and hopefully take down Peña and Rubio once and for all.”
He waited until she left and asked for the blueprints. Once they had them unrolled and weighted down with coffee cups and soda cans so they wouldn’t curl in on themselves he spoke to his team leads. “Three locations at one time. It’s not the biggest sweep we’ve ever done, but the locations bridge a wide area. Team commanders will have comms on a common frequency so the command vehicle can keep you apprised. That’s you, you, and you––” he pointed at Tiernan, Brody, and Terrence, “and I want Patel, Driggers, and Montoya in the command vehicle. Those three have the most experience with command and control in these types of scenarios.”
“You got it.” Brody scribbled a note to himself.
Ryker stared at the maps. “According to Sarah, Peña and Rubio go nowhere without each other.” She’d given them three locations where they would be hiding. “According to her, Location One is where they’ve drywalled bales of money in the walls. Terrence, I want you there. Seizures of assets of this magnitude will require us to be anal with the paperwork and chain of custody. Make sure you take Mozinga, Turner, and Hayes. They can set up a count station while you and the rest of the team close all avenues of ingress or egress. Document everything with video. Once SWAT has cleared the building and you take control, nobody, and I mean nobody, goes in without my express authorization. The money haul will bring the entire alphabet soup to the table, but they don’t get to look for serial numbers until we have all the evidence cataloged.”
“We’ll be thorough.” Terrence tapped the blueprints. “I’ll pull tripods and cameras from the equipment room and we’ll float the video to the cloud and maintain a digital file.”
“Excellent. Brody, I want you on Location Number Three. According to Mouse, that’s where Peña’s death squads crash. We want to surprise them.” He glanced up at Tiernan. “I need massive confusion inside that house. I don’t want any casualties on either side. If we can flip even one of those fuckers, we’ll have closure on a litany of cases.”
Tiernan nodded. “We’ve got spotlights, speakers, flashbangs, and speed on our side. My guys will wear ear and eye protection, and we’ve practiced with these weapons of mass confusion. They are the best bet to get in and take charge of a volatile situation like this.”
“Good.” Ryker leveled his stare on his sergeant. “You let SWAT clear the house, then separate, process, and transport those men here. If we have too many for our holding cells, I want one of ours wherever we put these guys on ice. I don’t want them talking to anyone but us or their lawyers. Copy?”
Brody nodded. “We’ll have a patrol sit on them if they need ambulance transport to a hospital.”
“Good call. We have the Deputy Commissioner’s permission to use precinct-specific assets if needed. I’ll make sure the command vehicle officers have that information. Call it in if needed and we’ll get dispatch to send in what backup you need.” Ryker turned to Tiernan. “Location Two is where we believe Peña and Rubio are going to be. The warehouse had seven points of egress. My people can secure the outside until your people clear the building. According to Mouse, they converted the upper level into a living area. Downstairs is where they keep the drugs. Get this, the drugs are in semi-trailers. They back in, unhook the drug trailer, hook up to an empty, and head back to fill up again.”
“Fucking industrious of them, isn’t it?” Tiernan snipped. “I’ll call in another team. The square footage of this building requires it. If your people can cover the exits, we’ll sweep through the bottom as soundlessly as we can and work our way up. The structure prevents a rooftop down approach, and unlike the guys on television, we’re not going to rappel from the roof into a hostile environment. I kinda like my guys, plan on keeping them alive.”
“Not getting dead is our goal every day.” He sent a