It was cleaved off its structural bronze rollers by an eighty-pound linear hydraulic breaching ram, the steel latch pins shearing clean out of the concrete jamb with an explosive, concussive roar that shattered three overhead light fixtures into a blizzard of incandescent glass:
CRASH-ROAR-SHATTER.
Through the smoke, through the pulverized concrete dust, through the freezing draft of subterranean air…
Moving with that fluid, terrifying, synchronized mechanical velocity of an active direct-action assault element…
Came the twelve SOG operators.
Their suppressed carbines came up to compressed high-ready, the red laser dots dancing across the chests, throats, and foreheads of the fourteen executives and jurists seated around the black granite table:
“FEDERAL INQUEST!
REMAIN SEATED!
HANDS ON THE TABLE SURFACE!
DO NOT REACH FOR BRIEFING FOLDERS!”
The clerk dropped the satellite transceiver onto the granite, the casing cracking across the display:
SMASH.
The two associate justices at the table vaulted to their feet, their hands flying to their chests:
