Darby McCormick stepped over the dead bodyguard as she ejected the two empty thirty-round magazine cartridges from her Heckler amp; Koch sub-machine gun. By the time the cartridges hit the floor she had loaded two fresh clips.

Sweat running down her face and back, she moved to the side of a door and tried listening for movement underneath the low and steady thump-thump-thump of the helicopter blades coming from the roof.

She couldn't hear anything but knew Chris Flynn would be heading this way any moment. Downstairs in the main bay, crouched behind a stack of wooden crates as Flynn's two bodyguards fired rounds from their automatic weapons, she had caught sight of Flynn rushing up the set of stairs just before her SWAT partner had cut the power to the warehouse. She ran up the opposite rickety balcony stairs to the first floor to intercept Flynn before he could make his way to the stairwell, his only means of escape.

Darby felt confident he hadn't reached it yet. She swung around the corner, looking down her weapon sight at the long hallway lit by dim light bleeding through the windows. Still too dark. She flipped the night-vision goggles down across her eyes.

The darkness inside the warehouse room disappeared in a green ambient glow of light. She moved down the corridor, making her way to the stairwell.

A door slammed open and then she saw Flynn standing behind a frightened woman with his forearm wrapped around her throat, the muzzle of a Glock digging against the side of her head. A single eye peeked above the woman's shoulder. No single body part was exposed.

Shit. No way to get off a clean shot. She didn't want to kill him, just wound him before he could reach the copter. Her orders were explicit: capture Flynn alive. Dead, he was worthless.

'I know what you assholes want me to do,' Flynn screamed, his voice echoing through the stifling hot air. 'I'm not going to say shit.'