The woman was in her forties and had been on her way to a Weight Watchers? meeting, but had decided to stop by her bank to pick up some cash so she could pay her dues. The man who lay next to her had also decided to go the bank, but his intentions had been slightly different. He didn?t have an account there.
He?d led a group of three others to rob it.
From the beginning, the robbery hadn?t gone well. The bank staff had succeeded in tripping the silent alarm early in the heist. The robbery quickly morphed into a hostage standoff with the San Diego police. As the police cordoned off the street, the SWAT team arrived at the makeshift command post. The team quickly set to work. Among them was a young sniper out on his first call as a long rifleman. He had black hair in a short military cut, and a lean build honed by years of martial arts and police training. Eventually, this young man would relinquish his given name, Xavier Roman, in favor of the moniker ?Deadlock?.
?All right, Roman,? the SWAT team leader barked, ?take your position and wait for orders. Let the negotiators go to work.?
Deadlock nodded and grabbed his bag of equipment and made for the door of a nearby office building. He tried to suppress the excited smile on his well-tanned face. But apparently he failed, because a voice called out to him.
?Wipe that grin off your face, X,? the female voice chided him, ?this is life and death, not a game.?
Deadlock stopped and turned back to the speaker, a blonde bombshell named Hannah Burke. She was a junior negotiator. She and the sniper had flirted before, but nothing had come of it... yet. But she?d already given him a nickname, ?X?, which Deadlock guessed that he only had to be patient. Women liked dangerous guys.
Before ?X? could make some sort of witty and flirtatious reply, the SWAT lead gave him a murderous look. With that motivation, the sniper winked at Hannah, proceeded into the office building, and up to the roof.
After hours of fruitless negotiations, the robbers were still unwilling to release hostages. Deadlock lay on his padded sniper?s mat, wearily looking through his scope, half-listening to the intermittent police chatter in his earpiece. The rest of his team had split into two squads and were preparing to storm the bank from the rear.
Suddenly, the voice of SWAT lead came on, ?Target and hostage coming out!?
Deadlock quickly aimed his rifle at the man in a ski mask pushing an overweight woman in front of him, a 9mm pistol pressed to her temple. No doubt the woman?s girth had led to her selection as a human shield.
?That won?t save you, pal? Deadlock mused as he fixed his crosshair just above the right eye of the robber. ?Rifle one, on target,? he reported.
?We are weapons tight. Standby, rifle one,? came the response.
Deadlock waited and watched as the robber screamed demands and waved his gun around. His hostage was crying, obviously terrified. The bandit was screaming so loud, that eight stories up Deadlock could actually make out something about ?get me a helicopter?. The sniper rolled his eyes. Why did they always ask for a freaking helicopter?
Down below, he could see Hannah working hard to calm the irate robber and convince him to release the women. Through the scope, Deadlock could see the crazed look in the bank robber?s blue eyes. Suddenly, the criminal stopped waving his gun and pressed it hard into his hostage?s temple.
The voice in Deadlock?s earpiece bellowed, ?TAKE HIM DOWN! TAKE HIM DOWN!?
In that moment, the triggers of two weapons were pulled by their respective owners: the SWAT sniper and the bank robber. A reddish-pink cloud erupted around the hostage and her captor, misting the sidewalk with a spray of blood. As the two bodies crumpled to the ground, Deadlock couldn?t believe it. For all that time, he?d had a shot that would have saved that woman?s life...
That?s when the deadly cold gripped him.
Deadlock looked down as if to remind himself where he was. The word SWAT was no longer emblazoned across his chest. He was alone in the middle of a Himalayan blizzard. Fortunately, he was only a few yards from one of the airfield hangars.