Suddenly, a small, blurry round dot flashed on his temple, lingering there less than two seconds before being replaced by a slightly larger round hole, as the driveway side window crashed inward reacting to the bullet’s trajectory. Once again, Hawkeye had hit his mark perfectly. From his vantage point he first had used the infrared goggles to find his target. But was then able to gain a line-of-sight through the side window, albeit dimly through the sheers.
As the kidnapper’s body fell away, his knife skidded across Mike’s throat, but lightly, leaving the equivalent of an oozing paper cut. A couple of minutes of pressure would stem the bleeding without the need for so much as a bandage, much less stitches. Calamity averted, the partially sedated Mike was a very lucky man, indeed.
Approaching cautiously and entering the second bedroom with weapons drawn, the pair of team members following Gonzales, Charlie Cook and Ralph Jacobson found the third suspect on his knees with ankles crossed and his fingers tightly braided together on top of his head. “I’m not resisting,” he called out. Shoving him down flat on the floor, the team members frisked his person for weapons and securely bound his wrists behind his back with a nylon zip-strip. By the time he was hoisted to his feet and frog-marched into the living room, Mike had been freed from his restraints by Steve and a couple of other team members and the bleeding staunched. Suspect number three was shoved down onto the chair, which had previously been occupied by Mike for the greater part of the past four days.
Turning to Mike, Steve began, “Mr. Miller, you might not remember me, but my name is Steve Thomas and you and I have something in common. Our wives are both orbiting Mars in the Bolo One. Now, while we interrogate this guy to find out who he is, who he’s working for, and determine what the hell is going on, you’ll need to relay a message to your wife. There isn’t much time left to do so, but you have to convince her that you are safe and they can go ahead with the landing and in a few minutes, I’ll send the same to mine. Can you do that?”