Above the Law by J. F. Freedman Page A

the Union Army.
    He would not have authorized this raid based on nothing but information provided by a turncoat like Lopez. Snitches are fundamentally unreliable. He would have found a way to get his own mole inside.
    But this was not his operation.
    He thought about something else, peripheral but related to this action, something no one knew, not even Bearpaw, whom he trusted like a son: he had decided to hang it up. The next election was coming in a year, and he wasn’t going to run again—he was going to retire. Time to pass the torch.
    From Bearpaw and resignation, his thoughts turned to his son, James. They had fallen out over Vietnam and had never reconciled. Miller blamed James for the loss of his career with the Bureau and had hardened his heart against him.
    He had not heard from James since Dorothy’s funeral. He didn’t know if he ever would again.
    He came back to the present. He would be all right—since Jerome had rebuffed him, he wasn’t going to be in any direct line of fire; and he had no need to be a hero and disregard Jerome’s directive. Still, there was always risk in something this dicey, and he was going on eighty. You shouldn’t be doing something this risky, this physical, at his age, even if you’re in great shape and could pass for being a decade and a half younger.
    For all the action he was likely to see, he might as well go home; but he had to be here. This was taking place in his county; he was responsible to his constituents for law enforcement in his county, even if it was being performed by an outside agency.
    There was something else, too, more important. More personal. This would be the last big operation he’d ever be involved in. If there was trouble, and he went out in a blaze of glory, it would be a good way to die. He was going to die soon anyway; whether tonight or in a few years, it was there, looming before him. This would be an honorable way, fulfilling on many levels. But that was to be denied him now.
    Miller walked over to where the others were congregating. Sixty men in the party. The assault teams comprised fifty of them, the other ten would be at the fence line, manning the artillery that could level every building if it came to that. Which wasn’t going to happen, but they had to prepare for it. Their dogs, in portable kennels, were far enough back from the compound that the sounds of barking wouldn’t be heard inside, although they were trained to be silent except when on the scent.
    The advance contingent slipped into the compound. The perimeter was fifty yards all around the main building, clear, unprotected ground. This was the most dangerous part, bridging that distance.
    Time was another dimension now, slowed almost to a standstill. Seconds drifted by like leaves on a quiescent stream; five minutes: an eternity.
    Everyone was on edge, waiting. Miller could feel the collective adrenaline pumping. His own pulse was quickening, a rare occurrence. Looking toward the target, he saw that the advance party had safely crossed no-man’s-land and were closing in on the house, protected by the shadows cast off from the light of the moon.
    Miller looked at Jerome. The man was standing in place, but his body was quivering—you could almost see electrical charges zapping out from him, he was so wired. He was going to explode from his inner pressure if this didn’t come off, and soon.
    Jerome put up a hand for silence, even though there was no sound, no movement anywhere near him. He listened over his earpiece.
    “All quiet on the western front,” he relayed in a whisper. “Time to rock and roll.”
    They filtered into the compound and spread out, Jerome leading the frontal assault, two more teams on either flank, a fourth going around to the back.
    Miller had taken a position on the high ground on the other side of the fence, two hundred yards away, where he had an unobstructed view. Standing next to his deputy, he watched through his binoculars. This is dangerous