"Long time no see, Kira," Spike greeted as he stepped inside the SRU facility feeling particularly spunky after a third can of Mountain Dew. He leaned on a casually placed elbow that rested up the dispatcher's desk.

"I know- working graveyard is terrible. I'd much rather be back on day shift with you guys," the blonde-haired, blue-eyed officer lamented. Kira Marlowe had acted as a dispatcher on dozens of calls for Team One and Team Three but was moved to the graveyard shift and ended up supporting Team Two and Team Four more often. As a result Spike and the other members of Team One rarely saw her anymore.

"So what's up? Why the recall?" Spike asked curiously. The team had finished their day without much occasion. It was a quiet Friday which had been a relief after a decidedly hectic and emotionally draining week.

"Two and Four are both out and there's a barricaded subject in a sporting goods store. Looks like a burglary gone badly," Kira explained.

"Spike, let's go," Officer Scarlatti heard Ed Lane's voice call out to him. He looked over to see the team leader motioning for him to get his butt in the locker room.

"Duty calls," Spike told Kira, wiggling his eye brows. "See ya."

"Be safe out there."

"Always am," he replied with an errant wave as he jogged away. Kira doubted that very much. Spike was well-known for taking risks, especially if bomb disposal was required. But guys like him were what made the SRU special.

The lights of their response vehicles brightly swirled about the dark city streets of Toronto and cast a blue and red whirlwind of light in every direction. The sirens on each vehicle blared into the late night sky. A few stars and a sliver of the moon peaked out from behind gray clouds that cascaded from horizon to horizon.

"All right team, listen up," Sergeant Parker began, adjusting himself in his seat. It was never comfortable sitting with his body armor on. He glanced over at Raf who was driving his Suburban. "We've got a 1033 at Freddie Brathwaite's Sporting Goods store, okay? A silent alarm was tripped during a midnight burglary. Two patrol officers dropped in on a male subject who opened fire on them. One officer was wounded and the other was forced to withdraw."

"Who was the officer?" Sam asked into his throat microphone. He was driving in the same vehicle as Jules.

"Constable Marcus Keisling," Sergeant Parker replied. "Status is unknown."

Jules saw the tension in Sam's expression as he shook his head and gripped the steering wheel more tightly. The reaction was almost instant and Jules knew immediately the name was familiar to Sam. He remained silent.

"You okay?" she asked him.

"I know Keisling," Sam said plainly, but Jules could tell he was stifling a flood of emotions. Sam Braddock could play the cool cucumber with people that didn't know him well, but Jules was more intimate with him than anyone in Ontario—he wasn't fooling her. "We were rack mates in basic training. He went infantry, I went special ops. He did two tours in Afghanistan." Keisling had been a Master Corporal in 3rd battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry.

Jules was quiet, not sure what solace she could offer. "I'm sorry, Sam," she tried, knowing it wouldn't be enough. If Sam had one weakness it was related to the service and anyone that served. That bond he shared with so many that had worn the uniform, even if they'd never met, often made him overly emotional and sometimes reckless.

"Don't be sorry for me," he bristled, shaking his head. "He's got a wife and three kids."

"Were you close?" Jules treaded softly, knowing she couldn't relate directly to how he felt at the moment. She couldn't understand the bond he shared with his fellow Afghanistan veteran. It was a bond not unlike the one she experienced with the other members of Team One and yet in many ways it was much stronger and transcended units and sometimes even nationality.

"Close enough to know he was the kind of guy that would give you the shirt off your back if you were freezing to death," Sam fumed. He gripped the steering wheel tightly. He struggled with this part of the job. "Now we're going to negotiate with this guy after he shot a cop and a veteran."

There was silence between the two of them, but Jules could feel the anger building within him. It pervaded within the confines of the vehicle like a dark aura that made the air inside seem heavy. She did not like this side of him, even if she could understand it. She could feel the aggression inside him with every turn of the wheel, or the way he braked and accelerated.

"Just calm down, Sam," she advised in a voice of kindness. She had to be that voice of reason for him. She knew what he was capable of and she also knew his judgment in such matters could easily be compromised. "We don't know the situation yet."

But he didn't reply. He continued on driving in the same manner as before and through the corner of her eye she could see him shaking his head in disappointment as a myriad of thoughts ran through his mind.

"Listen up team, we've got an active shooter inside the store, but no additional details," they heard Sergeant Parker's command voice over the radio. "Ed when we're on sight I want to establish eyes inside the store so we can gather more intel. With any luck we can put a face to our shooter."

"Copy," Ed replied immediately. "Spike, you're on the CCTVs. Jules I want you to get a perch if it's possible and provide over watch. Raf and Sam, you're with me—we'll formulate a direction action plan in case we need it."

"Roger that."

"Got it."

"We move quickly team," Sergeant Parker added. "Until we know more we have a wounded cop inside that is in dire need of medical attention."

The building in question was a two story sporting goods store located on the corner of Dufferin Street and Eversfield Road. The surrounding buildings were mainly made up of benign, old brick houses built very close to one another. The citizens in the neighborhood kept the area in good repair, lawns were well-manicured and houses were well-tended to. Spruce trees, poplars and elms darted up between the narrow alleys of the houses. To the north of the store across Eversfield road was the skeleton of a building still under construction accompanied by an adjacent empty lot surrounded by a black rod iron fence. Across Dufferin Street, directly east Brathwaite's, an assortment of small businesses including a martial arts academy, an auto repair shop, a fitness center and animal clinic sat empty after a long day of business. A small parking lot lined with trees in addition to a Mediterranean restaurant was located in the adjacent lot south of their target building.

The police on scene had already cordoned off the area in an effort to keep pedestrians back as well as to keep the subject hemmed in. The crowd was already growing in size—they jockeyed like temperamental animals behind the yellow police tape.

The three SRU vehicles rolled up in their signature convoy looking particularly intimidating in the only way that unmarked Suburbans could. They positioned their trucks along Dufferin Street blocking the sight of much of the crowd from the front of the store itself. The tactic served two purposes: provide cover for the crowd and the team while they assembled themselves for entry and obstructed the crowd and subject from seeing exactly what was happening on either side of the vehicles. The individual team members began to file out of the vehicles and prep their gear.

"Officer, get that crowd further back," Sergeant Parker ordered one of the struggling uniformed police constables. "We've got an active shooter inside—these people are way too close. Get them back." The officer nodded and attempted to oblige the Sergeant by corralling the anxious civilians.

"All right, what have we got?" Parker questioned loudly to the assembled police.

"Sergeant," a female officer greeted. "This is Fred Brathwaite Jr, it's his store. And this is Constable Larry Higgins, he was first on scene," the female constable explained. She indicated the two individuals—one a fairly rotund, balding older man with a Toronto Maple Leafs ball cap and a matching hooded sweatshirt and the other a frazzled young Metropolitan police officer with sweaty brown hair. The name tape on his uniform read Higgins.

"Okay, can you tell me what's going?" Parker asked patiently.

"Sure thing," the thickset man chirped. "I was at home watching the game and I got a call from the alarm company saying somebody broke into my store. They told me they'd called the police but I rushed down here too."

"Okay, who was first on scene?"

"I was Sergeant—uhm, me and my partner," the officer stammered.

"Constable Keisling?" Parker asked with some concern. If the two men were partners it would explain his beleaguered appearance.

"Yeah," Constable Higgins began hesitantly. "We went inside the uh, the lights were out so we were using our flash lights and… I don't know. We saw one guy and he started shooting at us. He hit Mark and uh, I returned fire but it just—it just got crazy in there and I couldn't get to him. I uh I pulled out." The man shook his head ruefully; he ran a shaky hand through his sweat-stained hair. Parker immediately understood the man regretted his decision to withdraw.

"Okay do you know if Constable Keisling was critical?" Parker questioned, that piece of information would be important for him so he could understand what kind of time table he was working with.

"I don't… I don't know. He got hit a few times," the constable struggled to explain. The event was a haze in his mind. His hands were still trembling from the abundance of adrenaline and he felt exhausted after the exertion inside. The gun fight had only lasted minutes, but his body had expended so much energy that he was fighting off the urge to fall asleep standing.

"What sort of weapon?"

"I don't know. Had to be a rifle. Too loud for a pistol."

"Mr. Brathwaite, what sort of firearms do you have inside?" Parker turned his questioning on the owner who was glancing at his store nervously.

"Pistols, shotguns, uhm hunting rifles—carbines… I've got all sorts of stuff and lots of ammo too," he explained.

"All right. Thank you gentleman," Parker offered with a nod. He didn't like the sound of what Mr. Brathwaite had told him. The subject was barricaded inside an armory. "Listen up team; given the officer's description we're going to assume our shooter has a higher-power carbine, potentially mil-spec." As dangerous as assumptions could be, it was a solid one. Multiple gunshots from a weapon thought to be larger than a pistol left only the mil-spec carbines or the hunting rifles. Most hunting rifles were bolt action and would probably be equipped with long distance scopes making shots in close quarters less practical.

"Boss, we got a problem," Spike suddenly chimed in.

"What is it?"

"I can't tap into the security system. Whatever this guy's got it's not networked to anything. It's completely closed circuit," Spike explained in a deflated tone. He was never fond of being hampered on a technical level.

"You can't cut into the CCTV?"

"Well I could cut into the coax if I knew where it was, but I'm not seeing anything on the exterior of the building," Spike responded. He was currently probing around the outside walls of the target building, but his search had not turned up anything of use.

"Okay, Ed see if you can move up get a look with the old mark one eye ball," Greg ordered, referring to the human eye. "But proceed with caution."

"What's going on?" Mr. Brathwaite questioned.

"Sir, what sort of security system do you have?"

"Just the basic stuff. An alarm company monitors motion sensors and door sensors from the store. They go off then the alarm is activated and they call me and you guys," Brathwaite explained simply. He paused for a moment. "I've only got a few cameras in the store and they just get recorded on a tape in my office. They're just there to make shoplifters think twice."

"All right thank you," Parker acknowledged. He took off his cap and ran a hand across his smooth scalp. "Mr. Brathwaite you can go with this officer, she'll take care of you. Higgins why don't you cool off, but stick around I may need you for additional information."

"No problem, Sergeant," Higgins responded with the same shaky voice. He was obviously unnerved by what had happened—by his decision to abandon his partner inside a store with an armed gunman. But the past couldn't be helped now. Sergeant Parker had to focus on getting the gunman and the wounded constable out. He started to march toward the command truck.