A little girl came to a police station to confess to a serious wrongdoing, but what she said left the officer completely shaken.

Through the wooden slits of the storm shutters, Miller saw dark shapes moving through the fog-shrouded trees surrounding the cabin.

Arthur Vance hadn't just sent two men this time. He had hired a private security militia—six heavily armed mercenaries equipped with tactical gear and night-vision goggles, led by Captain Bradley himself.

"Miller!" Bradley’s voice boomed through a megaphone from the woods outside. "Give us the drive and the kid, and I'll let you walk away! You don't have to die for a stranger's family!"

"You sold your badge, Bradley!" Miller shouted back, standing near the reinforced front entrance. "You're a disgrace to the uniform!"

"Have it your way!" Bradley yelled back. "BREACH IT!"

BOOM!

A flashbang grenade exploded outside the front porch, shattering the wooden steps and blowing open the outer storm doors.

The front door splintered under a heavy battering ram. Two mercenaries burst into the living room, their assault rifles raised.

Miller fired his shotgun twice through the smoke, the heavy buckshot lifting both mercenaries off their feet and throwing them back out onto the porch.

Outside, automatic gunfire erupted, wood splinters and drywall flying through the cabin air like hail. David threw himself over Sarah and Lily, shielding them with his own body beneath the heavy oak table.

Miller ducked behind the stone fireplace, reloading his shotgun with practiced, methodical speed.

"Cover the back door!" Miller shouted to David over the deafening roar of gunfire.

A third mercenary kicked open the kitchen window, aiming his rifle directly toward the table where Sarah and Lily were hiding.

David didn't hesitate. With a fierce roar of raw fatherly instinct, David charged across the kitchen, swinging the heavy iron fire poker with all his strength. The iron bar struck the mercenary across the helmet, knocking him backward out the window onto the muddy ground below.

Suddenly, a massive spotlight cut through the dark woods outside.

The roaring, rhythmic thunder of twin heavy rotors shook the entire cabin as two massive white-and-blue Federal Bureau of Investigation tactical helicopters descended from the storm clouds, hovering directly over the clearing.

"THIS IS THE FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION!" a booming voice echoed from a loudspeaker above, illuminating the forest in brilliant, daylight-bright white light. "ALL SUSPECTS DROP YOUR WEAPONS IMMEDIATELY! YOU ARE SURROUNDED BY FEDERAL TACTICAL TEAMS!"

Dozens of heavily armed FBI SWAT agents rappelled down from the helicopters into the clearing, their laser sights painting the trees red.

Bradley and his surviving mercenaries dropped their weapons, throwing their hands into the air as federal agents swarmed the perimeter, slamming them into the mud and placing them in heavy steel restraints.