About damn time. “Excellent. Let’s go.” She climbed around the console and into the passenger seat as he cranked the engine. “It’ll take a while for them to gear up. If we hurry¸ we can get there before they do.”
She and Zak had been slowly roasting in this dang surveillance van for two days in a row, trying to figure out how to get inside the SWAT team’s inner sanctum. She’d been so close to walking up to the gate and ringing the freaking bell. It probably wouldn’t have gotten her anywhere, but right about now she was willing to try anything.
Mac clicked her seat belt into place just as Zak slammed on the brakes. She was thrown against the restraint, then flung back. “What the hell?”
Zak pointed at the monstrous vehicle barreling through the gate, cutting them off. A white SUV bearing a matching SWAT insignia followed, lights flashing as it raced down the road.
“How is that even possible? They just got the call,” she said to Zak.
“Fast response time?”
She snorted. Just one more thing that didn’t add up about the Dallas Police Department’s SWAT team. She considered scrapping the idea of following them in favor of sneaking into the compound and snooping around, but the gate had already closed. Inside, a cop the size of a linebacker scanned the fence line, then headed back into the building. Just her luck, one of them had stayed behind.
Damn.
She tucked her long, dark hair behind her ear and sank back in the seat. She wouldn’t have to be so underhanded about this whole thing if the police department had agreed to a ride-along with SWAT. Or at the very least, an interview with their commander. Why wouldn’t they want her to do a story about the team unless they were hiding something?
Investigating cops who might be corrupt was never a good idea. But she’d earned her reputation by sticking her nose in places other investigative journalists were too afraid to go. She’d covered everything from gangs killing each other over territory and coyotes who robbed illegals blind to the murderous Mexican drug cartels and dirty politicians. She went wherever the story took her and never flinched when things got rough. She’d helped to make theDallasDailyStarsynonymous with fearless, Pulitzer-worthy journalism. So when she’d told her editor she wanted to go after SWAT, he gave the okay. Even if he did think she was wasting her time. There wasn’t a division in the Dallas Police Department that had a better—or cleaner—reputation than SWAT.
It didn’t help her cause any that everyone except the criminals SWAT put in prison thought the tactical team was damn near perfect. They’d taken on some of the toughest and most ruthless crooks, gangbangers, and cartel goons in the city. You name the bad guys, Dallas SWAT had taken them on and taken them down. Considering the load of major shit storms the group had been involved in, they had a ridiculously low number of complaints filed against them. There’d been allegations, but nothing had ever come of them—not since the new team leader, Sergeant Gage Dixon, had taken over eight years ago. Since then, the SWAT team had been beyond perfect.
By itself, that was enough to make her suspicious. All organizations tended to screw up occasionally, no matter how dedicated and capable they were. But that rule didn’t seem to apply to the Dallas PD SWAT.
The police chief held them up as an example for the rest of the department to emulate, and for reasons she couldn’t figure out, the other divisions seemed eager to try. The mayor even used their exploits to roast other civic leaders across Texas and the southwest. Hell, even the Girl Scouts wanted to be associated with them, and SWAT was happy to oblige by lending their muscle-bound presence to the annual cookie sale kickoff every winter. As far as everyone in Dallas was concerned, the SWAT team was better than sliced bread, PB&J with the crusts cut off, and sex in an air-conditioned room—combined.
“Just what do you expect to find, Mac? That they don’t floss after eating popcorn?” her editor had asked in his deep Texas drawl. “Maybe the Dallas PD finally got something right for once. Maybe this city just has the best damn SWAT team in the country.”
Mac had good reason to believe the SWAT team was crooked and a danger to everyone around them. But she had to be damn careful how she sold it to her editor. She had a hard time believing the story, and she’d heard it firsthand from an eyewitness named Marvin Cole.
Marvin was a two-time loser currently out on bail awaiting trial, this time for kidnapping, assault, and resisting arrest. Normally, Mac wouldn’t have given the guy the time it took to call security to escort him out of the building. But then he had something on the one group of people in Dallas who were damn near untouchable—SWAT.
She was intrigued, so she’d bought him a cup of coffee in the newspaper’s break room and listened to his story. She figured it was sour grapes—they had busted his ass, after all—but she pretended to pay attention as Marvin described how two big SWAT guys had smashed in the reinforced door of his secret hideout, tossed him around like a rag doll, and took the kid he’d been holding for ransom.
She didn’t exactly swoon from excitement, but then Marvin described how one of the SWAT officers had growled like an animal, then grabbed him and shoved him up against the wall, holding him there with one hand as his feet dangled above the floor. The only reason that got her attention was because Marvin weighed about 350 pounds—and most of it was muscle. Still, SWAT guys were big and tough—everyone knew that. Marvin must have seen how skeptical she was because he opened his shirt and showed her the two sets of four parallel scratches gouged in the muscles of his enormous chest. He looked as if he’d been clawed by a big animal.
“Son of a bitch did that with his bare hands. I lived on the streets my whole life, so I know when someone’s messed up,” he said as he slowly buttoned his shirt and sat down. “Those SWAT dudes that everyone’s so freaking impressed with? They’re on something.”
She lifted a brow. “You mean like steroids?”
Marvin shook his head. “Hell no, lady. Shit, I take steroids and I ain’t never acted like that. No, those cats are on something really serious. Something that makes them crazy strong.”
The idea that SWAT members were on some kind of designer drug was insane, but Marvin wasn’t making up the ragged marks on his chest.
“What do you hope to gain from telling me this?” she asked him. “Even if this is a case of police brutality, I don’t think it’s going to keep you out of jail.”
Marvin shrugged. “Probably not. But maybe it might land one of them in there with me.”
She’d sat in the conference room for a long time figuring out what to do. The possibility that Marvin was right had buried itself in her soul too deep to let go. But while convincing her boss to let her run with the story had been easy, getting close enough to any of the guys on the SWAT team to find out what they were hiding, if anything, was damn near impossible. As far as she could tell, they only hung out with each other, and it wasn’t at any bar or club she could find. They only worked out at their own facility, so she couldn’t bump into them at the gym or along a running path somewhere. And if they bought their groceries from a store anywhere in the Dallas area, she couldn’t figure out where.
Well, today she was going to talk to the elusive SWAT commander even if she had to take the man hostage.
Okay, maybe not. But shewasgoing to talk to him, damn it.
Even though Zak drove like a madman, they couldn’t keep up with the SWAT vehicles, so the scene was already well established by the time they pulled up to the industrial district on Belmont. There was crime tape going up everywhere, but fortunately Zak found a space near the curb only two blocks down the street from the SWAT tactical operations vehicle. It was usually impossible to get this close to an active shooter situation. That probably meant there weren’t enough uniformed officers available to both set the perimeter and evacuate the surrounding buildings. No doubt the cops would remedy that soon. Until then, she might be lucky enough to get a few action shots and gain a bit of insight into how the mysterious SWAT team worked.
Zak leaned forward to get a better look, making a face when a pair of EMTs ran across the street half carrying, half dragging a man covered in blood.
“You think maybe we should move a little farther back?” he asked as the EMTs put the man in the ambulance and jumped in after him. The ambulance peeled away from the curb.
