Mac studied the pictures one more time, just to be sure she hadn’t missed anything. But she hadn’t. None of the men were holding anything other than their weapons. And none of their tactical vests had pouches that could hold what she was looking for.
Zak looked from her to the photo of the four highly trained officers coming out of the warehouse, then back to her. “What is it?”
“They shut down the power to the building before they went in. It was pitch-black in there. I saw it on the monitors in the truck. But the SWAT guys aren’t carrying any night vision goggles.”
Zak glanced at the picture again. “Maybe they left them in the warehouse?”
She shook her head. “No way. Those things cost a fortune.”
“So, what are you saying? That these guys can see in the dark?”
Mac didn’t answer. Thinking the SWAT officers could see in the dark without the aid of night vision goggles would make her sound crazy, especially since she hadn’t told Zak about the drug angle yet. But what if Marvin was right and the SWAT guys were using a performance-enhancing drug that let them see better in the dark? Crap, that was even more outlandish than a drug that made them crazy strong.
She was busy examining the photos for the missing night vision goggles when something else caught her attention.
She pointed at Diego Martinez’s right hand. “What does that look like to you?”
Zak leaned close to the computer screen. “What the hell?” He fiddled with the keyboard, zooming in on Martinez’s hand. “It looks like blood.”
“That’s what I thought.” She turned to look out the window at the big operations vehicle just in time to see Martinez and Delaney climbing into the cab. Was Martinez holding his arm a little funny?
“Did we just see an injured police officer drive off when there are half a dozen EMTs who could have looked at him?” Zak asked.
“I think we did.”
“Why the hell would they do that?”
“I don’t know…yet.”
But she was damn sure going to find out. She had a sneaking suspicion it was because Martinez was worried about whatever drug he was on showing up in his blood. If she was right, then there really was a story here.
***
“Are you sure this is a good idea?”
“I’m sure,” Gage said. “Martinez was barely scratched by that bullet. He can get patched up at the compound.”
Xander swore. “That’s not what I’m talking about and you know it.”
Gage waited until the news van drove away before he turned to his senior squad leader. He knew Xander wasn’t worried about the minor graze wound Martinez had sustained during the entry. It was almost closed up already and would barely leave a scar if they took care of it right. But Xander definitely wasn’t too thrilled at the idea of having a reporter—a woman reporter at that—sticking her nose in their business. Gage hadn’t expected him to be. Xander didn’t like outsiders in general, and female outsiders in particular. In his opinion, both were bad for the Pack. And if something was bad for the Pack, Xander was never shy about letting him know it.
Gage glanced at his other squad leader. “What do you think, Mike?”
The big man shrugged. “I gotta agree with Xander on this one, Gage. You know Mackenzie Stone has a reputation for digging pretty hard to get the story she’s after, right?”
Gage went out of his way to let his two assistant squad leaders have a say in how the team did things. But when you lead a group of alphas the way he did, it wasn’t possible for everyone to agree on everything all the time. And that’s when he had to pull rank.
“I know all about her reputation,” he said. “She isn’t looking to write a fluff piece on how we do our job. If she’s sniffing, it’s because she thinks there’s a story here. And if she thinks that, she isn’t going to stop looking just because we make it hard on her. If anything, that will only make her dig deeper.”
“So what, we just make it easy for her?” Xander demanded.
“No, we don’t make it easy,” Gage said. “We bring her in and control the flow of information she receives. We show her what we want her to see, when we want her to see it. We make sure she gets the message—and only the message—we want her to get.”
Mike raised his brows. “You honestly think that’ll work? She doesn’t come across as the kind of person you can mislead easily.”
“I’d rather have her where I can keep an eye on her instead of constantly worrying about where she’s going to show up and what she’ll find on her own.”
Mike regarded him thoughtfully. “You sure this is just about keeping an eye on a possible threat?”
