Xander had tried his best to weasel out of the job, mostly because he wasn’t too fond of working with the feds. “FBI has their own SWAT team. What the hell do they want with us?”
“They probably just want to have you available for perimeter work or something stupid like that,” Gage told him. “But they made the request officially through Mason, and he wants us to play nice.”
“So why can’t Mike’s team handle this? You know I still need more time training Khaki.”
His boss had stopped looking amused at that point, which told Xander the conversation was pretty much over.
“Because this job has the potential to turn into a recurring gig,” Gage told him flatly. “The task force isn’t exactly sure when the bank robbers are going to strike next, but they do know they don’t have the time to keep briefing support people every time they need to call them in. That means whoever I put on this will be subject to short notice recalls, and if your squad is going to be on limited duty anyway, I’d rather it be you.”
Xander checked in with his squad again. The senior agent in charge of the FBI taskforce, Philip Thompson, had said he didn’t want any of the locals using their own radios because there was too much chance of compromising the operation, but Thompson could kiss his ass. Xander was monitoring the FBI channel through one radio and earpiece while talking to his squad on a completely different radio and frequency. Who said men couldn’t multitask?
“Nothing here,” Trevor reported over the internal SWAT channel. “Not surprising since we’re so far from the bank that someone could have stolen the whole building and we wouldn’t know it.”
Xander swore silently. In theory, Trevor was covering the northern side of the perimeter with Becker and Cooper. But in reality, he was sitting on his ass just like Xander was doing here to the south of the bank with Hale and Max. Neither group would be in a position to do much when—make that if—the bank robbery actually went down. But that was the way the FBI had wanted it.
Khaki checked in from the western edge of the perimeter where she and Alex were maintaining a sniper and observation post nearly six blocks from the target. It wasn’t much of a sniper outpost since Alex didn’t have a better visual on the bank than the rest of them.
Xander had known this operation was going to be a soup sandwich the moment they met Thompson. Talk about a clusterfuck. Even the people in the local FBI field office didn’t like the way this new agent in charge had come in swinging his weight around. Xander couldn’t blame them. No one liked outsiders coming in and trying to run the show as if everyone else were a bunch of idiots.
Apparently, these particular bank robbers had hit nine banks in three months without leaving a single usable clue. That was Xander’s first indication these guys weren’t a bunch of amateur smash-and-grab types. Nobody could hit nine banks without leaving evidence behind unless they were serious professionals.
Thompson had spent some time explaining the crew’s MO in the briefing, saying they spent nearly a month conducting surveillance and planning in a particular city, then hitting three banks all in the span of a week.
“They’re disciplined, organized, and almost certainly have some kind of military or even law enforcement background. They come in heavily armed and have shown that they won’t hesitate to shoot if they have to. They’ve already killed three people. In two months of working this case, we’ve come up with next to nothing.”
“If these guys are so good, what makes you think they’re going to hit banks here in Dallas?” Xander asked.
Thompson could have tried to bullshit his way through a lie about the FBI’s amazing investigative skills, but instead he was completely honest. “We’ve been chasing hunches and rumors for weeks and haven’t come close to identifying anyone in the crew, much less where or when they’re going to strike next. Then, out of the blue, a woman contacted us who claimed to have information on the next bank the group was going to hit. She indicated the target was here in Dallas.”
“How reliable is the source?” Xander asked.
“We can’t really say at this point,” Thompson said. “All we know for sure is that the woman knows details about the previous jobs that weren’t released to the press. We think she’s one of the robbers’ jilted girlfriends and that she’s looking for retribution. She gave us intel on the next job, down to the address. We have to act on it because it’ll likely be our only shot to get these guys.”
After that, the rest of the briefing came down to one simple directive aimed specifically at the Dallas PD support personnel—don’t get in the way of our FBI operation.
Thompson had told Xander in no uncertain terms that he and his squad, along with the other local assets, were there for backup, contingency, and crowd control purposes only. Xander would have raised the bullshit flag, but Deputy Chief Mason wanted them to play nice. And with all the backing Mason had given Gage when it came to hiring Khaki, Gage was more than ready to support that request. The squad wasn’t happy about it, but they agreed to go along with the plan.
In reality, Xander wasn’t as pissed off as he normally would have been. With Khaki so new to SWAT, he wasn’t keen to get them involved in a serious shoot-out so soon anyway. At least this would give him a chance to see how she operated in a field environment without the threat of actual gunfire. It might be a good training opportunity.
Even though he doubted the robbers would show, Xander still kept his eyes glued to the bank—what he could see of it anyway. While he did, he replayed the events of last night.
On the one hand, he was thrilled that Khaki had trusted him enough to ask for help. But on the other hand, his whole damn apartment was so thoroughly saturated with her incredible scent that he was probably going to have to move if he ever wanted to sleep again. It was like he’d discovered some new form of torture. Lie in bed all night with a hard-on that wouldn’t go away, inhaling the overwhelming perfume of the most beautiful woman on the planet.
And the funny thing was, he’d put up with it forever if it meant having a chance to spend more time alone with her like he had last night.
When Khaki had shown up at his door in those curve-hugging jeans with her long hair free of its usual ponytail or bun, he thought for sure she was going to lay into him about being such an ass, so he’d been stunned when she admitted she needed help learning how to shift.
Being alone with her and the alluring scent she put off was hard enough at work. Getting hit with it up close for hours as they sat there together on his living room floor had been maddening. Then there was that sexy little way she pursed her lips when she was concentrating. It had taken all of his strength not to kiss her when she did that.
But the cherry on top of the cake had to be those eyes of hers. When she’d finally figured out how to control her night vision, those beauties, which were amazing even before the shift, had glowed with the most vivid green he’d ever seen. They were so mesmerizing it nearly stopped his heart. And the pure joy on her face as she ran around his apartment had made him so happy.
Afterward, he’d been sorely tempted to ask her to stay—for a beer, or dinner, or even to watch the game. He didn’t really care what they did as long as she stayed. But if he had, his control would have slipped, and he would’ve done something stupid. Like bury his hands in her silky hair and kissed her. They’d just gotten to a place where she might not hate him completely. He decided to count himself lucky and just leave well enough alone.
Xander was still daydreaming about getting together with Khaki for another werewolf lesson when he heard alarms ringing.
He immediately refocused his attention on the bank below him only to realize the sound wasn’t coming from that direction.
“What the hell is happening?” Thompson demanded over the radio. “Someone give me a status report.”
