She stood there on the roof frozen solid as Hale and the other two cops in tactical uniforms disappeared from view. Below her, she could vaguely hear Deep Voice One shouting orders, getting first aid started for the wounded and calling for air support to track the fleeing van.
Karissa knew she should probably go down and try to help. In her line of work, she’d picked up a few first aid tricks of her own. But as the moments passed and she remained standing there like astatue, she realized she was too stunned to even think about moving yet.
Hale and his teammates’ acceptance of Darijo Tamm’s supernatural background made a lot more sense now—because Hale and the others were supernaturals, too.
Crud.
Her ex-boyfriend—who still seemed to have some kind of emotional hold over her, no matter how much that confused her—was a supernatural like her.
“It looks like all five guys on this crew are Eastern European,” Carter said from his desk across from Hale’s in the SWAT team’s bullpen.
Hale silently agreed as he flipped through the police records on the other four members of Darijo Tamm’s mercenary team. Each of the men had similar facial features, ruddy skin, and black hair. Each of them had appeared out of nowhere between five and seven years ago.
He and his pack mates had gotten back to the SWAT compound an hour ago and were still doing all the paperwork after Tamm’s escape from the North Central police station. They’d also needed to come back to deal with their injuries since they couldn’t let one of the dozen paramedics who’d showed up treat them.
The muscles in Hale’s left thigh twinged a little as he moved his leg under his desk. He’d taken a bullet there during the fray and Trey had dug it out as soon as they’d gotten to the compound. The wound reminded him how badly they’d all handled the situation at the police station, and he cursed silently.
They’d assumed that if Tamm’s crew made a move, it would be during the transfer to the detention facility. To say that he and his pack mates weren’t prepared for an assault on the station was an understatement.
Tamm had already been in the van and well on his way to escaping by the time Hale and his pack mates made it around the building. Hale had gone after them out of pure instinct, and Carter and Trey had followed. The chase had been short-lived, though it wasn’t so much getting shot that deterred him, even if it had sucked. No, he and his teammates had been forced to break off the chase because it had been too risky to chase after a bunch of trigger-happy people with automatic weapons through the middle of the city.
There’d also been the issue of three big cops running down the street at thirty miles an hour. That probably would have drawn the wrong kind of attention. If it had been nighttime, Hale would have kept going for sure, but in daylight, he couldn’t.
“How’s the leg?” Mike asked, catching Hale’s eye as he walked into the bullpen and over to his desk.
“It’s good,” Hales said. “What’s the word from the North Central station?”
While Hale and his pack mates had immediately come back here, Mike had stayed behind to help deal with the aftermath.
Mike dropped into his chair, swiveling it around so he was facing them. “Eight officers and three support staff personnel ended up in the hospital, but nobody’s dead, so I guess we’ll take what we can get.”
“How the hell did they get all the way down to the holding cells in the basement to get Tamm out without us hearing them?” Carter asked.
Hale would like to know that, too.
“You’re going to love this,” Mike said with a snort. “We checked the surveillance video for the basement level and saw that at the precise moment that black van pulled into the rear parking lot of the station house, Tamm walked over to the door of his cell and ripped it completely off its hinges.”
“Crap,” Hale muttered. This had the potential to be even worse. “How many people saw that video?”
“Five people, including Chief Leclair,” Mike said. “Fortunately, they seemed to be inclined to blame the damage on poor facility maintenance. I can’t say I fault them. What’s the alternative? Believing Tamm is a supernatural creature strong enough to tear through steel?”
Hale supposed that made sense. People wouldgo out of their way to find a reasonable excuse for the unexplainable, no matter how implausible it might be. And once they had that theory, they’d twist themselves into knots in their desire to keep believing it.
Mike filled them in on the rest of the story, including everything that the surveillance cameras had picked up. By the time Mike finished, there was no doubt in Hale’s mind that this supernatural crew had been working together for a very long time. That was the only thing that explained how the mercenaries were able to work together so seamlessly without ever saying a word. In fact, it was eerily similar to how the Pack worked together.
“Do you think they’ll leave Dallas?” Trey asked, hazel eyes curious.
Mike considered that. “I don’t think we’re going to get that lucky. Something brought these guys to Dallas, and I get the feeling they’re not finished yet.”
Trey pushed back his chair. “I’m going to check on the people who got injured this morning.”
“I’ll go with you,” Carter said.
“Me, too,” Hale said.
“Actually,” Mike said, “I’d like to talk to you about something, Hale.”
He paused halfway to his feet, then sat down again. “Sure.”
