Unfortunately, nature abhors a vacuum. Within a couple months of Hardy’s death, every violent offender with a gun and delusions of grandeur was making a play to take over control of the old man’s territory. At first, the scumbags spent most of their time killing each other. Soon enough though, deals started being made, alliances started forming, and it looked like Dallas was heading for a serious turf war.
Then, when it seemed like things couldn’t get worse, a group of outsiders showed up and the shit really hit the fan. Within weeks, they’d put a serious dent in the local criminal leadership, wiping out a lot of people in the process. In the last week alone, they’d taken out two jewelry stores, an art gallery, and an electronics store. They were good—and dangerous.
Becker was musing over how easy it had been to create a search algorithm to predict the crew’s next target based on the types of places they’d already hit when another shadowy movement through the warehouse’s windows caught his attention. He swung his binoculars up, expecting to see the security guard again, but instead, he saw a man dressed head to toe in black and carrying an MP5 submachine gun.
“Shit. They’re already inside,” he shouted into his mic.
Jumping to his feet, Becker headed for the rappelling rope, coiled and waiting for a quick descent down the backside of the building. He wrapped the rope around the snap link attached to his harness, then tossed the other end over the side.
“How the hell did they get in there without us seeing them?” Xander demanded in his ear.
“They must have come inside with one of the earlier shipments,” Becker said as he stepped to the edge of the building and kicked himself backward into space.
The rope slid through his gloved hands as he sailed down from the third-floor roof in a single large bound. He ignored the heat in his hands, waiting until he was only a few feet above the ground before jerking his right hand behind his back and braking hard. His downward momentum immediately stopped. He hit the pavement, then ran toward the warehouse, sliding his M4 off his back at the same time.
“Should we try to warn them?” Khaki Blake, teammate and Xander’s significant other, asked across the radio.
Becker could hear the sound of feet pounding on pavement through his earpiece—the rest of the team running for their entry positions.
“Negative,” Xander ordered. “The suspects could have the guards’ radios.”
Becker swore as he raced to the side entrance, where he was supposed to meet up with fellow SWAT officer and explosives expert Landry Cooper. They had no idea how many bad guys were in the warehouse or where they were. If the guards weren’t already dead, the suspects now had two hostages they could use as human shields to hide behind on their way out. That made this operation a hell of a lot harder.
He absently heard Xander tell the on-scene commander to keep the rest of the Dallas PD officers at a distance. Xander didn’t want their fellow cops running into the building, shooting at everything that moved, including SWAT.
Cooper was already waiting at the heavy metal security door when Becker got there, his gold eyes glinting from behind his ski mask. Becker waited as Cooper punched the code into the cypher lock on the wall, then led the way. They both hesitated as soon as they got inside, waiting for the rest of the squad to signal they were ready to go.
That was when Becker realized there was something really strange going on in the warehouse—so strange that it took him a second to realize what had him pinging all of a sudden.
“Shit,” he muttered, finally recognizing the familiar scent in the air. “We might have a problem, team. The guys we’re going up against are werewolves. Every one of them.”
There was stunned silence on the other end of the radio.
“You sure?” Xander asked.
“He’s sure,” Cooper answered before Becker could say anything, his North Carolina accent barely discernable. “I smell them too.”
Xander’s curse was terse over the radio. “Everyone, stay together and watch yourselves.”
Becker didn’t need to be told twice, and he doubted anyone else did either. The idea of facing criminals who were just as strong, fast, and hard to take down as the SWAT team was more than enough to keep them on their toes.
He and Cooper moved slowly through the warehouse, checking behind every box and pallet as they instinctively covered each other. How the hell had another werewolf pack moved into Dallas without them realizing it?
He was still trying to come up with an answer when gunshots sounded from the far side of the warehouse.
“Contact!” the SWAT team’s lead armorer, Trevor McCall, shouted over the radio. “Khaki and I are engaged with two of them, both heavily armed. They’re definitely werewolves. I put four rounds into one of them and he’s still going.”