Hungry Like the Wolf(19)

“Do you always run the operation from the vehicle you were in today?” she asked as they entered the administrative building.

“Normally, no.” He gave her a wry smile. “I try to stay as close to the action as I can, but today was a little different because I needed to be there to communicate directly with the on-scene commander and the power company. Plus, we had the department’s crisis negotiator there because we were hoping to make a deal with the gunmen and avoid a confrontation, but that didn’t work.”

When they got to the main office, he introduced her to Officers Alex Trevino and Max Lowry, two of the team’s snipers. It seemed odd to see big, strapping men like them sitting at desks filling out forms.

“SWAT officers doing paperwork?” She shook her head. “Tell me it isn’t so.”

The two men laughed.

“Unfortunately, it’s the bane of all police work,” Gage said. “The more actual cop work you do, the more reports you have to fill out.”

While the admin part of the job might be boring, Mac did see one thing that caught her attention. Next to the office was a room filled with filing cabinets. If there was something interesting to find around here, that’d definitely be the best place to start.

She and Gage were heading out the back door of the building when they passed a set of stairs that led up to the second floor.

“What’s up there?” she asked when Gage didn’t offer to give her a tour.

Gage paused, his hand on the doorknob. “Some is storage, but most of it is barracks space.”

“Barracks space?”

“Yeah. You know—showers, a small kitchen, and a few bedrooms. In case we have to work late or need to keep a crew here on twenty-four-hour shifts.”

“Oh.” It probably didn’t look like a room at the Ritz, but she had a sudden urge to see it anyway. Where would men like Gage crash after pulling an all-nighter? “Mind if I take a look? Just so I can get a feel for how you spend your downtime?”

He shrugged and gestured up the stairs. “After you.”

Mac was about halfway up the stairs when it occurred to her that Gage might have asked her to go first so he could stare at her ass. She threw a quick glance over her shoulder to check and was disappointed to see he wasn’t even looking. Damn. If she couldn’t distract him with her feminine assets, this job might turn out to be tougher than she thought—and it was already tough to begin with.

As he’d said, some of the space upstairs was dedicated to storage, but there was also a small kitchen with a table and some chairs, as well as a large community shower, and a room with four cots that looked as if they would have fit in just fine on a military base…or a prison. Even the blankets were rough, made of uncomfortable-looking wool. The room also had a wall of gray lockers Gage explained held extra uniforms and personal gear.

Well, one thing was for sure. No one could accuse SWAT of misappropriating tax dollars for their own comfort. The place was positively Spartan.

Mac turned to say as much to Gage when she caught sight of the pile of bloody gauze bandages on the counter. Gage must have seen the direction of her gaze because he hurriedly swept them into a trash can with his arm.

“One of the men got nicked during the hostage rescue,” he explained.

Martinez. She’d almost forgotten. “Is he okay?”

“Yeah, he’s fine. It was just a little scratch. One of our medics patched him up.”

Mac wasn’t an expert on scratches, but that had certainly looked like a heck of a lot of blood for a scratch. She wished she could swipe one of those bloody bandages so she could get it tested, but there wasn’t any way to do it with Gage standing there. She would have to wait until they put the trash on the curb for pickup and dig through it. Until then, the bloody bandages were just one more nugget of information to be filed away for later.

As they walked through the bedroom area, she looked at the uncomfortable beds again, then glanced at Gage. “Do you spend much time here?”

He gave her a wry smile on the way down the stairs. “Unfortunately. I wasn’t kidding when I said we have to do a lot of paperwork. I stay here two or three nights a week just trying to keep up with it.”

Huh. Guess that answered the question as to whether he had a girlfriend. She already knew from his personnel file that he wasn’t married, but with work hours like his it was safe to assume he wasn’t seeing anyone, at least not regularly.

They ran into Diego Martinez on their way out of the building. He was carrying what looked like a footlocker on his shoulder. The thing had to weigh seventy-five pounds easy, but he held it like it was nothing. Maybe his injury hadn’t been as bad as it looked—or the designer drug he might be taking made him impervious to pain as well as super strong.