Hungry Like the Wolf(93)
After Brooks gave him the location, Gage shoved his phone in his pocket, then shouted for Delaney and Lowry to get in the vehicle. He saw Mason glance his way. Gage pretended not to see him. They didn’t need SWAT on the scene now anyway.
Brooks had obviously alerted the whole team, because there were several SWAT SUVs parked along the side of the road where the senior corporal had said to meet him.
The road had been blocked off around what looked like a traffic accident. A dark sedan was lying in the ditch with the driver’s side door smashed in and the windows missing. Bullet holes riddled the car, and there were four dead bodies lying in the grass, automatic weapons alongside them. Hundreds of shell casings were scattered around the area.
Gage’s whole pack was clustered around the first SUV in the line. Well, not all of them. Becker and Xander were missing. Cooper was sitting on the hood of the car with his shirt off, a stoic look on his face while Trevino dug a bullet out of his shoulder. The team medic dropped it to the asphalt to join the others he’d already taken out. Shit, there were a lot of bloody bullets lying there.
Brooks turned. There was a dark purple and black bruise running down the big man’s neck and into his collar that probably stretched across his shoulder and chest. It looked like he’d been hit by a freaking car.
“Any idea where they took Mackenzie?” Gage asked.
“We don’t know for sure. All we know is that she was taken by Roscoe Patterson.”
Brooks briefly outlined the call Mac had gotten from the hospital, the ambush they’d walked right into, and the subsequent chase.
“You rammed a car off the road?” Gage asked.
Werewolves were strong, and Brooks was stronger than most. But tackling a car? That was extreme.
“Yeah, I thought it was the car Mac was in.” His jaw tightened. “It wasn’t until I started yanking people out that I realized I’d hit the wrong one.”
“That’s when I ripped the door off the other car, but one of Hardy’s thugs got in the way,” Cooper said. “They sped off before I could pull Mac out. I tried to keep up with them, but I couldn’t. Sorry, boss.”
Gage appreciated the effort they’d gone to get her back. He knew there was nothing more they could have done. “And no one here has any idea where the car was heading?”
“No one who’s alive,” Cooper said. “We’re hoping Becker gets lucky.”
Gage frowned. “Where is Becker?”
“Trying to get in to talk to Zak,” Brooks answered. “According to the nurse at the hospital, a couple of tourists brought Zak in. We assume those tourists were actually some of Hardy’s men, and that Zak might have overheard something—either while they were beating the hell out of him, or while they were taking him to the hospital to be bait.”
Gage wasn’t sure what they could expect out of Zak. The guy didn’t exactly seem like the kind of man who could pay attention to details while in the middle of an ass whooping. “And Xander?”
“He’s there to make sure the doctors don’t try to drag Becker in for surgery,” Cooper supplied. “He got hit a few times, too. Not as many times as I was, but I think that’s because he was using me as a shield.”
There wasn’t much they could do until Xander and Becker got some information, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t search the car and the men who had been in it. Maybe they’d get lucky.
Gage was digging through some suitcases in the trunk of the sedan when three police cruisers and an unmarked car pulled up beside them.
He spotted Deputy Chief Mason’s salt-and-pepper hair in the front seat. Mike came over to stand next to Gage as Mason got out of the car. Shit, this was all he needed.
Mason’s jaw was tight as he took in the bodies on the ground, the automatic weapons, and the bullet holes in the car. His eyes narrowed when he saw Cooper sitting on the hood of the SUV with blood covering half his chest and a SWAT medic leaning over him with a pair of forceps.
“What the hell is going on here?” he demanded, his gaze snapping to Gage and Mike. “First, I find out there was a shootout in front of Mercy General involving three of my SWAT officers. Then I learn you’ve ordered your entire team here. Have you lost your mind, Sergeant?”
Mason walked over and looked down at the first body he came to—a body that didn’t have any obvious bullet wounds but had clearly been killed in an extremely brutal fashion. He made a face, then turned to Gage again.
“As if that isn’t enough, I got a call on the way here that one of Hardy’s enforcers is dead in a ditch about a mile up the road. The patrolman said it looked like someone threw the man out of a moving vehicle. What’s left of him, anyway. They still haven’t found his arm.” The deputy chief strode over to Gage. “Maybe you can explain it to me.”