Hungry Like the Wolf(50)

She closed her eyes, unable to look at the monitors any longer. Why the hell was she so terrified? She’d been in situations like this before. Heck she’d been shot at half a dozen times in the course of her career and even been near an explosion once. But she’d never been this scared.

Because she wasn’t the one in danger. The man she cared about was. And that made it worse. She prayed Gage and his men made it through this safely.

Mac didn’t know how long she sat there with her eyes closed. But when she opened them again, an eerie kind of quiet had descended upon the motel. She could still hear moans, whimpers, and the occasional sob, but no gunfire.

Then Mike’s voice came over the speaker. “One clear.”

“Two clear,” said Xander.

“Three clear,” reported Cooper.

The SWAT team was calling in by some kind of number pattern, letting Gage and everyone else know they were alive and that their area of responsibility had been cleared. She held her breath as fifteen numbers were announced.

“All clear,” Gage said. “Get the EMTs in here.”

Mac slumped down in the seat, more exhausted than if she’d run a marathon.

Behind her, the doors of the operations vehicle opened. She jerked around to see Zak stick in his head.

“Everyone’s running inside. What happened?”

Mac had completely forgotten Zak had been outside taking pictures of the scene. “I’m not sure, but I think everyone’s okay,” she said. “I heard all of them over the radio at least, and they sounded okay. I don’t have a clue what happened, though.”

Zak climbed in the truck and shut the door. “I think they blew their way in through the roof, both ends of the building at exactly the same time. There was gravel and flaming tar flying everywhere.”

That explained the gravel she’d seen. They’d been on the roof.

She and Zak sat in silence, watching the monitors and trying to figure out what was going on, but it was too dark and chaotic. A lot of people had gotten hurt in the little gang war, so the monitors were filled with EMTs, uniformed officers, and SWAT team members rendering first aid. The motel looked like a scene out of a M*A*S*H episode as an endless stream of ambulance gurneys rolled in and right back out.

She was going to get sick if she kept trying to watch the crazy scene. But she couldn’t tear herself away until she knew Gage was okay. When she finally caught a quick flash of his tall, broad-shouldered form in one of the other men’s cameras, she let out the breath she didn’t even realize she’d been holding. He was safe. She could breathe again.

Twenty minutes later, Becker and one of the team’s medics, Senior Corporal Trey Duncan, came out to give them an update.

“Cooper and Nelson—our demo guys—blew entry points through the roof in four different places.” Becker said it so casually, as if they did stuff like this every day. Which she supposed they did. “Then the whole team dropped through, right into the middle of each gang.”

“Are the hostages okay?” Mac asked. “Is everyone okay?”

“Everyone in the unit is fine. A few minor nicks and scratches, but that’s about it.” Duncan frowned. “Some of the hostages are in pretty bad shape, though. At least three were shot before we even went in, and two more were hit during the rescue. The gangbangers seemed pretty intent on taking as many people with them as possible. They’re on the way to the hospital now, but we don’t know if they’re all going make it.”

Mac shook her head.

“Sergeant Dixon asked me to tell you that he’s going to be here for a few more hours,” Becker said. “He thought you might want to call it a night.”

Then he and Duncan left to go back to the motel.

Zak glanced at her after the two cops stepped out of the operations vehicle. “Silly question, but I’m guessing you’re going to stay?”

“Yeah. I want to hang around and make sure they’re all okay.”

He grinned. “I thought so. You gonna need me at the compound tomorrow?”

She shook her head. “I don’t think so. I’ll see you at the paper.”

After Zak left, Mac turned her attention back to the monitors, patiently waiting to catch another glimpse of Gage.

***

Gage was so tired he could barely keep his eyes open. All he wanted to do was go home, fall into bed, and pass out for a few hours until the alarm went off and he had to get up and do it all over again. But Mackenzie insisted he needed to eat, and kept telling him that until he stopped at the next fast-food drive-through they came to.

“Don’t stare at the burrito,” she scolded gently. “Eat it.”