Chapter twenty
“Wayne and the task force must have a bigger budget than SWAT does when it comes to their surveillance vehicles,” Gage remarked as they approached the produce delivery vehicle parked along the backside of the unused warehouse in the east side industrial zone.
“This thing is way more expensive than anything they’d ever let us use. ”
Mike snorted. His boss had that right. Then again, SWAT didn’t do much surveillance.
Xander, Khaki, Connor, Trey, and Carter had come with him and Gage, everyone fully armed and ready for a highly contested entry.
Since they had no idea how many of Roman’s crew would be hopped up on supernatural MODS, Mike would have preferred to have more support, but Hale had stayed back to help protect Lark and Kal, and the rest of the Pack was still dealing with multiple hot spots around the city.
They’d have to make do with who they had.
One of Wayne’s guys met them at the door to the surveillance vehicle, motioning them in, then quickly looking around to make sure no one had seen them before closing it again.
The first thing Mike saw was the collection of video monitors mounted on the wall at the end of the cargo space, all of them displaying images of a three-story industrial building.
“So, that’s Roman’s hideout?” Mike asked as he moved further into the vehicle, making room for Gage and his other pack mates. “You’re sure about that?”
“We’re sure,” Wayne answered from the folding chair he was sitting in, his eyes never leaving the monitor showing the back of the building and the half dozen black SUVs parked there.
“My people have been watching the place for the better part of a day and have seen Roman go in and out multiple times.”
“What kind of facility is this?” Xander asked, leaning closer to one of the monitors to get a better look at the back entrance to the place.
“Most of the building is empty, but the first floor has been used as an auto damage repair and custom paint shop for the past decade,” Wayne said. “It’s temporarily closed, supposedly for renovations.”
“How’d you find it?” Mike asked, wondering if Roman had threatened the owner, simply so he could use the place.
“Dr. Mills found asbestos fibers on Stewart’s boots and clothes,” Wayne said, glancing over his shoulder at him. “There was even some on the skin around his shoulder blades where his body was in contact with the floor.”
Mike didn’t see how that was very helpful. While he was no expert on the subject, he knew asbestos wasn’t very common anymore. But it had been used a lot before the 80s. There were probably a lot of buildings in the Dallas area where you could find the stuff.
“She also found a bunch of other substances found on the body,” Wayne continued, turning back to the monitors.
“Including cobalt, titanium, cadmium, zinc, lead, and linseed oil. And before you ask, no, I had no idea what any of that meant either. But, long story short, it means Stewart was beaten to death in an old paint factory, built sometime prior to the early 80s. We used those clues to generate a list of half dozen possible locations and narrowed it down to this place. It used to belong to a major paint manufacturer back in the 70s.”
“So. what’s the plan?” Xander asked, his gaze swinging back and forth between Wayne, Mike, and then Gage.
“If we wait for Roman to come out, we could be waiting all day. Or he could slip out another way we don’t know about.
If we go in there after him with no firm idea of how many bad guys we’re facing, and no idea what the layout of the place is like, we’ll be at a serious disadvantage. ”
“We go in,” Mike said firmly, not even hesitating for a second, even though he knew Xander was right.
Entering that factory with only the seven of them wasn’t the smartest thing in the world—and that was before taking into account people with supernatural abilities they were probably going to run up against in there—but they needed to deal with Roman, sooner rather than later.
It would be better to do it here in the middle of nowhere than wait around until the man found Lark and Kal.
If facing Roman now was a risk, he’d take it to keep his family safe.
Gage and his other pack mates nodded, not requiring any further discussion. They were a pack. Each of them understood what it meant to protect their soul mates. They’d follow him, no matter what he wanted to do.
“We can make the entry ourselves, but we could definitely use some backup once we start pulling people out of there,” Gage said to Wayne.
“I have a fully-armed rapid response team on standby,” Wayne said. “I’ll have them ready to go the moment you guys go in.”
“We have to assume they have cameras or other surveillance equipment set up to cover the main entrances,” Mike said.
“We’ll need to find alternate access points.
I’ll take Xander and Khaki and find a way in on the south side of the building.
Gage, you take Connor, Trey, and Carter. Try to find a way in from the north.”
Since he was the commander, Gage normally would have developed the entry plan and assigned the teams. But since dealing with Roman was personal, Mike knew Gage would defer to him as much as possible.
Five minutes later, Mike was leading Xander and Khaki on a circuitous route through the industrial area, toward the south side of the former paint factory, while Gage moved toward the other side of the huge building.
Making this approach at night would have been preferable, where the cover of darkness would have helped hide them, but they couldn’t wait until nightfall.
When Mike and his pack mates reached the warehouse, they were lucky enough to find a window on the second floor with a busted lock. After they were inside, they moved across the dusty concrete floor toward what they hoped was the nearest set of stairs.
“We’re inside,” Gage said in Mike’s earbud on a channel that only the SWAT Team could hear. “We’re picking up the sound of movement and heartbeats coming from the middle section of the building. There are at least a dozen people in there.”
Mike cursed silently. If all of those people were supernaturally enhanced, things could get ugly real fast.
“Copy that,” he said into the radio.
Mike continued moving silently across the concrete floor, inching toward the center of the building with Xander and Khaki.
This whole section of the warehouse was one big open space, the ceiling held up by a series of concrete support columns set up in nice, neat rows along the room’s length.
Light peeked in through the dirt-streaked floor-to-ceiling windows, spotlighting the tiny dust particles floating through the air.
As they approached the top of the stairs, Mike picked up that familiar chemical odor of Roman and his crew. But it was old. Like they hadn’t been here in a while.
“Something’s not right,” he said softly over the radio. “I smell Roman and his goons, but the chemical odor is too faint for there to be a dozen of them. I’m not even sure they’re here at all. I don’t know why, but something’s off about this whole thing.”
“Understood,” Gage said.
Using his nose, eyes, and ears to try to figure out what they might be walking into, Mike led the way down the steps, followed by Xander and Khaki.
By the time they reached the first floor, he realized Gage was right about how many people they’d be going up against. He was also surer than ever there was something off about the supernatural scent trail.
Once on the first floor, they slowly eased around the base of the staircase into the central part of the building.
Beside the rows of car repair bays, everything was wall-to-wall concrete, interrupted here and there with individual office spaces with lots of windows.
Which was where they found the dozen or so men in black tactical gear rifling through desks and filing cabinets, searching for something.
And right in the middle of everything was Nick Chapman. The man was currently busy pawing through the desk in the largest office, and looking damn pissed while he did it.
Gesturing to Xander and Khaki to fall back, Mike followed until they were all behind the broad concrete staircase.
“We’ve got a situation,” he said into his radio. “You’re right about there being at least a dozen people in here, but they’re not Roman and his crew of supernaturals. It’s Chapman and Sentinel.”
“How the hell is that possible?” Gage demanded. “Wayne told us they saw Roman coming in here a couple hours ago. What the hell is Sentinel doing here?”
“They’re searching for something,” Khaki answered. “Digging through desks and filing cabinets, opening individual folders. Whatever it is, it’s something small.”
Mike could vaguely hear Gage attempting to get Wayne over the radio on the other channel, asking the other cop how this could have possibly happened.
Mike didn’t hear Wayne’s reply, but in his own defense, he was too busy replaying the last few moments through his head as his inner wolf shouted at him that something was seriously off about this whole situation.
There was no way Wayne could have missed Chapman and Sentinel coming in here.
But he had no chance to think about it for too long, because at that moment, a man in black tactical gear suddenly rounded the bottom of the staircase, stopping when he caught sight of Mike, Khaki, and Xander.
The four of them stood unmoving for all of a single heartbeat before each of them lifted their weapons and squeezed the triggers.
The guy from Sentinel was clearly well-trained and possessed reflexes nearly on par with a werewolf. He was firing off an entire magazine of 9mm rounds even as he threw himself back the way he’d come, seeking to put as much distance between himself and them as fast as he could.