Nothing Special V (Nothing Special 5)

There were at least ten to fifteen men back there firing. “All these guys are firing at one house?” Steele said disbelievingly. “They were probably wasting ammo at that point.”

“Nope. The officers inside were still returning fire,” his uncle said with a determined expression. “Only three of them.”

Steele stood up and moved closer, unable to take his eyes off the screen. There was no audio to the video, but he could almost feel the chaos of that battle inside him. A silver truck appeared around the corner – taking the curve like a NASCAR driver – with undercover police vehicles trailing it. He watched a man slide out the passenger window and perch his ass on the door, firing an automatic rifle over the top of the truck while the driver spun it in a perfect three-sixty, bright flashes of explosions erupting from his own handgun. A Desert Eagle. It was one of Steele’s favorites. He could easily recognize that flashbang in the dark night. The man firing over the hood was an expert, a marksman. Nothing could shake him.

“Goddamn. Who is that?” Steele pointed at the man looking down the scope and knocking off men as the truck spun him in a circle.

“That’s Detective Austin Michaels.”

Steele pointed to the driver, a behemoth of a man who was now darting across the road – he could move fast – towards the house, both arms raised, shooting anything in his path. Wielding those massive firearms like a true beast… like a soldier. “And him. Who the hell is he?”

“That’s your new boss. Lieutenant Cashel Godfrey… they call him… God.”

God

“I don’t like this captain. I choose my team, it’s always been that way. My team is built of qualified men I can trust. You’re telling me I gotta take some blacklisted cop from the West Coast, who lost the respect of his entire department. His partner’s killed and he flees. Fuck that. Find him another department. Homicide or robbery.” God was never disrespectful to his captain, but this was going too far. A new member. He didn’t put in a request to recruit. What the hell was this? Was someone trying to sabotage his department… set him up? “I don’t like this… something’s off.”

“Well, he sure looks good as hell on paper,” Syn put in, flipping pages of the thick file that had been forwarded to them. “Came into law enforcement rather late, though – but graduated top of the class after annihilating a few records there. Took the detective’s exam three years later and aced it. But there’s a ton of information back here that’s blacked out.”

“That’s from his military career.” The captain sighed, rolling up the sleeves to his dress shirt. He looked as tired as they were.

It was already after six, a Sunday evening. God had called his team in at the captain’s order for an emergency meeting, only for the older man to tell him this bullshit. He and Day were supposed to be home watching football right now. Enjoying their last evening off.

“It’ll take time for me to get him trained… time I don’t have. And what about all the evaluations and psych screenings, does he really get to bypass all that?” God argued, his fist clenched tight on the armrest.

His captain chuckled. “You mean these two actually passed psych evals?” He pointed at Ruxs and Green.

“Fuck no! But at least we were prepared for them to fail,” God barked.

Green tried to cover his laugh but failed at that, too.

“I’m glad y’all are finding this amusing. But I don’t see the humor.” God glared at them.

“Why’s he coming to us, anyway?” Day finally spoke, standing behind God, massaging his shoulders to keep him from jumping up out of the chair and throwing shit around.

“This is coming from higher up, Day. Not exactly sure who, but higher than the chief. Believe me, I fought this. I’ve been on the phone with every connection I have, but there’s no one that can override this decision. It’s done.” The captain sat up a little straighter and motioned for the file from Syn. “I’m kind of optimistic, Godfrey. This guy was a Marine for twenty years, Special Forces for eleven of them. He had top-level security clearance, has three Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star, and countless commendations and…” the captain scanned some more pages. “Holy shit… this can’t be right. No way. God, am I reading these initials right?”

God took extra notice now, his captain rarely cursed. God looked at what his captain was pointing at. This guy had received a lot of awards, but his captain’s finger was hovering over the initials MH, and it gave him pause.

“What is it?” Green asked. “Damn, now I’m intrigued.”

“What is it, God?” Syn squinted at him.

“He received the Medal of Honor in ‘09 from President Clinton.” God tossed the file back on the table. “Still doesn’t mean I trust him.”