SWAT Ed: Fox & Bull (Nothing Special 8)

Now maybe they’ll get the damn hint. Fox wheeled his chair back to his desk and sat heavily on the padded cushion. He moved like an eighty-year-old man and not the forty-two-year-old, healthy law enforcement officer that he was. Fox dug his knuckles into his gritty eyes, swearing at all the forms spread out before him. There was no way he was getting out of there before 2:00 a.m. Great way to spend another Friday night, Fox.

From his third-floor window he could see the city’s lights glowing in the distance, the nightlife in downtown just now coming alive, yet Fox felt more dead inside than ever. He wore his badge like a two-hundred-pound stone strapped around his neck, feeling as if his entire family’s legacy rested solely on his shoulders. It was an impossible burden for one man to bear, but it didn’t stop him from trying.

There was a recognizable tap on his office door, and with a resigned sigh, he allowed Hart’s assistant to come in. “Yeah, what is it?”

“Have you seen the evening news?” Carlos asked in a meek voice. He tucked his hands into his pinstriped, fitted pants as if he wasn’t sure what to do with them.

Fox narrowed his eyes, reading the smaller man like a book, knowing something was up. Something bad. What the fuck now? Fox was already on thin ice with the commander for being a bit overzealous in the field, but this last call he’d done by the book. He was sure of it.

“I think you should just turn it on,” Carlos said quickly, then ducked out of his office.

Fox snatched the remote control out of his desk drawer and turned on the television that was already tuned to a local news station. His head pounded impossibly hard as he listened to the reporter downplay the threat level of the situation and twist facts about their breach tactic. Fox almost fell out of his chair when the news cut to an interview of the pregnant woman they’d rescued off the bus.

“I was so terrified.” She cried, tears pouring down her red-splotched face. She was sitting in a wheelchair in the lobby of Grady Memorial Hospital with multiple cameras surrounding her. “I thought I was gonna die… I thought they were going to kill my baby.”

Fox couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He stood from his desk and moved in a trancelike state until he was directly in front of the television.

The reporter pushed the microphone towards her mouth. “Please, in your own words, how did you feel when Atlanta PD SWAT roared onto the scene, weapons drawn, and took over?”

The woman’s face twisted into a pinched scowl, her worried motherly expression morphing to anger in the blink of the camera’s flash.

Don’t you dare. Fox shook his head. Don’t you fucking do it. We saved your life!

“That’s when I thought I was going to die. The men on the bus told us to get down and don’t move, so we didn’t. We were all cooperating. They were gonna let us go…”

No, they weren’t!

“SWAT didn’t even give us innocent civilians a chance to get to safety before they just started shooting. We had no warning.” She wailed, gripping her protruding belly. “Glass flew everywhere, and I was cut on my neck, my face, my—”

“Fuuuuck!” Fox yelled, just before he grabbed one of his awards for valor in the field and slammed it into the flat-screen. Glass shattered and fell to the floor, leaving a black hole in the center, surrounded by a psychedelic array of broken pixels.

Fox’s hands shook as he went to the window and braced them on the cool glass. He stared down at the dark parking lot, cursing his fucking luck.

His door opened without a knock, and he knew it was Hart because he was the only one allowed to do that. His friend’s voice was rough. “Fox, don’t.”

“Get the fuck out,” he growled.

The door slammed, but Fox didn’t flinch, knowing his captain wasn’t on the other side. He hadn’t sworn at his boss, and Hart knew it; he was venting to his best friend.

“What that woman’s doing is not your fault. You know publicity-seekers when you see ’em.”

“Doesn’t fucking matter. Someone has to take the heat, and I pulled the trigger, Hart.”

“The reporters planted that shit in her mind. They fed her a bunch of nonsense about excessive force—and of course the idea of a potential settlement, maybe even some plastic surgery—in an effort to get some good evening news.” Hart stood there in his navy utility pants and black SWAT T-shirt. “You know I got your back on this. I expect my orders to be followed in the field with no questions asked. It was my call.”

“Has that ever deterred IA?”

“Speaking of…” Carlos popped his head back inside Fox’s door. “Two internal affairs officers are here to speak to you both.”