Serve & Protect
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By L. J. Breedlove
Published by L. J. Breedlove
Copyright 2020 L. J. Breedlove
ISBN: 9781005462222
License Notes
This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your e-book site and purchase a copy. Thank you for respecting the work this author.
Disclaimer
This is a work of fiction. While place descriptions and news events may coincide with the real world, all characters and the plot are fictional.
Table of Contents
Copyright Page
Serve & Protect
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Epilogue
Postscript
Further Reading: Trust No One
Also By L.J. Breedlove
About the Author
Serve & Protect
A Mac Davis thriller, Book 3
A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
—Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States
Chapter 1
(Seattle, Washington, Monday, April 28, 2014)
Mackensie Davis — Mac — hated early mornings, although this could be viewed as a late Sunday night. He considered that. Nope. He’d been asleep. That made it morning, although he conceded that at 2 a.m. it was a stretch, because it was as dark as Hades out here. And at 40 degrees and raining for the third day in a row, it was a miserable time to be called out on a news story.
Mac wasn’t fond of cops either. He considered them an unpleasant necessity of his job as a cop reporter at the Seattle Examiner. Something he had to put up with, like early morning deadlines. Which was about how most of the cops thought of him. He reconsidered that. Well, most of them didn’t see why they had to put up with him at all. He shrugged. He hadn’t lost any sleep over what cops thought of him when he was a teen running the streets of Seattle. He didn’t see why he should care now.
But combine a wet, early — really early — call out and cops? A dozen cops maybe more? And he was in a foul mood.
A really foul mood.
And that was before he saw them carry out the victim, victims actually, and from the size of the body bags, he knew it was a woman and two children.
“Shit,” Mac said.
Lt. Nick Rodriguez looked at him and grunted. Rodriguez was a big man, mid-40s, carrying a few more pounds than he should. “Hate these,” he said.
Mac, scowled. He matched Rodriguez in height, 6-foot-1, but at 29, he was leaner and went to great lengths to stay that way. “Who are they?”
“Elena Martin, 29, a daughter, age 10, and son, age 6. Neighbor heard shots, called it in. They were dead when cops arrived. We’ve got a BOLO out for her husband, George Martin, 34, blond hair/blue eyes, 5-foot-9.”
“So why was I called out here? Why are you out here?” Mac asked. “Those are details I could have gotten at 6 a.m. when I make my blotter calls.” This was the seventh set of gunshot deaths this month. Mac didn’t like it, but gunshot deaths weren’t page 1 news.
Rodriguez was silent. Grim. Mac wondered what was going on with him. Of all the cops Mac interacted with, he found Rodriguez tolerable. He thought it was probably mutual — a combination of begrudging respect and shared battles.
Last fall’s battle had been ugly: Army of God had attempted to blow up seven Planned Parenthood clinics in the city. Rodriguez had been instrumental in limiting the damage. Half of his supervisors were praising him for his fine work. The other half? Split between those who blamed him for not stopping the catastrophe completely and those who thought he’d gone outside his job description and resented his interference. And a few detractors may have been helping out the Army of God. Maybe.
The attack also revealed a growing problem of white militants within the police department. Cops lost their jobs over it — those who hadn’t shown up to back up other cops. Those who abandoned their surveillance posts. And in one case, a cop who had violated procedures to release a suspect from the holding pen — a suspect who later attempted to take several civilians hostage.
Mac had been afraid Rodriquez would just quit. But the man was a good cop. He’d been a cop since he was 18, and he really couldn’t envision being anything else. It appeared he was toughing it out.
Stubborn bastard.
And his supervisors couldn’t fire him. Seattle residents saw him as a hero, in large part due to Mac’s reporting. That made Rodriguez uncomfortable.
It wasn’t something Mac was comfortable with either.
“Come out back,” Rodriguez said finally.
The house was a nice, two-story Seattle-style bungalow: Big front porch with river rock pillars, wood siding painted a sage gray, with trim painted in two or three colors. It wasn’t that different than the house Mac shared with his aunt on Queen Anne. Mac’s home was on a slope, and the garage was under it facing out to the street. This house was on Capitol Hill and on flat ground. The two-car garage was separate from the house, and set back along the left side. The two men walked silently back to the garage, and Rodriguez opened a side door, and flipped on a light switch.
“They were killed out here?” Mac asked puzzled.
“No, they died inside the house,” Rodriguez answered. “Go ahead, take a look here. Then I’ll show you the house.”
Mac stepped inside the garage. “Shit!” he said looking around. Every inch of space on the walls held weapons. Rifles from
