Hawk (The Quiet Professionals, Book 2) (45 page)

Where was he? Why hadn’t he caught up?

But she had to keep going. He told her to. She was responsible for the others now. He would want her to keep on.

But where was he? It took as many minutes to traverse a dozen paces. Each second felt like an eternity, her ears trained on the terrain behind them. Waiting for his arrival. For him to rush in and save them. He would. That was who he was. What he did.

Then where was he? She glanced behind them again.

“You kissed him,” Mitra said amid a shallow breath.

An embarrassing flush heated her cheeks again and made Fekiria angry. “Hush. Save your strength.” She noted the bandaged wound must be bleeding again.

“It is your own doing,” Mitra mumbled.

Fekiria’s heart spasmed. “What did you say?” Had she really said the same thing the snow-white man uttered?

“The pride and hatred keeps you from feeling what grows in your heart.” Mitra panted hard. She stumbled, rocks and snow rushing from beneath her feet. She pitched forward with a yelp.

Fekiria focused on balancing them both on the treacherous path. But it seemed the incline increased every few feet.

“For so long, you’ve said you hated Americans. Now you feel that you
must
hate them.” A shaky smile accompanied pain-hooded eyes. “Let it go and love him.”

“Ha.” Fekiria adjusted Mitra’s arm around her shoulder, pushing more into her friend to support her. “Your pain is making you delirious. Quiet. Focus on walking.”

But Fekiria couldn’t help looking back for him again. She imagined the worst—like last night when he’d been ambushed.

Camp Eggers, Afghanistan

24 February—0635 Hours

“Where are they?!” Dean slammed his hand against the table.

Falcon, Titanis, and Eagle stood quietly at the bank of monitors, having just returned from a failed search. Hours fighting the winds and elements that blinded them gave the pilots zero visibility and forced them to turn back. Night had set in with a vengeance, cloaking Hawk and the women in its fury. The deadly conditions made it impossible to attempt a rescue, but that there’d been no comunication with Hawk infuriated him. Worried him.

Dean paced, hands behind his head. “They’ve been out there for twelve hours—overnight in subzero!”

“It’s impossible,” Sal said with a grunt, rubbing his beard as he shook his head.

“No!” Dean stabbed a finger at him. “Not acceptable.”

“I just meant—”

“I know what you meant. But negative doesn’t help. We need positive solutions.”

With a nod, Sal relented. “There’s no way to know where they went or where to look.”

“South.” Eagle’s left arm hung in a sling, leftover from the firefight he’d had with the Taliban who attacked them. “Hawk’s intent was to get as far south as he could, away from the city and those hunting the women.”

“But he went
northeast
. Into the mountains,” Dean repeated what Eagle told them once they’d rendezvoused.

“Initially, yes.” The man scratched his reddish blond scraggly beard. “It was the only escape. Those men were right there, gunning for us. There wasn’t a thing I could do.”

“Nobody’s blaming you, man.”

Eagle gave an acknowledging nod, but the guilt hung on him like a ragged scar.

“Blame doesn’t help anyway,” Titanis said. “What we need is a strategy. A way to find them.”

“Think they’re still alive?” Brie Hastings asked.

“Yes,” Dean answered in unison with Sal then added, “Even if he was dead, we’d go out there and find him. No man left behind.”

“Hooah,” Eagle muttered.

“Can we tap satellite coms to search for unusual chatter?” Knuckling the table, Sal stared over the map. “They’re up in the mountains. Not going to be a lot of chatter out there. Have the teams look for cryptic communication.”

“Yes.” Dean felt the heat of hope surge through him. He pointed to Hastings. “I want to know any phone signals.
Any
digital or electronic signals out there. Anything unusual. Even the usual. Dig, dig, and dig some more.” Dean jerked back a chair and dropped into it. “As soon as the storm breaks, we head back out.”

Titanis glanced at his watch and groaned. “Bad news.”

“What?”

“The storm is not moving out like we thought. It’s getting worse.”

Dean swallowed the curse climbing his throat. Now they would be grounded. No help for Hawk.

Tera Pass, Afghanistan

24 February—0645 Hours

With the silencer screwed onto the end of his weapon, Brian stared through the long scope. Three more Taliban had tracked them and uncovered the hasty burial. He had to buy Fekiria and the others time to get away from here. Slow down these rabid dogs who seemed to have an unnatural ability to find him and the women. This was a serious case of
bad
.

If things weren’t bad enough already, the darkening sky—which should be lightening—was the portent of doom. The freakin’ point of no return in every horror story. So he had to nail this sucker between its eyes so they didn’t end up as roadkill.

Controlling his breathing as he leaned against the rock face, Brian zeroed his sights on the lead guy. It’d taken a few minutes to rout out which of the three was leading. He’d already adjusted for wind and elements. He eased back the trigger and neutralized him.

Even as he realigned his sights, Brian felt the trace of Death’s icy finger on his spine. And the rocket launcher whipped out by one of the other Taliban told him why.

Oh crap!

Brian turned and threw himself toward the path.

Rock and fire exploded around him. Hands gloved, bloodied, and freezing, he pushed. Smelled something. Felt heat at his ear. Heard licking, crackling flames at his cheek.
Fire!
He shrugged out of his pack and dropped it.

Crack!
The ground beneath his feet rattled. Brian glanced down. Snow seemed to levitate. Oh no…no no no.

The shelf broke away. Gravity yanked him downward.

T
he plan was in place. With the help of Takkar Corp., Daniel managed to get things set up in country to continue what he’d already acomplished against the Americans—the digital disruption of GPS signals. He’d misrouted, rerouted, and killed numerous radio communications, coordinates, and orders.

In exchange for help from a local tribal leader, he’d sent the team that had caused entirely too much trouble scattering in different directions. They would be ineffective. Useless. And perhaps even dead. His father’s name would live forever.

“Sir.”

Daniel did not like that tone. Urgent. Fearful. Filled with bad news. He remained at his bar and turned the glass in his hand without responding. They had made significant progress. He needed to cling to the success a little longer. A few more steps and they would have the operational security of the U.S. military completely crippled. They’d send the location of every black ops group—

“Sorry, sir, but—”

Calmly, Daniel slipped his hand inside his jacket and lifted the weapon holstered there. He shifted on the seat and aimed the gun at the messenger. And fired.
So much for not killing the messenger
.

Shuffling feet came running.

Mother.

Daniel stood and stalked to the hall before she could see. “Go back to your room,
Māma
.” He did not want to call the doctor again, especially over something he had done to incite her nerves.

“What has happened?” she squeaked, her voice quavering. “It sounded like a gun.”

“Nothing,” he said as he guided her by the shoulders back to her room. Already he could hear his assistant removing the body from the living area. “A book. I dropped a book on the wood floor.”

“You clumsy boy.” She went easily to her bed and drew the coverlet up over her thin legs. “Where is Kiew? I miss her smile. Such a sweet girl. You need to marry her and give me grandchildren.”

“I am too busy.” He held her face. “I am finishing what
Bàba
started, remember? His legacy.”

She eased back, a smile on her face that had begun to look like wrinkled rice paper. She touched his cheek as she did every night when he helped her with her medicines and rituals. “You are such a good son. Gang would be so proud!”

That was why he could not fail. He
must not
fail. Exactly the reason he did not want to hear the news the messenger brought.

But even he knew not hearing did not make the news less real. It would only delay his stress a little while. He pressed a kiss to his mother’s cheeks then flicked off the light. A stroll through the house brought him to Kiew’s personal room. He stared in, thinking of her in there. Sitting on the chaise, a satin robe around her curves as she looked out over Shanghai.

“It helps me think,” she’d said the first time he caught her there.

“But when you sit like that, then I cannot think.” He’d traced the curve of her leg and thigh. And their night ended in each other’s arms beneath exquisite Egyptian cotton sheets.

He longed for her touch, her laugh. To hear her voice. To have her help him think this through. She soothed the savage within him. To a degree. A man in his position must do things that others would hesitate to do. But he must teach them. Guide them. Be a leader to them. And leaders were not weak.

His phone rang as he stood in the hall, staring at her bed. Turning, he answered the call.
“Nî hăo.”

“
Wănshàng hăo
, Jin.”

The sound of her voice shifted the axis of his world. Just a simple “good evening” from Kiew, but the soft lilt of her words slid over him like warm honey. Still, he must be strong. And he knew she would not risk calling so late and waking his mother unless— “What is it?” He thought of the dead messenger.

“We had the team, but they escaped. One fled into the mountains. We are hunting him.”

Clenching his eyes, he lowered his head. Turned to the rage that rumbled through him. He had ignored it too long. “Fix this!”

“We are working—”

“
Fix. It!
” he roared, his voice bouncing off the glass walls.

F
ifteen minutes and he still hadn’t shown.

The path had leveled out, but Fekiria wasn’t willing to continue without knowing if Brian was okay. “It’s taking too long.”

“Go.” Mitra reached for a cluster of large snow-covered rocks. “I’ll sit.” She drew in a breath and let it out in a gulp. “I need…the rest.”

“Sheevah,” Fekiria called to the teen a dozen paces ahead. She felt the ache of winter’s breath stiffening her own bones as she waved the girl back. When the two returned, she said, “Stay with them. I’ll be right back.”

Fekiria set out, resolved and relieved to find out what happened to him. Each step made her heart pound harder. What if she had waited too long? Her fingers no longer ached against the cold—they were too numb—but she gripped the weapon as tight as she could. Or imagined she should. Her gaze skipped to her left. A brief opening in the clouds gave her a glimpse at the landscape. They were alone. Utterly alone and very high up in the mountain. Had they really climbed that high?