At the prescribed time, Hawk logged onto Ray’s computer and precisely followed Alex’s detailed action points.
“Hello,” Alex said, sounding like a cross between a bullfrog and a chipmunk.
Hawk started chuckling.
“Don’t laugh,” she said. “It’s all for your own good.”
“Just don’t tell me that you’re my father,” Hawk deadpanned.
“So, you really think I sound like Darth Vader?”
“Maybe Darth Vader’s wife.”
“You think I sound like Natalie Portman talking through a ventilator?”
Hawk grinned. “Before I answer that question, you need to answer something for me.”
“Okay. Go ahead.”
Hawk needed to make sure that Alex was truly on the other end—and he knew one way to ensure that she was.
“In the movie Laagan, who starred as Bhuvan and also served as the film’s producer?”
“You really think that’s going to stump me?” she asked.
“I’m not trying to stump you—just anyone else who’s pretending to be you.”
“In that case, it’s Aamir Khan. And that’s a great movie, by the way,” she said. “After I watched it, I actually wanted to play cricket.”
“Okay, continue,” Hawk said. “I know it’s you, by both your answer and the fact that you were inspired to play that sport after watching the movie.”
“You know me well, don’t you?”
“I do,” Hawk said as he chuckled. “Now, get on with it. What’s so important?”
“Those schematics that you saw are likely tied to a weapons deal that’s going down soon.”
“And who’s behind all of this?”
“I’ll give you three guesses and the first two don’t count.”
“Michaels. That bastard is always meddling in things he has no business messing with.”
“In his quest to win votes and make the world a safer place, he’s ironically about to make it far more dangerous.”
“And hopefully lose enough votes to lose the upcoming general election.”
“That’s what I’m hoping, at least.”
Hawk nodded resolutely. “So, what do you need me to do?”
“Nothing big. I just need you to record your friend’s boss for a total of one minute.”
“That’s it?”
“It needs to be in person, of course.”
Hawk moaned. “I knew there’d be a catch somewhere.”
“Is that gonna be a problem?”
“Of course not. I’ll figure something out.”
“Good,” she said. “Just upload the files to the usual place.”
“I’ll try to have something to you within 48 hours.”
“Hurry because we don’t have much time.”
Hawk terminated the program he was using to communicate with Alex and hid his steps on the computer. He migrated over to the living room and fell back onto the couch. He needed a plan to get Ackerman to talk, though Hawk doubted he could get the time of day out of Michaels’ puppet from the Middle East.
“How do I get Ackerman’s attention?” Hawk asked himself aloud.
An idea came out of nowhere and he smiled.
“This just might work.”
* * *
AS SOON AS RAY returned home from work, Hawk darted out the door, claiming to need to run a few errands. Part of his statement was true. Hawk needed to grab a few items at the grocery store—as well as record Ackerman’s voice so Alex could work her magic with the recording. She’d been short on details, and Hawk didn’t feel like talking over such an open line. No matter how secure Alex swore it was, it seemed like an ill-advised action.
The outside of Fortress Security appeared to be a fortified location, though it was far from being impenetrable, despite what the website claimed. Hawk surveyed the situation and considered his next move.
On top of the compound wall were two men, both armed with machine guns and decked out with enough ammo to eliminate several strongholds in any line of defense.
Maybe I should’ve consulted with Alex first about this.
Hawk still had time to back away and regroup. But based on what he observed during his first trip to the firm’s headquarters, he was confident he could navigate his way through the perimeter.
Instead of using bullets, Hawk had gathered a pocketful of tranquilizer darts he’d found lying around Ray’s house. Quieter and far less messy than the aftermath of gunshots, Hawk also saw the use of tranqs as a way to endear himself to Ackerman. Asking for a job was one thing, but doing it after you killed half his crew was another—and would likely end in either some sort of legal action or arrest.
From the position Hawk took up at the base of the wall, he recognized how little time he had to eliminate the targets. Two guards circled the wall, while another sat perched high above the compound in a guard tower. In the half hour Hawk noted their routes, they seemed to pass by each other every four minutes. Putting a dart in their back was imperative to evade capture. While the guard in the tower was far less watchful, the sound of two captains dropping along the wall would surely get his attention. Hawk figured he’d have less than thirty seconds to shoot him as well.
Here goes nothing.
Hawk strode toward the wall and waited until the two men passed by each other. In one smooth motion, he unholstered his gun and fell the two guards in three shots. The guard in the tower poked his head out and started yelling frantically. Before he could return inside and call for help, Hawk had drilled the man in the neck, dropping him almost instantly.
Hawk proceeded to scale the wall and snagged two more guns of the men he’d taken down. He crept across the commons area, his gun drawn and eyes scanning his surroundings. When he heard the trampling of feet coming from his right, he darted toward an armored vehicle parked to his left. The guards fanned out along the edge of the perimeter, guns trained in front of them. In their effort to capture the intruder, they left only one man to guard the office entrance.
The overconfidence of a supposed fortress never ceases to amaze me.
Hawk grabbed a rock off the ground and hurled it to the guard’s left. He immediately turned in that direction, which was all the time Hawk needed to rush toward the door. By the time the guard heard Hawk coming, it was too late. Hawk had already fired a dart at the man and hit him at the base of his neck. He moaned softly while crumpling to the ground, but the muted cry for help wasn’t loud enough to get his colleague’s attention.
Hawk’s appearance in the office lobby startled the man behind the reception desk. Clumsily, he reached for his gun.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Hawk said. “Now, show me where Mr. Ackerman’s offices are.”
The man stood and held his hands up in a posture of surrender.
“Follow me,” he muttered.
The man led Hawk up a flight of stairs and pointed toward the end of the hallway.
“Now, we’re going in together,” Hawk said.
Hawk urged the man forward, jamming a gun into his back.
“You better knock,” the man said.
Hawk ignored him and opened the door. Using the man as a shield, Hawk pressed forward and quickly understood why the man had suggested knocking.
Armed with a semi-automatic weapon, Ackerman sat behind his desk, gun trained on the entrance.
“Sorry to barge in on you like this,” Hawk began, “but I don’t intend you any harm.”
“Tell that to the men I watched you drop from my office window.”
“Tranquilizers,” Hawk said, holding his gun up in the air. He knelt down and put it on the floor, kicking it over to Ackerman. Discreetly, Hawk began recording their conversation.
“What is the meaning of this?” Ackerman asked.
“I just wanna talk.”
“There are better ways to set up a meeting among professionals.”
“Not in our line of work,” Hawk said. “You can read the resume of Chuc
k Pearl a hundred times, but until you see me in action, you have no clue if I’m legit or not.”
Ackerman waved with the back of his hand, dismissing the man who’d led Hawk upstairs. The man scurried out of the room. Ackerman set his gun down on his desk.
“I’m not gonna lie—that was impressive,” Ackerman said. “Ray told me you had some mad skills, but who wouldn’t say that about his friend?”
“I understand your reticence, sir,” Hawk said. “But I’m desperate and thought I’d try another approach.”
“It’s also a stunt that could’ve led to somebody ending up dead inside my compound and creating the kind of problem I don’t need from the local government.”
“I admit that my actions were risky to some degree, but I never felt there was any danger of anyone getting killed. I was in control the entire time.”
“What if I had some other protocols that you weren’t aware of? Then what?”
“I did my homework, sir—like I always do whenever I’m assigned to a job.”
Hawk hated lying in such an egregious manner, but he didn’t want to admit that he winged it and had easily penetrated Ackerman’s precious fortress with some on-the-go reconnaissance. In Hawk’s assessment, the outfit was well armed but poorly trained. The guards could stand days of more instruction, but he figured stating the obvious might not be the smartest move. Playing to Ackerman’s ego suited Hawk’s purposes more.
“Not a single shot fired by one of my men,” Ackerman said.
“Was that by design?”
Ackerman shook his head. “I told them to kill you on site, which must mean they never saw you or had a clear shot. Like I said, impressive.”
“So, do you have an opening for me now?”
Ackerman chuckled. “Chuck, you are a tenacious one, aren’t you? But unfortunately, I don’t. However, I know how to reach you if something comes up. And I have a feeling something might be opening up very soon.”
“I appreciate any consideration you might give me,” Hawk said, nodding in a reverent fashion.
“You got it, Chuck. I’ll talk to you soon. Just next time you want to follow up on an interview, I’d advise you pick up the phone first.”
Hawk grinned. “And would you have picked up yours if I’d called?”
Ackerman winked and pointed at Hawk. “You’ve got a point. Now get out of here.”
Hawk knelt down and picked his gun up off the floor before tucking it in the back of his pants.
“One more thing before you go, Chuck,” Ackerman said.
Hawk turned around. “What’s that?”
“Try not to hurt any more of my men on your way out.”
“Not a problem, sir.”
After exiting Ackerman’s office, Hawk hustled down the steps. He gave the man at the receptionist desk an informal salute and continued outside. As Hawk walked by the guards milling around the commons area, several of them glared at him. He smiled and issued another salute before a guard posted at the entrance begrudgingly opened the gate.
Hawk glanced over his shoulder as the chain link access fence slammed shut again. An armed guard gave Hawk a special salute, one of the middle finger variety before spitting in his direction.
Touchy bunch of wussies. Not sure if I want to work with them.
Serving under Ackerman wasn’t the point of Hawk’s exercise. He simply wanted to record the Fortress Security boss’s voice for a full minute. And in that case, Hawk’s mission was a rousing success. Hawk had captured closer to three minutes of Ackerman talking about plenty of things and doing it with a grave tone to witty banter.
Alex is gonna love me for this.
Hawk marched back toward the nearest bus stop, though he wasn’t sure that was the smartest move given that he was carrying a loaded gun. The fact that it only shot tranquilizers wouldn’t make any difference to the men who held every westerner suspect. If he kept his head down, he’d likely be fine. But he decided against taking a chance. He felt safer walking down sketchy streets with his gun readily available rather than being cooped up on a bus where the appearance of a gun would likely mean he would be shot or attacked by someone not so forgiving.
Dusk fell hard in Muscat. The dimly lit streets represented a far more treacherous walk home than Hawk had first imagined when he struck off for the Fortress Security offices. Men gathered in the doorsteps of closed business and smoked while discussing the day’s events. Hawk understood enough Arabic to catch short snippets of their conversation topics as well as when they stopped and mentioned something related to “the American.”
Most of the men appeared harmless and wouldn’t stand a chance against Hawk. But it wasn’t even one of the more threatening men who caught Hawk’s eye. The shifty young man in his early 20s arrested Hawk’s attention. He watched as the kid’s eyes cut back and forth between Hawk and someone trailing a few feet behind.
Hawk maintained his composure and walked on, scanning each new street with every turn. He sought the best location to duck into before ambushing whoever was following him. Up ahead on Hawk’s right, he noticed an ideal location. A dumpster jutted out of an alleyway, providing the right amount of cover for an attack.
Hawk increased his pace, trying to size up the uninvited guest by glancing in the glass storefronts. However, they were mostly covered with graffiti, making it nearly impossible to gain any kind of idea about possible suspects. A slight interruption in the letters plastered on the glass gave Hawk just enough space to catch a glimpse.
Picking up speed again, Hawk put just enough room between him and his aggressive stalker. In a flash, Hawk slid to the right of the dumpster and quickly eased his way up against the wall, hiding himself in the alleyway from any person.
Hawk listened as the footsteps that clicked past stopped when they reached the end of the dumpster and turned in his direction.
This ought to be fun.
Hawk pressed his face against the ground, viewing the man’s gait to ascertain his pace. Once Hawk registered the man’s plodding speed, he timed a dive into the man’s legs, knocking him off balance. The two men traded several punches before Hawk delivered a flurry of them to gain the upper hand. But the vicious blow to the attacker’s throat sent him reeling.
Hawk reached for his gun before he noticed it lying on the floor. When he knelt down to pick it up, the man kicked Hawk in the face. Surprised by the blow, Hawk shook his head in an attempt to regain his bearings. Before he looked up, he heard a mechanical click, the kind he’d heard many times right before a knife fight ensured. He rolled to his left as he felt the man’s presence overhead. Hawk swept the man’s legs out from under him, toppling him to the ground.
Hawk bounced up and scanned the ground for his gun, which he couldn’t locate. Searching the area, he glanced over at the attacker groaning as he staggered to his feet. Then Hawk finally noticed the gun—in the man’s hand.
“Oliver Ackerman says hello,” the man said before he fired a tranquilizer dart at Hawk, who dove to the ground.
The man seemed surprised that a bullet didn’t explode out of the gun’s barrel, almost as surprised as Hawk was that the attacker had missed from such a short range.
Hawk took advantage of the man’s stunned reaction and kicked the gun free. Without wasting another second, Hawk followed the kick with a combination of punches to the man’s face. As the man reeled backward, he pulled out his knife again and swiped at Hawk. But the jabs never connected with Hawk, who evaded them before crippling the man with a brutal kick to his knee. The man hit the ground in pain, moaning and clutching his leg.
Hawk snatched the knife off the ground and stabbed the man in his leg before shooting him with the final tranquilizer dart in the neck. After a few seconds, the man passed out.
Hawk grabbed the man’s cell phone and took a picture before sending it to Ackerman with a brief message. “Was this supposed to be a test?” Hawk typed and sent along with the photo. He stuffed the phone into the man’s pocket and hustled down th
e street.
CHAPTER 8
United Nations
New York, NY
PRESIDENT MICHAELS STRODE to the podium and held up his hand in an effort to stop the applause from the United Nations General Assembly ambassadors. His humble gesture belied the way he basked in the adulation. Neither the previous U.S. president nor the one before him had ever received such a warm welcome. Michaels considered the support a direct result of his strong leadership among the international community, dismissing the political pundits who explained his popularity by the way he kowtowed to the prevailing winds blowing in Europe.
Michaels smiled and waved as he waited patiently for the clapping to cease. He surveyed the global crowd and felt his confidence swell. The U.N. had invited him to speak on the innovations he had directed in the area of renewable energy sources. But Michaels never intended to stay fully on topic.
“Mr. Secretary General, Mr. President, world leaders, and distinguished delegates—I am honored to stand up here today and address what I feel like is the defining issue of our time. Clean and renewable energy sources have the ability to transform our planet, revitalizing cities that have been ravaged by pollution as well as energizing countries that have never had the same opportunity to launch forward economically into the twenty-first century. And while I think it’s important to discuss these issues, I find these technological advances even more vital to doing something we’ve all dreamed of. In fact, the real reason you’re all here today was because of a dream long ago by some men with excellent foresight. They wanted to see the days of world wars end as well as regional conflicts. They wanted us all to dwell in peace and harmony, making the world a better place instead of one more divided by everything from ethnicity to economics to environs.
“When the world ethos is governed by men and women who care more about the future of the human race than they do lining their pockets, we have an incredible opportunity to move forward as a species, reaching and surpassing the dreams of those innovators who came before us. However, truly advancing globally requires bold leadership to create a clean environmental revolution. And none of that will be possible if we don’t simultaneously root out the evil forces of terrorism.”
Brady Hawk 10 - Into the Shadows Page 5
