Strike Back (Hawk Elite Security Book 1)

by Beth Rhodes

  She started crying. “Dad. I’m so sorry. I wasn’t careful—”

  “Don’t be sorry. I’m going to fix this. This is not your fault—”

  “Aah, but it is yours.”

  Every cell in Hawk’s body froze. He looked up into Stacy’s face. All color drained.

  “Cortez. You’re—”

  “Yes, I know. I’m dead.” The video feed moved as the phone was snatched from Moira’s hands. “About that… This is your warning, Hawkins. You, in Manila. Twenty-four hours. Alone.”

  “Dad! Wait! Daddy—” The phone cut off.

  His throat closed, his eyes blurred, and the pain that had started in the truck grew to a new, ungodly level. He grabbed Stacy around the waist, held tightly. When he opened his eyes, he found Jamie in the doorway.

  “Get the team in here. We leave. Now.”

  “He said to come alone.” Stacy argued, fear like an ice-cold bath.

  Hawk stood, though. He placed his hands on her shoulders. “We go as a team. We go, you and I, and every man—to the last. And then, we take this fucker down.”

  Her lips trembled. She nodded her head.

  “He was using a satellite phone. No way to pin him down. He’s in the air.” Malcolm was wearing his typical skinny jeans and his flannel. His hair was tied back into a ponytail. “I’ve got a new laptop at the apartment. It’s got tracking programs on it. Give me twenty minutes to run home.”

  Hawk checked his watch. “Good. Take Bobby to watch your back.”

  “Bobby,” he called, and whistled through his teeth as he left the room.

  “John, get me Barba on the phone right now. He’ll be our eyes and ears for the next twenty-four hours.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And then I want you on our private plane out. Cortez will expect us to prepare. He’ll figure we need a few hours to even get flights and get out of here. I want you ahead of us.”

  “Yes, sir. I’m out and will be waiting.”

  “Good.”

  Hawk turned to Stacy. “Let’s get a sitrep from Germany. Call your dad. Tell him what’s going on. Check in on your mom and Willy. Get your head on where it needs to be—”

  “With you,” she answered quickly.

  “Yes,” he agreed, because he knew what she was thinking. That he’d put her on a plane to Germany. He couldn’t, though. Not now. He needed her by his side. Needed her eyes…and to know she was safe. He kissed her in that last moment before he turned to go to the lobby.

  Just as he hit the lobby, the front window on the offices shattered, the report of a bullet sounding from outside. “Get down!”

  His phone pinged, and he glanced at the screen.

  I’m watching.

  “Shit. Everyone okay?” Hawk rushed to the lobby, hollering for Jamie at the same time.

  Bobby ran in through the splintered doorway at a crouch, laid Malcolm on the brown leather couch on the west wall, then stripped off his shirt and leaned on his friend’s chest, hard.

  “South corner, black van. Damn it! Get an ambulance here.”

  Stacy was already on the phone behind him, speaking rapidly to the 9-1-1 dispatcher.

  Staying to the side, Hawk glanced out. Saw the van Bobby identified with what looked like local plates. “Binoculars, Jamie. Get those numbers.”

  Hawk hurried down the hall to his office and crossed the room to his private bathroom. He grabbed two of the towels on the rack in the corner and ran back.

  “Bullet’s still in there, Hawk.”

  “Don’t let him move. John!” Hawk called him back.

  “Ambulance is on its way. ETA, four minutes,” John said as he came over to stop Malcolm from getting up and to start doing his thing.

  “It’s fine.” Malcolm’s words were slurred and pain rang like a fricking bell through them.

  With their medic in charge of the patient, Bobby ran to the armory room and pulled his pump-action Remington. He came back up to the lobby and shouldered himself in next to the window. “Just give me the word, Hawk.”

  “What’s the civilian element?” he asked.

  Jamie answered, “Late night crowd starting to gather on the north corner, looks like they’re pouring out of that bar that sits just down the street. Probably heard the shots and saw the front window blasted to kingdom come. Damn it. Van is moving.”

  Hawk watched the vehicle pull into the crowd and stop, obviously knowing safety being surrounded by innocent bystanders. “Shit. What I wouldn’t give for a sniper. Craig!”

  Craig came up on his right. “On it.” He was their best shooter.

  “Go for the tires. Jamie and I are going out the back for the driver.”

  With a nod to his long-time friend, he and Jamie followed the hallway to the back and exited the building. The guys in the van opened fire, making the crowd disperse—lucky for Hawk Elite. Hawk ran right and affixed himself to the nearest tree. He turned his head and saw Jamie had done the same.

  Without their usual gear, they were incommunicado. As if on cue, Craig and Bobby opened fire again and blew the front tires.

  Tires flat, the van moved anyway.

  “Determined sons of bitches,” Jamie muttered.

  With a jolt, the van took off crooked down the street with smoke billowing from its engine.

  “They won’t get far,” Hawk said, frustration riding every nerve as he gave up his pursuit and turned back to the building. “Damn it. I’ll call Darnell at the Raleigh Police Department. Give him the numbers and description.”

  Stacy met him at the door. She had her arms loaded; two duffel bags. “Tickets have been switched. We catch a plane in four hours.”

  “Good. That gives us time to put together orders for the guys.”

  Her nod out toward the road had him glancing behind. “You leave anyone alive?”

  “At least one got out. Probably both. Looked like that was the plan all along.”

  “Police are out front. The EMTs are loading Malcolm.”

  “How is he?”

  “He was hollering about going with us or some such nonsense. I told him to give Bobby a quick tutorial and to stay close to his phone.”

  Hawk squeezed his eyes shut. “And the bullet?”

  “Surgeon is waiting at the hospital.” She set a duffel down and rested a hand on his arm. “He’s going to be okay.”

  “I know.” His vision tunneled, and he blinked. “Call Josie to check in on him while we’re gone. When are the other guys flying out?”

  “John’s getting on stand-by, taking off in half an hour. He’ll have to fly to New York first then up to Alaska, catching a flight down from there. We’re taking Craig with us—”

  He opened his mouth to argue.

  “He’s the new guy. Been with us a short time, and he wasn’t in Belize with us so no one should recognize him. We take a chance, have our team with us…he’ll do. That gives us four on the ground right away.”

  “Yes.” His heart pounded. He hated feeling out of control. “Okay. Good plan.”

  “Thanks.” She grinned. “It was Craig’s.”

  “Good.” He lifted the duffel she’d dropped. “You ready for this?”

  “I think I’ve been getting ready for this without even knowing it, all summer.”

  Hawk’s eyes lit up. “Let’s go save our baby.”

  It was easier to put it into work terms, to let the fear take a back seat.

  Because giving in to that panic was just not an option any more.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The microchip was a tracking device. One his team would be able to use to locate them once they were on the ground. “Place one in the cup of your bra and then tuck one between the tongue of your shoe and the laces. The spot just at the bottom. Hopefully Cortez won’t strip us down, at least not right away.”

  She laughed nervously.

  “It’s going to be fine,” he responded to her, looking at her as he fastened his belt. The long flight across the continent and then th
e Pacific had put her on edge. He was partly to blame, with his long silences and his change into operation mode.

  “It might help if you talked. Anything. Say anything.”

  “If I needed to talk, I would. You know I love you, Stacy.” His gaze held hers. “But if I even think too long about anything besides how this operation is going to go down, panic sets in and all I can see is Cortez with his hands on my baby girl—” He broke off. “Please, don’t ask that of me right now. Flak, too,” he ordered, probably without thinking about it.

  “Your confidence is back.” She slowly pulled the heavier vest on over her tank-top before slipping her hands into the loose blouse that would go over top it.

  His vision had been bothering him when they left Raleigh. They’d both been exhausted and the nap on the plane had revived him. “It never left. We are going to do this. You and me. Just like Cortez wants. Only, do you know why we work? Stacy?”

  “Because this is what you train for?”

  “No. Because we have a team. We’re a unit, and we have a team at our back who supports us. Cortez can’t win.”

  God, he was incredibly attractive as a confident man. The fact that he was easy to look at only added to the weird—out of place—feelings of complete and utter desire that rushed through her. And she stared as he lifted his shirt to reveal rock hard abs and tucked a sidearm into the small of his back, before smoothing the shirt back down and looking up into her eyes. This could be why he ran the operations and she stayed in the offices all these years. Because he was big, mean, prepared, and she…she was going to screw it up.

  She swallowed.

  “Don’t do that. Don’t ever doubt yourself,” Hawk said to her, his brow scrunched over his intense eyes. “The man will go down, because he has no loyalties and no one he can trust. We saw that in Belize, and we’ll use it. Even his son wanted to kill him.”

  Hawk picked up his pack and slung it over his shoulder as the plane taxied to a stop. His biceps did that little bulgy thing. “We’re getting our baby back.”

  He lifted her pack and stood so she could get her arms through the straps. His fingers brushed her skin as she slid her arms in. Then he turned her, completely oblivious to how much she wanted him. “Don’t doubt us— Trust me.”

  “I do.”

  He frowned and shook his head. “Are you okay? You seem out of breath.”

  “I’m fine. I’m sorry. I’m just…distracted and nervous. Really nervous. And God, you’re hot. How inappropriate is that?”

  He didn’t need this right now. His wife panicking and so confused she didn’t know if she should curl up into a ball or just jump him right here.

  “That’s the adrenaline. Fight or flight. Panic or desire. At the end of the day, it leaves you shaking.” He paused to look at her. “I know you, Stacy.”

  “Oh, you have no idea,” she whispered, forcing herself to ignore being so close to him and wanting him like she hadn’t had him in weeks. She bent down to re-tie her shoes.

  “You’re strong and smart. You’ve had my back for twenty years. We’re going to kick ass together.”

  “Or get our asses kicked together.” Sarcasm. Good one, Stacy. “I’m sorry.”

  He grinned. “There’s no one I’d rather get my ass kicked with.”

  Nerves struck her stomach, and she took a breath—deep and cleansing. And in another weird instance, her arousal was gone and in its place was nausea…and stark fear. And her eyes filled with tears she had no control over as they coursed down her cheeks. She wiped, and breathed, and then he was holding her so tightly it was like they were literally going to become one. “I’m scared, too, babe,” he whispered. “But this is what we do. And we’re good at it. Me, you, the team.”

  He tipped her head back with a gentle hand at her chin. And then he kissed her, and she let the taste of his lips, the softness of his flesh against her mouth remind her of all they were together. “Okay,” she breathed. “Let’s do this.”

  ***

  Incredibly vulnerable, Hawk kept his eyes moving over the tarmac as they disembarked from the plane, looking for anything out of place, anything that screamed danger. “Stay behind me and stay close,” he spoke to her. And then glanced back at Craig who followed in his pilot garb. He assumed—always—that Cortez would be watching. With a nod, he hurried across the blacktop to the terminal. Stacy right behind. Craig bringing up the rear, watching her back.

  One of Julio’s men met them at the curb. The three of them got into the vehicle, an unassuming sedan. John sat in the front seat, and grinned when they were settled. “Welcome to Manila. I’ve got good news and bad news.”

  “Give me the good,” Hawk spoke sharply.

  “We found him. We found Moira. She’s being held at the old estate.”

  Relief poured through him, closed his throat as he sat back and took Stacy’s hand. “Thank God. Thank God. Okay. Jesus. Did you see her? How do you know?”

  “We had listings for every property Cortez owns. Only two weren’t being used—a building in the new warehouse district and the family home. I went out to the home with a few other men on Julio’s security team to the home. We went in just before dawn for a look around. We couldn’t get her out. Looked like they’d just made camp. It was busy, lots going on. The house itself is rundown, probably infested by rats and God knows what after all these years. The landscape has overrun most of the property. And that’s where the bad news comes in because one, it’s one road in and one road out.”

  “That’s good, though, right?” Stacy finally spoke up. “He knows we’re coming anyway, it’s him getting out that we should be worried about.”

  “That’s one way to look at it. The one way in and out will make it harder to get the team in unnoticed. Giving Cortez the illusion of security that you’ve come down here on your own for your girl. He’s got Moira in the living room with him and his men. Probably doesn’t want a repeat of ten years ago. He’s working with a small crew, for sure. Maybe five or six guys?”

  Next to him, Stacy blew out a breath.

  “We still have to call Cortez.”

  “He won’t do a trade-off, Hawk,” John spoke quickly. “You have to know that. It gets worse.”

  “Give us the other bad.”

  “Cortez has no intention of getting out of today alive.”

  The driver slowed as they reached Barba’s home. The gate creaked open slowly from the side and the car pulled into the crescent-shaped drive.

  Hawk turned on his seat and really looked at John now. “What do you mean?”

  “He’s got enough explosives to take out a small village. He’ll wipe out his home and take out a good bit of the warehouse district at the same time.”

  “Shit.” His hand went to his head where it rubbed through his graying hair. He was going to be bald, forget gray, if they didn’t really take care of him this time.

  The car stopped.

  Craig got out first and held a hand for her all the while skimming his phone with his thumb. “Jamie, Ranger, and Matt are flying in later today. They had a delay in their flight schedule.”

  Through the breezeway, Hawk entered Julio’s home for the second time this month, and Barba approached from his office, his arms widespread, followed quickly by his wife. Luciana went directly to Stacy, and they stepped into an embrace like it hadn’t been years since they’d seen each other. Luciana whispered into Stacy’s ear.

  Barba shook Hawk’s hand, holding on for that extra minute.

  “This time, it is I who would be honored to help you get your daughter back.”

  “I’ll take your help, with gratitude,” Hawk answered as he gave Barba a firm pat on the back. “I think it’s time to call Cortez, and let him know we are here. It’s time to set up a meet.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “There won’t be more than a few minutes when we’re alone with Cortez.” Hawk said again, as if he was the nervous one and needing some affirmation.

  “I know. The
guys have been creeping through the jungle for the past hour, making their way in. I get it. Now who’s doubting who?” she whispered, sounding snarky and not meaning it. “Just drive and get us there, please?”

  Hawk’s grin revealed how ready he was.

  “How’s the vision?”

  “Good again today.”

  She nodded. “Let me know if that changes.”

  “You know I will.” He drove the little rice burner down the deeply rutted road that lead to the main house. The house, which in ten years had become neighbor to the growing warehouse district, which had been key in finding Coretez’s holdings. As it so happened, his property wasn’t all that far from town anymore.

  She bounced one way on the seat, then braced herself against flailing into him in the next instant. “Jiminy. Slow down?” she asked rhetorically.

  They past a few outbuildings. Jamie reported in that they held old machinery—farming, mostly. About halfway to their destination, a car pulled out onto the road in front of them.

  “An escort,” Stacy whispered. The house came into view. “John was right. This place is a dump. Shame, too. Looks like it was once a nice home.”

  When the vehicle in front of them stopped, Hawk pulled up next to it and turned off his borrowed one.

  Her daughter was here somewhere. Stacy opened the door, got out, and slammed the door shut. She was more than ready for this. Hawk got out as well, and they both walked up to the house with the goon from their escort vehicle behind them.

  She slowed, testing the response, and was chilled by the feel of a barrel, pressed into her spine. “I guess we keep going,” she said. And her heart fell as four more of Cortez’s men preceded Cortez, himself, and approached them with guns raised.

  Cortez limped, favoring one side. Stacy’s heart stopped, her breath came out in a rush at the sight of the man she’d once known as Michael. He might have escaped the fire in Belize, but it had been by the skin of his teeth—literally. Her stomach rolled. The right side of his face was a raw, melted mess of flesh. He held his arm loose at his side, unmoving.