War Hawk: A Tucker Wayne Novel

by James Rollins

  Jane mumbled, “You’re not gonna get your deposit back on that boat.”

  At least her humor was still intact.

  “What now?” she asked.

  Tucker waited a full minute, but he saw no further sign of the Shrike. His ears strained for its telltale buzz, but all he heard was the gentle slap of waves on sand.

  Jane noted the same. “Has the Shrike left?”

  “It could be off searching the neighboring waters.” But another more disturbing possibility rose to mind. “Or maybe it’s completed its mission.”

  Jane glanced to him, wrinkling her brow.

  He explained. “Its primary purpose was likely to kill us, but failing that, maybe it had been instructed to drive us to ground here on the island and strand us.”

  He remembered how the Shrike had continued to fire into the wreckage of the beached boat, making sure the craft was completely disabled.

  “If you’re right,” Jane said, “then Lyon’s men must be close by, preparing a welcoming committee for us.”

  “Which means we need to move. While they might not know which cove we’d be stranded at, you can be sure they’re closing in here now.”

  A low growl sounded in his earpiece. Kane’s sharper senses must have detected something. Tucker could guess what that meant.

  “We’re about to have company,” he warned Jane, then subvocalized into his throat mike, ordering Kane back to their side.

  He helped Jane stand, but once on her feet, she weaved unsteadily. He had to grab her arm to keep her from falling.

  “Oh, God . . .” she said, then jackknifed in half and vomited into the shrubs. She stayed bent over for several breaths, wiped her lips, and straightened. “Sorry.”

  “At least you missed my boots,” he said, but he couldn’t keep his words light.

  Concern ached through him. She definitely had a concussion. With no way of telling how bad it was, he knew she shouldn’t be moved, but they couldn’t stay here. He scooped an arm around her waist and supported her. She didn’t refuse his help, which alone told him how sick she was feeling.

  In the distance, a new sound intruded—faint at first, then louder. It was the thumping of helicopter rotors. Tucker looked toward the beach. Through the foliage, blinking red-and-green lights headed toward the shoreline.

  “Too much to hope it’s a rescue party?” Jane said wryly.

  Kane slipped through the brush and joined them, panting lightly, his eyes bright in the darkness. Tucker patted the dog’s side, welcoming him back. Kane didn’t wag his tail, still on full alert. Under his palm, Tucker felt the tremble of tension in the dog’s flank muscles. After Kane’s near suffocation in the collapsed tunnel, Tucker feared he might be pushing the dog too far, too quickly.

  “Follow,” he whispered to Kane, but it was less an order than a plea.

  Even Kane heard this change in tone and gave him a small whisk of his tail, as if to say he was okay.

  That’s a good boy.

  With Jane under one arm, he set off deeper into the forest, driven by the growing thump of helicopter rotors. Ducking and weaving through the undergrowth, he headed inland until he had covered a hundred yards.

  “Let’s stop here,” he said, now all but carrying Jane.

  He lowered her down and dropped to a knee beside her. Half of her face was covered in blood, seeping from her head wound. His heart thudded in his chest. Kane pressed his body against Tucker’s thigh—both reassuring him and looking for the same in return.

  Tucker stroked the dog’s head while listening with an ear cocked.

  By now, the sound of the rotors had faded. Though unable to see the helicopter, he knew such aircraft well enough to tell from the sound of the engines that it must be hovering over the beach. He twisted in that direction. As he did so, the helicopter’s spotlight flared through breaks in the foliage. The onboard crew must be inspecting the runabout’s wreckage for bodies or signs of survivors. It wouldn’t take them long to discover the set of footprints and paw prints leaving the surf.

  As if cued by this thought, the spotlight slid sideways, toward where he and the others had entered the jungle.

  The engine began spooling down as the helicopter prepared to land. They’d be offloading a search team in moments. He had no doubt Lyon would be with that party. Back at the hotel, the former soldier had struck Tucker as a hands-on type of guy.

  He stared over at Jane. She had seen enough combat herself to recognize the same. “We have to keep moving,” she said.

  He nodded.

  But to where?

  Tucker got Jane back on her feet. He tried to recall the geography of Patos Island. The tallest and most thickly forested sections were to the northeast, so Tucker headed that way.

  As he set off, the helicopter’s engine whined down, and a voice shouted from the direction of the beach, echoing through the trees. There was no mistaking the harsh French accent.

  “. . . three teams . . . that way . . . head north . . .”

  Even if those teams were only two men each, that meant a minimum of six combatants. With those bad odds, they needed an advantage—and there was only one way to achieve that.

  Dread iced Tucker’s gut. He stopped and leaned Jane against a tree. As she rested there, he crouched before Kane and looked into those trusting eyes. It took all of Tucker’s effort to lift his arm and point west, away from their path.

  A string of orders flowed from his lips. “HIDE AND SEEK. MAKE NOISE. ELUDE AND COVER. SHADOW ATTACK BRAVO.”

  While these commands were simple enough by themselves, when they were strung together as an action plan, only a handful of dogs were smart enough to understand what was being asked of them. He was ordering Kane to play cat and mouse with the enemy, like the shepherd had done outside the cabins at Redstone. Only now, Tucker was also asking his partner to purposefully make noise and lure Lyon’s men away from Tucker and Jane’s trail, to risk his life for their sakes.

  Tucker leaned down, pressed his face against Kane’s snout, and kissed it. With guilt eating a hole in his heart, he whispered, “GO.”

  Kane follows the acrid note of burning oil that cuts through the forest, carried by the night breeze off the ocean. Other scents fill out his world in this strange new place: the rot of leaf under his paws as he runs, the decay of mold on the fallen trunk he vaults over, the bitter spoor under a nest in a tree.

  All is cast in salt by the sea.

  Even his own coat is brackish from his short swim.

  But he stays focused.

  As he nears the beach, a more familiar odor is carried on the stiffer gusts off the sea: sweat rising from skin, smoke on breath, unwashed clothes ripe with bodily stains. Obeying the first of his orders—HIDE AND SEEK—he circles that swell of scents. He notes his targets’ positions, listening to the cracking of twigs, the crush of undergrowth, the rip of cloth on thorn. Once satisfied, he shifts in the direction his partner had ordered, away from where he takes the woman.

  Only then does he reveal himself, following his next instruction.

  MAKE NOISE.

  Kane draws his chest full—and howls into the dark forest. As his challenge echoes through the trees, shouts rise behind him. Branches now break, boots smash through brush, even the pant of breath reaches his taut ears. The enemy closes upon him, but he is already gone, gliding farther into the forest, away from his partner.

  He barks again, to make sure the others keep on his trail.

  ELUDE AND COVER.

  Scents and sounds paint the world around him as vividly as anything his eyes reveal. He senses the enemy being dragged in his wake.

  He howls again as he runs, this time not to draw the others with him, but to call to his partner, to let him know he lives, but also to share one certain truth.

  I’m a good boy.

  “Is he going to be okay?” Jane asked, leaning heavily on Tucker, her boots half dragging beneath her.

  Tucker kept a firm grip around her waist. His own bre
ath had grown ragged by now, partly from the exertion, but also from the anxiety as he listened to Kane’s barks and yips.

  “Of course he’ll be okay,” he answered, but his words of reassurance were more for his own benefit than for Jane’s.

  Occasional shouts echoed through the forest as Lyon’s hunters pursued the shepherd’s trail. The task he had given Kane was a daunting one, a challenge that would tax even Kane’s substantial experience. While over the years his partner had proven adept at this game of cat and mouse, this night there were too many cats in the field, all intent on killing them.

  Still, Tucker trudged on, intending to use every second that Kane bought them to get Jane somewhere safe. He continued northeast, while Kane drew Lyon’s men to the west. The jungle thickened around him, and the grade steepened as they neared a low hill of broken cliffs that rose on this end of the island.

  As he plodded along with Jane, Tucker kept one ear on Kane’s progress and the other listening intently for any sign of pursuit on their trail. Lyon was not one to be easily fooled. After a time, the soldier would come to realize—if he didn’t already—that a skilled dog like Kane would not give away his position so readily.

  Knowing that, Tucker did his best to mask their trail, carefully placing one foot after another. Kane barked sporadically, sounding farther and farther away, changing pitch and direction, drawing his pursuers first one way, then another. Tucker desperately wanted to look at his phone’s screen and check on his partner, but it was all he could do to stay upright on his burning legs.

  “There,” Jane gasped in his ear.

  He pulled his attention forward, to where Jane pointed.

  “Is that a cave?” she asked.

  Through a break in the canopy, moonlight shone down on a section of cliff to his right. At the base was a jumble of moss-encrusted boulders, but in the shadow of that nest was a darker patch in the rock face.

  “Maybe,” he said, and marched them closer.

  Lowering Jane to sit, he took out his penlight, blinked it once, and inspected the opening. The space was less a cave than an alcove, barely enough to hold one person.

  Jane noted the same. “I can fit in there.”

  “Janie . . .”

  Her eyes glowed back at him. “Cover the entrance, then go find Kane. He can’t do this alone. I’ll be fine.”

  As if to prove this, she wriggled into the narrow space and pulled in her knees. “See? Snug as a bug.”

  The blast of a rifle in the distance was far more convincing than her assurances. He searched over his shoulder as more gunfire erupted.

  Kane . . .

  Kane’s ears ring with the chatter of gunfire, stripping him of one of his senses. His world is smaller now, edged by panic.

  He ducks his head low as he runs, pivoting off one hind leg, then the other.

  A moment ago, he had failed to note a squat shape lying in ambush under a tangle of deadfall. The moldering mound of fallen trees and branches, redolent with rot and fungus, had masked the hunter’s odor—until it was too late. Once close enough, Kane had caught the barest whiff of a familiar scent, one he recognized from days ago.

  From back in the swamps, in the building of rust and concrete dust.

  It was the same hunter as before.

  With this brief warning, Kane had dodged at the last moment. Still, the round had glanced across the flank of his thick vest, bruising his ribs.

  He ignores the pain and keeps running.

  Gunfire chases him deeper into the forest.

  Only after it dies down does Kane slow. He circles back around. His hearing slowly returns, filling in the blank spaces of his world. But he leans on a keener sense. He has latched on to the scent of the hidden hunter—and once captured, it is his.

  He follows it around to come quietly upon the deadfall from behind.

  While he could have continued to flee—which he wanted the other to believe he had—Kane’s last order burned brightly behind his eyes.

  SHADOW ATTACK BRAVO.

  He reaches the hunter’s hiding spot in time to hear the man crawl free. The crackle of a radio marks his position. The man’s voice hardens with command as he stands. Kane skulks forward enough to see him point toward where his partner and the woman had retreated.

  Kane does not understand the man’s words, but the threat is plain in his voice. Fury burns brightly in Kane’s chest. As the man turns away, he reads the anger in the other’s scowl, a ferocity that matches his own.

  Kane knows the hunter now suspects the true intent of the game here.

  Before the man can head off in that direction, Kane lunges out of the shadows behind the man. He moves silently, not even offering a growl of challenge. Instead, he snaps at the tender flesh below the other’s knee. Fangs sink deep. A toss of his head rips flesh and throws the man down.

  But this is no ordinary prey.

  The man makes no sound of surprise or complaint. A knife flashes, whisking past the tip of Kane’s ears. Kane rolls away from that threat, bunches his hind legs, and bolts back into the forest.

  He runs again as a spatter of rounds rip leaves and shatters branches overhead.

  He keeps going, knowing the hunter, wounded and angry, would send others after him. Maybe not all, but enough to help his partner.

  Crouched at the entrance to the small cave, Tucker listened as the fresh spate of gunfire died away. Jane must have read his concern.

  “Go,” she said, shifting deeper into the tiny space. “That’s an order, soldier.”

  Tucker nodded, knowing she was right. In her state, Jane could not travel much farther. This spot was likely the best place for her to hole up, while he and Kane kept attention away from her.

  He began gathering palm fronds to hide the cave entrance. “Try not to fall asleep,” he warned her as he began covering the opening, fearful that her concussion could worsen.

  “Fall asleep?” she offered him a weak smile. “Not a chance in hell.”

  Good.

  As he leaned down to place the last frond, Jane abruptly reached up, cupped his cheek, and drew him closer. “One last order, soldier.” She kissed him on the lips, lingering for a moment, then settled back, her eyes aglow. “Come back.”

  “Abandon you on this desolate rock? Not a chance in hell.”

  Another spatter of gunfire erupted behind him.

  Jane waved him away. “Get moving. Your partner needs you.”

  Tucker obeyed. He freed his SIG Sauer from its shoulder holster and started making his way back down the forested slope. He moved swiftly at first, aiming west, toward where Kane had been engaging the enemy. His heart pounded in his throat. After that last round of gunfire, Kane had gone silent. With each step, Tucker’s dread grew.

  Had Kane been shot?

  He had to stamp down that fear and keep moving, which soon became harder. As Tucker neared the western reaches of the island, he entered the search grid of his pursuers. It was now his turn to play hide-and-seek. To continue, he stuck to the deepest shadows and placed each boot down with great care. Through the forest, the sounds of the hunters grew all around him: the squelch of radios, murmured voices, the faint crunch of footfalls.

  “This way,” a voice whispered on his right, sounding only yards away.

  Tucker dropped flat, rolled under the low branches of a thorny bush, and lay perfectly still.

  The boots of a soldier in combat gear passed within a foot of his nose.

  Another followed behind him.

  Tucker held his breath.

  The first man leaned his cheek to a shoulder radio. “Sector Delta clear.”

  As the pair moved on, Tucker slowly let out the trapped air in his lungs. He gained his feet and set off, angling away from the soldiers’ trail. Two more times, he had to quickly hide, but eventually the sounds of Lyon’s search parties fell behind him, growing fainter.

  Still, there was no further sign of Kane: no barking, no growls of attack.

  Where are you,
buddy?

  Tucker forged on for another ten minutes, moving at a glacial pace when all he wanted to do was rush to his partner’s side. After hearing no sign of Lyon’s men for several minutes, Tucker risked breaking radio silence. He tapped the small microphone taped to his throat and subvocalized a single quiet word.

  “KANE.”

  The shepherd had been trained only to respond if doing so wouldn’t endanger his position. Tucker pushed the radio earpiece more firmly in place, but he still heard only silence.

  “KANE,” he tried again.

  Then a faint growl tickled his ear.

  Tucker closed his eyes, relieved but still fearful. For Kane to have responded, the dog must be hiding somewhere safe at the moment. Tucker intended to make sure he remained that way.

  “STAY IN COVER.”

  Tucker pulled up the map on his satellite phone and pinpointed the pulsing green dot that marked the GPS transmitter built into Kane’s vest. He started moving in that direction. His gaze alternated between his screen and the terrain before him. As he drew closer, his pace grew faster, anxious to reach Kane’s side.

  Almost there, buddy.

  Distracted, he stepped around the bole of a palm and found a soldier blocking his path. The man seemed equally surprised to see Tucker pop out of the shadows. Unlucky for Tucker, the man’s assault rifle was casually pointed in his direction. The muzzle of the rifle flicked toward Tucker’s chest. As the soldier fired, Tucker twisted sideways. A trio of rounds spat past his rib cage. Tucker lifted his pistol—but before he could fire, the man suddenly came tumbling forward with a gasp of surprise, sprawling facedown.

  Kane bowled over the body and clamped his powerful jaws on the man’s forearm. The assault rifle clattered to the side. But the soldier rolled, hooked a leg around Kane’s body, and threw the dog down hard.

  Tucker charged forward with his pistol raised, but he refrained from firing, fearful of hitting Kane as the two wrestled. The soldier’s free arm rose. Moonlight glinted off a knife blade. It seemed to hover there—then plunged into the dog’s body.