“Get closer before you stop,” Hawk instructed.
Black complied and halted their vehicle at an angle, positioning in between the office and the jet. There wasn’t a straight shot between them. If she was going to get to the plane, she was going to have to shoot her way through or run around. And Hawk was convinced they could handle either scenario. But there was something he wasn’t counting on.
When Hawk stepped out of the car, he was surprised to hear the engines already whirring. He snapped a glance over his shoulder and noticed a man standing just inside the doorway at the top of the steps.
Hawk immediately ducked back inside as a bullet pinged off the car.
“What’s the situation?” Black asked as he ducked low.
“It’s Fortner. He’s already on the plane, and it’s ready to leave.”
“Damn it. We’ve put ourselves in a kill box.”
“I know,” Hawk said. “Why don’t you back up a little bit and then you can drive slowly toward the office so I can utilize the car as a cover?”
“Sounds like a plan.”
Black threw the car in reverse but kept his head low. Fortner fired two more shots at their vehicle but didn’t hit the glass, instead attempting to flatten a tire. Once Black started moving forward again, Hawk slipped outside and walked alongside the car, keeping his head down. After a minute, Black had slowly maneuvered close to the office at an angle that would be more difficult for Fortner to get a clear shot.
Hawk rushed up to the door and kicked it before jumping back. He peered around the corner and noticed it was empty. However, there was a door at the back that was still moving, obviously having just swung open.
Hawk crept back toward the hangar’s open space, staying low and using several pallets stacked with supplies and airplane parts as shields.
“Madam First Lady, it doesn’t have to end like this,” Hawk said. “I’m sure we can work something out for you.”
“End like what?” she said from the far corner. “You think you’ve got me cornered? What are you gonna do? Shoot me?”
Hawk shrugged. “Well, since you’re technically already dead, I’m not sure it’d make much of a difference what I did to you now.”
“Why don’t you disappear now before you’re tortured to death?”
“Tortured? Who’s going to be torturing me?”
“You don’t know these people and what they can do.”
“Tell me about them,” Hawk said.
He poked his head around the corner of the pallet to see if he could get a better look at where she was. There were workstations and pallets and other aircraft strewn across the open space. He wanted to grab her but couldn’t determine a clear path.
When he looked over the top, she fired a bullet at him. Instinctively, he fired back. But instead of burying a shot in her or the building’s aluminum siding, he hit a barrel of jet fuel, setting off a big explosion. The heat was so intense that he had to shield his eyes just to see where she was. But it was like she’d vanished.
Hawk was still scanning the hangar for her when Black shouted.
“Over here, Hawk!”
Hawk spun around to see Black on the passenger side of his car, exchanging gunfire with Fortner and Madeline.
What the hell?
Hawk raced over to Black and slid down next to him.
“She came out around the back while you were still talking to her,” Black said. “I didn’t see her until it was too late. Fortner was laying down cover for her and she came racing around the back side of the building and only had to make it about twenty yards from this angle we have here.”
Hawk eased onto his knees to take aim but stopped when he saw Fortner and Madeline working frantically to shut the door.
“They’re leaving,” Hawk said. “You still got that rifle in the trunk?”
“It’s not put together.”
“Just give it to me,” Hawk said. “We don’t have much time.”
Black popped the trunk and snatched the rifle case out of it. He slid it back over to Hawk, who went to work assembling the weapon. Meanwhile, the sound emanating from the engines of the Gulfstream G600 intensified as the jet started to move away from them and toward the runway.
“Come on, come on,” Black said. “They’re speeding away.”
“We’ve got time,” Hawk said. “They have to come back by this way.”
“You’ve got a lot of confidence, the kind I’d only have if I was holding an RPG on my shoulder.”
Hawk chuckled. “Been there, done that. I guess I needed a new challenge this time.”
“So, how exactly is this going to work? Are you going to shoot Fortner through the cockpit glass?”
“Hardly. I’ll get maybe two shots to take at the wheels before it won’t matter and they’ll be going fast enough to get airborne.”
“You’re going to give the plane a flat tire to keep it grounded?”
“That’s the best I could come up with on such short notice,” Hawk said.
Hawk got into a prone positioned and eyed the plane. “I hope you got this scoped in recently?”
“I was at the range last week,” Black said. “But no guarantees.”
“I guess I’ll have to make do.”
The Gulfstream G600 reached the end of the runway and turned around to begin takeoff. In the distance, the engines roared before the jet lurched forward and sped along the ground. The wheels turned faster as the plane moved closer to Hawk’s range.
“Here’s goes nothing,” he said as he squeezed the trigger. The plane kept charging forward.
“You missed,” Black said.
“I’ve got time for one more shot,” Hawk said. He adjusted his scope and took aim.
He exhaled and fired.
This time the bullet struck the front wheel, ripping through the rubber, and shredded the tire. The plane wavered for a moment as Fortner pulled back on the stick to get airborne. However, the airspeed wasn’t high enough and the jet dipped to the ground.
Fortner forged ahead even as the front wheel disintegrated and consisted only of a rim slinging sparks in every direction. When Fortner pulled back on the stick again, gravity wasn’t as kind, slamming the plane to the runway. Instead of continuing to roll along, the nose lurched forward as the Gulfstream skidded off the asphalt. Seconds later, the plane burst into flames. Plumes of black smoke were sent skyward, setting off a series of alarms.
“So much for handling this quietly,” Black said.
“Let’s get out of here,” Hawk said. “We don’t need our cover blown when the media circus arrives.”
CHAPTER 33
BLUNT CRACKED HIS KNUCKLES as he scanned the front page of The Washington Post. The headlines blared the news about the shocking attack on the White House and the death of the first lady. Editorials opined about the loss of innocence yet again in America and how the nation as a whole had grown comfortable and let down its guard. Blunt was mildly amused at the tight line some of the president’s harshest critics walked, writing how the leader of the free world must be more vigilant for the country’s sake yet softening their bitter rhetoric out of respect for the wildly popular first lady.
“How is the president’s press secretary spinning that fiasco?” Hawk asked as he walked into the room with Alex and Black.
“He’s not,” Blunt said as he folded up the paper and tucked it beneath a pile of documents. “Though he’d probably blame us if Young was allowed to acknowledge that we existed.”
“You warned him, didn’t you?” Alex asked.
Blunt nodded. “He didn’t want to believe it at first, but by the time I left, I think his denial had subsided. There was too much smoke for there not to be any fire.”
Black shook his head. “What happened after we left Potomac Airfield?”
“Randy Wood sent in a special team to work with the FBI,” Blunt said. “The strange thing is they only found one body, and it belonged to General Fortner.”
“What’s the official pos
ition on what happened last night?” Hawk asked. “I’m sure any reporter worth his weight in salt will put two and two together after the bombing and the shady FBI dealings.”
“I already thought of that, which is why I gave Camille Youngblood a story about the airplane crash, one that FBI sources verified for her,” Blunt said as he reopened his paper. He pointed to an article on the back page of the metro section and slid it across the table to Hawk.
Hawk read the headline aloud. “DEA takes down Columbian drug lord trying to flee U.S.”
Alex’s eyes widened. “What?”
Hawk read the article for everyone, which detailed how well-known kingpin Hector Diaz was planning on leaving the U.S. with more than seventy-five million in cash in an airplane he’d stolen from Chile. But federal agents caught him as he tried to leave and shot his airplane, resulting in a catastrophe at the end of the Potomac Airfield runway.
“And Camille just ran with it?” Alex asked.
Blunt nodded and tried to suppress a smile. “It was a win-win situation for the bureau. They needed a plausible excuse for the response to the incident at the airport. And they also needed to explain to the Colombian consulate why Diaz was dead and wouldn’t be returning to his homeland. Some agent got a little trigger happy and shot Diaz in the face. A body incinerated in a fire created by jet fuel makes it difficult to assess the cause of death.”
“So Madeline Young is still out there?” Black asked.
“Apparently so,” Blunt said. “She’s been to survival training school and is sufficiently skilled to get out of the country, but she’ll need help if she’s going to stay hidden. If she resurfaces, that’d be a disaster and a black eye on the face of every federal law enforcement agency.”
Black sighed. “What are we gonna do about it?”
“Nothing right now,” Blunt said. “We’ve got other issues to attend to.”
“You think Young is going to let us pursue anything else but her when he finds out that she’s on the lam?” Alex asked.
“I’ll deal with him when that time comes,” Blunt said. “He’s stable but still in intensive care after nearly dying from smoke inhalation.”
“Big Earv is gonna get a medal of honor for saving the president, isn’t he?” Hawk asked.
Blunt smiled big and nodded. “Of course he is. And deservedly so in my opinion. That guy is a national treasure in my book.”
“So, what next?” Hawk asked. “With no Fortner, we’re only left with a name—Falcon Sinclair.”
“By the time Alex gets done picking through his dirty laundry, Sinclair is going to wish he was never born,” Blunt said as he trimmed the end of his cigar. “We might even use Camille Youngblood to turn the screws on him.”
“Whatever it takes,” Alex said.
Blunt chewed on his cigar and stared out the window. “Littleton and Joseph may yet provide us with plenty of information, the kind that can help us get a step ahead and be proactive as opposed to a step behind and very reactive.”
Blunt’s phone buzzed, arresting his attention. He swiped on the screen and read the text message, furrowing his brow as he did.
“What is it?” Alex asked.
“It’s from Randy Wood. He said President Young is stable and alert,” he said.
Hawk eyed Blunt closely. “That’s all it said?”
“No, he asked Wood to pass along a message, requesting that we track down Evana Bahar and bring her to justice.”
Black cocked his head to one side. “Evana Bahar? She’s not even responsible for this. This feels like 9/11 all over again.”
“Is he wrong for wanting that terrorist strung up?” Blunt asked.
Nobody said a word as an awkward silence fell over the room.
“It doesn’t matter,” Blunt said. “She deserves justice as well. And in the meantime, we can hunt down Sinclair.”
“What about Madeline Young?” Alex asked. “Are we just going to let her go free? Two people are dead because of her.”
Blunt sighed. “If she becomes a problem, we will. But in the meantime, let’s focus on the realized threats instead of the potential ones.”
Alex’s mouth gaped. “Doesn’t the president deserve to know that his wife was a traitor?”
Blunt shrugged. “The real question is this: Would he want to know the truth? I’ve experienced all levels of betrayal, and trust me when I say this, sometimes it’s just better to think a person is dead.”
Blunt dismissed the team, leaving him alone in the conference room with just his thoughts. He paced around the room and considered where his team would go from here. Then he glanced at his phone, which buzzed with another text message, this time from a number he didn’t recognize.
He opened the text and dropped the phone almost immediately. It was an image of his niece bound to a chair and screaming for the man with a knife to stop.
“If you’d be so kind to call me back,” the note read. “We need you to do us a favor.”
Blunt slung his phone against the wall and let out a string of expletives. Obsidian was going to go down in flames, even if it was the last thing he did.
THE END
To keep reading in the Brady Hawk series, order the next book DIVIDE AND CONQUER here.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am grateful to so many people who have helped with the creation of this project and the entire Brady Hawk series.
Krystal Wade was a big help in editing this book as always.
I would also like to thank my advance reader team for all their input in improving this book along with all the other readers who have enthusiastically embraced the story of Brady Hawk. Stay tuned ... there's more Brady Hawk coming soon.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
R.J. PATTERSON is an award-winning writer living in southeastern Idaho. He first began his illustrious writing career as a sports journalist, recording his exploits on the soccer fields in England as a young boy. Then when his father told him that people would pay him to watch sports if he would write about what he saw, he went all in. He landed his first writing job at age 15 as a sports writer for a daily newspaper in Orangeburg, S.C. He later attended earned a degree in newspaper journalism from the University of Georgia, where he took a job covering high school sports for the award-winning Athens Banner-Herald and Daily News.
He later became the sports editor of The Valdosta Daily Times before working in the magazine world as an editor and freelance journalist. He has won numerous writing awards, including a national award for his investigative reporting on a sordid tale surrounding an NCAA investigation over the University of Georgia football program.
R.J. enjoys the great outdoors of the Northwest while living there with his wife and four children. He still follows sports closely.
He also loves connecting with readers and would love to hear from you. To stay updated about future projects, connect with him over Facebook or on the interwebs at www.RJPbooks.com and sign up here for his newsletter to get deals and updates.
A Deadly Force
© Copyright 2019 R.J. Patterson
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law.
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
First eBook Edition 2019
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Published in the United States of America
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Table of Contents
What Others are Saying about R.J. Patterson
Other titles by R.J. Patterson
Dedication
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
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Acknowledgments
Newsletter
About the Author
Copyright Information
Brady Hawk 18 - A Deadly Force Page 17
