R Patterson - The Shadow Hunter

“Have you seen photos from the scene?”

“We got a few this morning,” Mallory said. “Common courtesy since Edgefield had worked in the intelligence community for a while before moving to the State Department.”

“And?”

“Very professional job. It’s just how I would’ve staged the house if I wanted to sell the idea that someone committed suicide instead of being murdered.”

“So where do you go from here?”

“I’m not sure right now. We’re going to search his office and home and see if there’s anything we can find to link him to his contact, but I’m not hopeful.”

“Understandably so,” Morgan said. “I think it’s pretty clear that somebody didn’t want Edgefield talking.”

“Or us to be able to trace anything back to them, which makes me that much more curious.”

“I always start by asking who would’ve benefitted the most from the information going public. And I can’t help but think it’s someone with ties to Joseph Parker’s campaign.”

“You and I think a lot alike,” Mallory said.

“Well, let us know if we can be of any assistance,” Morgan said before ending the call.

Morgan stared out the window, deep in thought about any other way they could make the connection between Edgefield and his handlers. But while the mystery perplexed her, she had more pressing matters, starting with what Hawk was thinking by helping out Tyson on a Russian operation.

No matter what reason Hawk had, she didn’t like it one bit.

Central Siberia

THE SECOND BUMP from behind nearly knocked Hawk and Tyson off the road completely. Hawk held tightly to the handle over his window as Tyson handled the wheel as best as he possibly could under the circumstances. The patches of ice across the road created challenging conditions, causing the car to fishtail. But despite the vehicle absorbing a pair of jarring hits on the bumper, Tyson maintained control.

However, the third hit sent them into a spin.

Hawk tried to focus his vision on objects outside the car so he wouldn’t get dizzy. In the moment, he wondered if they would ever stop. Mountains, road, barren plains, road, mountains, barren plains. The cycle felt like it repeatedly endlessly.

In actuality, the spinning probably lasted no more than fifteen seconds, but that was far more time than Hawk liked to surrender command of anything in his life.

Tyson let out what amounted to a drawn out expletive during the entire episode. When the car finally came to a stop, both men exhaled before scanning the horizon. The other car wasn’t anywhere in front of them.

Hawk glanced over his shoulder to see the car roaring toward them.

“You’ve gotta move,” he said.

Tyson stepped on the accelerator, but the wheels struggled to catch on the slick surface. And by the time they did, it was too late.

The other car clipped their tail end, resulting in a violent rollover. Hawk counted four flips before the car landed upright but about twenty meters off the road. Hawk unbuckled when he heard the other engine revving up.

“They’re coming to finish us off,” Hawk said. “We’ve gotta get out of here.”

Tyson grabbed the small package from the backseat before scrambling outside. Just as both men got clear of the car, the SUV drilled Tyson’s vehicle, the thick grill rendering the car inoperable.

Hawk and Tyson darted across the roadway, taking cover behind a snow bank that ran parallel to the highway. The SUV backed up slowly before pulling onto the side. Two men got out, both wielding weapons. One rushed over to inspect the damage, while the other scanned the horizon for Hawk and Tyson.

“I don’t think he sees us,” Hawk said, ducking down behind the snow.

“If he does, he’s doing an incredible job of bluffing,” Tyson said. “So you got a plan?”

“I like to keep it simple,” Hawk said.

“Let’s hear it.”

“We kill those two goons, take their vehicle, and finish the mission.”

“That’s my kind of plan,” Tyson said.

“Let’s do it.”

Hawk peeked back up over the bank. His sudden movement must’ve caught the eye of one of the men, who squeezed off a pair of shots before Hawk retreated to cover.

“So much for the element of surprise,” Tyson said.

“I won’t concede that just yet,” Hawk said.

“You got a way to make us invisible?”

Hawk grinned. “Not quite, but what I’ve got in mind is a close second.”

Then Hawk suggested they move in opposite directions while hiding behind the snowbank, splitting up to make it more difficult for the men.

“I like it,” Tyson said. “And when we get back together, you swear to tell me who these guys are?”

“Of course,” Hawk said. “And it’s not a secret I want to keep from you.”

“Well, I guess we’d both better survive, hadn’t we?”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Hawk said.

The two darted along the snowbank, Hawk moving south and Tyson going north. After they were separated by at least sixty meters, Hawk settled into a spot and decided to search for the men. Upon his first scan of the area, he didn’t see anyone.

Where’d they go?

Without any of his gear, Hawk was flying blind. No Alex to talk him through the situation. No coms to even discuss with Tyson the best plan of action. Winning this gunfight came down to instincts.

The wind whipped across the valley, pelting Hawk with icy granules. The snow that had fallen at the beginning of the season had long since frozen, Mother Nature converting each flake into a hard object. Together they felt like a thousand tiny knives on Hawk’s face.

Ducking back below the snowbank for a respite, Hawk considered where Orlovsky’s men could be. And the locations were limited—in the car, behind the car, hiding behind the other snowbank, or face down in the snow bleeding out.

The last option was little more than wishful thinking for Hawk. He didn’t have any sense that he’d struck either of the men. And though it wasn’t entirely out of the possibility, he usually knew when he’d killed or wounded an attacker.

However, Hawk wasn’t interested in letting the fight come to him. He heard a car humming along the highway in his direction and decided to use the car as a cover to move over to the other snowbank. The possibility existed that they could box in Orlovsky’s men with Tyson on one side and Hawk on the other. As long as Tyson stayed put, it was an option. But Hawk had to find the men and get them out onto the roadway first. And at the moment, that was proving to be a challenging task.

Hawk crouched low before falling onto his arms and knees, crawling along the ground. After just a few seconds, the coldness from the snow numbed Hawk’s forearms and elbows. That’s when he noticed some movement in front of him.

One of the other men growled something in Russian and then darted around the back of a rotten tree that had tipped over, its fallen branches serving as a blind for the two men. Hawk froze and moved backward, fully aware that if he continued moving, he would be dead in a matter of seconds once they spotted him. He would’ve been helpless, completely exposed.

Hawk took shelter behind some brush and tried to get a better look. One of the men was on his cell phone, shouting at the person on the line.

If you hold still for a minute …

Hawk steadied his weapon and took aim. He squeezed off two quick shots, cutting the phone conversation short. The man disappeared from Hawk’s view. The yelling stopped too, replaced instead by groans of anguish.

As the minutes ticked by, Hawk grew more restless. He hadn’t heard Tyson shoot but neither had Hawk seen another one of Orlovsky’s men. The wind continued to beat Hawk, making him desperate to get out of the cold and find shelter. No matter how much danger lurked down the snowbank, he’d still freeze to death without a place to shield him from the cold and wind. His toes had become numb, his arms never warming after crawling through the snow.