R Patterson - The Shadow Hunter

Hawk had lost track of some of the men. But one man looked very familiar. Hawk gasped as he double-checked the man’s face. Despite the darkness, Doug Mitchell’s neck tattoo was too distinct.

That’s him all right. What the hell is he doing out here trying to kill us?

Hawk couldn’t believe Mitchell would betray his country like he was. Throwing all caution to the wind, Hawk shouted into the night air.

“Mitchell, what are you doing?” Hawk asked. “We’re on the same side.”

Mitchell didn’t respond with words, just his weapon. He fired a pair of shots toward Hawk’s general vicinity.

Hawk prepared to fire when he heard gunshots coming from the direction of the boulder where the rest of the team had been hiding. For a moment, Hawk thought maybe either Wilson or Finch was still alive. But when he focused in on that direction, he saw Jackson collapse near the other two bodies.

Hawk cursed as he realized the implications of what had just happened.

Now the odds are worse — four to one.

Hawk peered through his binoculars and saw one man still struggling from the aftermath of the grenade. He fired at the man, a bullet striking him in the chest.

Getting better — three to one.

As Hawk was trying to figure out a way to reduce the odds even further, he heard a vehicle engine roaring toward their position. The men began to scatter deeper into the woods as headlights swept across the trees.

Hawk glanced at the three SEALs all lying within a few feet of one another. With the vehicle still rumbling toward their direction but close enough to make visual contact, Hawk sprinted toward the bodies to snag their gear. Without it, he had no chance of survival, let alone sabotaging the weapons.

Hawk dove down and worked frantically to pull the essential items from their ruck sacks and combined them into one pack. However, as he was going through a second bag, he felt a shot rip through his shoulder.

“See ya round, Hawk,” a man shouted.

Hawk recognized Mitchell’s voice.

That was the last thing Hawk heard before he blacked out.

Bridger, Montana

VIKTOR KOMAROV HONED in on Alex Hawk’s position. He watched as she held her son in her lap and read him a story. She smiled as she turned the pages, her face full of expressions even though the boy was fixated on the pictures inside.

Viktor had readily volunteered for this dangerous mission, though he thought it sounded rather simple. While he specialized in assassinations, he didn’t care for them as much as some of Andrei Orlovsky’s other men. However, this mission was personal.

Komarov moved quickly across the mountainside, scrambling over boulders and gliding across fallen trees spanning cold water creeks. The most recent snow had been a few days ago, but a recent stretch of sunshine had melted most everything but the places shrouded by heavy shadows. He was careful to avoid muddy or snowy patches so he wouldn’t leave behind any trace of his presence there.

Komarov noticed a pair of guards patrolling the perimeter of the home. He’d seen two other men near the gate leading up to the property, but they were easy to slip past in a wide open landscape. However, the two men lurking along the porch, one in the front and the other in the back, created a challenge.

An owl hooted overhead in a pine tree near the edge of the fence where a pair of horses galloped in circles. Viktor remained calm and assessed how he would kill the woman. He hadn’t decided if he was going to kill the boy. Letting him grow up without a mother was cruel, something he knew firsthand when he lost his mom during a mafia hit in the marketplace that went south.

Now, Komarov had lost a brother at the hands of a U.S. operative named Brady Hawk. The American had somehow thrown his brother off the side of a cliff. He was the last living relative Komarov had. He’d endured unimaginable pain in his life, but his brother Dima had helped him get through all the suffering, there when nobody else was. But there was nobody to help Viktor get past the death of Dima. Viktor felt abandoned in the world and he couldn’t suppress his rage any longer.

Since the death of his mother, Viktor had exacted revenge on every loved one who’d been killed, either violently or senselessly. He was going to make sure Brady Hawk would feel the pain in the deepest of ways.

Viktor focused his binoculars on Alex still sitting with her son. For a moment, Viktor contemplated how traumatic it would be for the little boy to be cuddled up with his mother reading a book only to have her head explode all over him. While Viktor smiled at the thought, he resisted the urge.

No, this has to be more personal.

He smiled again as he moved closer toward the house.

Sonbong, North Korea

HAWK OPENED HIS EYES, trying to focus as his head bounced in rhythm with the bumps in the road. The low hum of tires beneath him clued him in that he was riding in the bed of a military transport truck. As he moved, he winced from the pain in his shoulder, which was still bleeding. He scanned the back and didn’t see any soldiers. Instead, there was just a mass of tangled bodies, arms and feet intertwined.

Hawk sucked a breath through his teeth as he freed himself from the weight of the other soldiers. He reached out and closed Wilson’s eyes, his blank stare haunting Hawk. The three brave SEALs who’d volunteered for the mission were all dead, and Hawk wanted to know how it had happened. The leak had to happen somewhere between the time the Magnum office received his call for help and the SEALs unit stationed in the Pacific was contacted. And it angered Hawk. Three patriots died needlessly because of a mole. But what made Hawk angrier was the fact that Doug Mitchell, more commonly known as the Reaper, had led such a mission against his own countrymen.

However, Hawk didn’t have time to ponder that at the moment. He had a nuclear warhead to sabotage.

Hawk groped around until he found the ruck sack he’d been stuffing before the Reaper took him out with a shoulder shot. Inside, Hawk found all the tools he needed to wreak havoc on Kim Yong-ju’s plans to strike America, including a device designed by Dr. Z with his trademarked logo on it. Hawk smiled as he pocketed the gadget, looking forward to talking with Dr. Z more upon returning to the U.S.

Once Hawk strapped the pack onto his back, he crawled near the edge of the bed and waited for the truck to slow down. After a minute, the driver hit the brakes for a sharp curve. When he did, Hawk seized his chance to bail out. He rolled over the side, staggering to avoid falling on his shoulder. He hustled over into the bushes off the side of the road and dressed his wound.

Once he was finished, Hawk used the phone in his pack to let the Magnum office know what had happened. After he left a message filling them in, he stayed in the shadows as he headed back toward the Sonbong docks. He walked for a half-hour before he found the shore line. The rest of the trip back toward the military harbor was uneventful with the exception of a few sweeping headlights that sent him rushing toward the nearest clump of bushes or trees to hide. But the vehicles came and passed without incident.

When Hawk reached the docks, he found a place where he could change into the North Korean uniform he’d stolen earlier. Tugging his hat low across his forehead, Hawk marched down to the docks, nodding at the guard as he confidently strode toward him. The guard acknowledged Hawk with a slight head bob and swung open the gate.

Hawk entered the secure area and began his search for the warheads. As far as he knew, there were only two warheads with nuclear capability. His job was relatively simple—permanently disarm them.