“And what kind of cause was that?”
“The kind of cause I’m going to go retrieve all that money for right now.”
“If you keep giving me these evasive answers, I’m going to come through this phone and choke you.”
Hawk’s tone turned serious. “It was for Courtney Moxie.”
“I thought I already told you no.”
“She claimed that her boyfriend was being held for a five million dollar ransom, but she could get him back without any money if she simply delivered me to Al Hasib.”
“And you believed her?”
Hawk nodded even though Blunt couldn’t see. “I did. I know, I know—foolish Brady. You’d think I’d have learned my lesson by now.”
Hawk heard Blunt puffing on a cigar, creating a slight delay in his response.
“So, was the extra three million a tip?”
“No, it was her demand. You know she’s always been an opportunistic one.”
“Don’t I know it all too well,” Blunt said mournfully.
“I’m going to get it back though.”
“Are you? And how do you expect to do that?”
“I’m working on a plan. I just haven’t had much time to think about it lately.”
“Did you get the flash drive?”
“It wasn’t easy, but it’s in my possession right now.”
“At least you didn’t screw up the entire operation.”
A ghost of a smile appeared on Hawk’s face. “I do what I can, sir.”
“Well, it’s all water under the bridge now—except for my eight million dollars. After you’re through with Moxie, you and Alex need to meet me in Zurich. We have many plans to discuss.”
“Such as?”
“Just meet me in Zurich, and we’ll talk about it all then. I’ll send Alex the details about our rendezvous there.”
“We have to meet in Zurich? I thought that was off limits for you.”
“It’s not the safest place for me to be, but sometimes things like this can’t be helped.”
“What kind of things are you talking about, sir? Quit beating around the bush.”
“We’re going to take down The Chamber.”
CHAPTER 24
Vienna, Austria
ALEX PICKED UP HAWK at the airport and returned to the highway, heading back toward the city. She’d spent the last few hours watching his daring attempt to steal back the hacked information from Abdul Sarkis. In the past, she combed through information and helped advise the decision makers at the CIA. But since she joined Firestorm, her role had morphed into a more hands-on approach. Given her feelings for Hawk and the imminent danger he faced on each mission, she struggled with watching him, much less interacting with him. It was easy early on when he was just an operative assigned to her care. But he’d become much more than that to her since their first encounter—what exactly, she didn’t know.
“On second thought, should we just let bygones be bygones when it comes to Moxie?” Alex asked.
Hawk didn’t even blink, staring ahead at the road in front of them.
“Come on,” she said. “We’ve had enough drama for one day.”
Hawk’s gaze remained fixated. “If you didn’t want me going after her, why did you tell me that she’s been working with Al Hasib?”
“There are certain things I can’t keep from you,” she said. “I wouldn’t want you to be at risk because I neglected to inform you about her situation.”
“And you made an excellent choice, one that’s going to be rewarded when I remove her from the picture.”
Alex sighed. “What if she wanted me to find all this?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, what if she’s playing you and knows you well enough that you’ll come back for her?”
Hawk thought pensively for a moment. “You think she’s double dipping here? Running a scam?”
“That’s her M.O., isn’t it?”
“If she has the cajones to try to bilk Firestorm for eight million all while having an assignment to assassinate me for Al Hasib, I applaud her entrepreneurial ways. She’s far more savvy of an operative than I’ve ever been.”
“She’s also overplayed her hand.”
“You think this is a set up?”
“If she knows you well enough to know you’ll be coming back for her, it’s not that far out of the realm of possibility that she let me hack this information.”
“And she figured that it would fire me up enough to come storming back for my money?”
“So far, she’d be right.”
Hawk shook his head. “I think you give her too much credit. However, I’ll heed your warning and proceed with caution.”
“She’s smart, Hawk, and probably two steps ahead of you, anticipating what you’ll do next as you approach her.”
“I’m fully aware of what she’s capable of. You focus on helping me out, and I’ll take care of things here on the ground.”
“Hawk, this feels incredibly reckless. I don’t how much more of this I can take.”
“Quit being so dramatic. This is the job. It’s what we signed up for. We risk our lives to keep others safe.”
“I didn’t sign up to risk my life.”
“Yet it’s taking an emotional toll on you?”
“Damn it, Hawk. Stop being so cold. You know how I feel about you. This isn’t just any old job for me any more.”
Alex came to a stop outside their hotel. He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.
“We’ll talk about this later,” Hawk said, pulling out the weapon Alex had brought and stowed in the console. “In the meantime, go fire up those computers and help me get Firestorm’s money back from that conniving wench.”
***
WHEN HAWK PULLED UP to Moxie’s home, the doors didn’t fling open for him like they did in his previous visit. He chose not to announce his presence at all, instead opting for a covert approach. Armed and determined, Hawk welcomed the fresh darkness that had just fallen over Vienna. He scaled the wall and slipped over it, approaching the house stealthily. He had little doubt that Moxie’s security system would have alerted her to his presence, but with Alex manipulating camera views, he’d be able to sneak in undetected.
Hawk crouched low as he scooted across the front lawn, which he estimated to be at seventy-five meters. Once he reached the house, he scaled a trellis on the east side and approached a bedroom window on the second floor.
“Do you have the security down?” Hawk asked in his com.
“Roger that,” Alex said. “But you only have about thirty seconds before it resets and comes back online.”
“That’s all I need.”
He jimmied the window open and silently crept inside the house. He waited for another minute before Alex alerted him to the situation.
“There are three armed men in the house from what I can tell on the security cams,” Alex said. “One upstairs and two others downstairs with her. You sure you still want to go through with this without backup?”
“What do you mean without backup?” Hawk asked. “I’ve got you, don’t I?”
“You do—but I don’t have a weapon this time, nor am I sitting in a perch to pick someone off if necessary.”
“Just remember what we talked about, and wait for my signal.”
“I’ll be ready.”
Hawk opened the bedroom door and peered through a small slit to survey the hallway. At the other end was a man who’d just reached the top of the stairs and turned west. In a matter of seconds, he disappeared. Hawk seized this opportunity to surprise the man, moving quietly toward the target.
Hawk grabbed the guard from behind and put him in a sleeper hold. In less than ten seconds, the man was asleep. After quietly dragging the body into a nearby room, Hawk turned his attention downstairs.
“One down,” Hawk said.
“I saw it all,” Alex said. “I’m impressed. Too bad the guard monitoring the security monitors missed it.”
“He should’ve been paying closer attention.”
Alex huffed a polite laugh through her nose and gave Hawk the current positions of the other two guards and Moxie.
Hawk glided down the stairs and entered the kitchen, where he disabled one guard and tied him up. Tired of waiting for his partner to return, the remaining guard entered the room, only to be greeted by a surprise punch to the throat that made him stagger backward. Hawk slipped behind the guard and caught him before he hit the ground, placing him in a sleeper hold as well.
Swiftly moving to the sitting room, Hawk attempted to surprise Moxie. But she wasn’t having any of it.
“They didn’t present much of a problem for you, did they?” Moxie asked, her gun trained on Hawk.
Hawk placed his hands in the air and froze.
“Come,” Moxie said. “Have a seat. We have plenty to discuss before I kill you.”
“We sure do,” Hawk said, complying with her order and settling in to a seat on the sofa across from her. “Why don’t we start with why you’re working with Al Hasib?”
She laughed and took a deep breath before turning serious. “Drop your weapon, and we’ll talk.”
Hawk obeyed.
The corners of Moxie’s lips curled upward. “You really don’t understand us mercenary types, do you?”
“Enlighten me.”
“I have no loyalties, no allegiances—except to myself. Whenever the highest bidder comes along, I bite.”
Hawk shook his head, keeping his hands in the air. “Even with organizations that you know are killing innocent people and threatening peace throughout the world?”
“How would I make money if there was peace?” she said, a wry grin spreading across her face. “Come now, Hawk. I know you weren’t a business major, but I’m sure you can appreciate a basic understanding of supply-and-demand economics.”
“I do,” he said. “It’s why I came here today, prepared to make you a deal.”
“I’m listening.”
“Two million dollars for you to give up the name and number of your contact.”
She clucked her tongue and wagged her finger. “Bad for business, Hawk. I thought you were savvier than that, though I’ve always thought you leaned toward the brawn side over the brains.”
“OK,” Hawk said. “I can offer you four million and no more.”
She shook her head. “I’m afraid we don’t have a deal. It’s not even close to the ten million I’m going to get from Karif Fazil for killing you.”
She stood, propping her left leg on top of the coffee table in front of her.
“It’s been real, Hawk,” she said as she took the safety off her gun and took aim.
CHAPTER 25
HUNCHED OVER HIS LAPTOP, Thor leaned closer to get a better view of what was happening on the satellite image streaming across the screen. He’d managed to slip a tracker onto the collar of Hawk’s shirt during their altercation at Im Kinsky. The expert spy craft move was paying big dividends for Thor, who remained determined to hunt down Hawk and kill him.
Thor’s ability to watch Hawk’s every move was a gift from Harry Bozeman, the former CIA station chief in Rome who’d long since abandoned the agency for more lucrative opportunities in the private sector. When Bozeman recruited Thor, the assassin had no idea that his new handler was working with The Chamber. Bozeman’s intimate knowledge of the CIA’s inner workings proved to be an invaluable asset for Katarina Petrov as she sought to advance her agenda. Thor enjoyed Bozeman’s unique knowledge on how to hack satellites, information that was helping The Chamber’s newest operative keep a close eye on Hawk.
Given the failed attempt earlier in the day, Thor could’ve chosen to move to another target on the list—one who was far more manageable—and regrouped before taking another shot at Hawk. But Thor hated leaving assignments incomplete. He worked a plan. He checked tasks off his list. He refused to accept defeat. And until now, he’d never tasted it in the form of a failed hit.
He determined that he was about to atone for his mistake, if he got the chance.
The biggest threat for Thor was Hawk himself, who was diving into trouble like a kid plunging into a pool on a scorching summer afternoon. Thor watched as Hawk invited a team of security agents to chase him through the Vienna International Airport. After Hawk temporarily evaded them, he pursued a man Thor could only assume was an Al Hasib agent. Then after killing the operative, Hawk somehow managed to walk away from law enforcement officials who’d previously been chasing him.
Thor was prepared to walk out the door when he noticed Hawk wasn’t done yet and had headed over to the house of Courtney Moxie, the woman Thor had seen Hawk with at the auction house. And Thor knew only one of them was getting out alive, based on how Hawk entered the home.
“Come on, Hawk,” Thor said to himself. “I want to gut you myself.”
Thor watched the screen for any activity, waiting for a figure to emerge from the house.
“Come on out, Hawk,” Thor said again. “I’ll be ready this time. And after I finish you off, I’m going after that bastard boss of yours, J.D. Blunt.”
CHAPTER 26
ALEX LISTENED CLOSELY to the conversation between Hawk and Moxie. With each passing second, she wished that she’d been more dogged in her attempt to keep him from pursuing this side mission. She only had herself to blame in the first place. If she’d just kept her big mouth shut, Hawk would’ve never known about Moxie’s link to Al Hasib and just written her off as an opportunist. Instead, Hawk had become fixated on eliminating Moxie, an assignment tertiary to anything Blunt had given them.
With access to the security monitors, Alex could see what was going on, but it was delayed by a couple seconds. This issue meant she had to rely more heavily on her instincts when it came to reacting in the moment. The video alone wouldn’t suffice, though she’d been in similar situations in the past.
Alex resisted the urge to bite her fingernails. She needed every finger she had on the keyboard. The difference in Hawk escaping unscathed and succumbing to a bullet from Moxie could be a fraction of a second. Alex’s pulse quickened as she watched Hawk navigate through the upstairs and take out one agent. Then he went downstairs and rendered the other two guards unconscious. After removing Moxie’s thugs, Hawk turned the meeting into a one-on-one situation. Yet Alex remained tense. If there was anything she’d learned in working with Hawk, it’s that he was unpredictable—and so were his opponents.
She watched as Hawk dropped his gun and took a seat across from Moxie, who hadn’t flinched since he walked in the room. She kept her gun trained on Hawk.
Come on, Hawk. Just say it.
Before he entered the house, Hawk had worked out with Alex several code phrases, which signaled different actions for Alex to take. She had managed to hack into the house’s security system as well as several other important lifelines to Moxie’s mansion. All she had to do was execute a command on her computer.
Moxie stood and aimed her gun at Hawk.
Damn it, Hawk. Say something.
Instead, it was Moxie doing the talking. “It’s been real, Hawk.”
Hawk finally spoke “If that’s the—”
Finish the phrase. What’s going on?
She saw it all playing out on the monitor in front of her: There’d been another guard elsewhere in the house that she didn’t account for. He delivered a powerful blow to the side of Hawk’s face, one he apparently didn’t see coming.
Screw it. I’m doing this thing.
Alex started hammering away on her keyboard.
CHAPTER 27
HAWK’S HEAD SNAPPED to his left, a shocking jolt both to his senses and his pride. He trusted Alex’s intel that there were only three guards and Moxie on the premises. But something had gone wrong. He knew none of the men had yet woken up from the temporary slumber he put them in. Yet someone had just delivered a vicious blow to his face.
As Hawk fell to the floor, he hoped the sudden darkness wasn�
��t him being rendered unconscious by the punch but was Alex taking action on the plan they’d drawn up beforehand. If that’s the way it has to be was the phrase they’d decided upon to signal for her to cut the power to the house. Moxie was no fool and had a backup generator, but it would take just under ten seconds to power up. That was all the time Hawk thought he needed to turn the tables on Moxie if it came to that.
However, Hawk never counted on a two-on-one situation.
As the room went dark, Hawk rolled away from the gun before he circled the chair on his knees and grabbed the weapon. When the lights came back on, he had his gun trained on Moxie.
“Tell him to drop his weapon and move the corner,” Hawk said.
Moxie’s jaw dropped as she slowly turned to look over her shoulder.
She looked back at the other guard and motioned for him to drop his weapon.
“You, too, Delilah,” Hawk said.
“Let’s talk about this for a minute, can we?” she said.
“I don’t have much time, but I have just enough for you to wire that money back to my account,” Hawk said. “Or else, we’ll have to do it the hard way.”
“Ooh,” she said mockingly. “What’s the hard way?”
“I promise you don’t want to find out.”
“You know, Hawk, there’s always room for you in the private sector. Lots of money to be made.”
Hawk shook his head and handed her the account number and nodded toward her computer. “Move it.”
She sat down at the table and started typing on her laptop.
He followed her, keeping his gun aimed at her chest. “You think I do this for money?” he said with a disbelieving chuckle. “I do this because I want to protect this world from the scumbag terrorists who want to impose their will on people.”
“Don’t be so smug in your self-righteousness, Hawk,” she said. “People are always imposing their will on others. It’s what makes the world go around.”
“It’s actually what grinds the world to a halt. Instead of people being free to bask in their freedom, they live in fear of what some madman who cares only about advancing his misguided cause. That hardly makes the world go around.”
Brady Hawk Series, Books 4-6 Page 36