Vengeance

by R. J. Patterson

  “Hawk? Black?” she called. “Can either of you hear me?”

  “Loud and clear, honey,” Hawk said.

  “It’s so good to hear your voice,” she said.

  “We're both fine, but I'm afraid we can't chit chat right now,” Black said. “We're in a bit of a jam. An avalanche is shaking loose, and we're going to be right in its path if we don't get to safety quickly.”

  “Roger that,” Alex said. “You didn’t happen to get Walsh, did you?”

  Hawk was about to tell her the story while he ran, but he lost his balance when sheets of snow barreled just along the surface in his direction. His legs flew out from beneath him as he started to bounce along on his butt. Unable to change course or slow himself down, Hawk was at the mercy of Mother Nature.

  The snow whisked him down the slope at an increasing speed. He managed to avoid trees on his left and right, sliding just beneath some branches. After waiting a moment, he stopped and slowly stood to celebrate his survival.

  Hawk looked over at Black, who was waving his arms wildly.

  “Behind you,” Black said. “Run!”

  Hawk glanced over his shoulder to see a wave of snow rolling down the hill. He followed Black’s lead and tried to sprint through the snow. However, Hawk looked more like he was slogging through a swamp as the snow was waist deep.

  “You need to jump as high as you can just before the snow reaches you,” Black said. “And hold one hand up in the air. It’s coming in three, two, one . . .”

  Hawk didn’t even look, trusting his colleague running parallel fifty meters to the left. As Black counted down, Hawk positioned his feet as close to the surface as he could and mustered all the strength he had remaining in his legs. Hawk didn’t leap very high, but it was just enough to clear the surface and put him on top of the tumbling snow.

  But the loose snow didn’t take long to overcome Hawk, burying him beneath it. He came to a halt, stuck in place as the rumbling continued. After about fifteen seconds, which felt like fifteen minutes, the snow stopped.

  “You all right?” Hawk asked over the coms.

  Nothing.

  “Black, are you there?” Hawk asked.

  Still nothing.

  “Alex, can you hear me?” he called.

  She didn’t respond either.

  Hawk took a deep breath and went over the protocol for surviving an avalanche. He needed to carve out a pocket in front of his face to breathe, a task that sounded easy in theory but far more difficult in practice. With one arm held high above his head, he was able to create a pocket of air. However, moving either of his arms in any direction was challenging given the weight and pressure of the snow. He took several minutes to inch his arm down into position to shovel snow aside in front of his face.

  Next, Hawk activated his avalanche beacon sewn into the pocket of his coat. He wasn’t sure how deep he was buried, but it was far enough beneath the surface that he couldn’t dig his way out. At this point, all he could do was hope and pray Alex would find him soon.

  * * *

  HAWK'S CONCEPT OF TIME was distorted while stuck like a fly in the ointment. With nothing to do other than think, he felt helpless—and Hawk concluded this was a punishment worse than death itself. To die while being encased in snow would be an ironic end for such a seasoned warrior. Hawk always imagined going out in an epic gun battle or sacrificing himself on a mission to prevent a nuclear detonation. Technically, he was on a mission, but it wasn't one he would consider successful. And his death wouldn't result in anyone's salvation.

  Come on, Alex. Where are you?

  Hawk's mental state began to deteriorate as another half hour passed. He tried the coms again.

  “Alex? Black? Can either of you hear me?”

  There was no response.

  Hawk had just about given up when he heard a faint but familiar voice calling overhead.

  “Hawk! Where are you?”

  It was Alex.

  “Alex! Alex! I’m down here. Can you hear me?” he said.

  She didn’t respond, continuing her call.

  “Hawk! Where are you? Can you reach the surface?”

  He sighed, still helpless to do anything. She was just a few meters away or maybe even standing right on top of him, yet there was no way for him to signal to her his exact location.

  Think, Hawk. Think.

  While he knew the most important thing for him to do was to conserve his energy, Hawk figured it wouldn’t matter if he ended up dead. He worked his hand into his pocket and pulled out his knife. Slowly he inched it up to his other hand before carving into the snow to create a wider circumference around the space where his arm had been.

  “I’m down right here,” Hawk cried.

  “Hawk!” Alex cried.

  He heard Alex begin digging above him. In a matter of minutes, she had cleared a large passageway for him to get fresh air.

  “Hang in there,” she said.

  “Have I told you lately how awesome you are?”

  She continued digging for another minute or so until all the snow was removed above him. Then she worked on raking snow away from his upper torso until he could also help dig his way out.

  They embraced and shed a few tears together.

  “As much as I want to hold you tight and never let you go,” Hawk said, “we still need to find Black.”

  “His beacon is activated, but it’s not easy to pinpoint the exact location,” she said.

  “We were about fifty meters apart,” Hawk said. “But we were almost parallel with one another.”

  “That’s a place to start,” she said.

  They estimated that distance and started calling for Black. Hawk froze when he thought he heard him.

  “Sshh,” Hawk said, holding up his hand in a gesture for Alex to stop. “Listen.”

  They both heard the faint cries beneath the surface.

  “I think we’re practically standing on top of him,” Hawk said.

  They both fell to their knees and started digging. After about a minute of digging, Hawk saw Black’s hand, which was still extended upward. Hawk gave it a squeeze before frantically digging with Alex to get his colleague out.

  Black collapsed once he reached the surface, a wide grin spread across his face. “I thought you would never find me.”

  “Well, we weren’t going to just leave you here,” Hawk said.

  Black sat up. “No, she wasn’t going to just leave us here.” He turned toward Alex. “Do you ever get tired of saving Hawk?”

  Alex laughed, but Hawk cast a wary glance at Black.

  “This is a two-way street,” Hawk said. “It’s what being partners is all about in the field.”

  Black was still grinning. “Just for fun: Alex, can you tell me what the count is on how many times you’ve saved him to how many times he’s saved you?”

  “I think I’m ahead eight to five at this point.”

  Hawk scowled. “Eight to five? Are you mad?”

  Alex and Black both shared a laugh at Hawk’s expense as they all piled onto Alex’s snowmobile before navigating back to the van.

  “Now what?” Alex asked. “I know you two have been encased in snow and probably weren't thinking about Obsidian's plant, but it was incinerated before the entrance was covered by falling boulders. And unless you tied up Mack Walsh and left him somewhere, we’re back to no leads.”

  “I almost had Walsh but lost him just before the facility exploded,” Hawk said. “But I have a plan.”

  “Oh?” Black said. “You mind sharing that with the rest of us?”

  “We’re not going to go looking for Walsh,” Hawk said.

  “That’s quite the plan, Hawk. How exactly do you expect to track down the Obsidian agent without looking for him?”

  A faint smile spread across Hawk’s lips. “I don’t have to look for him because he’s going to come looking for us.”

  “And what makes you so sure of that?” Alex said.

  “We’re going t
o turn the tables on him.”

  CHAPTER 20

  Two Days Later

  Santa Fe, New Mexico

  HAWK ADJUSTED HIS SUNGLASSES before knocking on the adobe bungalow situated in a cul-de-sac at the end of an older neighborhood. Alex stood next to him in a blue dress. She reached up and adjusted his tie.

  “You ready?” he asked.

  She nodded. “But for the record, I don’t think this is a good idea.”

  “Walsh thought this was my weakness—and the weakness you see in others is often the same weakness you see in yourself.”

  “There are other ways to doing this,” she said.

  “We can’t afford to wait, and you know it. This is a matter of national security, and sometimes you have to take extreme measures.”

  After the team left Idaho, Blunt called them to report that the FBI was working in conjunction with Homeland Security to determine what was going on in Obsidian's mountain facility. While Blunt admitted that he wasn't sure he'd be able to trust any report that emerged from the scene given Obsidian's penchant for co-opting government officials at every level, it would take weeks to remove the rocks blocking the entrance just to get inside. The combination of the explosion and the avalanche rendered the mountain nearly impenetrable for the foreseeable future. Officials were already estimated it would be early summer before the snow would melt and enable them to get the equipment necessary to move the rocks away from the site. And if the Phoenix Foundation was going to find out what Obsidian's plan was to execute its endgame, they couldn't sit around.

  “Like I said, there are other ways.”

  Hawk shot her a glance and knocked.

  “You’re still letting your emotions get the best of you,” she said. “This isn’t you, Hawk.”

  Once he heard footsteps near the door, he reached behind his back and wrapped his hand around his gun.

  The door swung open seconds later, revealing a woman with solid gray hair neatly cropped against her face. The wrinkles around the corners of her eyes along with her leathery skin made her look precisely how old Hawk knew she was. At age sixty-seven, Marsha Templeton was in good health—and naïve about what her son was up to.

  “Mrs. Templeton,” Hawk said. “We need to have a word with you.”

  “Okay,” she said. “If you’re trying to sell me something, I’m not interested.”

  Hawk brandished his weapon and gestured for her to go back inside. “We just want to talk.”

  Hawk and Alex strode into the house before Alex shut the door behind them. Wide-eyed and mouth agape, Mrs. Templeton backpedaled into the house.

  “What do you want?” she asked. “I’ll—I’ll give you anything. Money? My car? You want jewelry?”

  “Sit down,” Hawk said, gesturing toward the couch with his gun, which he then slipped into the back of his pants. “We’re not here to hurt you. We just need to talk.”

  Mrs. Templeton cocked her head to one side and furrowed her brow. “Talk? That’s all you want to do? I can do that.”

  Alex sat down in a chair across from Mrs. Templeton. “We need to talk about your son.”

  Mrs. Templeton rolled her eyes and let out an exasperated sigh. “What’s he done now? Are you with the mafia, needing me to pay off some of his gambling debts? I always told him that betting on sports was going to be the death of him.”

  Hawk sat down on the love seat and shook his head. “No, Mrs. Templeton, we’re not here to collect on a gambling debt. But what your son has done is most definitely going be the death of him.”

  “Are you the one who’s going to kill him?” she asked.

  “Only if I have to, but you can help him by helping us.”

  Hawk glanced at her ringer finger, her wedding band still firmly secured to her hand even though her fourth husband had been dead for a couple of years. Despite knowing her story, Hawk wanted to see what kind of woman he was dealing with.

  “Have you recently remarried?” Hawk asked.

  She shook her head. “I can’t bring myself to let go of Ned. He was such a good man to me.”

  “Is that why he beat you?”

  She scowled at Hawk. “You seem to know an awful lot about me, yet you said that you’re here to talk about my son.”

  “We are,” Alex said, intervening with a gentle touch. “My partner can get a little sidetracked from time to time.”

  “The reason we’re here is to learn more about your son because of what he’s done,” Hawk said. “And I happen to think it might be related to all your dead husbands. I mean, your next husband should have serious reservations about marrying a woman whose previous four husbands have all been murdered.”

  “What are you suggesting, Mr.—”

  “Mr. Flannigan will suffice,” Hawk said.

  “What are you suggesting, Mr. Flannigan?”

  “I’m not suggesting anything. This is a direct question. Is your son the one who is killing all of your husbands? I read about how your first husband, Grant Walsh—the father of your son—died in an accident while hiking on a trip in the Grand Canyon.”

  “Accidents happen,” she said, remaining evasive.

  Hawk continued his attempts to get her to crack. “I also know you had filed to divorce him and he had employed one of the toughest divorce lawyers in Los Angeles to make sure you got as little as possible.”

  “Is there a point to all this, Mr. Flannigan?”

  “You tell me,” Hawk fired back. “Why do all your husbands—albeit abusive ones—die in some strange accident that could very well be interpreted as murder?”

  “If you know so much about me, you’d know that I’ve always been more or less cursed,” she said. “Like when my parents died when our house exploded due to a gas leak.”

  “Seems like your luck was pretty good since you were sleeping at a friend’s house that night.”

  “Or that my first baby was kidnapped and I never saw him again.”

  “And the next week you were driving a new car,” Hawk said. “The black market for babies was pretty lucrative during those days.”

  “If you’re with the government, why don’t you go ahead and arrest me since you’ve already convicted me in your own mind. It’d save us a whole lot of time bantering about this.”

  “What he means to say,” Alex said, placing her hand on top of Mrs. Templeton’s, “is that we’re sorry for all the incredible loss you’ve suffered in your life. We can’t make it go away, but we want you to avoid experiencing any more excruciating pain.”

  Mrs. Templeton sighed and looked up before turning her gaze toward Alex. “So, what do you want to know about my Mack?”

  “Have you spoken with him lately?” Alex asked.

  Mrs. Templeton shrugged. “I don’t know what you would consider recently, but I did have a conversation with him on the phone last week. He told me to be careful and that he probably shouldn’t have done what he did.”

  “Did he give you any details?” Alex asked.

  “No, but I just figured it was his usual mischief. Nothing too serious.”

  Alex nodded. “Is this something he did often?”

  “At least once every few months,” Mrs. Templeton said. “It’s like he’s worried somebody’s going to show up at my house with a gun and shoot me.”

  “I didn’t come here to shoot you, Mrs. Templeton,” Hawk said as he narrowed his eyes. “I’m not half the animal your son when he gutted my mother like an savage and left her body on her front porch, using her blood to write a message and get my attention.”

  “But you’re definitely here threatening me,” she said before breaking into a coughing fit.

  Hawk glanced at the pack of cigarettes on the coffee table. “Need a smoke break?”

  She nodded.

  “Then let’s take this to the back porch,” Hawk said. “You don’t have any snoopy neighbors, do you?”

  “What other kind is there?” she said with a chuckle. “They’re all at work right now. We won’t have to w
orry about them.”

  They followed Mrs. Templeton to the back porch. Hawk didn’t want to continue the conversation outside without doing his due diligence. He searched the perimeter, peeking his head over the top of the privacy fence in all three directions to make sure there wasn’t anyone lurking who could eavesdrop on their conversation. Once satisfied that the area was free of any bystanders, he sat down.

  “So Mack finally crossed the line, huh?” Mrs. Templeton said before flicking her lighter and igniting a cigarette.

  Hawk nodded. “I’d be surprised if this was the first time. Maybe the first time you heard about it though.”

  Mrs. Templeton shrugged. “I should’ve seen it coming. You never want to believe the worst about your own kid. Everybody else’s kids are the problem, but not your own. And even when deep down you know they are, you can justify their actions and make excuses for them. It’s what we do best as the human race. We have loads of grace for our family and zero tolerance for others.”

  “Look, I know I may not have gone about this the right way,” Hawk said. “But I need your help. There is a serious threat not only to our country but to the rest of the world—and Mack is the only link we have right now to the people who are behind this.”

  “My Mack? He’s an evil villain who’s going to destroy the world?” she asked before laughing, which quickly devolved into another coughing fit.

  “I’m not sure how much he knows about what he’s doing,” Hawk said. “But he knows enough to understand how dangerous things are. And he’s obviously unhinged since he’s now out slashing throats at the behest of his employer.”

  “If all this stuff that you’re telling me is true, what do you want me to do about it? It’s not like he ever listened to me in the first place.”

  “We want you to ask him to come home,” Alex said.

  Mrs. Templeton shook her head. “He won’t do it. He’s too busy with whatever it is that he’s doing. He only visits me during the holidays, and they won’t be rolling around again for quite some time.”

  “I think it’s pretty obvious that he loves his mother,” Hawk said. “You just need to give him a good reason to see you.”