Night of the Hawk (LS 767)

by Victoria Leigh

  "I know that beach," Hawk said without emotion. "There's no way in hell any kind of backup can get close enough to do any good. If that's how it plays out, the only thing left will be to make sure Constantine doesn't get away with it. I'd appreciate anything you can do."

  "You can depend on it."

  They set up another call for later that day to confirm details, then Hawk left the restaurant and got into the truck. He drove to the closest town with a bank and went inside, taking his sports bag with him. He opened an account, chatted with the manager about nothing in particular, then left and drove north until he found another bank.

  It was a charade that he repeated a half-dozen times over the next few hours. Anyone following him would assume he was gathering a large amount of cash. He figured this particular demand was Constantine's way of keeping him busy until it was dark enough for the Sea Charmer to leave its mooring unnoticed.

  It was the longest day of his life. It was one of the most disciplined as well, because it took all the control he could summon to do the things that needed to be done and not dwell on what Angela might be suffering at Constantine's hands. Thinking about her terror would cloud his professional judgment, and that wouldn't do her any good when it came to the crunch.

  When night finally arrived, it found Hawk sitting alone in a diner about ten miles from the beach where he had a midnight date. He would know then whether he'd guessed right about the Sea Charmer. He would also know if Angela trusted him enough to do exactly what he told her.

  Her life depended on it.

  TWELVE

  It had been dark an hour or more when the two men guarding Angela got the word to move her. Sitting alone in a tiny bedroom with nothing to do except count the cracks in the walls, she heard the telephone ring in the adjacent room and wasn't surprised when one of the guards came for her a couple of minutes later.

  It was the older of the two, the same one who had asked her earlier if she wanted food. He hadn't seemed to care when she'd answered him with silence and a scowl. He hadn't brought her any food either. Nor had he come into the room except occasionally to check that she was still there—although where he expected her to go was a mystery. There wasn't even a window to scramble through, and the attached bathroom was somewhere she was inclined to spend as little time as possible exploring, although there were signs that the local mice population didn't share her squeamishness.

  The guard told her in short, clear sentences what was expected of her and what would happen if she disregarded his orders. He delivered his threats in the same kind of flat, disinterested tone Hawk had used in the beginning. The only difference was that, unlike Hawk, this man wasn't lying.

  She knew that, just as she'd known they would have shot Hawk dead at the motel if she'd tried to warn him. They hadn't needed to point out that she would be as dead as Hawk if she did anything stupid. There were certain things she was learning to take for granted, and that was one of them.

  Another was the knowledge that Hawk would be doing something to salvage what he could from this mess. That was all that had kept her from degenerating into a quivering mass of nerves and tears. Hawk would do something— exactly what, she couldn't even begin to guess.

  As she walked between the two men to the waiting car, she held her head up high and her shoulders squared—a model of bravery, a performance Hawk would have been proud of.

  Inside the car, she slid across the backseat as the guard got in beside her, gritting her teeth to keep them from chattering. Angela was terrified, but she'd be damned if she let anyone know it.

  * * *

  Hawk got to the beach about ten minutes before midnight and left the pockmarked Chevy on ground that was more dirt than sand, a couple hundred yards from the water. Getting out, he shucked his jacket despite the coolness of the night and locked it inside with everything he'd dumped from his sports bag. His gun was already hidden under the rear seat, and the automatic pistol Angela was so fond of picking up was behind the spare tire. Neither weapon was so well hidden that a determined search wouldn't uncover it, but this tactic was better than leaving them in plain sight and much better than coming to the beach without them at all.

  Not that Hawk expected to get a chance to use either. If things went as he figured, he'd be on the Sea Charmer before long, and everything that was going to happen would take place onboard. He grabbed a small flashlight, then locked the Chevy and pocketed the keys.

  The moon was but a tiny crescent of silver that night, easily outshone by a billion stars in the cloudless sky. Wearing only a T-shirt, jeans, and trainers, and carrying the sports bag, Hawk walked across the deep sand toward the ebbing tide. He didn't use the flashlight, but kept his gaze fixed on the water. At first, he didn't see anything, then thought he detected a dark blob riding the calm sea. He was still staring when it turned broadside and light from an uncovered porthole danced across the waves.

  The Sea Charmer was at anchor about a mile offshore. He flashed his light twice, then for the first jime in sixteen long hours, he drew a deep, easy breath. There was hope now that it would all work out. The only thing left to discover was whether Angela was onboard. The sound of a small engine from the direction of the boat told him he didn't have long to wait.

  Several minutes later a rubber dinghy stopped just shy of the beach where Hawk waited with his legs spread wide and his hands loose at his sides. There were two men, but only one came onto the beach. The other stayed in the dinghy and pointed at what looked like a big Steyr machine pistol in his direction while his partner frisked Hawk. The keys and flashlight were left on the sand along with his watch, and the guard took his wallet. Hawk had expected that. Constantine wouldn't want to make it too easy for the authorities to identify his body—if and when it washed up onshore.

  The guard unzipped the sports bag and dug through the stacks of bills inside. When he found the videotape, he nearly threw it out on the sand, but Hawk was quick to tell him it was something Constantine would be interested in. The guard shrugged, put it back inside, and zipped the bag closed.

  Hawk's tennis shoes were also forfeit. He kicked them off and got into the dinghy without arguing, although he considered the precaution unnecessary. If it was a tracking device they were concerned about, it would have made more sense to drop the shoes into the salt water and short-circuit the thing. If, on the other hand, they simply wanted to make sure he was completely defenseless—kicking someone, even in tennis shoes, could do major damage—they should have known better. There were a lot of people in Hawk's profession who were deadly in bare feet.

  Unfortunately, Hawk wasn't one of them. It didn't matter, though, because bare feet suited him just fine. If he was lucky enough to enter the water while he was still alive, it would make swimming a whole lot easier.

  In the ten minutes it took to reach the Sea Charmer, Hawk kept his nerves steady by rehearsing what he needed to say to Angela when he saw her. Everything depended on her understanding what he told her.

  If she was there.

  The Sea Charmer was a seagoing cruiser about thirty feet long and built for speed. Hawk had once heard that Constantine bought it cheap from the estate of a man who'd learned the hard way that Constantine didn't tolerate accountants who skimmed off the top.

  The dinghy bumped up against the stern of the Sea Charmer, and Hawk noticed someone had turned out the light he'd seen from afar. Constantine was obviously not taking any chances of the cruiser being identified.

  Because he'd been training his night vision from the moment he'd stepped from the Chevy, he didn't have any trouble counting noses when he climbed up and over the side of the cruiser. As far as he could tell, there were only five people besides himself. Two were his guards from the dinghy, now positioned behind him, and another man Hawk didn't recognize stood on the flying bridge holding a clumsy-looking machine pistol. Unless there were more in the cabin below, the only other two people on the cruiser were Constantine and the woman standing next to him with her hands tied b
ehind her back and pinpricks of fire in her eyes.

  Hawk assessed her with a quick, dispassionate look, then glanced away before he saw anything in her expression that would obscure his thinking with emotion. She was alive and, as far as he could tell, unharmed. It was enough for him to know she'd come through the ordeal without major physical damage; the emotional part he couldn't do anything about. He would have to rely on Blackthorne to see to whatever professional help she might need.

  Hawk couldn't afford to think about how he wished he'd be around to do it himself, so he swung his gaze to the tall, thin man beside her and waited, smiling, for the first salvo.

  Angela hadn't needed Constantine to tell her to keep her mouth shut as Hawk was escorted onboard. Even if she'd known how to apologize for opening the door to Constantine's men in the first place, she wasn't about to do it in front of an audience. Sorrys and the like could come later.

  In the two hours since she'd been brought to the boat, she hadn't said a single word—unless two snarls and a moan counted as speaking. The snarls had been directed at Constantine, a slimy, greasy man with the voice of a snake and a tall, scrawny stature reminiscent of Ichabod Crane—oversized Adam's apple included. Her only other vocal expression, that one moan, had escaped despite her best attempts to keep her seasick symptoms to herself. Luckily, Constantine had gone up on deck and the guard with her had just snickered something about how whining wouldn't get her anywhere.

  Angela didn't know what they'd do if she threw up all over the galley, but couldn't imagine it would be worse than getting herself locked in the tiny bathroom. That's what Constantine told her he'd do not long after they'd left the harbor and she'd started to turn green. That threat had served to keep her thoughts more focused on avoiding making a mess than on what would happen when Hawk arrived.

  She believed without a single doubt that he would stop at nothing to get her away from Constantine. That wasn't what worried her. Hawk's agenda concerning Constantine hadn't gone away, and she knew that if he could use this situation to further his goal, he'd do it.

  Hawk had always meant to die with Constantine. She couldn't even bear thinking about it.

  She watched him climb lithely over the railing and straighten to face in her general direction. She concentrated on keeping her expression confined to less personal emotions like terror and anger. The things she felt for Hawk were too private to chance letting anyone else see, too strong for anyone to miss if she wasn't careful.

  When he came to stand in the center of the deck with his legs spread for balance and his head held straight and proud, she thought Constantine must be crazy if he imagined he could get the best of Hawk. For the first time since morning, she began to hope.

  She kept that concealed too—a fairly simple task as Hawk spent less than a second looking at her before switching his gaze to Constantine. When Hawk smiled, though, her control over her expression began to waver.

  Smiling was not on the list of things she'd imagined he would do upon arriving. She frowned in disapproval.

  "I wasn't sure you'd come," Constantine said abruptly, his snake's voice almost succeeding in making Angela cringe. "The report I got from the compound was somewhat confusing. I couldn't decide if she was your prisoner or your lover."

  "Both," Hawk said, and didn't so much as spare her a single glance when Angela gasped. "But I expect you already know that. When I couldn't break your little assassin, it seemed a good idea to play along. I assumed she would eventually lead me to you."

  "No, Hawk, you—" she began, but that was all she got out before Constantine's backhanded slap sent her reeling. She landed in the corner of a bench seat, and couldn't help crying out when her body came down hard on her tied wrists.

  Tears of pain filled her eyes as she looked up at Hawk. "But—"

  "Shut up." Hawk didn't even glance in her direction when he said it, and she was suddenly reduced to that same level of fear as the night he'd made her swallow cocaine. This time, though, she was determined to master the tears. Shifting in the seat until she was somewhat upright, she gritted her teeth and stared at the men facing off on the deck . . . and wondered what the hell Hawk was up to.

  "She's nothing to do with me," Constanrine said, "but if that's what you think, why did you come for her?"

  "I didn't. I came for myself." Hawk hooked his thumbs in his belt loops and looked as though he didn't know three powerful guns were aimed straight at him. "I have something I thought you might be interested in buying. The woman was my ticket to you."

  "Ticket!" Angela couldn't help protesting, but she kept it to one word and stayed in her seat when Constantine raised his arm as though to swat her down.

  Hawk looked at her fiercely. "Keep your mouth shut, honey," he said with an emphasis on honey that made it sound like dog doodoo.

  "But, Hawk, you know I'm not—"

  "That's it!" Without so much as a glance in Constantine's direction, Hawk pulled his T-shirt over his head and strode over to her. Bending down, he gripped her jaw with one hand and forced her mouth open. When he began to stuff the wadded-up shirt into her mouth, she screamed. A muffled squeak was all she could manage, though, and by the time he'd wrapped the end of the shirt around her neck to secure the gag, even a squeak was beyond her. She had to settle for glaring up at him in mute appeal for an explanation. He must have seen it, because he softened his grip on her jaw. Even so, he continued, for a moment, to force her to look at him . . . and to see the plea in his eyes.

  She didn't understand, of course, not any of it. But he wasn't asking her for that, she realized. Hawk was asking her to trust him, and that was something she could do without any kind of explanation. She blinked once and nodded almost imperceptibly against his hand. It was all she dared, because one of the guards had come over and was watching them both.

  Hawk turned his back to her and confronted Constan-tine again. "Now where were we . . . ? Oh yes, the reason I wanted to see you."

  "Putting aside the issue of the woman for the moment, Hawk, I would have thought I was the last person in the world you'd be interested in seeing." Constantine went over to the ladder leading to the upper deck and leaned against it. "Last time we met, you killed my son. What makes you think I'd be willing to forget that?"

  "Because you're a businessman," Hawk said without any seeming hurry. "I never thought you were the type to let personal issues interfere with business."

  "The death of my son was more than a personal issue," Constantine said, but Angela thought he said it without conviction. It was hard to be sure, though, because the T-shirt in her mouth was affecting her hearing. "However, before I kill you, you might as well tell me what you're selling."

  "A videotape." Hawk dug the fingers of one hand into his shoulder as though to ease a strained muscle. In the soft light of the stars, Angela thought she could see a scar there, but she couldn't be sure.

  "That night on the beach, I'd dug into a sand dune," Hawk continued. "I taped everything."

  Constantine's eyes narrowed to black slits. "That explains why you seemed to pop up from nowhere. However, I'm not sure I believe the part about the video. If my memory serves me correctly, the only thing I saw in your hand was a gun." He shook his head slowly. "I didn't notice a camcorder, Hawk."

  "The dune collapsed when I crawled out. I left it behind." He rubbed his shoulder again. "One of your guys caught me in the shoulder as I drove away. By the time I felt like going back, it took a couple of days to find the damned thing."

  "But you did." Constantine didn't look as sure of himself as he had just moments earlier, but she didn't think that meant much to the overall picture. He was still a man with a very big grudge. Then he changed the subject back to one she was even less comfortable with. "About the woman."

  "What about her?" Hawk didn't even spare her a glance, but she sent him and everyone else mean glares anyway. If he wanted her to play along, her eyes were all she could use for acting.

  "Before we get into any more details
about that video, I'd like to be convinced she isn't anything to you."

  A corner of Hawk's mouth lifted in a careless smile. "I keep telling you, Constantine. She's not my problem."

  "Then I guess you won't mind if I ask Jerry to shoot her," Constantine said, nodding toward the guard closest to her. Angela didn't have to pretend to be afraid, and she sent a frantic look at Hawk that went ignored.

  "I suppose that's one way to get the job done." Hawk shrugged negligently and looked down at the deck. "So long as you don't mind the mess, you can do whatever you want. It's your boat."

  "You have a better idea?"

  Angela didn't wait to hear it. Seeing that the guards' attention was focused on Hawk, she shoved herself from the bench and bolted for the side. Just what she was planning to do in the water with her hands tied and her mouth full of T-shirt, she didn't know. All she cared about was avoiding having her brains splattered across the deck.

  She didn't make it, and not because any of the guards was quick enough to stop her. Hawk beat them to it, catching her easily with a long arm around her waist. He hauled her tight against his side and squeezed so tight she thought her ribs would give under the pressure. What with the makeshift gag and Hawk's arm forcing the air from her lungs, all thought of struggle was forgotten as the need to breathe overcame her. She was on the point of passing out when the pressure of his arm eased and he caught her jaw in a grip that was almost gentle.

  "That was a waste of effort, honey," he said, putting the same vaguely disgusted emphasis on the endearment. "Unless you can swim with your hands tied behind your back, there's nowhere to go but down."

  It occurred to her then that he'd always called her Angel, not honey. It was a small point, but it made her wonder if it was a way of telling her something. She didn't know, but tried to pay closer attention.

  Hawk looked away to where Constantine still lounged against the ladder. "I was going to suggest a slightly cleaner way of disposing of her, but she almost beat me to it."