by Rob Jones
She rolled her eyes. “How does she put up with you?”
“Did... how did she. She’s probably moved on by now.”
“That’s up to you, you pig-headed fool.”
“Hey! Less of the cheek, madam.”
Alex served up three plates of bacon and eggs and walked over to the table with them. Hawke knew it had been strange for Alex to use her legs again after so long, but she seemed to have got used to it over time. She once told him that sometimes she felt like she had never been shot, and the whole thing had been nothing more than a terrible nightmare.
They sat down together and he watched the sun light up the steam rising from the plates.
She looked at him. “I know I said it before, Joe... but thanks.”
Hawke put some pepper on his eggs.
“Thanks for what?”
“For saving my life in Moscow, of course. Vetrov was going to feed me alive to crocodiles.”
“Don’t mention it.”
She paused a beat. “You know...”
He glanced at her, forking the food into his mouth. “What now?”
“You never actually thanked me for saving your life in Serbia.”
Hawke set his knife and fork down. “Sure I did.”
“No, not since we met face to face.”
Hawke considered the matter and smiled. She was right. “But I thanked you over the phone the day you got me out of that hellhole.”
“Yeah, I remember. I’m just saying...”
Hawke decided to play dumb. “Saying what?”
“Nothing.”
He ate some of the eggs and swigged from his mug of coffee. “No, go on. What are you trying to say?”
Alex sighed and shook her head. “You can be a real pig sometimes.”
“What?!”
“You know what.”
“All right, then since we’re saying thanks for saving each other’s lives...” he looked her in the eye and his face grew serious. No more jokes. “Thank you, Alex.”
She was silent for a moment. “Is that it?”
Hawke looked at her again, unsure if she was playing games or not. He’d known Agent Nightingale for many years, but Alex Reeve was a newcomer in his life. “What do you want me to do – tap dance it out for you in Morse Code?”
She laughed. “Sure. You should do that. I’d like to see it.”
“Never going to happen.” He ate another mouthful of eggs and some more bacon.
She made a show of putting down her fork and leaning back from the table to get a better look at him. “Seriously – I think you could pull off a tap dance.”
“Too bad – I left my dancing shoes in London.”
“They’re called tap shoes.”
He winked. “But aren’t you glad I didn’t know that?”
“So you say...”
“All right, game over. I said thanks. I’m sorry, okay?”
“You know, since you’re in the mood to grovel, I know someone else you owe an apology to.”
Hawke stopped eating and pushed back from the table. “Not this again. Leave it.”
“Just saying...”
He looked at her as the sun shone through the kitchen window and danced in her hair. She was beautiful, and it got to him that she’d turned herself into a recluse after the incident in Colombia.
“She should have told me the truth,” he said flatly.
“She was under orders not to tell you, Joe. You’re being unreasonable.”
He shook his head to signal his disagreement, but in his heart he knew she was right. Lea Donovan was under orders not to tell him about the mysterious ECHO team and their secret island headquarters in the Caribbean. Those orders were issued by Sir Richard Eden himself, a serious character who, in Hawke’s opinion, shouldn’t be crossed. Hawke respected Eden, and he loved Lea... only his pride had stopped him from accepting their invitation and joining them on Elysium.
Now, thanks to his hot temper on an even hotter day, he’d stormed out on them all back in Egypt. Now he didn’t even know where Elysium, or Lea, was.
“You can shake your head, cowboy, but you know in here,” she leaned forward and touched his chest with her finger, “that you’re in sad and pathetic denial, not to mention totally in the wrong.”
He offered a shallow nod but said nothing as he looked at the food on the third plate, untouched and slowly growing colder.
For a while they ate in silence until Alex decided finally to offer an olive branch.
“Look... I shouldn’t have stuck my nose in where it doesn’t belong.”
“No, you were right to bring it up. I keep myself to myself most of the time, but I guess this time I need to open up and maybe I should call her or something. Thing is, I’m just no good at keeping in touch. In my life people just come and go... I haven’t spoken to my family for a long time.”
Alex looked up at him, and sipped her coffee. “You still haven’t told me about your family in England.”
“Nope.”
“You definitely have family in England, right?”
“Yeap.”
Alex rolled her eyes. “Fine, don’t tell me.”
Hawke ate some eggs and sipped his coffee. “Look...” he set down his knife and fork and sighed.
Alex tried again. “Just the basics would be nice – names, jobs, how you feel about them...”
“All right, well, it’s complicated, but it goes like this...”
Jack Brooke appeared in the doorway with a phone to his ear. He looked worried and Alex rarely saw her father like this. Something wasn’t right.
The Pentagon chief disconnected the call and stared into the middle distance.
“What is it, Dad?” said Alex.
“What’s wrong, Jack?” Hawke asked.
For a few seconds Brooke didn’t know how to answer. When he spoke, both Hawke and Alex wished he hadn’t.
“That was Deakin at the NSA. He says they’re getting chatter about an imminent attack on the United States. Serious chatter about a serious attack.”
Hawke looked from Brooke to Alex and put down his knife and fork. Something told him breakfast time was over.
CHAPTER TWO
The former Special Boat Service man watched a brief flash of fear and confusion on the American Secretary of Defense’s face before he banished them from his mind and brought the situation back under control. Now, a look of steely determination fixed in his eyes.
Hawke rose from the table. “What makes the chatter so convincing, Jack?”
Brooke sighed and ran a hand absent-mindedly through his silver hair. “It came through a respected German asset and correlates with other metadata we’ve been collecting for a while now.”
Brooke straightened his tie and pulled his jacket on. The former Delta officer clearly wasn’t going to waste any more time worrying. “I have to get back to Washington,” he said. “The weather’s clear and there’s a government jet waiting for me at Friedman. I can get back in around four hours.”
Alex put her fork down and stood up from the table. “I’m coming with you.”
“No,” Brooke said. “You’re not.”
“Come on, Dad! I’m ready to get back in the saddle again.” Unconsciously, she glanced down at her legs when she spoke.
Brooke frowned. “I know that you can walk again, honey,” he said, turning to Hawke and offering another shallow nod of gratitude. “We have Joe here to thank for that, and I’ll owe him till the day I die but you’re not ready to go back in the field, Alex. We don’t know what the hell we’re dealing with so you’re just staying put. Your mother would never forgive me if anything were to happen to you.”
“Yeah,” Hawke agreed. “Your Dad’s right.”
Alex gave him the look from hell. “Thanks a bunch, Joe. What I could have done with right now is a little support.”
“Your Dad’s right, Alex, and you know it.”
Alex watched as her Dad got some things together and called Coleman int
o the room. Nate Coleman was the lead man in his Bureau of Diplomatic Security team. He ordered him to get the car ready and brief the other two agents about staying at the cabin to look after his daughter. She could tell by the look on her father’s face that he wasn’t going to change his mind. “I suppose, if you both insist on it, then there’s not much I can do.”
“Good girl,” Brooke said. “It’s safe here in the middle of nowhere, honey. We don’t know what’s under threat but I doubt it’s the Idaho mountains.”
“I guess.”
“And we’ll call you when we get to DC,” Hawke said.
Alex smiled. “Sure... wait a minute!”
“What?” as Hawke spoke he jammed some toast in his mouth and slid his jacket on.
“If I can’t go, then you can’t go!”
“Why not?” the Englishman said matter-of-factly.
“We don’t have time for this,” Brooke said. “Alex, you’re staying here with two of my best guys protecting you – Regan and Walsh – Joe and I are going to DC. No more discussion.”
“But Dad, if –”
The unit sent to kill them arrived like lightning. They were wearing all black with balaclavas and carrying identical Heckler & Koch MP7 submachine guns fitted with suppressors.
Alex saw them first over her father’s shoulder as the back of Special Agent Regan’s skull blew off and he fell back into the plates of food on the table with a tremendous crash. A second later shots rang out all over the front of the cabin and then they all heard a burst of submachine gun fire and saw Agent Walsh slump to the ground on the patio – a pool of blood forming around his silent corpse.
Hawke spun around, reaching for the Beretta M9 on the breakfast bar and screaming at Jack Brooke and his daughter to dive for cover. He ducked down behind the wooden bar as more automatic fire raked the wall of Brooke’s kitchen and sprayed all over the side of the living room. Shards of splintered oak panel burst all over the room as the bullets ripped through the furniture and walls. A large deer antler trophy was blasted from the wall above the fireplace and shattered on the hearth.
One of the men threw a grenade into the room and screamed at them: “Goodbye, Mr Secretary!”
Hawke saw it first and picked it up, hurling it through the open double doors of the living room where it exploded on the patio and blasted the glass from the windows and doors back into the room in a lethal shower.
Special Agent Coleman ran into the room, firing bursts from his handgun at the gunmen as he closed in on Brooke. “The car’s ready, Mr Secretary. We have to get you out of here, sir!”
“Like hell you do!” Brooke shouted. “You get my girl to safety first.” As he spoke he wrenched a Smith & Wesson .45 from an inside pocket and fired back at the men in the kitchen. He hit one of them, the three bullets exploding in his chest and sending him staggering back out the door where he collapsed on the porch steps.
“Look out!” Hawke tried to push Coleman to safety but it was too late. Another shooter in the garden had targeted the Special Agent and Hawke watched with horror as a small red dot laser-sight tracked up Coleman’s back and stopped on the rear of his head. Coleman was dead before he hit the floor, and still the bullets came flying.
Another gunman made some headway toward the double doors before Hawke used the M9 to drop him with a lethal neck shot. His mind buzzed as he considered the various options open to them. Clearly they were under massive attack, and it was also obvious the target, just for once, wasn’t him but the Secretary of Defense. He had no idea if other senior members of the US Government were also under attack, but focussed instead on defending Jack Brooke and his daughter. Everything else could be considered when they were safe.
The situation wasn’t new to Hawke – he had worked in high-level security positions before, the most prominent one being when he was charged to protect a delegation of British Government ministers on a trade mission to Zambia. It went well until the last minute, and then things could have gone a lot more smoothly. At the last minute everything went badly wrong for the British delegation, but why had always been a mystery.
It was during his time in Lusaka that he had met Zhang Xiaoli, otherwise known as Lexi Zhang. Agent Dragonfly had been in the country investigating some kind of problem that concerned the State Council of the People’s Republic of China, or that was how she had put it to him, at least. He had enjoyed her company. They made each other laugh, but they both felt the undercurrent of forbidden excitement, the subterfuge that was always there when dealing with an agent working for a foreign power.
That was then and this was now. Now he wasn’t defending a team of middle-ranking British Civil Servants, but the man who gave all operational commands to the Pentagon – the American Secretary of Defense, one of the most powerful men on the planet – and he was under mortal threat at the hands of a team of highly trained professional assassins.
But Hawke had no time to think about the bigger picture now. Right now his priority was to lead Brooke and Alex to safety, and he had to think fast.
“Jack, can we get to the garage from here?”
Brooke nodded. “Sure, but if you’re thinking about a car forget it. I don’t keep my cars in the garage. I use the garage as a workshop and all the cars are parked in the outbuilding across the yard and through the trees.”
“That’s handy,” Hawke said.
“We can get there through the garage though,” Brooke said. “But it’s going to be tough.”
Hawke nodded. “Sounds like we have no choice, but we have to do all we can to get you out of here – both of you.”
As the bullets traced over their heads, Alex held Hawke’s arm. “If anyone can do it, I guess that man’s you.”
“I appreciate the vote of confidence,” Hawke said, ducking to dodge another bullet, “but normally I have you on the other end of a headset telling me what to do.”
“All right, then,” Brooke said, checking his weapon. “Let’s do this. We have a country to save.”
CHAPTER THREE
Alan Pauling pushed his hand into the Cheetos and pulled out half a dozen of the neon-orange snacks. He stuffed them into his mouth before wiping the salty cheese on the side of his Hawaiian shirt. It was hot and humid in New Orleans – just his kind of weather – and he settled back in his seat and stretched his arms in the comforting warmth. It reminded him of home in Queensland, not that he’d ever be going back there. When all this was over, and his special skills were no longer needed, he was going to buy himself a large house on a small island somewhere very isolated.
Watching the crowds forming below in the street, Pauling hoped not for the first time that Novak had done his part of the job properly and got inside the Beast. They had all known that was the hardest part of the entire operation, and any screw ups wouldn’t be known until the big moment itself. He shrugged his shoulders and ate more Cheetos. They would know soon enough.
How many of these people would survive the next few hours? Pauling had no idea. He didn’t particularly care about any of them. The tiny handful of people he cared about were thousands of miles away in Australia. The Boss had told him that particular country wasn’t a target, at least not yet. The Boss had his reasons for striking America, but the Boss never talked about them to anyone and Pauling knew better than to ask.
Another mouthful of Cheetos and he cracked open a Pepsi Max. Alan Pauling had a technical mind, but was not a complicated man. As far as he was concerned, all he cared about was the Golden Rule, and that was whoever has the gold, makes the rules. After this job for the Boss, he would be wealthy enough to fly away and build himself his own personal fiefdom, somewhere tropical if he could help it.
And nowhere immediately downwind of the Eastern Seaboard. After today, that would be a big mistake.
He fired up his laptop and swigged from the can of warm Pepsi. Waiting for the software to load, he peered once again through the window at the hubbub seven storeys beneath him. Enjoy it while you can, folks, he th
ought. Pretty soon nothing but mayhem down there.
The principle was simple enough – exploiting a simple zero-day vulnerability to change the course of history. Pauling enjoyed his work, and his study of the target vehicle’s network architecture was especially interesting to him. The more sophisticated the system, the more vulnerabilities there were to attack and exploit, and that was what made this job so exciting. It didn't get much more sophisticated than this.
If the vehicle was connected to the internet, which it was, it was simply a case of acquiring the car’s IP address. That was where Novak came in. With that information, Pauling was able to rewrite firmware in a chip inside the vehicle’s navigation system and import his own code. With that done he would be able to control the vehicle through the exploited CAN bus. A simple hack of the night-vision camera on the front of the car would allow for a visual as he controlled the car, and after that, as far as the passengers in the target vehicle were concerned, Alan Pauling was God.
He crumpled the empty bag of Cheetos and tossed it over his shoulder before peering outside the window. He glanced at his watch. The crowd was gathering nicely, and pretty soon the car would be here.
Then it was Showtime in the Big Easy.
*
Speaker Todd Tobin loved supporting his team more than just about anything else in this world, and today was no exception. The Paul Brown Stadium in Cincinnati, Ohio was humming with excitement as his team, the Cincinnati Bengals, were preparing to kick the pants off the Seattle Seahawks. Days like this were a rare treat for Speaker Tobin, who spent most of his time in Washington glad-handing and smooth-talking people he barely knew and cared for even less.
Today was a break – hotdogs, fried onions, French’s mustard, sunshine and last but not least, a great game ahead of him. He could barely contain his excitement.
Laura looked at him and rolled her eyes.
He smiled. “What?”
His wife said nothing and passed him a paper towel.