The Shadow Hunter (The Phoenix Chronicles Book 1)

by R. J. Patterson

  For all their pride and bluster, Russia knew it couldn’t defeat the U.S. in a war. But letting someone else without such awareness engage the Americans in a conflict? That was a job a delusional leader like Kim Yong-ju would embrace unwittingly. By the time he realized he was a pawn for the Russians, it’d be too late. His impulsiveness would take North Korea into the throes of conflict without a second thought. Meanwhile, Russia would take pleasure in seeing the U.S. military weakened and the superpower pilloried by other nations for bullying such a poor country.

  While this was the theory Hawk had cobbled together based on his knowledge of geopolitics plus everything he’d gathered from Tyson’s place, it was a plausible one. After thinking through everything, Hawk floated his theory by Morgan, who struggled to poke holes in it. And although it was possible that North Korea was instigating a showdown with the U.S. all on its own, Russia would undeniably benefit no matter if they were involved or not. If the Russians happened to catch wind about North Korea, Hawk was convinced that the two nations would partner together in some fashion. And what better way to stoke the fires of war by using an American operative to help make it happen.

  However, the theory hinged on what “the code” meant.

  Hawk crouched lower when he heard approaching footsteps. He waited until he heard Tyson buckle his seatbelt before revealing his presence.

  “Well, well, well,” Hawk said.

  Tyson gasped and turned to glare at Hawk. “What the hell, man?”

  “You’re slipping, T-Bone. I could’ve killed you a number of different ways if I was an enemy spy.”

  “Stay down,” Tyson said. “They could be watching me right now.”

  “And by they, are you referring to the FSB or the Russian military?”

  “Does it matter? Either one of them would put a bullet in my head if they thought I had an American in the car with me.”

  “I’ll stay hidden,” Hawk said. “But I’m going with you.”

  “If you want to pretend like we’re SEALs again while I drive to the store to get a gallon of milk and some eggs, be my guest. But I have a feeling that you’re thinking this is something more.”

  Hawk glanced at the travel coffee mug resting in the cup holder, the steam wafting into the air. “You mean to tell me you’re bringing your large coffee mug for a short trip to the market?”

  “Yeah, it’s o-six-hundred,” Tyson said. “I’m barely awake.”

  “That’s bullshit and you know it. Hell, T-Bone, I can smell the body wash you lathered all over yourself during your shower this morning.”

  Tyson sighed and leaned against his seat’s headrest. “You can’t come with me, Hawk.”

  “I know where you’re going,” Hawk said, “but you know you can’t give that code to the North Koreans.”

  “I don’t even know what it’s for, and I don’t think you should make any judgments on that either. Besides, you came here to take me home, but I’m not going. So your mission is over.”

  “Rule number forty-seven of espionage states: ‘Be opportunistic. When your intended mission breaks down, take advantage of the situation if there’s more intel to be gained.’”

  Tyson huffed a laugh through his nose. “What are you doing? Writing a spy manual now?”

  “Maybe I am. What difference does it make? I was sent here to bring you back, but I was also told to learn whatever I could. And what I learned is pretty damn frightening given what’s going on in the world right now. Are you even aware that Kim Yong-ju is itching to start something with the U.S.?”

  “Yeah. I still watch the news.”

  “And you don’t think it’s odd that you’ve been tapped to deliver ‘a code’ to a naval harbor on the coast of North Korea?”

  Tyson remained stoic, keeping his gaze fixed directly ahead. He barely moved his mouth when he spoke. “I’ve considered the possibility of what they’re asking me to do.”

  “They’re asking you to do this? And you’re doing it willingly?”

  “Well, that’s not exactly how it went.”

  “Then how did it go?”

  Tyson sighed. “Either get out or shut up because I have to a job to do.”

  “You can’t do this, T-Bone. I really don’t want to have to hurt you.”

  Tyson chuckled and threw the car into reverse and backed out of the space. He idled for a moment. “You have no clue about what’s going on. But if you don’t want to get dragged out and shot or worse—imprisoned here in Yakutsk—I suggest you stay down.”

  The car lurched forward, the tires barking on the parking garage’s slick pavement. Hawk, who’d dropped back down into his hiding spot, banged his shoulder against the car door as Tyson whipped the car out onto the main road.

  “You really want to come all this way with me?” Tyson asked.

  “I didn’t get out, did I?”

  “Nor did you shut up.”

  “No SEAL left behind, remember?” Hawk said.

  “Well, I can guarantee if you make it out of Russia alive, you won’t be bringing me with you.”

  “Please help me understand,” Hawk said. “And I don’t care if it puts me in danger. If there’s someone with that much power, I want to know about it so they can be addressed properly.”

  “Hold on,” Tyson said before going silent for the next few minutes. Eventually, he pulled onto the side of the road and told Hawk to get into the passenger seat.

  Hawk sat up and furrowed his brow. “Are you sure this is safe?”

  “We’re literally in the middle of Siberia, and there aren’t any cameras for hundreds of miles. Not to mention, this drive is going to take us two days. If I’m going to tell you everything, you should at least be up here to keep me company.”

  “Fair enough,” Hawk said before he hustled out of the back and into the front.

  Once Hawk was buckled in, Tyson returned to the road. He took a deep breath before he began.

  “Have you ever heard of The Alliance?” Tyson asked.

  Hawk pursed his lips and stared out at the snow-covered landscape. “I can’t say that I have.”

  “Neither had I until I was working on a little reconnaissance project for my commander,” Hawk asked.

  “Which one?”

  Tyson sighed. “I’d rather not say at this point. But I don’t think you know him. Anyway, when I found out some information about The Alliance, I went to him with it. He told me to forget that I ever saw it.”

  “And that didn’t fly for you, did it?” Hawk asked.

  Tyson resolutely shook his head. “That only fueled my curiosity. Why wouldn’t he want me looking further into The Alliance? And who comprised this organization? That’s where I started.”

  “So how’d you end up here?” Hawk asked. “And by here, I mean exiled from your family.”

  “Eventually, I discovered there’s a bureaucratic cabal running things. The president is just a figurehead. No matter how much Norris thinks he’s in charge, he’s little more than a puppet, his strings pulled by far more powerful men—and he’s not even aware of it. And that put my entire family in danger.”

  “But why hide out here? Why fake your death?”

  “Because of what I know,” Tyson explained. “They tried to kill me twice, and I made their assassins disappear. After the second attempt, I realized there wouldn’t be a third and my whole family was at risk. So, I asked for an assignment in Russia deep behind enemy lines, but I had no intention of ever fulfilling it. I just needed to get out of there and die so my family could be safe. Now that I’m dead, they’re safe. There’s no reason to mess with them.”

  “Who are you talking about?”

  “Look, I know this might be frustrating for you right now, but I know you. And you’ll end up in the same place I am in six months if you do what I think you’ll do with all this information. It’s just best that you don’t know, especially since you can’t do anything about it.”

  Hawk shrugged. “I’m more than capable of doing so
mething about it. If it’s someone who needs to be eliminated for the sake of the country, I won’t hesitate to do it.”

  “I appreciate your patriotism, but this isn’t just about one man. It’d be an endless game of whack-a-mole against well-connected people with deep pockets. It’d be like charging alone into an army of a thousand men like the Vikings of old with nothing but your sword. They’d surround you and gut you before you had a chance to even nick one of them with your blade.”

  “This sounds like a challenge,” Hawk said with a grin.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Tyson said, his tone measured and direct. “This isn’t a joke.”

  For the next hour, they discussed their wives and kids as well as reminisced about their time serving together as Navy SEALs.

  Tyson drove his car down into a desolate valley, surrounded by barren rock faces on both sides. As they did, an SUV roared up behind them.

  “What the hell?” Tyson asked, his eyes widening.

  Hawk turned around to see the vehicle closing fast. Tyson stomped on the accelerator, but the engine couldn’t catch fast enough to avoid a collision. The trailing SUV bumped Tyson’s car, nudging it forward.

  “What is this all about?” Tyson asked. “Did you see me cut someone off a ways back?”

  Hawk shook his head and glanced again at the vehicle. One of the men looked familiar to him.

  “I’ve hardly seen a dozen cars since we started,” Hawk said. “But I think I know what this is about.”

  “Hawwwk,” Tyson said, glaring at his passenger, “what are you not telling me?”

  CHAPTER 25

  Los Angeles

  MORGAN MAY TAPPED a pen on her desk as she read Mia’s report on Hawk’s progress with Tyson. He’d sent her a text earlier reporting that he’d connected with Tyson and was joining him on a mission to North Korea for the Russians. Having Hawk team up with Tyson to help out the Russians wasn’t exactly what she had in mind when she asked him to lead the operation. Her instinct was to pull the plug and order him back, but she’d been warned by her uncle that Hawk would often go off script—and that she wouldn’t be able to argue with the results. Letting him roam wild in Siberia made her nervous, but she’d learned long ago that her uncle J.D. was a wise voice worth listening to.

  She turned her attention to a few news sites she scanned every day, hunting for critical information that’s in plain view, but the public doesn’t understand the implications of it. Sometimes it’d be a CEO abruptly retiring or a company selling off to a competitor. But today it was a suicide, one committed by Victor Edgefield. She hadn’t been deeply involved with the case, only getting briefed when Mallory Kauffman requested Alex’s help and permitted it. But the leak had stirred Morgan’s curiosity, prompting her to dive headlong into the developing situation.

  Morgan cursed her breath, realizing what Edgefield’s death meant. In all likelihood, they’d lost their opportunity to find out who he was working for. If someone had broken into his home and murdered him, staging the scene to appear as a suicide, there wouldn’t be a shred of electronics left. Someone that professional would wipe all the electronics and local law enforcement wouldn’t be the wiser. Not that Morgan wanted them digging any deeper into the case. Having to fight jurisdiction battles would only create a mess.

  The short article in The Washington Post recounted that Edgefield had been a civil servant his whole life, working with the CIA before spending the latter part of his career with the U.S. State Department. It was short and sweet, sure not to attract any unwarranted attention. But it definitely sent a message to those who knew what was going on. The president’s attempt to use Edgefield to identify who was gleaning all this intel from him had failed miserably. Instead of questioning Edgefield and trying to at least get him to talk, they had nothing to go on.

  Morgan dialed Mallory at the NSA to find out anything else regarding Edgefield’s death.

  “I just saw,” Morgan said.

  “Yeah, it’s a devastating blow to the investigation,” Mallory said. “The president used a cabinet meeting to ensure that the information in the cable that came across Edgefield’s desk would be verified by everyone present. But none of that matters now because it’s quite evident that whoever was running Edgefield figured out he was either a pawn or playing them. Either way, they wanted to put an end to it.”

  “Have you seen photos from the scene?”

  “We got a few this morning,” Mallory said. “Common courtesy since Edgefield had worked in the intelligence community for a while before moving to the State Department.”

  “And?”

  “Very professional job. It’s just how I would’ve staged the house if I wanted to sell the idea that someone committed suicide instead of being murdered.”

  “So where do you go from here?”

  “I’m not sure right now. We’re going to search his office and home and see if there’s anything we can find to link him to his contact, but I’m not hopeful.”

  “Understandably so,” Morgan said. “I think it’s pretty clear that somebody didn’t want Edgefield talking.”

  “Or us to be able to trace anything back to them, which makes me that much more curious.”

  “I always start by asking who would’ve benefitted the most from the information going public. And I can’t help but think it’s someone with ties to Joseph Parker’s campaign.”

  “You and I think a lot alike,” Mallory said.

  “Well, let us know if we can be of any assistance,” Morgan said before ending the call.

  Morgan stared out the window, deep in thought about any other way they could make the connection between Edgefield and his handlers. But while the mystery perplexed her, she had more pressing matters, starting with what Hawk was thinking by helping out Tyson on a Russian operation.

  No matter what reason Hawk had, she didn’t like it one bit.

  CHAPTER 26

  Central Siberia

  THE SECOND BUMP from behind nearly knocked Hawk and Tyson off the road completely. Hawk held tightly to the handle over his window as Tyson handled the wheel as best as he possibly could under the circumstances. The patches of ice across the road created challenging conditions, causing the car to fishtail. But despite the vehicle absorbing a pair of jarring hits on the bumper, Tyson maintained control.

  However, the third hit sent them into a spin.

  Hawk tried to focus his vision on objects outside the car so he wouldn’t get dizzy. In the moment, he wondered if they would ever stop. Mountains, road, barren plains, road, mountains, barren plains. The cycle felt like it repeatedly endlessly.

  In actuality, the spinning probably lasted no more than fifteen seconds, but that was far more time than Hawk liked to surrender command of anything in his life.

  Tyson let out what amounted to a drawn out expletive during the entire episode. When the car finally came to a stop, both men exhaled before scanning the horizon. The other car wasn’t anywhere in front of them.

  Hawk glanced over his shoulder to see the car roaring toward them.

  “You’ve gotta move,” he said.

  Tyson stepped on the accelerator, but the wheels struggled to catch on the slick surface. And by the time they did, it was too late.

  The other car clipped their tail end, resulting in a violent rollover. Hawk counted four flips before the car landed upright but about twenty meters off the road. Hawk unbuckled when he heard the other engine revving up.

  “They’re coming to finish us off,” Hawk said. “We’ve gotta get out of here.”

  Tyson grabbed the small package from the backseat before scrambling outside. Just as both men got clear of the car, the SUV drilled Tyson’s vehicle, the thick grill rendering the car inoperable.

  Hawk and Tyson darted across the roadway, taking cover behind a snow bank that ran parallel to the highway. The SUV backed up slowly before pulling onto the side. Two men got out, both wielding weapons. One rushed over to inspect the damage, while the other sca
nned the horizon for Hawk and Tyson.

  “I don’t think he sees us,” Hawk said, ducking down behind the snow.

  “If he does, he’s doing an incredible job of bluffing,” Tyson said. “So you got a plan?”

  “I like to keep it simple,” Hawk said.

  “Let’s hear it.”

  “We kill those two goons, take their vehicle, and finish the mission.”

  “That’s my kind of plan,” Tyson said.

  “Let’s do it.”

  Hawk peeked back up over the bank. His sudden movement must’ve caught the eye of one of the men, who squeezed off a pair of shots before Hawk retreated to cover.

  “So much for the element of surprise,” Tyson said.

  “I won’t concede that just yet,” Hawk said.

  “You got a way to make us invisible?”

  Hawk grinned. “Not quite, but what I’ve got in mind is a close second.”

  Then Hawk suggested they move in opposite directions while hiding behind the snowbank, splitting up to make it more difficult for the men.

  “I like it,” Tyson said. “And when we get back together, you swear to tell me who these guys are?”

  “Of course,” Hawk said. “And it’s not a secret I want to keep from you.”

  “Well, I guess we’d both better survive, hadn’t we?”

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Hawk said.

  The two darted along the snowbank, Hawk moving south and Tyson going north. After they were separated by at least sixty meters, Hawk settled into a spot and decided to search for the men. Upon his first scan of the area, he didn’t see anyone.

  Where’d they go?

  Without any of his gear, Hawk was flying blind. No Alex to talk him through the situation. No coms to even discuss with Tyson the best plan of action. Winning this gunfight came down to instincts.