Hawk dropped the bag of clothes on the floor by the door and snatched the gun from the back of his pants. Training his weapon in front of him, Hawk cleared the first three rooms before he heard the faint sound of a board creaking coming from down the hall. Hawk slowed his breathing and crept quietly toward the noise.
Once he reached the next doorway, he eased inside quickly to find a tossed study. Books and file papers strewn across the floor, chairs overturned, windows opened while curtains flapped in the breeze.
Either Ahmet Polat was a messy genius or someone was here looking for something—Hawk couldn’t decide which one. The chair was facing the window, and Hawk cautiously reached forward to investigate. Slumped in the chair with two bullets to the chest and one to his forehead was Polat.
“Are you getting this, Alex?” Hawk whispered.
“Unfortunately, I am,” she said. “It’s all coming through crystal clear from your body cam. I’m running this through facial recognition to confirm, but that looks like Polat to me.”
“This is a mess,” Hawk muttered.
Then he heard a creak again. It sounded the same as the last one, only now he knew it was coming from another room.
“I think I’ve got some hostiles,” Hawk whispered. “Just a heads up.”
Hawk slipped into the hallway, his head on a swivel and gun trained in front of him.
Another creak. Then he made one of his own.
Footsteps pounded against the floor, beating a path toward the back of the apartment. Hawk switched into pursuit mode, unsure of why whoever else was inside had waited until that moment to attempt a quick exit. Though Hawk had moved stealthily down the hall, it wasn’t as if his entrance was unannounced.
A blur darted to the left at the end of the short corridor, and Hawk followed suit. Another blur to the right, only this time, Hawk caught a glimpse of a man clutching something in his left hand.
When Hawk reached the back, the man was trying to unlock the door but was having trouble, the kind that gets a person killed. The man looked over his shoulder at Hawk standing in the doorway and fired several shots. Hawk dashed behind the wall and waited.
Three . . . two . . . one.
Hawk exploded around the corner and squeezed off two shots. The first one hit the man in the shoulder, the second one in his head. He collapsed, dropping both his gun and the small device he’d been holding. It was a flash drive. Hawk kicked the gun away from the man and stooped down to check his pulse. He was dead.
Hawk pocketed the device. “Well, Polat’s dead, but at least we got what we came here for,” he said into his comlink.
Then another creak.
Hawk looked up to find another man raising his gun when three shots ripped through him and he toppled to the floor. Heavy footfalls followed before Samuels appeared in the doorway. He shook his head.
“Next time, you need to listen to me and follow protocol,” Samuels said. “If I hadn’t broken protocol myself, you’d be dead right now.”
Hawk winked and pulled the flash drive out of his pocket. He held it up for Samuels.
“But we wouldn’t have this either, which was the entire point of this mission.”
Alex interrupted the conversation. “This tit-for-tat is fun, but you two have a pair of uninvited guests heading up the front stairs now.”
Hawk took aim at the lock and fired two shots, shattering it and freeing the door. The two operatives raced outside and headed for their truck.
“What are you going to do now?” Samuels asked as he kept pace with Hawk.
“What? Your little manual doesn’t describe how to handle a situation like this?” Hawk fired back, still in a dead sprint.
As they rounded the corner, a shot ricocheted off a nearby building.
Alex met them at the door, holding it up as Hawk and Samuels rushed inside.
“Samuels, drive this thing like you stole it,” Hawk said.
“What are you gonna do?” Samuels asked as he turned the key and shifted the van into gear.
“Just drive.”
Samuels stomped on the gas. Alex and Hawk both lurched back but they quickly regained their balance.
Hawk looked at Alex and pointed at the front seat. “You don’t want to be back here for this, but I’m going to lose them for you.”
She shook her head and sighed as she glanced at the motorcycle in the rear of the van. “On that thing?”
“Got any better ideas? Samuels didn’t have any from his manual.”
“Just make it back alive, will you?”
“I always do,” Hawk said, securing the chinstrap on his helmet.
Hawk kicked down on the starter and revved the engine several times. He hit a button on the side of the van and activated the door, rolling it up overhead. The moment the door raised high enough for Hawk to slip beneath, he roared out and hit the street hard. He quickly spun around and accelerated.
Looking over his shoulder, Hawk identified the two men chasing them now speeding toward them in a black SUV. They fired a few bursts at him before Hawk identified a side street to draw them away from the van.
Hawk banked hard left, and the men followed.
“Alex, can you help me out here?” Hawk asked.
“Give me a second,” she said. “I’m calling up a map.”
Hawk slowed down just enough to take a hard right onto another street.
“Okay, I’ve got something. In about a quarter of a mile on the right, there’s an alley you can lose them in.”
“You sure that’s a good route?”
“There might be a few steps involved, but I’m sure you can handle it.”
Hawk huffed a short laugh through his nose. “You never like to give me the easy way, do you?”
“Where’s the fun in that?”
Hawk glanced over his shoulder at the SUV now gaining on him. He weaved again, anticipating the men were close enough to begin firing
