Hawk used the handrail to swing back down to the ground floor. He worked his way around the room while McGinn blabbered away, giving away his precise location each time.
“If you’re lucky enough to kill me, Hawk, just know that this endless parade of betrayal and attacks are never going to stop,” McGinn said. “You’re on the CIA’s most wanted list now.”
Tell me something I don’t already know.
Hawk felt the door behind him on the far side of the room from where he had entered. He needed to flush McGinn out into the open to get a clean shot.
“President Michaels knows about Firestorm now, too,” McGinn said again. “It’s over. You’re done. The whole project is going to be shuddered, especially after you screwed things up in Washington.”
Hawk tried to ignore McGinn, who apparently knew quite a few more details about Hawk than he would’ve guessed. All it did was make Hawk angrier.
I’m gonna take you bastards out one at a time then.
Hawk continued with this dance around the room until a pattern emerged from McGinn’s movements. Even as random as McGinn had to think he was being, Hawk had figured out McGinn’s next move and was one step ahead of him.
Hawk moved into position and waited, enduring more drivel from McGinn in the process.
“You, Alex, Blunt—you’re all gonna die,” McGinn said.
Hawk exploded from his position, delivering a swift punch to McGinn’s throat. McGinn staggered back and attempted to raise his weapon and get off a shot at Hawk. But Hawk kicked the gun out of McGinn’s hand before bull rushing him. Hawk placed his shoulder into the center of McGinn’s sternum and drove him against the wall. The thud of McGinn’s back hitting the steel beam was followed by a crack. Hawk unleashed a wicked punch to McGinn’s nose, breaking it and sending McGinn to the ground.
But before McGinn slunk all the way to the floor, Hawk ripped free the knife that McGinn had tucked into the side of his belt.
“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not a big fan of terrorism, no matter who is doing the terrorizing,” Hawk said. “But I trust myself more than anyone else, and I know what’s going on here.”
“And what is that exactly?” McGinn asked.
“You sabotaged this mission to get rich,” Hawk said.
McGinn laughed and shook his head. “You think you know me so well, do you? I hate to break it to you, Hawk, but that’s not the kind of man I am.”
“You certainly aren’t a man of principal.”
“No, I’m much more—I’m a man of duty. And that’s exactly what I was doing here. I was fulfilling my duty.”
“To steal Sarin for the CIA.”
McGinn sneered. “If you only knew.”
“Enlighten me.”
“I don’t care to waste my last few breaths.”
Hawk knelt so he could look McGinn in the eyes. “You set me and Alex up. I could pardon you for trying to kill me. But Alex?”
“Just get it over with,” McGinn said as he lunged for the knife in Hawk’s hand.
Hawk yanked the knife back in an attempt to move it out of McGinn’s reach.
“You bastard. Don’t drag this out,” McGinn snapped.
Hawk grabbed McGinn’s ear and pulled his head to the side before inserting the knife into his chest. “Whatever horrors my own government planned end today.”
McGinn slumped down, his eyes barely open, life fleeting from his body. “They will find you, you know.”
Hawk wiped the bloody blade off on his pants. “I’m counting on it.”
CHAPTER 38
AN HOUR LATER, THE AJAGAR ENTERED the harbor in Berbera with a frazzled Captain Katari at the helm. Hawk stood calmly behind the captain. Other than revenge, there was no reason for Katari to retaliate against Hawk and Alex. The package that McGinn had entrusted Katari to transport had been dumped into the Arabian Sea, and, with it, Katari’s big payday.
“I know it may feel like a disappointment now,” Hawk began, “but you would’ve lived with a lifetime of regret the moment you heard about the hundreds of people killed by Sarin gas. Trust me. We did you a favor.”
Katari didn’t flinch, keeping his eyes on the waterway in front of his ship.
“McGinn would’ve probably killed you anyway,” Alex said. “Had you even seen any money.”
Katari wouldn’t turn around.
Hawk fingered the gun in his pocket, unsure if Katari might explode. “I hope you understand this isn’t personal for us, but we were sent here to do a job. Somewhere along the way, we were ambushed, yet we never wavered in our mission. I’m sure as a captain you can appreciate that.”
Nodding almost indiscernibly, Katari continued steering the ship to the port they’d departed from a few hours before.
They continued on for a few minutes in silence before Katari spoke.
“Do you know what it’s like to see your family suffer? To watch your grandmother nearly faint due to the unbearable heat? To listen to the cries of your son with a hungry belly? I take no pride in what I did, but I saw an opportunity to change the course of my family’s life, to give them a chance to thrive instead of survive. And I did what any man would do—I took it.”
“But is that worth your integrity?” Hawk asked.
“Integrity doesn’t keep our homes cool or put food on the table. But money does,” Katari said, shaking his fist.
“If it’s blood money, the cost is always too high.”
Katari didn’t say a word, seething until the ship docked.
“Give me your account number, and I’ll see that you’re compensated from a source that will reward you for doing the right thing,” Hawk said.
Katari exhaled and shrugged. “What can it hurt?”
“It will ease the pain,” Hawk said. “I understand your predicament, but I cannot allow such injustice to become the way my own country operates, even if this mission
