Hawk seethed. “The minute they die, you know you’re dead. I will gut you myself.”
Fazil laughed. “Just like you did all those other times before when you had the chance? I think you are fooling yourself, Mr. Hawk. But I am done talking about this. Get a plane gassed up and ready to go. I want you to be in the air in one hour, and I will give you further instructions once you’re airborne.”
“I’ll be waiting for your call.” Hawk hung up and growled. “I swear if I see that bastard, I may empty my entire clip into him.”
“Karif Fazil?” Matthews asked, his eyebrows arching.
“The one and only.”
“Taking care of him would certainly be a feather in our cap, not to mention President Young’s.”
“I don’t care who gets the credit. I just want Fazil dead. That man is toying with us and will continue to torture us until he’s dead and buried.”
Matthews eased his foot onto the gas pedal as the Humvee purred. “Let’s see what we can do about that.”
CHAPTER 29
Zagros Mountains, Iraq
HAWK SCANNED THE AREA surrounding the Al Hasib hideout. The Great Zab River wound lazily around the bend, almost an afterthought amidst the scenic vistas created by the Zagros Mountains. The sun hadn’t set, but it disappeared behind the peaks more than an hour earlier. To Hawk, the conditions were perfect for a strike, one he hoped Fazil would’ve never anticipated.
Just as Hawk began to go over the final plan with the Delta Force team members, his phone rang.
“Where am I going?” Hawk asked as he answered the phone.
“Istanbul,” Fazil said. “I will email you the coordinates.”
Hawk glanced at his phone as the text arrived almost simultaneously. The numbers looked familiar to him.
“The Chamber’s old headquarters—interesting choice of venue,” Hawk said. “I’ve been there before, you know.”
“Where you have been is of no concern to me,” Fazil said. “The only thing that matters is if you will show up. If you fail to do so, I will kill your friends. Do you understand?”
“I do. See you soon.” Hawk hung up and stuffed his phone in his pocket.
He returned his attention to the Delta Force team.
“We don’t have much time,” he said. “If Fazil is the kind of man I think he is, he’s going to try to threaten my friends in front of me. Let’s make sure he never gets that chance.”
Matthews selected Bobby Wright and Jackson Quinn to accompany Hawk on the rescue mission inside the hideout. If Kejal’s intel was accurate, Hawk’s newly assembled team would have to fight their way past three levels of guards before reaching the prison cells. To get out, Hawk and company would have to work quickly to escape without several more legions of guards rushing over to help. While Hawk pondered what the odds of successfully completing such a mission would be, he figured that it didn’t matter. There was no way in hell he was going to let Fazil use Alex and Blunt as leverage any longer. Something had to give—and whatever it was, it was going to give within the next hour.
Hawk bowed his head and said a quick prayer.
“You religious or something?” Quinn asked.
Hawk shook his head. “Not particularly, but I’ll take all the help I can get on this mission. If there is a God up there, I know he’d be rooting for us.”
Hawk nodded at his two companions and started moving toward the entrance to the cave. They crouched low as they hustled across the craggy terrain. Hawk went first, followed by Wright then Quinn.
“Think these bastards know what’s coming for them?” Wright asked.
“I hope not,” Hawk said.
Once they reached the gate, Hawk invoked the protocol for gaining entry as Kejal described. Rapping on the gate three times, then twice, followed by three more times, Hawk hoped that he’d remembered correctly.
A few seconds later, the gate swung open. Quinn and Wright entered first, taking down the guard in a matter of seconds, breaking his neck with a quick turn and tossing his body outside.
Hawk pulled the door shut behind him and retook the lead. They wound around the dimly lit corridor and went straight for another fifty meters before they encountered their next wave of Al Hasib guards. This time there were only two, both put down by shots from the handguns fitted with silencers. Hawk and company stepped over the bodies and continued to move toward their destination.
After another hundred meters and a serious of turns, a quartet of guards stood positioned outside the inner sanctum of the Al Hasib hideout—at least, that’s how Kejal described it. Being outnumbered presented a bigger challenge to Hawk’s team, but they were up for it.
Hawk fired first, hitting the guard in the center of his chest. The two guards flanking him didn’t have a chance to react before Wright and Quinn immobilized them with one shot, ensuring they’d never move again with another bullet each. That left one guard, who had reacted quickly enough and sprinted in the opposite direction.
“We’ve got a runner,” Hawk said, racing after the man.
The last thing Hawk wanted was to incur the influx of more guards.
He chased after the man, who had cut down another corridor. Hawk followed as close as possible but gave up after the man vanished into a sea of hallways and doors.
“Let’s go,” Quinn said over the coms. “We don’t have time to chase down anyone else. We’ve gotta get the assets and get out of here as quickly as possible.”
“Roger that,” Hawk said as he stopped and hurried back to his companions.
They followed Kejal’s instructions and came to the last set of guards they were supposed to encounter before the prison. Two armed men stood outside the door, standing at attention.
“You guys take these two,” Hawk whispered. “I’ll get to work on the lock.”
With silencers on the end of their handguns, the two Delta Force team members dropped the guards. Hawk rushed up to the
