“We’ll be able to handle him,” Hawk said. “Just play it cool, okay? I don’t want you getting hurt during this whole ordeal.”
At ten minutes past 10:00 a.m., Walsh had yet to arrive. The perimeter alarm had been tripped twice, but both times Black checked his phone to see the images transmitted back to him. One was of two young women hiking, while the other was an elderly couple.
“Still no sign of him,” Hawk said softly to Black. “Maybe we overestimated Walsh’s affection for his mother.”
While they were talking, Mrs. Templeton gasped and let out a short cry.
“You made it,” she said, her gaze trained on the front of El Diablo Point.
Hawk spun and looked toward the front of the rock and watched Mack Walsh scramble to his feet and pull his gun. Hawk trained his weapon on Mack as he darted behind Mrs. Templeton.
“That’s far enough,” Hawk said. “Put the gun down.”
Walsh, who was sporting a Kevlar vest and a helmet, had yet to remove his rock climbing harness and breathed heavily after summiting the rock face.
“Is this how you want to play it?” Walsh asked. “I kill your mother, then you kill mine? I don’t know what you think is going to come of this, but you’re not going to learn anything. There are people far more powerful than you ever imagined, people in our own government, pulling the strings here. And if you think threatening to kill my mother is going to change things, you’re dead wrong.”
“You’re outgunned,” Black said. “There are only two ways this ends, and you won’t be pleased with either one.”
Walsh laughed as he unbuckled his harness and shook it off onto the ground. “This is a joke, right? We both know you’re not going to kill my mother.”
“Don’t test me,” Hawk said. “I know what kind of woman she is. And it wouldn’t be hard to pull the trigger.”
“I doubt that. Whatever you know, she’s far worse.”
Mrs. Templeton glared at her son. “That’s rich coming from you.”
“Says my sick and dying mother,” Walsh shot back. “I knew that was a lie the moment you told me. All those fake tears? Was that for these agents here or for me?”
“At least I had the decency to warn you. Maybe that was a mistake, especially if you’re going to talk about me like that?” she said. “How dare you!”
“Put a sock in it, old lady,” Walsh said. “You told me there was only one agent to worry about, not two.”
“That’s right,” Black said. “There’s no way out of this for you.”
“Do I look concerned?” Walsh asked.
“If you knew this was a trap, why’d you come?” Hawk asked. “Is Obsidian really that concerned about one agent?”
Walsh shook his head. “I’m just following orders.”
“So am I,” Hawk countered.
“You’re wasting your time because no matter what you do to me, you won’t be able to stop them,” Walsh said. “They are moving ahead regardless of whether I’m alive or dead.”
“At this point, do you think I really care about that?” Hawk said. “I want justice for my mother.”
“And you’re going to get that my shooting my mother?” Walsh asked. “Come on, Hawk. This isn’t you. Let me save you the trouble.”
Walsh took aim at his mother, firing twice. Realizing what Walsh was doing, Hawk pushed Mrs. Templeton to the side, but it was too late. One bullet ripped through her chest while the other grazed her side.
Hawk and Black both fired back but they didn’t have much of a target to aim for as Walsh dove off the side of the cliff.
CHAPTER 24
HAWK KNELT DOWN next to Mrs. Templeton and propped her head up. He tried to stop the bleeding, applying pressure with his hands. Alex handed him a sweatshirt to help, but the blood flow wasn’t slowing down fast enough.
“It’s all right,” Mrs. Templeton said as she gasped for air. “I deserve this.”
“No one deserves to be murdered by their own son,” Hawk said.
“I had it coming one way or another,” she said before coughing up some more blood.
“Please,” Hawk said, “if you know anything about what he’s planning on doing, tell us now. You might be able to help save innocent lives.”
She coughed some more and struggled to take a deep breath before closing her eyes.
“Mrs. Templeton, stay with us,” Alex said, taking the woman’s hand.
She opened her eyes again, barely wide enough to see her pupils.
“He texted me that he was going to kill you and return to Washington for one more job and then he was getting out.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Templeton,” Hawk said.
“If you see him again, tell him I love him,” she said.
Her body fell limp in Hawk’s arms.
Alex closed her eyes and shook her head. “She’s gone.”
“What a bastard,” Hawk said. “He just killed his own mother. One more job? Yeah, right.”
Black hustled back over to Hawk and Alex. “She didn’t make it, did she?”
“She didn’t have a prayer,” Hawk said.
“Well, Walsh made it,” Black said. “He pulled a chute and made it safely to the ground near the parking lot before he tore out of here.”
“How were they communicating?” Black asked. “I thought you confiscated her phone.”
“We did,” Alex said. “Apparently, she had another one.”
Alex searched Mrs. Templeton’s pockets and found a cell phone. “Would you look at this?”
The device was password protected and prevented Alex from getting into the data.
“Use her thumbprint to the open the phone,” Hawk said. “It’s still turned on, isn’t it?”
“It is, but this cell uses facial recognition,” she said.
“Try it,” Black said.
Alex held the phone in front of Mrs. Templeton, allowing it to scan her face. The phone buzzed and opened up.
“Bingo,” Alex said and started to look for the text exchange between Mrs. Templeton and her son.
“There’s nothing here,” Alex said. “All the texts have been deleted.”
“Can you retrieve any of it another way?”
