“Where is she?” Blunt asked.
“What do you mean? Weren’t you watching that botched mission?” Sinclair asked.
“You’re not that dumb.”
“I appreciate your affirmation regarding my intelligence, but I’m also not stupid enough to tell you where we have her. You’ll have to learn that on your own—but you never will if you try to pull another stunt like that again. I’ll send her back to you in pieces, and I’ll enjoy every minute of it.”
Blunt hung up the phone and jammed it into his pocket. He needed to find Morgan before it was too late.
CHAPTER 13
Somewhere over Russia
HAWK AWOKE AS COLD AIR whooshed into his face and the cabin’s air pressure vanished. He looked over at Alex, who was strapped in and unfazed by the chaos swirling around her.
“Alex,” he shouted. “Alex, wake up!”
She didn’t stir.
Hawk had so many questions flying through this mind, but no time to ponder any of them.
He fished his backpack from beneath his seat and fastened it around him. Next, he looked up at the overhead hatch where the parachutes were stored. Unbuckling from his seatbelt, he wrapped it around his left wrist to keep him from flying out of the door. With his right hand, he reached up and unlatched the door. Once he grabbed one of the chute straps, he pulled the pack down and carefully secured it on his back.
His next challenge was to get across the aisle and get Alex, who was still asleep. At least, he hoped she was sleeping and wasn’t dead. Her unresponsiveness concerned him, but not nearly as much as the plane with an open door that was careening toward the ground.
He remained tethered to the belt and worked his way over to her.
“Alex, wake up!” he shouted.
When she didn’t move, he shook her vigorously to see if she could possibly be roused.
Still nothing.
He thrust his right leg in front of her chest, pinning her against the seat while he unbuckled her. Next, he grabbed a fistful of her shirt and pulled her close to him. He held on to her with his right arm and then swung back to his side of the cabin near the door.
I hope I never wake up like she’s about to.
Hawk rocked back and forth to gain enough momentum to swing out of the door. Counting to three beneath his breath, he gritted his teeth and leaped.
The air chilled Hawk to the bone. With his arms locked around Alex, he could only imagine how she might react when she awoke. He just hoped she wouldn’t thrash about, though he was certain if she regained consciousness during the free fall descent, she would panic.
If Hawk had been jumping for a mission, things would be vastly different. He would know what kind of terrain he was about to land on and what he was about to face. But everything about this jump was unplanned, all the way down to Alex not having a chute and him having to cling to his wife to spare her life.
The only saving grace for Hawk was the altimeter function on his watch. Under normal circumstances, he would check it every few seconds in an attempt to time his pull perfectly. But he couldn’t withstand the strain of craning his neck around Alex constantly to see his altitude. So, he had to determine the rate he was falling and estimate the right moment to yank on his rip cord. Once he felt confident, everything was thrown off when Alex opened her eyes.
“Am I dreaming?” she asked groggily as she looked around.
“Which part? The part about a dashingly handsome man saving you from the clutches of death? Or the part about you waking up in a free fall out of an airplane?”
“Both,” she said.
“You are most definitely not dreaming,” Hawk said.
Closing her eyes, Alex threw her head back and screamed. When she did, her positioning made it even more difficult for Hawk to see the altimeter readout on his watch. He’d lost count but was certain the moment was nearing to deploy his parachute.
“Hold on,” Hawk said before tugging on the cord.
The time it took for the parachute to unfurl seemed to last for minutes if not hours. But eventually it opened up and caught the wind, beginning their soft descent to the ground. Hawk and Alex jerked upward, halting their rapid fall.
“Are you insane?” Alex asked. “You need to give me a warning.”
“I did,” Hawk said. “Maybe you didn’t hear me over your screaming.”
“Hawk, I woke up falling out of an airplane,” she said. “What other response did you expect?”
Hawk smiled, confident he could get away with a cheeky moment since the chaos was suspended for the next few minutes as they floated down to the earth.
“Don’t look down,” he said.
“You know how much I hate heights,” she said. “I wouldn’t dare dream of it.”
“Good. It’s going to take a while before we touch the ground again.”
“What happened?” she asked.
“I have no idea,” Hawk said. “When I woke up, the plane was in a free fall and the cockpit door was shut. Thank God we were both buckled in.”
“So, you don’t know what happened to Kip?”
Below, an explosion lit up the sky.
Hawk sighed. “I have no idea. But if he was in that cockpit, he’s gone now. The plane just struck the ground.”
“Hawk, where are we?”
“I’m not a hundred percent sure of that either. I can tell you one thing though: this isn’t Afghanistan.”
She exhaled. “That’s refreshing. Waking up like that was bad enough, but then only to find out we’re about to land in the middle of a village controlled by the Taliban? That would’ve been too much for me.”
“Oh, Alex, the fun is just
