“Alex,” Hawk shouted. “Are you okay?”
She slowly turned her head in the direction of his voice, but before he could see her face, the same officer who interrogated him the night before stepped in front of Hawk’s line of sight.
“Mr. Hawk, it’s a pleasure to see you this morning,” the man said. “Did you have a chance to mull over what we talked about yesterday?”
Hawk narrowed his eyes but didn’t say a thing.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” the officer said. “Would you like to change your story about where you were headed and what you were doing?”
“I stand by my original statement,” Hawk said.
“I’m not sure that’s a wise decision.”
“It’s the truth. I have nothing else to add.”
The officer stroked his beard and eyed Hawk closely. “In that case, we have no more need for you or your partner. We contacted the American government yesterday, and they weren’t willing to negotiate for either of you. Apparently, you’re both expendable, not even worth a prisoner trade. So, you’ll be executed tonight.”
“Now, wait,” Hawk said. “There might be something of value I could give you, but I need a deal in writing—and I need to see someone from the American embassy to ensure the terms of any agreement.”
The officer chuckled and shook his head. “The only worth you had to us was to get back someone the U.S. recently abducted. And I doubt there’s anything you could tell us that we don’t already know. We have agents everywhere, Mr. Hawk.”
He gestured for the guards to take Hawk away. They seized his arms and forced him in the opposite direction.
“I’m sure we could work something out,” Hawk said as he struggled against their grip.
One of the guards edged up to Hawk’s ear. “The only question now is who goes first: You or your wife?”
Hawk spun toward the man, jabbing him with an elbow and knocking him off balance a few feet. Once he regained his footing, he pulled out a cropping stick and whacked Hawk in the back of his legs. He crumpled, falling onto his knees.
“Get up,” the man growled as he yanked Hawk by the back of his collar. “I’m going to enjoy putting you out of your misery.”
For the rest of the day, Hawk oscillated between lying on his cot and pacing around his cell. All he could think about was Alex and what her situation was like. He also lamented the fact that all the intel he’d accumulated on Falcon Sinclair and Obsidian was going to go to waste. Dying by a firing squad in a Russian military facility certainly wasn’t the way he expected to go out, but death was a risk he was all too aware of and something he’d flirted with many times before. He imagined if he was going to die, it’d be doing something heroic or noble, throwing himself on a bomb or sacrificing himself to save some political dignitary. But leaping out of an aircraft into the Russian’s waiting arms carried quite a bit of ignominy for any spy, especially an American one.
What I’d give to be on a couch somewhere cuddled up with Alex and watching a Bollywood movie.
Hawk’s druthers stood in stark contrast. He was curled up in a fetal position on a lumpy cot beneath the watchful eyes of Russian soldiers excited about filling him full of lead later that day. Even worse was the time Hawk spent waiting, though he wasn’t sure if it was some psychological torture technique. If it was the latter, Hawk deemed the tactic a success.
Just after dark, a guard entered Hawk’s cell with a tray of food, accompanied by an Orthodox priest.
“Would you like your last rites?” the priest asked.
Hawk nodded.
Anything to buy me more time.
The obstacle Hawk faced was that even if he had more time, he wasn’t sure what he’d do with it. To escape the compound, he’d have to overcome a number of seemingly insurmountable odds, chief among them being the fact that he didn’t know where Alex was. And he wasn’t about to leave without her.
When the priest finished praying, Hawk looked the man in the eyes.
“Thank you,” Hawk said. “At least there’s one decent soul in this country.”
The priest nodded. “God be with you, son.”
Hawk took stock of the situation, his mind whirring with possibilities for escape. With his hands tethered in front of him, he figured he could utilize them as a weapon if he could get behind a guard and wrap them around his neck. But there were too many of them. He didn’t want to go down without a fight, but there wouldn’t be much of one. A bullet lodged in one of the men’s guns would be lodged in Hawk’s head one way or another.
Maybe dying in front of a firing squad would have some dignity to it. At least it’s a noble way to go.
In an instant, his world went dark as a guard secured a blind around Hawk’s head.
Moments later, he heard Alex’s voice. She shrieked and called for him.
“Hawk, don’t let them do it,” she cried. “Keep fighting. Keep—”
All he heard was a whack followed by a thud.
“Drag her over to the post with him,” a guard said. “I wanted her to watch him die, but it’s better that they do it together. And let them see one another as we shoot them.”
Hawk’s blindfold was removed in time for him to see Alex’s limp body being dragged across the courtyard next to a wooden post positioned about six feet in front of a concrete wall. A bank of lights illuminated the outdoor space. Bullet holes served as scars from previous executions and an ominous reminder of what was merely minutes away for him and Alex.
“Talk to me, Alex,” Hawk said. “Wake up.”
She didn’t say a word.
Hawk couldn’t hold back the tears as they gushed
