“I don’t know what to say to that,” Hawk replied. “There are so many things I love about this job, but there are other elements I’d prefer to leave behind. It’s a lot to process right now. Let’s just get Blunt back, and then we’ll talk about it.”
“Fair enough,” she said.
Neither of them heard Black as he crept up on them. “You both look like you’ve been to a funeral.”
Alex and Hawk both jumped at the sound of Black’s voice.
“Geez, Black,” Hawk said. “You don’t have to scare us like that.”
Black chuckled. “It’s way more fun than the boring alternative, not to mention I like to practice my stealth skills.”
“You still possess a strong command of them,” Alex said, managing a quick smile.
“That’s what I like to hear,” Black said. “Now, let’s go teach these fools a lesson.”
As they approached the house, the team spread out. Black took up a position near the left side, while Hawk found a blind in the front to shoot from. Alex covered the back.
While the house had been finished for a few weeks, construction remnants strewn about the property made it still look like a work in progress. Two rolls of insulation were neatly stacked in the open shed. A sawhorse was left tipped over halfway up the driveway, and a stack of two-by-fours were piled haphazardly near the front porch.
“Everybody ready?” Hawk asked over the coms.
“Affirmative,” Black said.
“Let’s roll,” Alex said. “Can we confirm that the power is out?”
“There’s still plenty of sunlight flooding into the room,” Hawk said. “But I don’t detect any lights on.”
“Good,” Black said. “That means the power is still out.”
“What about heat signatures?” Alex asked.
Black peered through his binoculars, searching for human activity. “I’m not picking any up.”
Alex cursed. “That means this place might be rigged to blow.”
“Well, don’t worry,” Black said. “Nobody is charging in there until we’re invited in.”
“You ready to do your thing, Black?” Hawk asked.
“Ready as I’ll ever be. It’s go time.”
Hawk watched through his binoculars as Black crept up the front steps and then rang the doorbell. He eased back off the porch and waited for someone to answer. As soon as the door cracked open, a man poked his head outside, wrinkling his forehead as he scanned the woods.
“I don’t see anybody,” he said, shouting back over his shoulder to someone else inside. “Maybe it was just a limb or something. They’re not supposed to be here for another half-hour.”
With the man’s head turned, Black pulled the pin from one of his tear gas canisters and hurled it into the house through the opening created by the guard. A string of expletives followed from the men, who started shouting. When they opened the door to get rid of the first one, Black pounded them with two more.
The second time he opened the door, Hawk opened fire. Black joined him, strafing the door. Hawk used his scope to study the fallout from the first wave of attack. He noticed a pair of dead bodies, one lying on the porch and the other in the entryway.
“We got two hostiles down,” Hawk said, updating the team. “I just saw a shadow flash down the main hallway, so there’s at least one—”
A quick burst of gunfire interrupted Hawk. When it was over, he heard Alex’s voice.
“There were two more,” she said. “Think this is it?”
“There’s only one way to be certain,” Hawk said.
“I’m going in,” Black replied.
“We’re going in,” Hawk corrected. “Just wait for me. Alex, you remain in your position in case there is anyone else inside who might try to get away.”
“Roger that,” she said.
Black took the lead, while Hawk followed right behind his partner. In a matter of minutes, they searched the house, even searching the new exit route in the basement.
“Clear,” Hawk said.
“Clear,” Black chimed in.
“How are you looking up there, Alex?” Hawk asked.
He didn’t receive a reply but heard gunfire.
“Dammit,” he said before darting toward the back of the house. “Alex, talk to me.”
There was no reply on the coms.
He eased outside with his weapon drawn. “Alex, are you out here?”
Hawk glanced down at two more dead agents sprawled out on the steps of the back porch.
“Well, what do you think of my shooting?” Alex said as she looked up at Hawk.
He glared at her. “I called you on the coms. Did you not hear me?”
She shook her head. “Maybe they aren’t working properly. But I think we’ve eradicated the bunch now.”
“Still don’t like this job?” he asked.
She looked at the two dead men at her feet. “This is the part I don’t like. I hate killing people, though I don’t mind doing it for Blunt.”
“Well, Blunt’s not here,” Black said as he joined them.
“Yeah, but maybe we can figure out where he is,” Alex said as she knelt and fished a cell phone out of the man’s pocket. “They may not have brought him, but this guy’s phone might tell us where he’s been.”
Alex used the dead man’s finger to gain access to the device before going back into the house and pulling out the laptop from her backpack. She connected the phone to the computer and went to work. Hawk paced while she worked, suppressing the mounting questions he had. After a couple of minutes, she cursed and slapped the table.
“What is it?” Hawk asked.
“This phone deletes GPS data every fifteen minutes,” she said. “It’s no good to us.”
Hawk took a deep breath. “Not entirely.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Follow me.”
The trio went outside. Hawk dipped his finger in one of the guard’s blood and then laid down on the ground.
“Would you mind?” Hawk looked at Alex and held up his finger. “Make it look as realistic as possible.”
Over the next ten minutes, they all staged photos to appear as if they were dead. Then Hawk located the lead agent’s phone and fired back a simple text message to the person who’d been sending the guards’ instructions.
“It’s done,” the message read, accompanied by three
