Her palm and fingers were red and bubbling with the crimson liquid. Her heart was pounding.
“Madam Ambassador?” the voice called over the phone. “Are you okay? Madam Ambassador?”
Unable to speak, she stared at the sheet of paper, watching as a red stain soaked through the page from the corners like blood or dye. Despite this strange effect, the words remained clearly readable. The last sentence, in large bold font, read:
Welcome to Hell.
CHAPTER 2
The sprawling warehouse looked to be buttoned down for the weekend. No activity, no traffic on the inadequate, narrow road that ran in front of it, no noise coming from inside. Even a row of parallel loading docks that stuck out behind it sat empty, their garage-style doors down and locked.
A man wearing dark sunglasses and a black leather jacket hopped up on one of the platforms. Despite the apparent lack of operations, he expected that one pallet of goods would be waiting for him.
He approached the door, briefcase in one hand, a .45-caliber pistol in the other. He looked through a small window that rested at eye level.
At first all he saw was his own reflection: close-cropped dark hair, crow’s feet streaking from eyes now hidden by sunglasses, two days’ worth of stubble coating his face. He noticed the small horizontal scar that ran across one cheek.
He pressed forward, bringing a hand up to block the light. The distorted image vanished, and inside the warehouse he saw four armed men looking bored and impatient. He tapped the window with the barrel of his gun and stepped back.
The men he was meeting would know him as Hawker, a name that had become his persona during ten years spent living on the run. Once he’d been a fast-rising star in the CIA, but an incident he’d pressed too far had spiraled out of control and wound up costing him everything. He’d spent the years since plying his trade as a mercenary, an arms dealer, and a hire of last resort for people who got into situations they had no hope of getting out of.
In a violent world where he could trust precious little to be what it actually seemed, Hawker had learned to hide even from himself. And his real name, like any thoughts of living a normal life, had disappeared like whispers into a swirling wind.
It was a fate he’d come to accept, a self-inflicted wound that had scarred over but would never really heal. And yet, just when he’d thought all hope was lost, a door had opened, a deal had been made with the very government figures who considered him a loose cannon. If he would act on their behalf, he would be taken in and freed from his past.
There was hope now. Hope that one day he’d be able to take up his real name again and that meetings like the one he was about to attend would become the distant, if not forgotten, memory.
Latches clanked as someone released them from the inside. The door began to slide up. As it rose above his head, Hawker took a calming breath and stepped inside.
The four armed men remained where he’d seen them. To his left, a fifth man slammed the door back down and locked it into place.
“This way,” the man said.
Hawker followed as they crossed the warehouse floor. Expensive goods filled the place. Crates of electronic equipment by one wall, fur coats hanging in rows, even a pair of pearl-white, twelve-cylinder, turbocharged Jaguars, still wrapped in protective plastic like they’d just come from the factory.
The guide seemed to notice his stare. “They fell off the back of a truck.”
“You mean rolled,” Hawker said.
The man smiled. “Yes. That’s exactly what I mean.”
They continued on, passing the stolen cars and other items and then stopping near the center of the building. Two different sets of long rectangular crates rested there. NATO designations on the crates had been hastily covered with spray paint but were still partially visible. The alphanumeric code FIM-92 was easily readable.
These were the weapons Hawker had come to see, Stinger surface-to-air missiles. An XR designation that hadn’t been painted over meant these were extended-range variants. Deadly up to five miles.
The weapons had disappeared from a NATO convoy several years before. The CIA figured they’d been taken for a prearranged buyer or that the thief quickly realized they were too hot to move, for until now they’d never cropped up for sale. But the black market never closed, and eventually rumors began to circulate about a shipment of such weapons.
Hawker glanced at the longer, broader crates to the left.
“Reserved for another buyer,” a deep voice said from the shadows.
As Hawker turned, the owner of that voice stepped forward. Bald head polished and shining; jowls, neck, and shoulders forming one great slope. He wasn’t overly fat, just incredibly compact, short and stocky beyond what seemed reasonable. He might have been five foot four and two hundred pounds. A tank, a fire hydrant, a bulldog of a man.
His name was La Bruzca, and the ease with which he’d hidden himself reminded Hawker that the building was essentially a maze and he was a rat in the center of it, with no way of knowing how many men were hidden in the labyrinth. Despite the weapon he carried and his own considerable skills, there would be no fighting his way out of this. He slid the .45 into a shoulder holster.
La Bruzca studied him. “I have heard much about you. They say you are a lost soul, and until you are found, woe unto anyone who gets in your way.”
“Don’t believe everything you hear,” Hawker said.
“If I believed even half of what I’ve been told, you’d be dead,” La Bruzca replied.
Hawker wasn’t sure what to make of the taunt, but there was something ominous in La Bruzca’s words. He wondered if it was a jab at the number of times Hawker had survived near-certain death. Or if there was some greater meaning.
Could La Bruzca know who Hawker was working for? Hawker doubted it. Then again, this meeting had come about suddenly, through a third party that Hawker didn’t know. The middleman was a ghost broker, an unseen player who communicated with both sides for a fee. The possibility of a setup was not beyond reason.
He held his tongue as if the words meant nothing.
“Then again,” La Bruzca added, laughing, “I don’t believe even one-quarter of what is said.”
La Bruzca offered a hand, while the fifth man and another worker began to open one of the crates.
Hawker glanced back at the larger crates. Based on the size and dimensions they had to be larger missiles. But what type? Longer-range SAMs or even surface-to-surface missiles. He’d only been given information and authorization to bid on the Stingers, but if he could find out what they were, that might be of value.
“Additional merchandise,” he noted.
La Bruzca nodded. “I carry many things.”
“Care to take a bid?”
“No,” La Bruzca said firmly.
Hawker cocked his head. “You sure?”
“You are jealous,” La Bruzca said, “perhaps because they are bigger than yours.”
La Bruzca laughed so hard at his own joke that he began to cough.
“I wouldn’t put it quite that way,” Hawker said. “But the people I work for might be interested, depending on what type they are.”
“They are sold. But if I become interested in taking additional offers, I know how to reach you.”
Hawker nodded. No more questions. He tried to memorize the dimensions and color of the crates and then stood his briefcase on a table and popped it open.