“You two get on this thing and head for the marsh,” he said. “Keegan’s out there somewhere.”
“What if he’s not?”
“He is,” Hawker insisted. “If you don’t see him, just drive right into the damn water and swim for it. He’ll find you.”
He took Danielle’s rifle.
“What about you?” Sonia asked, fear in her eyes.
“I’m going to make these people wish they’d messed with someone else tonight.”
Danielle’s face was white, but she tried to play along. “He’ll be all right,” she said. “This is what he does.”
Sonia didn’t look convinced, but she nodded her head.
Danielle flipped the switch and the ATV’s panel lit up. “We have power.”
Danielle climbed on and Sonia settled in behind her.
“Go!” Hawker shouted.
The ATV’s wheels spun, showering Hawker with sand as it raced away toward the water’s edge.
Almost immediately several of the men and the last of the sand rails moved to cut the women off.
Hawker targeted the buggy and lit it up with three quick bursts. Desperately trying to keep the alley open he fired a burst at the men on the right and then at the group on the left. Alternating his shots like this he tried to keep them pinned down as Danielle and Sonia raced for the water.
It looked as if it might just work. The men who’d come to get them were cowering. They’d bit off more than they’d expected and had begun regressing into survival mode, staying down even when they didn’t have to. Danielle was still accelerating, head down, throttle wide open.
And then, right in front of his eyes, something happened that Hawker could not believe.
CHAPTER 39
Danielle held the ATV’s throttle at full and the four-wheeler flew down the sand gathering speed. Seeing no sign of Keegan or the airboat, she planned to race into the water as far as possible and then dive off with Sonia in tow.
They could swim out into the dark and hide in the reeds and the murk of the swamp. Their pursuers were still unlikely to shoot at them for fear of hitting Sonia, and eventually they’d have to leave or risk trouble with the Iranian military. But that did not help Hawker, and unless Keegan showed up and began throwing some fire support their way, Hawker wouldn’t last long.
As they roared down the hill and onto the mud flat, Danielle listened for Hawker’s shots. She knew he was deadly accurate, enough that she didn’t look to either side, only ahead. If someone popped up it would be the last thing they did.
No one rose to challenge them, no one cut them off. Fifteen seconds and they’d be in the water.
And then suddenly, something was wrong.
She felt Sonia’s hands slip from her waist, felt her fall away, and felt the ATV surge forward with the sudden reduction in weight.
She slowed slightly and turned a bit, enough to see.
Sonia had fallen in a heap, tumbling like a ball.
“What the hell?”
Danielle began a turn to pick her up, but shots flew her way. Tracers that she hadn’t seen before in this fight. It was like they knew Sonia had fallen and could now open fire. She cut away from the incoming, but a shell or two hit the front right wheel.
The tire exploded. The ATV went down hard like a racehorse with a broken leg. Danielle flew off again, hit the mud at the swamp’s edge, and slid forward like she’d landed on ice. Covered in mud, she hit the waterline and lay sprawled in muck.
A group of men were moving toward her, a second group racing toward Sonia. Unbelievably, the young woman stood and began to move toward them.
Staying low, Danielle unholstered her Beretta. From behind her a great noise came zooming forward. The airboat roared out of the darkness with Keegan at the helm. Rapid fire from the twin guns on the tripod scattered the men who’d come for her, but it was too late for Sonia. The men had her and were dragging her off.
Danielle raised her gun to fire but couldn’t without hitting Sonia. She heard a shot from Hawker’s ArmaLite. But then nothing.
The tables had been turned. They hauled Sonia into the waiting Humvee, threw her in the back, and slammed the door. Seconds later they were racing off. The other men piled on the sides of the second Humvee and the surviving sand rail, and the ragtag convoy raced off with its prize.
In a moment they were gone, disappearing into the dunes.
Danielle looked around. The light from the burning vehicles flickered across the desert, illuminating the wreckage of the battle: dead men, ruined machines, smoke, flame. Up on the slope, alone in the center of the carnage, it lit upon Hawker, stunned and immobile and staring after the departing vehicles.
Hawker could not believe what he’d just seen. Their enemy had taken Sonia. What’s more, it seemed as if she’d given herself up willingly at the very edge of freedom.
Why?
His mind raced, but he found no answers. Had she fallen? Had she been injured by some gunfire he didn’t see? Had she been trying to save them by sacrificing herself?
He had no idea. And in truth, the reasons didn’t matter. They had her and they had the stone and things were infinitely worse than they’d been twenty-four hours ago.
On the sand beside him, the man Hawker had clubbed with the rifle was coming to.
Hawker looked down. The young man looked familiar. Hawker had seen him in Paris. This was the man who’d managed to jump off the boat and disappear into the Seine.
The man looked up with glazed-over eyes, and the fury that rose in Hawker became hard to contain. Twice this man had tried to murder friends of his; twice he’d been the cause of anguish and grief.
“You’re a dead man,” Hawker growled.
A wave of fear washed across the man’s face.
He turned from Hawker.
“Look at me, you son of a bitch!” Hawker shouted.
The man did not respond. He was moving his arm toward his face. He had something in his hand, something small.
Danielle was coming up the side of the dune.
The man’s hand moved.
Hawker snapped the gun toward him.
“No!” Danielle shouted.
Hawker’s rifle cracked and the echo of its report rolled across the night.
CHAPTER 40
Danielle stared at the man on the ground. Hawker had blown a hole in the man’s hand and he now clutched it, writhing in agony. A black pistol lay on the ground beside him.
“I thought you were going to kill him,” Danielle said, sounding relieved.
Hawker turned to her and the look on his face froze her heart.
“I am going to kill him,” Hawker said. “But not before he tells me where they’re taking her.”
The scanner on Danielle’s belt began to squawk again. She could hear the words, enough to make out that they were saying something about Americans near the swamp.
“You’re going to have to do it somewhere else,” she said.
Hawker seemed to know that. He’d already slung Danielle’s rifle over his shoulder and was bending down to pick up the injured man.
Danielle helped, using a strip of cloth to bandage the man’s hand and then tying his wrists with another strip.
Hawker threw the man over his shoulder and carried him down the slope. Danielle ran ahead, climbing aboard the airboat with Keegan and breaking out extra ammunition.
She saw Hawker wade into the water and toss the man on board like a sack of flour before climbing on himself.
“Let’s go,” she said.
Keegan gunned the throttle and spun the wheel. The airboat turned and raced out across the swamp.
CHAPTER 41
Hawker stood in the kitchen of a small house, in a vacant section of Al Qurnah, washing the grime from his hands and face. Burying his face in a towel, he tried to think and clear his head even as it pounded with post-battle adrenaline.