Hawk (Guardian Hostage Rescue Specialists)

Chapter 1

ONE

Sawyer

The mountain doesn't care that I can't sleep.

The scar tissue doesn't stretch the way normal skin does. Every reach, every grip, reminds me of melted helicopter metal and Tyler Brennan screaming while flames ate him alive.

"Morrison! Get me out! Get me—" Tyler's voice, raw with agony, still echoes in the worst dreams.

I can smell it even now—aviation fuel mixing with burning flesh, the acrid smoke that made my eyes stream as I gripped superheated metal with bare hands, skin blistering and peeling as I tried to bend what wouldn't bend.

His eyes through the cracked visor, wide with terror and trust—trust that I'd save him, that I'd be enough.

I wasn't.

The fuel tank exploded while my hands were still on the twisted frame, the concussive burst throwing me back, and when I came to, there was only silence and char where my buddy used to be.

The challenge coin around my neck swings free as I reach for the next hold. Tyler's unit coin, pulled from what was left of his flight suit after the fire died down enough to let me close enough to recover his body.

Two years, four months, sixteen days. The math runs constantly in my head, marking time since that Afghan mountainside became his grave.

The next hold is a crimper, enough for fingertips, but not much else.

I have to dyno for it—a controlled explosion of movement that launches me upward.

For a moment, I'm weightless, suspended between earth and sky, and the freedom of it almost makes me forget.

Then my fingers lock onto the hold, tendons screaming, and I'm back in my body with all its scars and memories.

Three more moves to the crux—the hardest section where the wall goes past vertical into overhang. My core burns as I flag. My leg stretches out for balance, hooking a heel to maintain position.

This is what I come here for. The absolute focus required, the way everything else fades when it's just flesh and will against stone and rock.

My satellite phone vibrates against my ribs, the buzz traveling through my climbing harness. Only one person calls at this hour.

I rappel down fast enough that the rope heats through my gloves. My boots hit the ground in under a minute. CJ's name lights up the screen.

"Hawk." His voice carries the particular tension that means lives are on the line. "How fast can you get to San Francisco?"

I'm already moving toward the equipment room, stripping off my climbing gear. "What's the situation?"

"Emergency extraction. FBI analyst uncovered an imminent domestic terror attack—coordinated strikes in less than ninety-six hours. She tried to report it, and now her own agency is hunting her."

My shirt sticks to the sweat cooling on my back as I pull on tactical gear. "FBI doesn't eat their own without cause."

"Our CIA contact says she's got the only proof that can stop the attack. Someone inside wants her dead before she can share it." Papers shuffle on his end. "Savannah Cross, twenty-nine, Cybercrime Division. Photos on your phone."

I open the encrypted file while stepping into my tactical pants.

Dark hair pulled back in a professional bun, hazel eyes that look directly into the camera rather than through it.

Sharp intelligence in her face, something stubborn in the set of her jaw.

Pretty in a way that makes me notice despite myself.

"What's her tactical background?"

"FBI analyst for five years. MIT graduate with dual degrees in computer science and mathematics. No field experience listed, but..." CJ pauses. "Her file's been sanitized. Someone deleted portions within the last seventy-two hours."

Interesting. Someone's trying to erase her before they erase her.

I strap on my shoulder holster, check the Glock 19's magazine, and chamber a round. "Location?"

"Apartment in Nob Hill. Address incoming. Hawk—" CJ's tone shifts. "Local FBI tried to bring her in six hours ago. Three agents went up. None came back down. SFPD is holding a perimeter, but they're being told to stand down by someone with federal pull."

Three dead agents changes the math.

This isn't a pickup—it's a recovery from hostile territory.

"Rules of engagement?"

"Get her out alive. Anyone trying to stop you is hostile." He pauses. "Guardian HRS will back whatever decisions you make in the field."

Translation: Go weapons free preferred. Hot otherwise. We'll handle the cleanup.

I grab my go-bag, already packed with medical supplies, extra magazines, and breach charges. "Pilot ready?"

"Ariel’s spinning up now."

"Who else is joining me?"

"Flint took a bullet two weeks ago in Los Angeles, and Frost is still on medical leave. You're solo on this."

Solo's fine. Solo means I don't have to watch anyone else die on my watch.

The helicopter ride passes in mission prep—studying building schematics on my tablet, memorizing the neighborhood layout, and planning primary and contingency extraction routes.

Savannah Cross's apartment is on the eighth floor of a twelve-story building, with two stairwells, one main elevator, and one service elevator. Too many ways for hostiles to come at her, not enough ways to get her out clean.

San Francisco spreads below us in a carpet of lights and shadows. Ariel Black’s voice crackles through my headset. "Two minutes to insertion point."

I clip onto the fast rope. "Put me on a nearby building, southeast corner. I'll make my approach."

"Copy. Southeast corner, coming up."

The skid touches down on a rooftop four buildings from the target. I drop into the darkness, and Ariel lifts away immediately. The night air carries fog and salt from the Bay, along with something else—the metallic scent of blood drifting from an open window.

I move across rooftops, using maintenance walkways and construction scaffolding to close the distance.

The fourth building has a fifteen-foot gap—too far to jump. I pull out my tactical grappling hook, the carbon fiber line whisper-quiet as it flies across the void. It catches on an HVAC unit, and I test it with two sharp tugs before committing my weight.

Hand over hand across the gap, San Francisco spread like broken glass and promises below me.

A couple argues in a nearby apartment below me, their voices carrying through an open window—normal life, oblivious to the violence about to erupt four buildings over.

The scaffolding on the next building is fresh, still smells of cut wood and industrial paint. Construction permits flutter in the wind, dated last week.

I use the exterior elevator shaft and climb the safety cage. My shoulder holster catches on a protruding bolt, and I have to contort to free myself without losing purchase.

Every second counts, but rushing means mistakes, and mistakes mean Savannah Cross dies.

The target building comes into view, and my instincts scream. Four black SUVs are arranged around the entrance, in the wrong position for standard FBI protocol.

The agents visible are wearing FBI windbreakers, but their weapons are wrong—MP7s instead of standard-issue MP5s. Their positioning is amateur, clustered instead of maintaining overlapping fields of fire.

I count twelve hostiles in total—four at the main entrance, two at the service entry, two more pretending to be homeless but with the telltale bulge of concealed weapons and tactical boots.

The rooftop has a sniper, poorly concealed behind an AC unit. His scope glints in the streetlight—rookie mistake.

These aren't FBI.

They're mercenaries playing dress-up, which means someone with deep pockets wants Savannah Cross dead badly enough to fund a private army.

I swing down to a seventh-floor balcony on the adjacent building, using my spotting scope to check Savannah's windows.

Curtains are drawn, but there's flickering light—muzzle flashes.

The pattern is wrong for a one-sided execution. Three-round bursts, then singles, then silence, then more fire from a different position. She's moving, fighting back.

The tactical part of my brain is impressed even as the human part knows she can't hold out much longer. The muzzle flashes are getting closer together—they're tightening the noose.

She's still alive. Still fighting.

I leap the six-foot gap between buildings, catching the maintenance ladder on the exterior wall. The metal groans but holds.

The seventh-floor window is locked—I use my tactical pen to shatter it at the corner, the sound masked by a passing truck.

Glass falls inward, and I follow, landing in a crouch in someone's hallway. A child's drawings line the walls—crayon superheroes and monsters, a normal family sleeping through a war zone. I move past their door, silent as smoke, taking the stairwell up one floor.

The eighth-floor hallway reeks of death—that particular copper-and-cordite cocktail that means close-quarters execution. The emergency lighting paints everything hellish red, turning blood pools black and making shadows dance like demons.

I climb fast, reach the eighth floor, and jimmy the hallway window. The smell of blood is stronger here, mixed with cordite and death.

The hallway is dark, with emergency lighting casting red shadows. Three bodies in FBI tactical gear sprawled near the stairwell door. Real FBI, based on their equipment.

Brass casings on the floor, but not from the FBI weapons. These are 9mm Parabellum, subsonic rounds designed for suppressed fire. Professional killers, not random thugs.

Someone orchestrated this to look like Savannah Cross killed three federal agents, adding cop-killer to whatever frame job they're building.

Each shot execution-style, close range, suppressed weapons. They never saw it coming.

I move past them, weapon up, following the sounds of combat from apartment 817.

Shell casings, every few feet, roll under my boots with tiny metallic clinking sounds. Someone's apartment door is cracked open, an eye visible in the gap before it slams shut—civilians smart enough to hide but curious enough to watch.

The sound from 817 is chaotic—furniture breaking, glass shattering, someone grunting in pain. Then a flash of white light under the door, followed by a man's scream. Whatever Savannah Cross is doing in there, she's not going down easy.

The door's been breached, hanging off its hinges. I slice the pie, taking the corner carefully, and the scene inside stops me for a heartbeat.

The apartment looks like a war zone. Furniture overturned to create defensive positions, kitchen drawers yanked out and emptied—she's been improvising weapons.

Blood spatters the walls in arterial sprays, one body already down near the kitchen, clutching his throat where a knife found its mark.

A laptop taped to her torso is visible through her torn blouse—creative and desperate in equal measure.

She's turned her home into a killing field, and she's still standing.

She moves like someone with training—not military, but something. Martial arts, maybe, the way she shifts her weight, always balanced, never over-committing.

When one of the fake agents rushes her position, she doesn't retreat. She redirects his momentum, uses his weight against him, and suddenly, he's stumbling into her knife range.

Savannah Cross wields kitchen knives like she knows how to use them. Her blouse is torn, showing the computer secured to her body. Blood—not hers—spatters her face. Aluminum foil balls litter the floor. Smart chick. She's made improvised flash-bangs from match heads and kitchen supplies.

Four men in FBI gear are trying to flank her position. She throws another foil ball, and it explodes in white light and smoke. One attacker stumbles back, and she puts a knife into his throat with disturbing accuracy.

Make that three.

The knife throw isn't lucky—she's practiced this. The rotation is perfect, the force exactly what's needed to penetrate the soft tissue of the throat. The man goes down gurgling, hands trying to stem the flow, but she's already moving, not watching her handiwork.

One hostile is advancing from her left, using the overturned couch as cover. Another is circling right, trying to get an angle through the kitchen. The third—the one I'm most worried about—is hanging back, speaking into a throat mic, probably calling in reinforcements.

They're coordinating, trying to time their assault.

Savannah doesn't wait for them to get set. She grabs what looks like a can of cooking spray and a lighter from beside her defensive position.

Homemade flamethrower.

The stream of fire forces the left-side attacker back, his FBI windbreaker catching fire. He drops and rolls, screaming, out of the fight temporarily.

But it's a feint. While they're focused on the flame, she's already moving, rolling right, coming up behind the kitchen attacker. He spins, raises his weapon, but she's inside his guard. An elbow to his solar plexus, a knee to his groin, and as he doubles over, she drives her knee up into his face.

The crunch of cartilage is audible even from my position. He goes down, and she strips his weapon, but fumbles with the safety—not as familiar with firearms as she is with improvised weapons.

One of them is moving behind her while she's focused on the other two. He's got the angle, raising his weapon.