Chapter 24
24
Hawk flipped on the bedroom light. “We need to leave.”
“What? Why? You wanted me to go back to sleep and I finally did.” Remi sat up and rubbed her eyes.
“I got an alert. Someone entered through the gate. I’ve been watching them drive around and case out the place. They’ll figure out where we are soon enough.”
“You’re sure they are looking for us? Who are they?”
“It’s Cole.”
“Why leave? If we stay, you can face off with him like you wanted. We can find out what’s going on and get answers. Why would you want to run from him?”
“I’ll face him when the time is right. When it’s just me and him.” He couldn’t risk Remi getting hurt. Keeping her as far away from Cole as possible was for the best.
“But don’t you see? We could find out what he wants.” In sweats and a T-shirt, Remi climbed from the bed and finger-combed her hair.
His too-big items hung off her form and he couldn’t help but grin—inside. He wouldn’t let her see. Her tousled hair and sleepy eyes made him want to pull her into his arms and cocoon her. Protect her. Let her rest as long as she needed. He reined in his thoughts before he stepped closer.
Once he was close, he dragged in a hard breath. “Remi, trust me. Now is not the time.”
Her lips shifted into a flat line. Then her eyes widened. Those beautiful big eyes. And utter determination to win, to beat the odds.
Remi glanced down. “I can’t wear this.”
Her words surprised him, and he almost laughed. He gestured to the dresser. She spotted her folded clothes.
“You were asleep, and the dryer dinged. Now you have something to wear.”
Her smile was adorable. “Thank you. Give me a sec.”
She slipped into the bathroom and shut the door. Using his burner phone, he logged into an app and viewed the cameras he’d set up outside. Cole was nowhere to be seen. But the car he’d arrived in was parked at the far corner of the building. Hawk was surprised Cole had driven and parked. He had to know that Hawk would have cameras. But maybe he was getting desperate and running out of time. And his brother was probably already trying to make his way in. If he was working with a hacker, he could have already hacked into Hawk’s camera system and manipulated what he was seeing now. His special forces brother was highly skilled in a thousand ways.
“Remi,” he whispered.
The bathroom door cracked open, and she slipped out. “I’m ready.”
“Grab our coats. They’re on the bed.” He’d brought them when he’d come to wake her up.
He yanked the curtain wide and opened the sliding glass door. They slipped out onto the small balcony in the still-dark early morning. He sucked in a breath of the brisk air.
“Uh, what now? How do we get down?” She whispered the question.
“We shimmy down the tree.” He reached out and touched the needles of a lofty evergreen.
Her eyes grew wide. “You’re kidding.”
He smiled, then positioned a fire escape ladder over the rail.
She arched a brow.
“We need to hurry. I’ll go first.”
He climbed over the rail and then down a few rungs before dropping to the ground with a thunk , then quickly glanced around. Seeing nothing, he watched Remi slowly crawl down the ladder.
On the ground, he took her hand and led her around the warehouse and over to the office complex next door, then down a stairwell that led into its underground parking garage. “Is this all part of your escape plan? I mean, if you ever needed one?”
He’d thought through it a number of times, and this wasn’t exactly ideal, but it worked. “I guess you could say that. This garage is not connected to the condo warehouse, and it could take Cole time to figure out our escape.”
“He’s your brother. He thinks like you. It won’t take him long.”
Unfortunately, she was probably right. He used the fob to lift the hatchback, reminding him where he’d parked the Chevy Blazer. When you had an assassin for a brother who might decide to come for you and you’d killed a terrorist and people threatened you, it made sense to have a trick or two up your sleeve. Park a car in a random garage. Honestly, he was surprised he had to use the Blazer and even more surprised that the battery hadn’t died and it was still there and waiting. He’d figure out how to return Gordo’s vehicle later. Hawk was all about old vehicles, old helicopters, and apparently, condos in old warehouses.
Once inside, he started the Blazer and let it warm up. He pressed a button on his cell that was effectively a kill switch for the computer in the condo.
“I feel like I’m in a spy movie, Hawk. And I don’t like it. I’m just a farm girl turned Army photographer turned girl with amnesia on the run. Get me out of this nightmare. What is going on?”
“You know as much as I do. You might even know more. Did you remember anything else?” The tires squealed as he peeled out of the parking lot a little faster than he intended, and he took a side street.
“I’m going to need coffee before I talk. And I need you to talk about Cole if I tell you. Tell me about him.”
“You and your hard bargains. Okay, I’ll drive through a coffee kiosk. Grab food and a couple of Americano grandes to go. But I need to put some distance between us and the condo.” And Cole.
“Triple shot.”
“Triple shot it is. And then we’re heading to John’s.” Though Hawk had no idea if the man was at home or traveling. It was a start. He preferred seeing the man’s face and asking the questions in person. Not that he thought for a minute that John would lie to him but that he might have to keep secrets, and Hawk wanted answers. John had opened this proverbial can of worms when he sent Hawk to Cedar Trails, so he owed him an explanation. More than one.
At 4:30 a.m., after ordering breakfast and coffee at a drive-through coffee kiosk, he steered onto the freeway. “It’ll be a couple of hours before we make it there, which is fine. It’ll still be early morning. So, tell me what you remembered.”
“That Cole was there, which I told you. I also remembered that I wasn’t in the crash. I fell out of the helicopter, I remember falling. I remember an explosion and crashing. I don’t know who lived and who died. If the whole team made it out. Something had gone wrong. And Cole was the one to reach for me.”
That disturbed Hawk as much as anything. “And if Cole was on the bird, that mission, then he survived and not everyone is dead.”
“It was a special forces mission,” she said. “I don’t know what I was doing there.”
“You were taking pictures. What else?”
“Not while I was on the helicopter. I wouldn’t have been on a special forces mission. I wasn’t in the Army anymore. So my presence there makes no sense.”
“Well, at least it’s coming back to you,” he said. “This thing is coming to a head, and probably faster than we’re ready for.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just that we need to be ready for anything.”
“And I can do that once you’ve told me everything.”
He groaned to himself. Yep. He’d agreed to that. He took a long swig of the too-hot coffee. Took a bite of his breakfast sandwich. Swerved into the middle lane and watched the mirror for any tails. Early morning traffic would pick up and get heavy within the hour. It didn’t appear anyone was onto him yet, and his Blazer couldn’t be tracked. Remi was right. This was like a spy thriller in too many ways, and he wanted to get them both out of this plotline before it was too late.
“I was a deputy pilot for the sheriff’s air support unit.”
“Wait, I want to know, I really do, but I think I need to hear about Cole first. Tell me about your brother. He’s the reason this is happening.”
“He’s one part of it, yes.” Hawk’s stomach churned. He really didn’t want to hash through this again. It was still too fresh. Too raw. “It’s all related, so let me tell it my way, okay?”
“Oh, yeah. Sure. I’ll shut up now.”
She was cute. More than cute.
Time to focus on the road now and, unfortunately, the recent past. Might as well get this over with. “I was in a high-speed aerial pursuit to capture a dangerous terrorist and wanted fugitive. Red Notice kind of thing.”
“Red Notice kind of thing?”
“Interpol stuff. Someone wanted by other countries who has been put on a watch list called a Red Notice. His name was Andre Aslam, part of a terrorist cell called Blackfire. On the side, outside of my duties, I’d been searching for any information that could lead me to Cole. He’d gone missing two years ago. Same time as your incident.”
“So, see, it makes sense. He could have been there.”
“Yeah, he could have. I’d heard that Cole had gone rogue and was a very specialized hired gun.”
“Where did you hear this? Let me guess, your former CO.”
“Yes. He couldn’t tell me much, just that through intelligence channels, he’d learned that Cole was working with an international criminal organization.”
He paused and let that sink in all over again. Like he’d just heard the news yesterday.
“You must have been devastated.”
“That’s an understatement.”
“I don’t mean to interrupt the flow of this, but could you have ever suspected it? What could have caused such a big shift in your brother?”
What indeed? Hawk had struggled to come to terms with it. He and Cole loved each other growing up, but they’d always been competitive, and at times, that had taken them to dark places. But they’d always had each other’s backs.
“And what about your parents? Are they still alive?”
Remi was good at asking the questions. He pursed his lips.
“Oh. I’ll stop and let you tell me.”
“They’re gone. I’m glad, honestly, because Cole’s behavior would kill them now.”
“I’m so sorry.”
Before she could ask, because he knew she would, he told her. “Car accident. Five years ago.” Dealing with the aftermath was the reason he’d left the Night Stalkers. “The thing is, Cole and Dad never got along, and I get it. I understand. Dad always favored me. I wish he hadn’t, but he put pressure on Cole to measure up, and it was wrong. Just wrong.”
“Could that be the reason Cole has gone to the dark side?”
“I don’t know. I can’t fathom it. Despite all that, Cole was a great guy. Everyone loved him. Dad was hard on him because—in Dad’s mind anyway—he was simply trying to push Cole to be the best man he could be. Even if that had been the reason, there had to be a catalyst. Something to send him in this direction, and it sounds like it happened about two years ago.”
“Because that’s when he disappeared? Did his unit inform you that he was MIA?”
“No. He disappeared in that I couldn’t contact him or find him. He didn’t respond. I thought he was just on another mission, and sometimes he was deep in the bush somewhere in the world and would get back to me when he could, but it had been going on too long. So I was worried that something had happened to him and was telling John about it, and that’s when he told me. He hadn’t wanted to tell me that he’d learned that Cole was working as a mercenary. A hired killer. That he hadn’t reenlisted. His unit had been killed but he survived.” And Remi’s story, her timeline, fit. “I’m hoping that John will shed some light on things.”
“I’m sorry about all of it,” she said. “Really sorry.”
“Me too. I’m sorry that he’s after you.” He could barely comprehend it.
They sat in silence for a while. Then Remi asked, “What about this Andre guy? You were telling me about him and how it’s all connected to Cole.”
“I’d cornered him. It was a multiagency effort, and I had him. And he mentioned Cole to me. Said that he knew my brother and had information. He shocked me with that.” Hawk hated this part. He really hated it, and it was all on him. “He slipped through my fingers.”
“What? How?”
“The details aren’t important.” No need to talk about his failures. “Then he escaped in a helicopter, and we were called in on an aerial pursuit in Snohomish County. I decided this time I wasn’t going to let him get away. These helicopters are equipped with so much technology. More than you could imagine. Infrared, zoom cameras, GPS mapping, what we call ‘night sun,’ which is a powerful spotlight.” Man, he missed flying for the sheriff’s department, but not the rules and not the politics. “The county works with multiple agencies. It’s something, and after what I pulled, I’m not sure I can work in law enforcement again. But I was so close, why would I let him go?”
“So, what happened?”
“The sheriff tried to reel me in. Gave me some excuse to stand down. But I wasn’t having it. If I lost the guy this time, I might lose Cole for good. But Aslam was more daring than I am, let’s say, and he came around behind me in his bird so that he was pursuing me. Jake was an aviation deputy riding shotgun. The helicopter didn’t need a copilot. But he wanted to take this guy down too. If we didn’t catch him, he could follow through with his plans. Jake’s dad had died on one of the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center towers on 9/11.”
Hawk’s heart pounded at the memories. Maybe he shouldn’t tell her while he was driving because his foot was pressing hard on the accelerator. He took a few long breaths and then slowed. Checked the rearview mirror. His exit wasn’t for another thirty-plus miles. He’d finish the story by then.
“Let’s just say that two helicopters went down that day. We collided. Mine went down in Lake Stevens. Aslam was killed, and so was Jake. He drowned.” The memories were excruciating.
“It was a moral dilemma, Hawk. You made a judgment call.”
“If I had followed orders to stand down, Jake would still be alive. I can’t know if Aslam would have been caught, but I can know that Jake would still be alive. And a less important issue, but I would still be working for King County.”
“Do you feel guilty that you survived?”
“I survived with barely a scrape. I don’t know how, and it seems all wrong. Everything has felt wrong since that day.”
“How is that possible?”
He shrugged. “It’s like when someone is pulled out of a car that’s crumpled and destroyed. I don’t know. I just know that we should have caught the guy. But he chose the way of death and tried to take me and Jake out too. I couldn’t have known he would do it.” Maybe his boss had. “I just knew that Aslam had to be taken out.”
“But you still blame yourself, don’t you?”
“I’m responsible. Sure I am. I disobeyed an order. Jake and I both did, and not in any way is this a comparison to the lives lost, but I cost the county a lot of money on that helicopter. If I had followed my orders, we’d have the helicopter, but again, more importantly, Jake would still be alive.”
“And Aslam would have gotten away and possibly followed through with a terror attack. So, ask yourself, was it worth it, then? The risk?”
“Knowing what I know now, of course not. We could have lived to fight another day, as the saying goes.”
“I’m sorry that happened, Hawk,” she said. “That’s a huge burden to carry. Like this burden you carry for Cole. He’s turned to the dark side and you’re chasing after him to save him.”
“Yeah. He’s my brother.”
“Anything more you can tell me about this man who wants me dead?”
“Or alive. We can’t be sure what he wants, but obviously it has something to do with a lost mission.”
“Is that what we’re calling it now because of my lost memories?”
“That, and it sounds like it was lost all around. A downed helicopter. People are dead. Whatever the mission was, it didn’t get accomplished. Since you were on board, I’m kind of thinking some kind of rescue mission or an extraction.”
“But that would mean I was running from something. Trying to escape. I was just a tourist with a camera.”
Exactly. Hawk’s throat tightened and he wasn’t sure he could keep talking. What more was there to say? Remi pressed her hand over his and squeezed. He soaked up the reassurance from her soft, warm skin.
“We’ll figure this out together, Hawk. I know you want to find him and talk to him. So I understand why you want to face him on your own terms. Maybe whatever happened on that helicopter is the reason for his descent into a dark world. I don’t know.”
Yeah. Lots of possibilities. That’s what worried him the most as he steered out toward the Fletcher Bay Marina.
“Where are we going now?” Remi asked. “Are we almost to John’s house?”
“Almost. We have to take a boat.”
“What?”
“You can only get to his house on a boat.”
Remi sighed. “He lives on an island, then.”
“Yes, an island that’s only connected to the rest of the world via boats.”
“What about helicopters?”
“He doesn’t have a pad. If he did, we would have been there last night.”
“This seems like a complicated way to live.”
“Coming from a woman who lives in Hidden Bay with no cell or internet service, and satellite is iffy. GPS can’t even find you.”
“It’s only a complicated way to live if you want to be in contact with the outside world.”