Chapter 40
40
Hawk and Cole. Brothers to the end.
“Listen, bro,” Hawk said. “I’m sorry I doubted you. That I so easily believed that you’d gone rogue. In my defense, I wanted to find you. I’ve been looking for you for months. I wanted to make you see reason. I couldn’t understand why you’d be working as a hired gunman. I blamed myself.”
Cole scoffed. “You give yourself too much credit.”
Hawk laughed. “You’re right. You can hold your own without my interference.” For good or bad.
“What’s the plan?” Cole asked.
Hawk fired his gun at the lock and the chains broke away.
“So, you really want to hide in there?” Cole arched a brow. “Won’t we be trapped? Let’s wait out here in the shadows. Let them go into the bunker.”
“And we’ll lock them in,” Hawk said. “I like it.”
“After we take them out we’ll take their radios and guns. We need to know what they’re planning.” Cole grimaced slightly. Trying to hide his pain?
Hawk nodded. “You came up with that while bleeding from a gunshot wound. Impressive.”
“I aim to please. Now quiet.”
Hawk left the door partially open so it was easy to see they’d shot off the lock. This way, the men would think Hawk and Cole had gone into the bunker to hide.
He joined Cole in a shadowed alcove beyond the bunker entrance, pressing back against it, squeezing into the too-small space. He gripped his locked and loaded gun, ready to use it. The raging storm echoed against the concrete walls, making it hard to know if the men had even found the bunker yet. Had they made a mistake?
Because he couldn’t exactly wait here forever.
Movement in the tunnel triggered him to press back as far as he could, pushing against his brother. Cole grunted, breathing hard. The pressure was hurting his wound.
Four men argued about going inside the bunker, and one of them came up with the bright idea to simply lock Cole and Hawk inside. Wonderful. Not really what he and Cole had planned, but they would roll with it. If they rushed forward with their guns out, they were going to get a belly full of bullets. They had no egress here. Their armed pursuers hadn’t been as stupid as they had counted on. Lesson learned.
Then one of the men opened the door and went into the tunnel after all. One of the other three followed him inside. Yes! The two remaining men paced near the bunker doors.
“Divide and conquer?” Cole asked.
“What about your wound?”
“I’m running on adrenaline, man. Let’s do this.”
Hawk nodded. They wouldn’t escape without taking these men out. It was now or never. “I’ll take the cave dwellers.”
When the two who had remained outside shifted toward the rail overlooking the fierce Pacific, Cole and Hawk crept forward, pressing into the wind. Cole rushed the two men near the rail and Hawk slipped into the bunker, stealthily approaching the other two from behind, then disarmed them both quickly. Kicking their weapons, flashlights, and radios toward the entrance, he backed out. Once he’d tossed their stuff out, he slammed the bunker doors, leaving them standing in the dark. Using the damaged chain, he quickly secured the door again, preventing the men from escaping the bunker. He’d send someone back for them later. They pounded and shouted their disapproval with colorful language.
“You’re scared of the dark? Get over it.” But the storm’s rage reverberated off the concrete recess leading up to the bunker doors, and he doubted they heard him.
He turned to assist Cole if needed. At the sight, shock waves rolled through him. Wrestling with the last of the gunmen, Cole fell over the rail, along with the man he battled. Anguish squeezed Hawk’s chest. He couldn’t lose Cole...
“No!” Hawk sprinted to the rail. God, no! Help us!
Cole clung to the rail with his one good arm. Below him, Hawk caught a glimpse of a body on the rocks before the ocean swept it away. That would be Cole’s fate if Hawk didn’t help.
Hawk grabbed Cole’s arm and reached for the other one. “Give it to me. I know it’ll hurt, but you can do this.”
The rail leaned with the weight, metal twisting and straining. Waves boiled and slammed the rocks below. Unbidden, an image flashed in his mind.
Hawk holding Remi’s life in his hands. And now he held Cole’s life in his hands.
“Just go!” Cole shouted. “You’ll die too. Let me go!”
“No way.” He wouldn’t leave Cole.
His brother’s face twisted in pain. “I’m only going to slow you down.”
“I’m not giving up on you.”
“And you never did, even when you thought I was an assassin. You need to save the girl, man. If they get to her, you’ll never see her again. She’s gone.” The moisture impeded his grip on Cole’s arm, his hand was slowly slipping from Hawk’s grasp.
Groaning, Hawk strained to pull harder. The rail bent forward, threatening to topple completely into the ocean and take them both with it.
God, please help me! Hawk’s hope that he would bring his brother to safety was slipping away along with his grip. But he wouldn’t let go or give up.
Night Stalkers never quit. The motto burned through him even though he was no longer part of that elite team.
“That rock.” Cole gestured, angling his head to the right. “That outcropping right there. Swing me over to it. If I can land on that, I can make my way out of here.”
“You can’t.”
“It’s either that or drop me. I’d prefer a controlled drop. The last guy fell to his death.”
“I mean the king tide is coming in again. You’ll never make it off the beach.”
“Then I guess you’d better hurry.”