Hawk, page 19
part #6 of Will Slater Series
And even if there was a one percent chance King was alive, Slater would go to war for him.
So he put more pressure on the accelerator. At this speed, they were due to collide in seconds. He didn’t budge. He put his seatbelt on, lay the carbine across his lap, and tightened his grip on the wheel.
There was no strategy here.
There was just brazenness, and recklessness, and the capacity to put his heart in his throat and attempt the impossible.
Because he had one distinct advantage.
None of the approaching combatants were as crazy as he was.
None of them had walked the fine line between life and death as often as he had.
He could steel himself in the face of certain loss, but they couldn’t.
Which meant he’d win a game of chicken every goddamn time, because he just didn’t care.
And the two oncoming trucks in the middle recognised this at the same time.
If there was an impact, it would kill all of them.
Their drivers jerked the wheel simultaneously in opposite directions, grating up against the sides of the trucks along the perimeter, creating a narrow gap through the middle.
Slater gunned for it.
It wasn’t wide enough.
The sides of his hood detonated against the two side mirrors of the vehicles on either side of him, smashing them off in twin showers of debris.
Then the side of his Brabus grated against the others at nearly eighty miles an hour. A split second later he was through and barrelling down an empty road.
The four trucks had passed him by.
He stamped on the brakes and waited a few seconds, then twisted the wheel to the left and screeched around in a tight arc and switched straight back to the accelerator.
He surged after the group.
He didn’t know what exactly he would achieve.
He was still vastly outnumbered, and wielding only a single carbine with no spare magazines in sight. He couldn’t hope to take down four carloads worth of combatants with a single clip.
But he could try.
Heading for King’s position was futile without taking care of the larger group first.
He pushed the Brabus faster, and the engine screamed and roared in response.
He picked up the M4 carbine again — more for reassurance than anything else. He wasn’t about to hang out the window at ninety miles an hour, but he figured if he gained some ground he could run one or two of the trucks off the road and pick his shots selectively.
He gripped the stock with a sweaty palm.
He felt a brilliant surge of hope, as if the situation might be salvageable after all.
Then the engine died.
It didn’t choke and splutter and wheeze and finally give out with a pathetic last gasp. Instead it just died in an instant, going entirely silent. The stretch of highway he was tackling rested at a slight incline, so the Brabus started to slow immediately.
Slater cursed, and put both hands on the wheel, rattled by the sudden quiet inside the cabin.
The four trucks ahead sensed his retreat, and they slowed and turned around on the highway like hungry stalking predators.
‘Shit!’ Slater roared. He punched the dashboard, bruising his knuckles on the leather, suddenly seized by helplessness.
He tightened his grip on the carbine.
It was his last hope.
Sitting in a rapidly slowing box, he reached for the door handle. He figured he could lever himself out onto the step and aim over the top of the door, using its bulletproof window and armour plating as a makeshift bunker. He had no control of the Brabus now, so it was his last port of call.
He took a deep breath, and saw a couple of the trucks coming right at him, and threw caution to the wind and heaved the door outward.
It didn’t budge.
He rocked back in his seat, overwhelmed by that same feeling of helplessness. It threatened to choke his insides, constrict his breathing, send his heart rate sky high. He looked around the luxurious cabin and saw nothing but a steel trap.
The passenger window was still down.
He lunged out of the driver’s seat but the seatbelt caught him, so he reached down to unclasp it, and the second he worked it free the window came up, sealing him in.
Fighting the urge to panic, he angled the carbine into the back seats and shot the rear passenger window, making sure to fire at a diagonal in case the bullet deflected.
It bounced harmlessly off and embedded itself in the roof.
Bulletproof.
Just as he suspected.
Then he turned and braced himself as the four trucks surrounded him like a pack of vultures circling helpless prey.
He gripped his carbine in the silence, and the only sound he could hear was the thrum-thrum-thrum of his heart against his chest wall.
‘Well,’ he whispered to himself. ‘If this is it…’
Sweat dotted his brow. He watched as the four enemy vehicles reversed alongside his truck, waiting for it to slow completely. He could see them leering openly out the windows. They weren’t protecting themselves, even though they could see the outline of the carbine in his hands through the tinted glass.
They knew he wasn’t able to fire at them.
Someone in their crew had used a kill switch.
Embedded in every car, and…
Fzz.
He heard the soft electronic stutter emanate from within the M4 carbine. He almost jumped out of his skin, figuring if a small explosive charge had been rigged in the gun he would be helpless to escape.
But nothing else happened.
Then Slater figured out what was going on.
Another kill switch.
He aimed the carbine at the dashboard and pumped the trigger, and sure enough…
…nothing happened.
‘Oh, Christ,’ he whispered. ‘What have you got yourself into?’
As if instructing him through an elaborate theatre production, the driver’s door unlocked with a muted click.
Slater tossed the useless carbine aside, wrenched the door handle, pushed the door outward, and stepped out onto the blacktop as soon as the Brabus slowed to a crawl.
More than twelve men piled out of the four vehicles collectively, and all of them had assault rifles.
They trained them on him like professionals.
He stood awkwardly in the middle of nowhere as the Brabus rolled away, driverless and dead.
He put his hands over his head.
He swore under his breath.
His heart hammered away, incessantly, endlessly.
Then a man stepped out of the fourth car and raised his open palms wide, like unravelling a master conclusion to the same theatre production. There was a broad smile on his face, and a cunning intelligence in his eyes. Slater didn’t think he’d ever seen anyone look so sharp. He had a presence unrivalled in his crew — he was similarly physically imposing, but there was a cold calculation in his slate blue eyes that Slater knew meant unparalleled smarts.
And he exuded an energy the others didn’t — a feverish excitement to be right here in this moment, surrounded by life-threatening tension and vehicular carnage and the eternal thrill of the hunt.
He said, ‘Will Slater. It’s a pleasure.’
He had an unruly mop of dark black hair swept back off his forehead, and a five o’clock shadow resting over a rigid jawline, and a physique like something off a magazine cover. He had the appearance of a man who’d taken advantage of every opportunity in life — gruelling workout routines, optimal nutrition, endless self-discipline.
He looked like Slater.
He looked like King.
He had that same energy.
Slater said, ‘Have we met?’
The man said, ‘Now we have.’
‘Who are you?’
‘My name is Ali Hawk.’
‘Okay.’
‘I’m glad you could join me out here, Will.’
‘You wanted us here, didn’t you? The both of us?’
Hawk turned to look at the closest mercenary to him, and said, ‘Told you he’s smart.’
‘Not smart enough,’ Slater said.
Hawk shrugged. ‘Can’t win them all, can you?’
Slater said nothing.
The man grinned devilishly and said, ‘But I can.’
‘What happens now?’
‘I let you fight me hand to hand and give you a chance to escape.’
Slater stood there with his hands by his side and felt a twinge of hope.
He readied his reflexes.
Then Hawk said, ‘Just kidding.’
And he detached a handheld taser from his utility belt and fired the prongs into Slater’s thigh.
Slater’s world went mad.
44
King withstood the barrage of gunfire by crushing himself into the muddy earth and praying a stray shot didn’t ricochet through the open Brabus windows, come out the other side and rupture his internal organs.
But that didn’t happen.
The metal storm softened for a moment, allowing him a brief respite. His ears rang and throbbed, and a headache was forcing itself to the forefront of his consciousness despite the rush of adrenalin. He knew that didn’t bode well for the future — if he survived the coming moments.
But, despite everything stacked against him, he liked his odds.
He raised his head above eye level, only pausing there for a half-second, refusing to allow the mercenaries any time to lock their aim on. He assessed where the opposition were, how they were spread out, how easily he could hit them.
He caught a split-second glance of the guy on the right staring at the electronic device, working it with both hands, tapping away at its touch screen.
When he ducked back down, his carbine died.
That was the only way he could describe it. He registered a slight vibration from within the rifle. He didn’t pick it up on the edge of his hearing — his eardrums were temporarily deafened. Instead he felt a palpable shift in the carbine’s mechanics, and with a sinking feeling in his stomach he test-fired a round into the ground from behind his concealed position.
Nothing happened.
The gunfire from atop the embankment ceased.
King bowed his head and weighed his options.
None of them were good.
‘Come out now!’ a voice with an Australian accent roared. ‘We’ll play nice.’
‘No you won’t,’ King said.
He could barely hear himself talk. The unsuppressed gunfire had rivalled an airhorn going off in both his ears at once.
‘You don’t understand, then,’ the same voice said. ‘He wants you alive.’
‘Who?’
‘This isn’t a fucking debate,’ the guy said. ‘Come out now, mate. Don’t try anything stupid.’
They knew about your reflexes, King thought. Otherwise they wouldn’t have risked unloading half their magazines at you.
They were laying down suppressive fire so the guy with the phone could flip the kill switch on your gun. But they wouldn’t have tried that with anyone else, or it might have killed them. You were too fast.
They knew about him.
Who he was.
What he’d done.
Of course they did. They were the ones who’d gone after his girlfriend in Thailand.
All to get to him.
He pieced together a plan. He visualised each movement, putting it together into an entire sequence. He imagined their instructions coming down the pipeline. Very specific instructions, not to be ignored. Not to be disobeyed.
Shouldn’t have told me you need me alive, he thought.
Then he stepped out from behind cover.
With his hands up.
And he put as much dejection on his face as he could muster.
The guy up on the embankment doing all the talking smiled.
‘Good lad,’ he called down.
‘You want me up there?’ King said.
‘No, stay right there. We’ll come to you.’
‘What’s the point?’ King grumbled, and put his head down and set off walking toward the slope.
‘Hey!’ the guy called, but King didn’t seem to be a threat. So he hesitated a beat.
King said, ‘Be right there.’
‘No, I said—’
‘Oh, what?’ King said.
Moving forward the whole time.
Then he made it alongside the idle Brabus — the vehicle whose occupants he’d gunned down effortlessly, before the man with the kill switch arrived on the scene.
The driver’s door was open.
It was right there.
The guy doing all the talking worked out what he was doing.
‘Shoot him in the fucking leg,’ he snarled.
Too late.
No-one was willing to. Not for a couple of seconds at least, and King knew full well how fast he could take advantage of a few seconds’ hesitation. They had to line up their aim and get it exactly right, knowing in the back of their minds they’d probably be killed for accidentally murdering a valuable target. So they were preoccupied with getting their aim right, which wasn’t easy with the wind whipping at their backs and the cold seeping into their bones and their hands shaking from the adrenalin.
King and Slater had been lured here, so these men had known for weeks, possibly months in advance that they’d be coming.
That was a lot of time to get in their own heads.
They would have heard rumours. These are the pair of warriors. The best of the best. You’d all better be on your A-games.
And now they didn’t want to choke, which made them more likely to choke in the first place.
So King leapt into the driver’s seat and shifted the gearstick from “Park” to “Drive” and stamped the accelerator and the big Brabus roared in response. A couple of gunshots blared then, and a bullet ricocheted off the open driver’s door, sparking off the bulletproof window pane.
Then a voice said, ‘No!’ sharply, and King knew they couldn’t risk killing him.
He slammed the door closed and the tyres spinning in the mud finally found traction and he floored it up the other side of the ditch, which was shorter and far easier to traverse.
A couple of bullets pinged uselessly off the back of the Brabus, but they were shots fired out of pure frustration alone. King made it to the edge of the farmland and demolished the thin wire perimeter fence, making sure to hit it in the middle so it caved without resistance.
The armoured truck flattened the barricade and handled the flat ground with ease. It picked up speed, moving incessantly forward, and without any obstacles in the vicinity King could keep a close eye on his rear view mirror. He saw the five men lined up on the other side of the ditch, growing rapidly smaller, locked in indecision. They knew where he was heading.
A beeline for the woods.
It was mid-afternoon, and the sun would start to set a couple of hours from now.
They’d be searching for him in the dark, in unfamiliar terrain, with the threat of an ambush looming.
King had only made it five hundred feet from the state highway when the group decided to retreat.
They shrank away from the embankment, and he let out the breath that had caught in his throat.
For now, he was safe.
But then he checked his side mirror, and noticed a new field of view had opened up with his retreat into farmland, giving him a look at most of the state highway for a mile in either direction.
He saw a silhouette that looked eerily like Slater, way down the road, surrounded by armed mercenaries.
Another kill switch, he thought.
But it didn’t work out so well for him.
He stifled the urge to turn around and barrel toward Slater, knowing it would get him killed. He was wrapped up in something far greater than himself. He still couldn’t grasp the lengths their enemy had gone to just to get them here.
Their foe was intelligent beyond comprehension, and the best move now was not a brazen attack.
That had worked wonders for King in the past, but he got the eerie sense he’d never faced anything quite like this.
Weaponless, defenceless, stripped of everything he had to work with, he had no option but to retreat to the woods and wait until the enemy force dispersed.
He bowed his head to the wheel and maintained his trajectory.
His stomach turned over and over.
45
When the pain receded to a manageable level, Slater came to in the back of one of the trucks.
It was moving.
Racing off south down State Highway 1, away from the remnants of vehicular warfare.
The Brabus’ rear seats had been stripped out, leaving an enclosed area the size of a panel van’s hold. He was strapped to a metal bed, handcuffed at both wrists, with coarse leather straps around his ankles. He didn’t bother squirming or struggling or screaming for help — actions so prevalent in modern day movies.
He recognised his helplessness immediately. He didn’t waste any energy.
He just accepted it.
He sat back, dealt with the aches and pains in his body, and waited for someone to speak.
Ali Hawk sat on a steel bench built into the side of the space.
He watched Slater intently.
‘You caused me a lot of trouble,’ the man said. ‘This was supposed to go smoothly.’
Slater didn’t respond.
He scrutinised the man across from him.
Hawk appeared to be in his mid-thirties, but he might have been far older. He had the aura of someone who took impeccable care of himself. Someone who had every facet of life sorted out, from his physicality to his mentality. What still stood out the most to Slater was the man’s eyes. They were cunning and wise and they pierced right through him. So he kept his mouth shut. He felt like anything he said would be futile — Hawk would dissect it, deconstruct it, break it down, and after only a few minutes of conversation the man would know exactly what made Will Slater tick.
Slater didn’t want to allow him the privilege.
Hawk smiled as the silence played out, and eventually said, ‘You’re going to have to speak eventually.’
‘I’m in pain.’
