Against All Odds
All he could do was hope Thurman would let Alex go before she got hurt.Hawk was still standing outside when his phone rang. Rushing inside to answer it, he noticed Thomas Colton was the name on the caller ID.
“How are you doing, Hawk?” Colton asked.
“I’ve been better.”
“Well, maybe this bit of info will help make your day a little better.”
“Do you have those tracking codes?” Hawk asked.
“See, I knew this would cheer you up. Okay, I’m going to text them to you along with the instructions on how to log into the site. Just follow the prompts and enter the ID codes on the message I’ll send you and you can see where they are.”
“Sounds easy enough.”
“Or I could just tell all this to Alex and let her do it.”
Hawk sighed. “No, I can handle it. Send me what I need to know.”
Hawk’s phone buzzed with the arrival of the text messages from Colton. Opening up a laptop, Hawk navigated to the site and followed the instructions. He put his phone on speaker and keyed in the first set of tracking numbers.
“How are you doing?” Colton asked.
“I don’t know why you’re still listening if you’re so sure that everything is fine.”
Colton chuckled. “Perhaps I just want the same peace of mind that you want. Is there anything wrong with that?”
“No, nothing wrong with that at all.”
Hawk waited for the GPS locator to reveal the location of the first SubZero missile. When the map appeared, Hawk squinted at the screen, unsure of what he was seeing.
“Hawk? Are you there?”
Hawk continued to stare at the image. “Yeah, I’m here.”
“Well, what did you find?”
Hawk sighed. “You’re not gonna like this.”
“What is it?”
“Hang on a second,” Hawk said before furiously entering the next set of numbers. The next three numbers all pinged at the same location.
“Hawk? Tell me what you see,” Colton said.
“All four of your missiles are in Cuba.”
CHAPTER 18
BLUNT GNAWED ON A CIGAR as he put on his blinker and bulled his way into the faster moving lane of traffic. For his troubles, he received a long honk and a middle-finger salute from the trailing driver. Blunt glanced in the rearview mirror before returning his gaze to the road, ignoring the rude gestures. He used to get worked up over such things, but he’d noticed how he was beginning to mellow in his old age.
I ain’t got time to get worked up over getting berated in traffic.
His phone rang with a call from Hawk, and Blunt answered it using the hands-free system in his car.
“How’d it go?” Blunt asked.
“About as poorly as possible,” Hawk said. “We severely underestimated Thurman.”
“What happened?”
“He took Alex at knifepoint.”
Blunt took the cigar out of his mouth, which fell agape. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“I wish I was,” Hawk said. “But I watched him put the knife to her throat, holding her hostage so he could escape.”
“Where’d he get the knife?”
“Apparently he had one on him,” Hawk said.
“Well, I guess we should’ve figured as much. He’s certainly not an advocate for the second amendment. But a knife? I wouldn’t have imagined that either.”
“It was careless and lazy on my part,” Hawk said. “I should’ve handled him more cautiously. I just figured we’d have our conversation and hold him at the safe house for a few days until we got everything sorted out.”
“Anything else go wrong?” Blunt asked.
“Unfortunately, yes. Personally, taking Alex was the worst thing Thurman did. But there’s more.”
“Such as—”
“He sold four short-range missiles that are armed with weaponized chemicals, deadly chemicals.”
“Who did he sell them to?”
“I’m not sure yet, but Colton brought four to use for a demonstration. However, Thurman stole them and sold them to someone, and they’re all in Cuba now.”
“Any ideas who it might be?” Blunt asked.
“I was hoping you could help clear that up for me. I’m not sure about the situation down there and who they might be wanting to target.”
“Florida,” Blunt said flatly. “There aren’t any other countries those missiles could reach that would make sense if Cuba is indeed the bad state actor here. How far are we talking about here?”
“They can travel two hundred and fifty miles and have a confirmed kill radius of a quarter mile.”
“That can still do some serious damage,” Blunt said. “And if the navigational system on those things are all that advanced, it could be a precision strike that takes out someone.”
“It could cloak an assassination attempt,” Hawk added.
“A weapon like that could do a lot of things, most of all sowing fear and chaos. But you’re certainly not going to win a battle with just a few of those.”
“I think it goes without saying that we need to get those missiles back, but I can’t do it without Alex. I need her.”
“I understand,” Blunt said. “But you need to move quickly on getting her back and that situation under control within the next twenty-four hours. The longer those weapons are outside our control, the greater the chance that we’re going to lose them for good.”
“Until they come crashing back down on American soil.”
“Exactly,” Blunt said. “And we can’t have that happening.”
“I’ll do my best, but you’ll need to have someone else on standby to go down there if I can’t. I’m not venturing down there without Alex.”
“Fine. I’ll get a backup plan going. Go get your wife back, and keep me posted. And, Hawk?”
“What, sir?”
“Good luck.”
“Thank you, sir,” Hawk said before hanging up.
Blunt wheeled into the garage near Union Station and parked on one of the lower levels close to the entrance.
Never know when you might need to make a quick getaway.
Blunt got out of his car and entered the bustling train terminal. Union Station was still one of those iconic Washington landmarks that he enjoyed visiting. The attention to architectural detail both inside and outside the building made it an interesting place.
After making his way toward the lockers, he fished out a scrap sheet of paper that contained the corresponding number. He promised Rebecca