War Hawk: A Tucker Wayne Novel (47 page)

The man turned toward Lyon. “I’m ready—”

Tucker let out a breath and squeezed the trigger. The technician’s head snapped to the side in a halo of red mist. His body crumpled over the terminal. It was a cold-blooded kill but a necessary one.

As shouts arose, Tucker ran along the rail, firing below, snapping off shots at random targets. He tried to take out Lyon first, but the soldier was too skilled to panic. Upon the first crack of Tucker’s rifle, he had dived for cover behind one of the stations.

Tucker touched his throat. “Kane,” he radioed. “M
AKE
NOISE
. S
TAY
IN
COVER
.”

From across the nave, the shepherd howled. The ululating cry echoed off the oak rafters and stone walls, seemingly coming from everywhere at once. The unnerving acoustics even set Tucker’s teeth on edge.

Tucker dropped back into the shadows as men fired blindly up at the balcony. From the corner of his eye, he watched several technicians and armed guards hightailing it out the open church doors.

Lyon, perhaps sensing he was losing control, shot one of the deserters in the back and shouted brightly. “Hold fast! All stations . . . transmit final orders! Now!”

Crap . . .

Tucker rounded the back corner to the balcony, aiming for the stretch of the loft along the rear of the church, but the way was blocked by a pair of men running up the spiral stairs from below, both in full combat gear.

Tucker crouched at the corner and fired at the first man’s legs as he appeared, blasting out a kneecap. The guard tumbled with a cry, tripping up the second man—but these were seasoned soldiers.

Though falling, the second man dove and rolled over his partner into the passageway across from the stairs—where Tucker had hidden moments earlier and spied upon the church. The first soldier, clearly in agony, had the wherewithal to roll to one shoulder and fire at Tucker’s position, driving him back. His partner then lunged out, grabbed his free arm, and hauled him into the hallway.

Both men opened fire in Tucker’s direction, laying down a deafening barrage. Rounds pelted the stone, ricocheting everywhere. Tucker felt a hammer blow in his hip that spun him sideways. He toppled backward onto his butt, rolled on his side, and emptied his rifle in their direction.

Once out of ammo, he struggled to free a fresh magazine from his pocket.

As if sensing this opportunity, the uninjured guard barreled out of hiding, firing toward Tucker’s position behind a column. Rounds chipped at the stone as the man circled for a clean shot.

Not gonna make it . . .

Then two sharper pops cut through the barrage of automatic fire.

The wounded man who was still in the hallway fell face-forward onto the balcony. His partner turned, only to take a bullet through the throat, blowing out his cervical spine. He crashed to the ground.

Jane appeared and dropped to a knee under the hallway arch, a smoking pistol in her hand.

He wanted to both hug and curse her—but now was not the time for either action.

He tapped his throat. “Kane,
RETURN
.”

They needed to retreat to safer quarters.

The order shines behind Kane’s eyes, glowing with the urgency in his partner’s voice, but he remains in hiding. A scent carries to him from the deeper shadows, wafting through a door that opened, drafting up from a hidden stairwell.

He knows this particular scent of sweat, salt, and smoke, remembers it from the deadfall in the forest. It marks the hunter who had ambushed him.

The man tries to do the same again now, intending to come upon him and his partner from behind. But Kane waits, crouched by a trunk of this stone forest
.

Kane will be the hunter this time.

He watches the man slink out of the doorway, hugging a wall, angling away. Kane watches his prey draw up a long tube to his shoulder and balance it there.

Not a gun.

Something worse.

Knowing this, Kane can no longer wait for his prey to come to him.

He bunches his legs and bursts out of hiding, barreling toward his target.

He hits the man as an explosion blasts overhead.

Tucker ducked as fire flashed from the shadows to his left, accompanied by a deep-throated explosion. Something screamed past the balustrade and flew across the church, trailing a spiral of smoke. The rocket-propelled grenade struck a far column and detonated, shattering the old stone with a thunderous crack.

Tucker ignored the damage, hearing a savage growling from the shadows closer at hand.

Kane . . .

Waving Jane forward, Tucker passed her his rifle and had her take a position at the top of the spiral stairs. “Fire at anything.”

A brief glance below suggested it was already too late.

Technicians were abandoning their stations, running for the open door, encouraged by a pair of guards waving them out. The final instructions must have been transmitted to the fleet, ordering the complete annihilation of the valley’s hamlets.

Tucker had a more immediate concern.

Gunfire erupted from the shadows, a muzzle flashing in the darkness. It was enough to reveal a pair wrestling near the loft’s back wall. He hobbled in that direction, his hip on fire, a trail of heat running down his leg.

Hang on, Kane.

Blood flows over his tongue.

Kane ducks a flash of knife and snaps at a wrist. He catches cloth and flesh, but not enough to sink his fangs into. He gets tossed aside. He rolls as a pistol fires at him. Two rounds strike the stone before his paws; a third hits his chest. The impact cracks ribs and knocks the breath from him, but his vest holds. He launches through the air with every fiber in his hind legs.

Not to escape—but to attack again.

His body slams into his prey. The other crashes into the wall and goes down. But still an arm rises as Kane rebounds off. Fire flashes in the dark. Kane’s shoulder explodes with agony, collapsing his leg on that side.

He struggles to get up.

The man is faster, looming over him, pistol pointed down.

He fires
.

Still yards away, Tucker unloaded his SIG Sauer toward the shadowy figure of Lyon—at the same time, the other squeezed the trigger of his pistol. Seeing his partner in danger, Tucker shot wildly. A bullet managed to graze Lyon’s forearm, throwing off the bastard’s aim. The round sparked harmlessly off the stone near Kane’s nose.

Tucker kept firing, closing the distance, driving the man away from Kane and toward the balustrade.

As Lyon retreated, he swung his weapon and shot twice at Tucker, his aim just as wild. Then his pistol’s slide popped, its magazine empty.

Tucker stood over Kane and centered his aim. “It’s over.”

Lyon sneered and threw himself over the railing. Tucker got off a round, but Lyon was no longer there. Tucker rushed forward. He leaned over the balustrade in time to see Lyon crash atop one of the tall workstations and roll off it. Before Tucker could bring his pistol to bear, the soldier dove under the thick trestle table in the center of the room, using the cover to crawl toward the open door.

Men loyal to Lyon fired at Tucker from that doorway, forcing him back.

“There’s nothing you can do,” Lyon called up to him. “What’s now in motion can’t be stopped!”

A new voice interrupted. “I wouldn’t be so sure of that, asshole!”

Tucker turned to see Nora crouched with Jane by the balcony stairs.

“Take a look!” Jane added.

From his hiding place by the balustrade, Tucker peered through the upper arcade of arched windows. In the distance, small dark specks fell from the sky, tumbling down and crashing into the valley. On the monitors, he witnessed the same: Warhawks and Shrikes raining from above and crashing leadenly to the ground, like so many poisoned birds brought low.

And they had been
poisoned
.

Nora yelled down to Lyon. “Sandy says
go fuck yourself
.”

Lyon rolled out of hiding and hopped toward the open door on a broken ankle. His men covered him from the doorway.

“Like I said,” Tucker hollered, “it’s over.”

“For you.”

Tucker didn’t like the sound of that and peered over the balustrade

Lyon had paused at the door, standing in plain sight. He lifted something boxy and black in his hand and pressed a button on it. Blasts rose from below, igniting charges set at the bases of the columns. Other booms sounded from above. The forest of pillars began to topple, taking sections of the roof with it. Stones and chunks of wooden rafters rained down.

Tucker remembered how Kellerman had destroyed the command center in Trinidad, bombing it to ruin to hide any evidence of its presence. They were planning on doing the same here.

Lyon laughed. “Lock ’em all in here!”

Tucker fired toward the doorway. He struck a man trying to haul the heavy door closed. It was a clean head shot. The other guard took flight.

But not Lyon.

The soldier gained an assault rifle and returned fire—but not at Tucker this time. The bastard was smarter than that. He aimed for Tucker’s weak spot. He strafed toward the top of the spiral stair at the back of the church.

A gasp and cry rose from over there.

Nora yelled to him. “Tucker . . . help!”

Jane . . .

Lyon laughed again, stepped back, and reached to close the door himself. But through the smoke and roil of dust, another hunter closed upon its prey.

Kane races low under the tables, avoiding the crash and thunder all around him. He ignores the pain in his ribs, the agony in his left leg. The scent of his prey fills his skull, leaving little else but rage.

He has followed the scent trail of his target by backtracking it through the side door and down the secret stairs to this lower level.

He speeds now under tables and across the last of the distance, toward daylight, toward his target. The man realizes the danger too late, one hand on the door, the other holding his gun high.

Kane hits him low, bounding forth with both hind legs, a snarl fixed to his lip. He strikes his prey in the stomach, bending him over, knocking him back. Then the man tumbles farther backward, his arms flailing, his weapon flying . . . and falls over the cliff’s edge.

Unable to stop, still in the air, Kane follows
.

37

October 27, 1:44
P
.
M
. CET

Skaxis Mining Complex, Serbia

No!

Tucker watched Kane barrel into Lyon. Seventy pounds of rage and bloodlust bowled into the soldier, knocking him away from the door and over the cliff outside. Kane’s momentum carried the dog past the same edge, where he plunged away.

Tucker flung himself around.

It was a four-story drop to the rocks below.

He sprinted to the spiral stairs, to where Nora cradled Jane on the floor. Nora had a wad of cloth pressed to Jane’s shoulder. Jane’s face was a mask of agony—but perhaps not solely from the bullet wound.

“Go!” Jane gasped. “Find Kane!”

Nora helped her stand, scooting an arm under Jane’s arms. “I got her.”

Jane pushed Tucker toward the stairs with her good arm. “We’ll be right behind you.”

As more of the monastery crashed around them, Tucker led the way down to the nave and across the floor. He skirted around toppled sections of column. Rock dust choked the air. A massive beam cracked overhead and plunged down, striking the trestle table and smashing through it, sending bottles of water and boxes of rations flying high.

Tucker reached the front door to find the threshold deserted. Lyon’s men had fled the destruction, leaving their dead behind. He stepped out of the church to the cliff’s edge and searched below—but a thunderous boom shook the ground as an upper level of the monastery collapsed upon itself. Tucker came close to losing his own footing, but Nora grabbed him with her free arm and pulled him back.

A parabolic dish tumbled past his nose.

“It’s all coming down!” Jane yelled, still under Nora’s other arm. “Keep going!”

Recognizing the danger, Tucker took to the narrow steps that led down the cliff face. Despite their steepness and treacherous footing, Tucker bounded along, crossing from one switchback to the other, skipping stairs in his haste. He ignored the pain in his left hip with each jarring leap. Once on the ground, he stared up to orient himself to the monastery doors and rushed to the spot below them.

It didn’t take long to find Lyon. The soldier lay faceup, his back broken over a boulder, blood flowing from his mouth. Tucker ignored the body and searched for his friend. He spun a full circle.

Nothing.

He cupped his mouth and bellowed, “Kane!”

Ever obedient, a mewling cry answered him. He followed the whimper, but he still could not find the source.

“Kane!”

A muffled bark drew his attention up and to the left. A form struggled within the camouflage netting that was spread over the treetops.

Kane . . .

Tucker hurried toward his partner, noting the hole in the netting where Lyon had punched through before meeting his end. Tucker dropped his pistol and snatched his knife from its sheath. He gripped the handle between his teeth and scaled the fir tree to reach Kane.

“I gotcha, buddy.”

Tucker reached his fingers through the tangle of netting and rubbed Kane’s neck to calm and reassure him. Then he grabbed his blade and carefully sliced the netting under the shepherd. Kane slid out of the opening like a newborn calf. Tucker caught the dog’s weight atop a shoulder and steadied Kane there.

“Hold still,” he whispered.

Both supporting and balancing his partner on his shoulder, Tucker climbed down. Once his boots touched ground, Tucker cradled Kane around and got the shepherd back on his feet—or at least, three of them. Kane held up his left front limb. Blood dripped from his paw.