“Buchanan Road…” There was a near imperceptible whine of electronics as the mountainous HAWC spun back. “Goddamnit, that’s Aimee Weir’s place. Shit.”
He punched a button on his desk’s comm., breaking through to his superior officer.
“Boss, Aimee Weir’s house, trouble. I’m patching it, and coming through.” He turned back to the soldier at the door, as he placed a small plug into his ear. “Switch it through, Shorty… and link in the team.”
“You got it.”
The young soldier sprinted away, and Sam jogged down the hallway to the Hammer’s office. He pushed at the door and went straight in. Even as he got there, the wall was opening, revealing a huge screen.
Colonel Jack “Hammer” Hammerson, commander of the secretive HAWCs division within the US Special Forces, was already in front of the screen. He half turned, the granite-hard expression telling Sam the man was already pissed off.
“Talk to me, Reid.”
Sam listened to the comm. plug for a second or two and then pointed. “Data link coming through now. We’ve got two intruders in the house, got past our surveillance. They’re good.”
Hammerson’s screen split to show multiple darkened rooms. There was a single adult male, flat on his back in a doorway, a spreading bloom of red on his chest. Two large men, in blackout clothing and cyclopian night vision gear, were in the child’s bedroom. One of the men held Aimee by the hair and shook her as he shouted into her face.
Hammerson’s jaws clenched, and Sam heard something deep in the man’s chest. He could have sworn it was a growl. Sam stepped closer to the screen, enlarging the child’s bedroom view. “They’re looking for Joshua; they can’t find him.”
Hammerson didn’t blink. “Take ’em down.”
“Do we want to find out who sent them?” Sam asked.
“They can talk to me via an autopsy.” Hammerson turned, his eyes merciless. “Proceed with the order.”
Sam nodded, and touched the button in his ear. “Alpha team, go on insertion. No warm bodies.”
The man on the screen punched Aimee in the face, and then lifted her again by the hair. He continued to shout at her.
Sam’s teeth ground in his cheeks. Personally, he wanted them alive. Not from compassion, mercy, or because he really wanted to talk to them. Instead he wanted five minutes alone with them. Sam’s huge hands crushed into fists.
Joshua Weir curled up small. He barely breathed on the top shelf of his closet as he peeked from behind the wall of soft toys, Star Wars Lego, and boxes of broken Transformers. The room was near pitch dark, but he saw the men as clearly as he saw in daylight.
Mommy was in trouble and he watched as the men shouted questions at her, and shook her by the hair. While one man shouted, another man was flipping over the bed, and pulling out drawers — they would find him soon. Joshua eased back, but clutched a swimming trophy in his hand. The small silver figure on top, standing with raised hands, was now a sharp spike. The man hit Mommy, and Joshua’s hand tightened on the trophy.
Uncle Peter came into the room, fast, and seemed at first confused, and then frightened. One of the men in black struck him across the throat and he went to his knees clutching his neck. Then another pointed a gun at his chest that barely made a noise, and Uncle Peter fell backwards.
“Peter!’ Mommy screamed as her potential protector first went down and then went to sleep.
Joshua turned his head to the dark doorway. He heard the other people coming, silent as ghosts, too silent for the men in the room to hear. He listened as they came up the stairs, and also crept on the roof. He knew they came to help. He didn’t know how… he just… knew. He also knew something else, and he urgently leapt from his hiding place.
Joshua landed on Aimee, causing the man holding her to leap back momentarily. The small boy immediately wrapped his arms around her eyes and ears, shielding her. He squeezed his own eyes shut, just as the window frame exploded inwards, and a small stun grenade detonated on his bed.
“It’s okay, Mommy,” he whispered, but knowing she couldn’t hear as he lay across her, shielding her. Like magic, and before the flash had even dissipated, there were several more huge black-clad bodies in the room. There was a soft sound like someone spitting, and the two men who were hurting Mommy just fell down.
A blanket was thrown over Joshua and Aimee, and Uncle Peter was also lifted from the room.
Mommy started screaming then, and calling his name over and over. But Joshua reached out to her, talking softly, telling her they were safe now. She pulled him to her, hugging him tight.
Joshua looked back, just as they were being bundled from the room. He knew the bad men had no breath left in them and were dead.
Good, a tiny voice whispered to him. He smiled at that.
CHAPTER 5
Aimee sat in the back of the black van as it sped away. There were three men and one woman in the back with her. She didn’t know them, but knew who they were — HAWCs.
Peter lay flat on the floor, his head propped and his chest bandaged. He groaned and coughed wetly. Aimee reached down to wipe the hair from his forehead.
“He’ll be fine. Collapsed lung, but otherwise, it’s through and through. He’s lucky.” One of the men wiped blood from Peter’s chin, and then read some figures from a small electronic pad they had stuck to his chest to monitor his vital signs.
“Lucky,” Aimee repeated, looking at Peter’s drained face. She felt sorry for him, but also something else — she suddenly knew that even though he was a good man, a good provider, and a good role model for Joshua, he could never be their real protector.
She turned to Joshua and he smiled up at her. In his face she saw him again, Alex Hunter, that specter from the past. She smiled back, amazed that her son seemed unfazed by the night’s brutal events. Instead, the boy turned to one of the HAWCs, and reached across to touch one of his gloved hands. Across the back of the knuckles and fingers was armor plating. Joshua made a fist and rapped on it.
“I bet that would hurt.”
The big man looked down, and grinned. “It’s supposed to.”
Joshua nodded, as though this was the answer he expected.
“Ma’am.” One of the HAWCs handed her a small pellet, and he pointed to her ear. “He can hear you as well.”
She nodded and inserted it.
“Aimee, are you okay?”
She closed her eyes, immediately recognizing the voice. She couldn’t decide whether to be angry or happy. “You know I am, Jack. You’ve been watching me, haven’t you?”
“Yes,” Jack Hammerson said softly.
“For how long?” she asked.
“We never stopped.”
She exhaled. “Thank you.” She had thought Joshua was a secret, now she knew differently. Strangely, rather than inflame her, it calmed her. If Jack Hammerson had known for five years, and done nothing, then they never intended to take him away at all, she rationalized. In fact, while she had been abominable to the HAWC leader in the past, he had secretly been guarding them all along.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“The sins of our past… or perhaps the sins of others, now carried by you, whether you like it or not. I’m the one who is sorry, Aimee.”
She leaned back. “So, what now?”
“That depends on you. Say the word, and you can go back to your home, or a home somewhere else. We’ll patch up Peter, and generate a cover story.” He paused, waiting.
“For how long? Until someone finds us again?” Aimee lowered her voice and turned away. “That was no random break in, they wanted him, didn’t they, Jack?”