“And he’d probably be bored with it after a week,” she said.
“Probably.”
They both laughed as they watched John Daniel crash into the hay again and then squeal with delight.
“This is the life, isn’t it?” Hawk said as he looked at Alex.
“Actually, that’s what I wanted to talk with you about.”
Hawk settled into a chair next to her. “I’m listening.”
“While you were in Virginia, I was thinking about the future, specifically our future,” she said as she looked down. “And I’m not sure I can do this much longer.”
Hawk furrowed his brow. “Do what much longer?”
“This,” she said, “waving her hand in front of her. Living on a ranch in isolation while so many other people need us.”
“You want to move back to Washington?”
She shook her head and scoffed. “Of course not. I want to live here. I know it’s what’s best for John Daniel. But I don’t think our time is done out there.”
“I thought we agreed that this would just be a one-time assignment,” Hawk said.
“We did, but I reserve the right to change my mind,” she said before taking another sip of her tea. “Tell me you didn’t enjoy this last mission, the hunt, the exhilaration of stopping a man who was intent on sabotaging good Americans for some misguided agenda.”
“I loved it,” Hawk said. “But what about you and John Daniel? What if something happens to me?”
“We’ll be fine. In case you forgot, a Russian mafia assassin tried to kill me in our home—and I took care of him without you.”
Hawk smiled faintly. “Yes, you did.”
“The fact is there are other people just like us, families with kids who have wonderful lives right now but could have it all stripped away if the wrong people take control of this country and the world. Freedoms could be eroded. Innocent lives could be lost. Dreams for a generation could be snuffed out. And I don’t want to get to the end of our lives and think that we just put in our time. I want to help. We’ve had enough time out of the game, but it’s time to get back in it.”
She paused, letting the words sink in before continuing.
“At least, that’s how I feel. Maybe you feel differently, but I needed to let you know that in case you’re feeling the same way, too.”
Hawk nodded. “This last mission lit a fire in me again. And while I know there are significant risks, what I realized is that there are dozens of Eddie and Sheila Tysons out there, families who could be torn apart by the actions of a few evil men. And if I can stop them, then I feel like I must.”
“So, what you’re saying is that you want back in, too?”
“Only if you’re okay with it.”
Alex put her tea down and jumped in Hawk’s lap, wrapping her arms around him. She kissed him and then drew back before glancing at her watch.
“Speaking of getting back in the game, we have a conference call in five minutes with the Magnum team,” she said.
In the distance, John Daniel laughed as he careened into the haystack.
HAWK AND ALEX sat at their kitchen table as they joined the video conference headed by Morgan. She was joined by several members of the team, including Big Earv and Mia.
“I thought I would wrap up with you two about what we were able to learn from Admiral Miller’s private communications as well as Reaper’s,” she said. “But before I do any of that, I want to thank you for helping us on this mission. I know it wasn’t what we set out to do, but it ended up being the mission our entire country needed. President Norris wanted me to make sure that I conveyed his gratitude to the both of you.”
“We’re a team,” Hawk said. “We all had a role to play in this.”
“But you were the one out there risking everything,” Morgan said. “And, Alex, you were too. We’re grateful.”
“Happy to serve,” Alex said.
“On that note,” Morgan said, “let’s move on to the purpose of this meeting. I’m going to turn things over to Mia, who’s going to tell us about what she found.”
Mia nodded. “Thank you. Now after hours of work and some help from Dr. Z, we were able to crack the password for Admiral Miller’s burner phone. And what we found was that he was receiving messages instructing him what to do. We tried to trace the number to someone, but were unable to do so, which means it was a burner phone paid for in cash. Making things even more impossible was the fact that the phone was never used in the same place twice. But based on what we gathered from his computer, he was receiving handsome payments deposited into an offshore account he owned. The source of those payments proved even more difficult to pinpoint.”
“So where does that leave us?” Hawk asked.
“As I was searching through his computer, I found one document outlining his protocol for contact. The name of the group listed was one called The Alliance. Up until now, The Alliance was little more than a myth, concocted to explain the unexplainable. But we don’t think that’s the case now.”
Hawk leaned closer toward the screen. “And what about Reaper? Did he know who he was working for?”
Mia shrugged. “I’m not sure about that yet, but we do know that he had contact with another person before Miller started handling him.”
“That’s good,” Alex said. “Apply a little pressure on Reaper, and he should help connect the dots for us.”
“There’s only one problem with that,” Morgan said. “Last night, Reaper escaped CIA custody.”
“How?” Hawk asked.
“He was preparing to be flown from the Dominican where he’d been since you caught him to another foreign black ops site on an agency jet. But in the middle of the flight while going to the restroom, he overpowered one of the agents, grabbed a parachute, and dove out of the plane. The CIA is searching for him, but they haven’t been able to locate where he went down.”
“Sounds like we have our work cut out for us,” Hawk said.
“We?” Morgan asked. “I thought you were only going to help us with this one mission. Hunting down Reaper would be an entirely new one.”
“I know,” Hawk said. “But Alex and I have been talking about it, and we’d like back in—that is, if you’d have us.”
A grin spread across Morgan’s face. “Absolutely.”
“As long as we can continue living out here,” Alex added.
“Of course,” Morgan said. “Welcome back.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am grateful to so many people who have helped with the creation of this project and the entire Titus Black series.
Brooke Turbyfill was a big help in editing this book.
I would also like to thank my advance reader team for all their input in improving this book along with all the other readers who have enthusiastically embraced the story of Titus Black. Stay tuned … there’s more Titus Black coming soon.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
R.J. PATTERSON is an award-winning writer living in southeastern Idaho. He first began his illustrious writing career as a sports journalist, recording his exploits on the soccer fields in England as a young boy. Then when his father told him that people would pay him to watch sports if he would write about what he saw, he went all in. He landed his first writing job at age 15 as a sports writer for a daily newspaper in Orangeburg, S.C. He later attended earned a degree in newspaper journalism from the University of Georgia, where he took a job covering high school sports for the award-winning Athens Banner-Herald and Daily News.
He later became the sports editor of The Valdosta Daily Times before working in the magazine world as an editor and freelance journalist. He has won numerous writing awards, including a national award for his investigative reporting on a sordid tale surrounding an NCAA investigation over the University of Georgia football program.
R.J. enjoys the great outdoors of the Northwest while living there with his wife and four children. He still follows sports closely.
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