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  DEAD IN THE WATER

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  Heisman: The Man Behind the Trophy

  Other titles by R.J. Patterson

  Brady Hawk series

  First Strike

  Deep Cover

  Point of Impact

  Full Blast

  Target Zero

  Fury

  State of Play

  Seige

  Seek and Destroy

  Into the Shadows

  Hard Target

  No Way Out

  Cal Murphy Thriller series

  Dead Shot

  Dead Line

  Better off Dead

  Dead in the Water

  Dead Man's Curve

  Dead and Gone

  Dead Wrong

  Dead Man's Land

  Dead Drop

  Dead to Rights

  Dead End

  James Flynn Thriller series

  The Warren Omissions

  Imminent Threat

  The Cooper Affair

  Seeds of War

  SIEGE

  A Brady Hawk Thriller

  R.J. PATTERSON

  For Dave Mondt, a fiercely

  loyal friend and a great American

  CHAPTER 1

  Istanbul, Turkey

  BRADY HAWK TUGGED HIS PANTS LEG down and smoothed it out, better disguising the knife holster strapped around his ankle. With a gun tucked in the belt behind his back, he put on his jacket and grabbed the stack of laundered clothes scheduled for delivery to Ahmet Polat. A well-placed asset within The Chamber, Polat had reported to Blunt for several years before the agency became the target of the U.S. government instead of serving as a more discreet approach to handling terrorists. However, Polat was in danger.

  Two weeks prior, Polat went to meet with his handler in a local park when he was gunned down at midday. Women and children scurried away in search of cover as the handler’s bullet-riddled body slumped to the ground. Polat had yet to make visual contact and give the signal to initiate the exchange, something he was relieved never happened after observing the carnage. He spun on his heels and hustled in the opposite direction, hoping he never again crossed paths with the people who created chaos in the park, obviously unconcerned with making a scene as long as they hit the target.

  There were secondary and tertiary protocols in the event of a breach in the pipeline. Polat still possessed valuable information that needed to be passed on, yet all he could do was wait for the next set of procedures to be activated. According to Blunt, patience wasn’t one of Polat’s stronger virtues, and the Firestorm chief feared if time dragged on without any contact, Polat might miss the window to pass on what he’d learned and ultimately pay a steep price. Blunt determined not to let either of those hypotheticals become reality and sent Hawk to Istanbul to see if he could salvage the situation.

  Hawk stepped out of the back of the truck and went through the motions of locking it up. But it was an act in case he was being watched by either street thugs or one of The Chamber’s spies. Giving every indication that he was nothing more than a delivery man dropping off dry cleaned suits, Hawk kept his head down as he marched up the steps to Polat’s second-story apartment. But when Hawk knocked on the door, it opened farther with each thump from his fist.

  Hawk pushed his glasses up on his nose.

  “It appears to be open,” Hawk whispered.

  Listening in on his channel were his handler, Alex Duncan, and the newest member of the Firestorm team, Shane Samuels.

  “Do not go in, Hawk,” Samuels said. “I repeat: Do not go in. Protocol dictates we abandon all attempts to make contact.”

  Forget protocol.

  “Hello?” Hawk said as he ventured inside. “Mr. Polat? Are you home?”

  “What was it about ‘do not go in’ that you didn’t understand?” Samuels squawked in Hawk’s ear over the comlink.

  Hawk dropped the bag of clothes on the floor by the door and snatched the gun from the back of his pants. Training his weapon in front of him, Hawk cleared the first three rooms before he heard the faint sound of a board creaking coming from down the hall. Hawk slowed his breathing and crept quietly toward the noise.

  Once he reached the next doorway, he eased inside quickly to find a tossed study. Books and file papers strewn across the floor, chairs overturned, windows opened while curtains flapped in the breeze.

  Either Ahmet Polat was a messy genius or someone was here looking for something—Hawk couldn’t decide which one. The chair was facing the window, and Hawk cautiously reached forward to investigate. Slumped in the chair with two bullets to the chest and one to his forehead was Polat.

  “Are you getting this, Alex?” Hawk whispered.

  “Unfortunately, I am,” she said. “It’s all coming through crystal clear from your body cam. I’m running this through facial recognition to confirm, but that
looks like Polat to me.”

  “This is a mess,” Hawk muttered.

  Then he heard a creak again. It sounded the same as the last one, only now he knew it was coming from another room.

  “I think I’ve got some hostiles,” Hawk whispered. “Just a heads up.”

  Hawk slipped into the hallway, his head on a swivel and gun trained in front of him.

  Another creak. Then he made one of his own.

  Footsteps pounded against the floor, beating a path toward the back of the apartment. Hawk switched into pursuit mode, unsure of why whoever else was inside had waited until that moment to attempt a quick exit. Though Hawk had moved stealthily down the hall, it wasn’t as if his entrance was unannounced.

  A blur darted to the left at the end of the short corridor, and Hawk followed suit. Another blur to the right, only this time, Hawk caught a glimpse of a man clutching something in his left hand.

  When Hawk reached the back, the man was trying to unlock the door but was having trouble, the kind that gets a person killed. The man looked over his shoulder at Hawk standing in the doorway and fired several shots. Hawk dashed behind the wall and waited.

  Three . . . two . . . one.

  Hawk exploded around the corner and squeezed off two shots. The first one hit the man in the shoulder, the second one in his head. He collapsed, dropping both his gun and the small device he’d been holding. It was a flash drive. Hawk kicked the gun away from the man and stooped down to check his pulse. He was dead.

  Hawk pocketed the device. “Well, Polat’s dead, but at least we got what we came here for,” he said into his comlink.

  Then another creak.

  Hawk looked up to find another man raising his gun when three shots ripped through him and he toppled to the floor. Heavy footfalls followed before Samuels appeared in the doorway. He shook his head.

  “Next time, you need to listen to me and follow protocol,” Samuels said. “If I hadn’t broken protocol myself, you’d be dead right now.”

  Hawk winked and pulled the flash drive out of his pocket. He held it up for Samuels.

  “But we wouldn’t have this either, which was the entire point of this mission.”

  Alex interrupted the conversation. “This tit-for-tat is fun, but you two have a pair of uninvited guests heading up the front stairs now.”

  Hawk took aim at the lock and fired two shots, shattering it and freeing the door. The two operatives raced outside and headed for their truck.

  “What are you going to do now?” Samuels asked as he kept pace with Hawk.

  “What? Your little manual doesn’t describe how to handle a situation like this?” Hawk fired back, still in a dead sprint.

  As they rounded the corner, a shot ricocheted off a nearby building.

  Alex met them at the door, holding it up as Hawk and Samuels rushed inside.

  “Samuels, drive this thing like you stole it,” Hawk said.

  “What are you gonna do?” Samuels asked as he turned the key and shifted the van into gear.

  “Just drive.”

  Samuels stomped on the gas. Alex and Hawk both lurched back but they quickly regained their balance.

  Hawk looked at Alex and pointed at the front seat. “You don’t want to be back here for this, but I’m going to lose them for you.”

  She shook her head and sighed as she glanced at the motorcycle in the rear of the van. “On that thing?”

  “Got any better ideas? Samuels didn’t have any from his manual.”

  “Just make it back alive, will you?”

  “I always do,” Hawk said, securing the chinstrap on his helmet.

  Hawk kicked down on the starter and revved the engine several times. He hit a button on the side of the van and activated the door, rolling it up overhead. The moment the door raised high enough for Hawk to slip beneath, he roared out and hit the street hard. He quickly spun around and accelerated.

  Looking over his shoulder, Hawk identified the two men chasing them now speeding toward them in a black SUV. They fired a few bursts at him before Hawk identified a side street to draw them away from the van.

  Hawk banked hard left, and the men followed.

  “Alex, can you help me out here?” Hawk asked.

  “Give me a second,” she said. “I’m calling up a map.”

  Hawk slowed down just enough to take a hard right onto another street.

  “Okay, I’ve got something. In about a quarter of a mile on the right, there’s an alley you can lose them in.”

  “You sure that’s a good route?”

  “There might be a few steps involved, but I’m sure you can handle it.”

  Hawk huffed a short laugh through his nose. “You never like to give me the easy way, do you?”

  “Where’s the fun in that?”

  Hawk glanced over his shoulder at the SUV now gaining on him. He weaved again, anticipating the men were close enough to begin firing again. Several more shots whizzed past before Hawk whipped his bike hard right and into the alley Alex picked out for him. He zoomed down the narrow passageway, which wound around to a large plaza. However, in order to get back onto the main road, Hawk had to navigate a series of steps, which sent people scattering as he bounced past.

  When he came back to the main road, he checked and discovered the SUV was nowhere to be found.

  “Think you can get me back to the warehouse now?” Hawk asked.

  “Piece of cake,” Alex said before passing along the instructions.

  Once Hawk returned, he hustled through the door, pushing his bike inside as well.

  “What? No welcoming committee?” Hawk asked with a wink.

  “We only throw parties when you actually capture the target, not for just escaping one of her minions,” Samuels said.

  “Is that part of the manual, too?” Hawk asked.

  Samuels took a deep breath and crossed his arms before speaking without a hint of expression. “You’re a funny guy, Brady Hawk.”

  “So I’ve been told. But this is way more exciting work than standup comedy, though I’m certain it’s probably just about as terrifying.”

  “What? You get scared standing up in front of audiences?” Samuels asked. “Someone who totes his confidence around like it’s a trophy wife?”

  “I prefer action to speaking,” Hawk said. “You can communicate much more clearly and precisely that way.”

  Sitting at a computer terminal in one corner of the room, Alex cleared her throat in an attempt to put a stop to the banter. “I also prefer action as well,” she said, “which is why we need to start looking at this flash drive that cost Ahmet Polat his life.”

  Hawk and Samuels joined her as she began typing away on the keyboard.

  “What are we looking at here?” Hawk asked.

  “We’re looking at our best shot at taking down Katarina Petrov and The Chamber.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Stuttgart, Germany

  KATARINA PETROV LOOSELY HELD a cigarette in her hand and stared out across the city from the rooftop of her temporary penthouse suite. Taking a long drag, she blew a lungful of smoke into the air and turned toward Heinrich Doblestort, the German chancellor who was reluctant to go along with Petrov’s latest scheme. He swirled the liquid around in his glass, staring pensively at it.

  “Well, aren’t you going to say something?” Petrov asked. “No problem was ever solved by staring at a glass of scotch.”

  Doblestort looked up at Petrov and sighed. He then turned and stared out across the city skyline. “Perhaps, but it does help me forget a few unsavory decisions I’ve had to make.”

  “What kind of leadership is that? I thought you had a backbone,” Petrov said, needling Doblestort. “Maybe I should seek help elsewhere.”

  “No, no,” Doblestort said. “Don’t do that. I think I can help you. It’s just that—”

  “Just that what? You don’t like being wealthy? You don’t like owing someone something? You don’t like being on the right side of history
because God knows as a German you could use some help in that category.”

  Doblestort responded with a steely gaze. “I never make decisions hastily. That’s how this good leader handles problems.”

  Petrov returned the cigarette to her lips and sucked in another drag. She exhaled a small plume of smoke before saying a word. “Sometimes leaders don’t have time to contemplate every angle of their decisions. Sometimes you have to act on instinct. What are your instincts telling you, Heinrich?”

  “They’re telling me to run,” he said flatly. “They’re telling me to distance myself from you as much as possible and never look back.”

  Petrov clucked her tongue. “Heinrich, Heinrich, Heinrich. That would be most unfortunate. I need you to comply or else you’ll force me to do unsavory things to you and your loved ones. And honestly, I’d prefer to avoid such unpleasantries. We’ve been friends for a long time now, and you know I don’t issue threats, especially empty ones. I only make promises, the kind of promises I swear to keep. And I can assure you the only promises you want me to keep are the ones that result in you getting rich.”

  Doblestort glanced back down at his glass. “Fine. I’ll do it. I’ll help you set up the meeting. But that’s as far as it goes with me.”

  “That’s as far as I’ll need you to take it,” she said. “The rest will be up to me—and I have full confidence in my ability to help everyone see it’s in their best interest to cooperate.”

  “No dirty tactics,” Heinrich said.

  “Of course not, Heinrich. Don’t be silly. I always play by the rules in these types of situations. If I coerce someone against their will, I run the risk of being accused later on. And scurrilous accusations are not something The Chamber looks upon fondly.”

  Doblestort tilted his head back and downed the remaining scotch in his glass. Looking at Petrov, he said, “Let’s go discuss the details then.”

  On their way across the balcony back inside Petrov’s suite, a news report played on the television. The handsome man seated behind the BBC news desk was giving the latest details about an incident in the Middle East.