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  Other titles by R.J. Patterson

  Titus Black series

  Behind Enemy Lines

  Game of Shadows

  Rogue Commander

  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

  Two Minutes to Midnight

  Against All Odds

  Any Means Necessary

  Vengeance

  Code Red

  A Deadly Force

  Divide and Conquer

  Extreme Measures

  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

  DIVIDE AND CONQUER

  A Brady Hawk Novel

  R.J. PATTERSON

  For Paul Ragan, from storming the

  beaches of Normandy to showing me

  how to throw a knuckle ball, you were

  one amazing man who I still miss deeply.

  CHAPTER 1

  12°09’28.5”S 96°49’41.2”E

  Cocos Islands

  Indian Ocean

  BRADY HAWK WORMED HIS WAY across the sand, taking cover beneath the shrubbery growing about ten feet up the shore. A cool breeze brought a respite from the late afternoon heat typical on most tropical islands. He glanced at his watch and then peered through his binoculars at the designated meeting spot. No one had shown up yet.

  “Is he there?” Alex asked over the coms.

  “No sign of him,” Hawk said. “But he isn’t late yet.”

  “In one more minute, he will be,” she said. “And this isn’t exactly the kind of place we can go charging into and inquiring about his whereabouts.”

  Hawk sighed and shook his head, still keeping his eyes trained on the meeting spot, which was about twenty meters away on the shore of a small shaded inlet.

  Alex was right, and he felt helpless to do anything about it.

  Two days earlier, Hawk and Alex were meeting with their boss, Phoenix Foundation director J.D. Blunt, when he received a message from one of his back channel protocols set up when the organization was known as Firestorm. Blunt still kept them open just in case a friend of the group ever needed help. According to Blunt, no one had ever utilized the open line of communication—until now.

  The asset’s name was Tyler Timmons, a former engineer at Colton Industries who worked several covert projects with Blunt’s team before disappearing four years ago. His car was found abandoned near the Hoover Dam along with a note saying he was sorry but he just couldn’t go on any more. Local law enforcement officials didn’t discover any signs of foul play and wrote it off as a suicide. Even Blunt had assumed suicide was the logical explanation. However, Timmons’s message changed Blunt’s mind.

  Timmons reported that he had some information that was vital to national security, but he needed to be extracted from a remote island in the Indian Ocean. He warned Blunt about the facility’s tight security and suggested that they meet at a location accessible from the interior of the island with a quick escape route back to the water.

  Hawk and Alex had arrived the day before on Blunt’s private jet, posing as researchers gathering information on the unique ecology of the atoll. They rented a boat and collected approved samples, all while secretly scouting the best exit strategy from the portion of the island where they were to meet Timmons. Once Hawk and Alex secured the engineer, they’d need to get to the airport on the southwestern portion of the atoll and leave immediately.

  Everything was in place to carry out the extraction except for one thing: Timmons.

  “It’s a minute past noon,” Alex said. “Is this guy coming or not?”

  “Still nothing,” Hawk said.

  “The longer this goes, the more I’m starting to feel like this is a trap.”

  “Just be patient.”

  Hawk scanned the area once more and noticed movement through the bushes on the other side of the inlet.

  “Hold on,” Hawk said.

  “Is it him?”

  Hawk squinted, trying to make out the source of the activity in the brush. When the image became clearer, he sighed.

  “It’s just a bird,” he said.

  “I say we get out of here,” she said. “We don’t want to be compromised. If he didn’t think he could make it to the designated location on time, he should’ve told us so somehow.”

  “I agree,” Hawk said. “But I don’t want to abandon him just yet.”

  “You’re a saint, honey. But I’m gettin
g more worried as each minute ticks past.”

  A rustling in the bushes arrested Hawk’s attention. He placed his binoculars up to his eyes and searched the forest just on the other side of the water one final time.

  No bird sounds like that running through the woods.

  “Get the boat ready,” Hawk said over his coms as he stood and met Timmons’s gaze. “I’ve got the asset.”

  “Roger that,” she said, followed by the sound of the boat engine roaring to life in the background.

  As Timmons raced along the shore, he shook his head, eyes wide with fear.

  “Move it,” he shouted.

  Hawk didn’t wait for a second plea, spinning on his heels and dashing into the forest. Timmons had almost caught up with Hawk before a hail of bullets rained down on their position. Without hesitating, he dove to the ground.

  Timmons, however, staggered to the forest floor, collapsing face down in a pile of leaves.

  “Stay with me,” Hawk said as he rolled Timmons over.

  “They’re coming,” Timmons said, holding up his hand. “There’s no time.”

  Hawk helped Timmons to his feet. “I’ll get you out of here.”

  The back of Timmons’s shirt soaked up blood leaking from the bullet wound about three inches below his shoulder blade. Timmons staggered to his feet and limped forward.

  After they jogged a few feet, Timmons crashed to the ground again, this time landing on his knees.

  “I can’t do it,” he said as he gasped for air. “They’ll catch us both if you don’t go on.”

  “Who’s they?” Hawk asked.

  Timmons dug into his pocket and handed Black a flash drive. “Obsidian. It’s all on there, but it’s encrypted.”

  “What’s the password?” Hawk asked.

  Before Timmons could say another word, a barrage of bullets peppered nearby. Hawk hit the ground.

  “I’m gonna get you out of here,” Hawk said.

  He turned and looked at Timmons, who was bleeding from a shot to the head.

  Hawk let out a string of expletives before scrambling to his feet and racing through the woods.

  “I’m coming,” Hawk said over the coms. “And I’m coming alone.”

  “Alone?”

  “Timmons is dead—and I’ve got some security personnel on my tail.”

  “How many?” she asked.

  “I have no idea. Just get the boat ready because we’re going to need to leave immediately.”

  Hawk hit the beach thirty seconds later and sprinted up to the dock. He didn’t look back as he raced across the wooden planks, waving his arms at Alex.

  “I hope you’re ready to go,” he said.

  She cursed as she stared in his direction.

  “What is it?” Hawk said, refusing to glance over his shoulder.

  “There are three hostiles, and one of them has a rocket launcher,” she said. “Hurry.”

  Alex ripped the rope off the cleat and hustled back to the wheel where she slammed the accelerator forward. The boat lurched as the propellers churned through the water.

  Hawk leaped off the end of the dock just as the boat started to gain momentum. He slammed hard against the side but managed to hang onto the railing before throwing himself inside. He rolled back over and pulled his gun, providing Alex with the cover she needed to guide the boat farther out to sea and out of harm’s way.

  However, Hawk couldn’t do anything about the man with the rocket launcher foisted onto his shoulder.

  “Alex,” Hawk shouted.

  Alex glanced over her shoulder. “I see him.”

  “Just keep driving,” Hawk said. “When he fires, bank hard in the direction I tell you. Got it?”

  “Roger that.”

  Hawk took a few more shots at the guards before he ran out of bullets. Then a flash of fire erupted from the man holding the launcher. Hawk had to decide quickly which side of the boat the missile was most likely to strike.

  “Left,” Hawk yelled as the incoming missile appeared poised to strike the starboard side.

  He gripped the railing as Alex yanked the wheel hard. The boat slowed for a moment as it turned toward the port side then picked up speed as the nose rose. With Alex pushing the throttle to the limit, the vessel sped through the calm waters surrounding the atoll.

  If the brief gunfight hadn’t garnered the attention from locals on the shores, the explosion surely did, igniting a flurry of activity as people raced to the water’s edge to see what was happening.

  “Is the pilot ready?” Hawk asked.

  “He was supposed to be ready to take off five minutes ago,” Alex said. “But I guess we’re about to find out.”

  Alex ran the boat aground, and the two agents hustled off it before breaking into a dead run across the shore toward the quiet airport.

  “Where is he?” Hawk asked as he stared at the plane sitting on the rudimentary tarmac without the engines on. The steps were unfurled, but Hawk felt uneasy.

  “Damn it. I told him to be ready, no excuses.”

  Hawk surveyed the scene and tried to determine how to approach it. He stopped and grabbed Alex by her arm.

  “Wait,” he said. “I’ve got another idea.”

  * * *

  HAWK EASED AROUND the front of the plane, assessing the situation. If the pilot wasn’t on board, he was in serious breach of protocol, never mind that he didn’t adhere to the directives to have the plane running and ready for takeoff.

  “Kip,” Hawk called, “are you in there?”

  Seconds later, their pilot, Kip Covington, appeared at the doorway with a gun jammed into his head by a bald man with a pair of dark sunglasses.

  “Where is it?” the man asked.

  “Whoa, whoa,” Hawk said, raising his hands in the air. “What are you talking about? Where’s what?”

  “The device that Timmons gave you,” the man in the sunglasses said with a growl.

  “Timmons? Who’s that?” Hawk said. “I’m afraid you have me mixed up with someone else. I’m just a researcher from San Diego State’s PhD ecology program here to collect some tropical plant specimens.”

  “Do I look stupid to you?” the man sneered. “Now, where is it?”

  “You’re more than welcome to check my pockets for whatever you're looking for,” Hawk said. “But I'm sure whatever you find there, you’ll be able to find anywhere here along the beach.”

  “If you don’t want your pilot dead, I’m giving you five seconds to place the device on the ground and back away.”

  “Fine,” Hawk said. “You win.” He knelt and emptied his pockets onto the tarmac.

  The man grabbed Kip by the collar, ushering him to the items Hawk had just piled up.

  “Grab the flash drive,” the man ordered.

  Kip’s hands shook as he sifted through the stuff. He winced when a gunshot pierced the air. A second later, his captor collapsed.

  “Nice shot,” Hawk said with a grin on his face.

  Alex hustled up next to the man and stepped on his wrist, pinning it to the ground, before kicking the gun out of his hand. She knelt and checked his pulse.

  “He’s gone,” she said. “What are we going to do about him?”

  “Just take the body with us,” Kip said. “We’ll dump him somewhere over the Indian Ocean.”

  Hawk looked at his pilot. “Are you okay?”

  Kip shook his head.

  “Can you still fly us out of here?” Alex asked.

  “Anything to get off this god-forsaken island.”

  “Well, let’s not waste any more time,” Hawk said. “We don’t want to be detained and questioned by anyone.”

  The trio worked to get the hostile’s body on board and into the cargo hold. Kip said he’d already gone through all his checks and had the plane idling before the man accosted him. In less than five minutes, Kip had them airborne and soaring over the remote atoll.

  Meanwhile, Alex didn’t wait long to pull out her laptop and begin her quest to cra
ck open the flash drive. She hammered away at the keys on her computer while Hawk waited anxiously.

  “How’s it looking?” Hawk asked.

  She sighed as she hung her head.

  “What’s the matter?” he pressed. “Did he not give us the right drive?”

  “No, we got the right device, all right,” she said. “It just uses an RSA 4096 bit encryption key.”

  “I’m guessing by the look on your face that you can’t crack it.”

  “Me and a legion of NSA decoders probably wouldn’t be able to get into these files.”

  “So this was a dead end for us?”

  She shook her head. “Not yet. A situation like this just requires a little creativity.”

  “What kind of creativity?” he asked.

  “The kind that requires us to dabble in the dark side.”

  Hawk’s eyebrows shot upward. “Black hat hacker?”

  “Bingo,” she said, pointing at him.

  “And I’m hoping you know where to find one of these computing experts.”

  “Of course,” she said. “I know just the guy to handle this.”

  Chapter 2

  Washington, D.C.

  BLUNT STOOD ON the corner of Constitution and 7th, waiting for his ride. Ever since he received the horrifying text message containing the image of his niece bound and gagged, Blunt wondered who might be attempting to blackmail him. When he responded, he learned nothing of his niece’s tormentor. The person responding said that they needed to connect in person before specifying the details for their meeting, which they would send later in the week and provide only thirty minutes to reach a street corner in Washington near his office where he would be picked up in a limousine. No cell phones would be allowed, and he would be swept for bugs and trackers after getting inside.

  Blunt didn’t like the terms, but he had no choice. Morgan was his sister’s only child, now a twenty-four-year-old woman finishing up her master’s degree in international business just down the road at the University of Virginia. She aimed to enter the CIA’s Clandestine Service Program after getting a job overseas for a couple of years, a plan that Blunt tried—and failed—to dissuade her from pursuing.