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  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

  Two Minutes to Midnight

  Against All Odds

  Any Means Necessary

  Vengeance

  Code Red

  A Deadly Force

  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

  CODE RED

  A Brady Hawk Thriller

  R.J. PATTERSON

  For Earle, a good friend,

  and a great American

  CHAPTER 1

  Chagai Hills, Pakistan

  BRADY HAWK’S JEEP RUMBLED across the rocky road leading to the Rico Dig mines as he inhaled the fresh air. The patches of snow still clinging to existence along the mountainous terrain reflected the afternoon sunshine, glints of bright light temporarily blinding Hawk as he sped along. Even in the midst of a place as forsaken as this, he found moments to appreciate the natural beauty surrounding him. A mile from his position, black smoke chugged into the air, a fitting cover for an Al Fatihin hideout.

  “How’s our connection?” Hawk asked Alex. She was stationed in the Phoenix Foundation’s offices in Washington.

  “I hear you loud and clear,” Alex said. “Ready for another day of mayhem?”

  “Some people might call it mayhem, but it’s just another Wednesday for me.”

  She chuckled. “Always so cool under fire.”

  “The fire hasn’t started yet, but I’m expecting it to come at me fast and fierce when they figure out what I’m doing.”

  What Hawk was doing was ignoring several treaties in his covert mission, all under the direction of President Noah Young. With his approval ratings dropping and Al Fatihin leader Evana Bahar exposing his dealings with terrorists to the nation, Young needed something to unify the American people, if even for a day. He wanted them to forget about all the dividing partisan politics and celebrate the homecoming of a hero. And for Young, it would also mean the homecoming of a friend, former Navy SEAL and CIA operative Frank Stone.

  The stress of leading a country mired in constant bickering over political issues had taken its toll on Young. Instead of leading from a position of strength, he found himself holding his finger up to see which way the majority winds were blowing. The result was a meandering direction along with an accompanying health issue that required him to have a pacemaker put in, something only a handful of people knew about. If only for twenty-four hours, he needed a respite and the press to talk about something else other than idle speculation and scurrilous accusations against his administration. And Hawk was the man chosen to make everything happen.

  Hawk tapped the steering wheel as he rode along, singing Led Zeppelin’s Kashmir. He was close enough to the disputed region he figured that it was an appropriate time as any to belt out the lyrics.

  “You do realize that I can hear you, right?” Alex said.

  Hawk resisted answering her since he was in the middle of the chorus.

  “Hawk? Are your coms still working? You need to answer me and confirm.”

  Hawk sighed. "Alex, you're ruining my moment here. I'm about to spend the next hour fighting Al Fatihin goons. All I want is a little moment to relax and clear my head with some of the greatest music from the 70s."

  “You weren’t even alive in the 70s.”

  “I know I missed it by a few years, but when it comes to music, that’s my decade. Now, can you let me finish my song in peace?”

  “I’d love to, but I’m watching the satellite images here and just noticed something that I thought you needed to know.”

  Hawk groaned. “What is it now?”

  “I see a pair of Jeeps about two miles behind you,” Alex said. “And as far as I can tell, they have machine guns mounted on the roll bars.”

  “Pakistan is such a welcoming country. You know, it’s moments like these that I wish I had a drone so I could fire missiles at those thugs to keep them off my tail.”

  “Well, this isn’t James Bond. You have to do things the old fashioned way. Now, just make sure you hide your vehicle. The CIA evac team is fueling up just across the border in Afghanistan. They’ll be awaiting my word, so make sure you stay in touch.”

  “Roger that,” Hawk said before he resumed his song.

  When he finished, he slowed down as he approached the gates of the mining site. The Chinese and the Pakistanis struck a deal to develop the mine and process the resources f
ound there. And with a high daily yield, both countries worked hard to protect their investment with stringent security measures.

  Hawk held out his papers for the guard as he approached the vehicle. He studied the papers for a moment before handing them back and waving Hawk inside.

  With the operation to retrieve Frank Stone a collaborative effort between the Phoenix Foundation and the CIA, Hawk had access to more resources than ever. The CIA created a low-key legend for him as a geologist studying copper mines around the world. They even hired someone to write a book about copper mining and stuck Hawk’s picture on the back to further legitimize his standing as an authority in his field. Instead of keeping his fingers crossed that he wouldn’t meet any resistance in Pakistan, he was welcomed as a celebrity among the engineers partnering on the mine with the Chinese and Pakistanis. And a week before Hawk arrived, nobody would’ve even been able to find his existence on the web.

  “I found the perfect spot for you,” Alex said. “Just head east, and there’s a nook at the base of the mountain you should be able to squeeze your Jeep into.”

  “Heading that way now,” Hawk said.

  A couple of minutes later, he came to the location Alex suggested and parked. Using his access badge, he swiped it across a security scanner adjacent to a door built into the wall. Once the locked clicked free, he entered the structure and began his search for Al Fatihin's hideout.

  “All right, Alex,” Hawk said. “I’m in. Keep me on the right path, okay?”

  “I’m overlaying your position now with the schematics of the mine,” she said. “We’ve got the NSA to thank for hacking those Chinese computers and pulling up the plans for this facility.”

  “Stop brownnosing. You know the NSA is listening to this conversation. You’re just trying to get on their good side in case you ever get—”

  “That’s enough, Hawk. Not everything I’ve done is documented, even by the NSA.”

  Hawk chuckled. “I going into the stairwell now.”

  He hustled down the steps, emerging on a floor three levels below where he started. If the Chinese were anything, they were concerned with safety in their construction of the mine, which ran contrary to everything Hawk had heard about projects of this magnitude in China. There were escape hatches and stairways everywhere he looked, making the fringe portion of the mine seem more like a vast maze than a place that was digging up copper and gold at an astounding rate.

  As Hawk crept down the hallway, he whispered into his coms. “Do you have a location for Stone now?”

  “I have a guess,” Alex offered.

  “A guess? You do realize this isn’t the kind of place where I need to be speculating, don’t you?”

  “There are four potential areas where Al Fatihin’s hideout could be located. And if prior intel on Chinese construction procedures is accurate, one of those spots belongs to the mine’s labor offices.”

  “And the other three?”

  “I’d be playing a hunch if I told you.”

  Hawk sighed. “Might as well hear it at this point.”

  “I was hoping you’d say that,” Alex said. “So, while studying the schematics, conventional wisdom would tell you that if you were wanting to hide something, you’d put it deeper into the ground. However, when comparing this with other mines built by this same Chinese corporation, I found that they usually put a survival room near the initial bottom floor of the mine in case something happens. It gives the workers a place to retreat to as well as a chance at survival if there is a collapse.”

  “Get to the part where you tell me which one it is, Alex.”

  "There's a survival room on the fourth floor that has two tunnels leading to the surface, neither of which are visible from the outside. I'm guessing those are secret entrances."

  “And why would you make an escape route hidden to the outside?”

  “Exactly,” Alex said. “Try the one on the south side of the fourth floor.”

  “Roger that.”

  Hawk hustled along the inside wall. The hallway was devoid of any workers as the resources on the level had apparently been long since exhausted. When he reached the room, he stopped and stared at the lock, which was comprised of a numerical pad and a spot for a fingerprint.

  "Alex, got any ideas about how I can crack a keypad that requires a touch identification?" Hawk asked in a hushed tone.

  “Short of severing someone’s thumb, no,” she said. “At least, not at this juncture in the operation. Had I known this earlier—”

  “I know,” Hawk said. “You would’ve had all your bases covered. But this intel came along so fast and out of nowhere that the higher ups didn’t want to delay for fear that Stone might be moved again.”

  “Well, you’re there now,” she said. “My best advice would be to camp out down the hall and wait for someone to exit the room. Then hope you can grab the door before it locks shut.”

  “That’s not what I wanted to hear. I was hoping you might at least figure out a way to unlock the door or something more useful than telling me to stakeout the entrance to Al Fatihin, especially when I have no idea what awaits me on the other side.”

  “Sorry to disappoint you, honey. I’m sure you’ll do fine. Just keep me posted.”

  “Roger that,” he said before he retreated down the hallway and took up a position around the corner, just out of the line of sight from anyone exiting the room. His minutes were marked by glances down one side and peeks around the other.

  “Do I still have company outside?” Hawk asked Alex after a few minutes.

  “You know, that’s the strangest thing,” she said. “They drove up to your Jeep and after a few minutes just drove off, heading back where they came from.”

  “Do you think they tried to sabotage it with a bomb?”

  “I didn’t see anyone get inside or slide underneath the car.”

  “Weird.”

  An hour went by without any activity.

  “Hawk,” Alex said, “you still awake?”

  “Vigilant as ever. I’m beginning to wonder if this place isn’t a front for some other activity. I don’t even hear a light bulb humming overhead.”

  “Just give it some time. Someone will come out of there eventually.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” Hawk said. “Because eventually I’ll be asleep. This kind of assignment is exactly why I didn’t become a detective.”

  “And being a sniper is so much different? You’re hunkered down prone in a blind just waiting for someone to move.”

  “Far more exciting than sitting in a car or slumped against the wall in a hallway.”

  Alex said something else, but Hawk had already tuned her out. A faint click in the direction of the door arrested his attention. Hawk crept closer to the corner and sat on his haunches as he waited for someone to poke their head outside. After a few seconds, a man lumbered through the exit and turned in the opposite direction of Hawk. Once his back was fully to the door, Hawk stealthily hustled up to it and wedged his foot inside. In a deft move, he slithered inside and let the door shut naturally. Without having to invoke a confrontation, Hawk could slip inside more easily. However, it also meant the man’s return would remain a mystery until Hawk escaped with Stone.

  Hawk stopped and read a verse the Quran painted in Arabic on the entryway wall. The translation amounted to roughly this in English: “And slay them wherever ye find them, and drive them out of the places whence they drove you out, for persecution is worse than slaughter . . . and fight them until fitnah is no more, and religion is for Allah.”

  After spending so much time in Afghanistan with the Peace Corps, Hawk was all too familiar with Quran 2:191. The passage always evoked a shiver, fearing that one day more Muslims than not might take that ancient scripture to heart. Peace was challenging to achieve in the Middle East when only a small portion of the Muslim community took those words literally. The moment that the majority of followers of Islam started to believe that was a command instead of jus
t a suggestion, the world would fall into chaos.

  Not surprised to see that verse here.

  Hawk never looked at his role as an operative working in the Middle East as someone who was fighting against Islam. For him, the work was always about stopping terrorists bound and determined to visit harm on innocent people, whether they were American or any other nationality. And he enjoyed it, perhaps a little more than he should have.

  “Found it,” Hawk said in a whisper over his coms.

  “Roger that,” Alex said. “Just give me the word when you’ve secured Stone so I can send in the evac team. They’re on standby.”

  Hawk checked his gun before continuing on. He tightened the silencer and removed the safety. As he forged ahead, he cleared each room and hallway, finding them empty with minimal furniture. The doors were made out of opaque glass, forcing Hawk to check each one. Still no signs of life other than the man who initially exited into the hallway.

  When Hawk reached the end of the corridor, he only had one door remaining. Easing inside, he found a man sitting on a couch with his back to the entrance while watching television. He broke into laughter at the sitcom dubbed in Arabic. Hawk didn’t recognize the show, but he could tell the man was part of Al Fatihin. Unable to determine if anyone else was nearby, Hawk went ahead and put a bullet in the back of the man’s head as he was guffawing over the latest funny one liner.

  Can’t be the worst way to go.

  Hawk noticed a door just on the other side of the television. When he went inside, he found it starkly different than the comfortable confines the guard enjoyed. There was no plush chair or warm light. Instead, the prison cell was comprised of a cot on the concrete floor, a bucket to do his business in, and a pale fluorescent bulb that flickered every few seconds. And sitting with his back against the wall was Frank Stone.

  His shirt was tattered, stained with a mixture of blood and dirt. With a scraggly beard and unkempt hair, Stone looked like he hadn’t showered since Al Fatihin captured him six months earlier.