The Shadow Hunter (The Phoenix Chronicles Book 1) Read online

  “What did the American bastard say?” General Orlov asked.

  “He said he would refuse,” Volkov said.

  “Who does he think he is?” Orlov asked, the veins in his neck protruding. “We have given him a sanctuary here from his own government, and this is the thanks we get? I should march in there and put a bullet in his head right now. It’s what he deserves.”

  “But we need him,” Volkov said. “There’s unsavory business that would be far more beneficial to attach to an American traitor than to anyone in the Russian intelligence community or the military, for that matter. Why sacrifice one of our own when we don’t have to?”

  Orlov squinted as he stared off in the distance for a moment. “There are other ways we can coerce him, aren’t there?”

  Volkov nodded. “It’s always about finding the right pressure points.”

  “I read his file,” Orlov said.

  “And?”

  “He has children back home, does he not?”

  “Three, to be precise,” Volkov said.

  “The youngest is a little boy,” Orlov said. “We know where they live, and even if we threaten Tyson, he won’t make any attempt to warn his family for fear that he will expose them all.”

  “Make the delivery or we kill his son?” Volkov asked. “Is that the right pressure to apply?”

  “Maybe not kill. We don’t want to turn him into a man with nothing to lose. Perhaps a kidnapping will suffice.”

  “I’ll deliver the message,” Volkov said. “I’m sure it will soften his stance on not going.”

  “It better,” Orlov said. “He owes me five thousand U.S. dollars. Tell him it’s nothing compared to what I normally do to people who steal my money.”

  Volkov shook Orlov’s hand. “Consider it done, Comrade.”

  Volkov and the other two agents saluted Orlov before he spun on his heels and disappeared into the darkness.

  CHAPTER 6

  Los Angeles, California

  HAWK AND ALEX PILED into the SUV parked alongside the curb at Los Angeles International Airport. Hawk hated flying into LAX for the simple fact that it required venturing out into the city’s gridlocked traffic. And that was saying something after living in the nation’s capital.

  Morgan May adjusted the rearview mirror and offered a polite smile. “How was your flight?”

  “Not as comfortable as your uncle’s jet,” Hawk said. “But flying first class into LAX does have its privileges.”

  “Did you meet someone famous?” Morgan asked.

  Alex smiled. “Jennifer Garner. If there’s a better person in Hollywood, I wouldn’t believe it.”

  “Did you give her your professional assessment of her portrayal of a spy?” Morgan asked with a wink.

  “I doubt she’d believe me even if I told her,” Alex said.

  “Well, I’m looking forward to seeing the Magnum headquarters,” Hawk said, redirecting the conversation back toward the business at hand. “I’m especially interested how you can hide such a facility in plain sight in this city.”

  “Sticking with our Hollywood theme so far today,” Morgan began, “it’s not exactly in plain sight.”

  Alex leaned forward in her seat. “Then where is it?”

  “I guess you could say it’s a little movie magic.”

  The short fourteen-mile journey from the airport to the gates of Paramount Studios took just over a half-hour, which was nearly a record time, Morgan noted aloud.

  “What are we doing here?” Hawk asked. “We don’t need to be entertained.”

  “We’re at the Magnum headquarters,” Morgan said.

  She wheeled the SUV around a corner and down into an underground parking lot. After securing her vehicle, she led Hawk and Alex to a stairwell. They descended two flights of stairs before Morgan waved an access card in front of a black panel next to a door. A click released the lock and Morgan tugged on the handle. She gestured for Hawk and Alex to proceed.

  They strode down a dim corridor that twisted left and then right and then left again before reaching a more well-lit section of the structure. Morgan approached a door and placed her face in front of a screen. A quick retinal scan granted them access.

  “We’re here,” Morgan said.

  “Underneath Paramount Studios?” Alex said before letting out a low whistle. “I never would’ve believed it.”

  “If half the actors in Hollywood knew they were working on top of a secret government site, they’d lose their minds,” Morgan said with a wry grin.

  Hawk’s eyebrows shot upward. “Half?”

  “You’re right,” Morgan said. “More like ninety-five percent.”

  “That’s why we prefer Bollywood movies,” Hawk said, flashing a quick smile at Alex. “We don’t have to worry about our favorite actors getting political, one way or the other. Because sometimes I just want to watch a movie and not think about all that stuff. I mean, does anyone really care about the political opinion of an actor anyway?”

  “I think you know the answer to that question already,” Morgan said. “Or at least it’d be unanimous here.”

  Hawk chuckled. “You’re more like your uncle than I first thought.”

  “I’m glad to see you’re keeping an open mind,” Morgan said. “Follow me.”

  They continued down a sterile hallway until they reached another set of doors that began to open as they approached. Inside, a handful of men and women sat at computer terminals busily typing or talking on the phone.

  “Welcome to Magnum,” Morgan said.

  Morgan gave them a brief tour of the facility, which contained a research division dedicated to developing new technology to help with counterintelligence. She tapped on the window and a young man sporting a pair of goggles and a white lab coat hustled over to her.

  “Zachary, I’d like for you to come meet someone,” Morgan said.

  Zachary nodded before striding over to the exit. His goggles sat cockeyed on his nose and his hair appeared as though he’d just been jolted by a substantial number of volts from a recent experiment.

  “Ma’am,” Zachary said as he nodded at her. “Sorry for my appearance. We were working on a device that could disable all electrical currents within a 25-foot radius by shorting them.”

  “Looks like that didn’t turn out as well as you might’ve hoped,” Alex quipped.

  Zachary put his hands on his hips and shook his head. “Not in the least.”

  “This is Dr. Zachary Levinson, or, as we refer to him around here, Dr. Z,” Morgan said. “We stole him straight out of Cal Tech. He was valedictorian and after only six months of working here had a dozen patents pending on new surveillance devices.”

  Dr. Z beamed like a child being bragged upon by his parents. He smiled and tilted his head back ever so slightly.

  Before Morgan could continue, Dr. Z eyed Hawk. “I’m working on a prototype car that perhaps you’d like to road test for me sometime.”

  “I’d be down for that,” Hawk said. “Just name the time and place.”

  “We still have a few kinks to work out, but in due time,” Dr. Z said.

  “I can wait,” Hawk said. “I don’t want my hair to ever look like that.”

  They all chuckled before Dr. Z excused himself and scurried back into his lab.

  “He’s quite a character,” Alex said.

  “Dr. Z is the breath of fresh air we need in the intelligence community,” Morgan said. “One of the first things I wanted to establish at Magnum was a culture of trust. After that, I wanted everyone to enjoy working here. Spies take themselves too seriously. And while there’s definitely a time for being serious, we still need to enjoy what we’re doing or else we’ll get burned out.”

  Morgan resumed their tour, leading them to the digital team, which was headed up by Mia Becker, a former colleague of Hawk and Alex’s.

  Mia gave Alex a lengthy hug before exchanging pleasantries.

  “I’m so excited that you’re going to join the team here,�
� Mia said. “Morgan has plenty of her uncle’s intelligence intuition in her, but also her own spunky style. And I hate to admit this, but as much as I loved working for Senator Blunt at the Phoenix Foundation, Magnum has so much more potential.”

  “Wait, wait, wait,” Alex said. “We’re just visiting. Don’t get too excited yet. We haven’t agreed to join the team.”

  Mia winked and nodded, her brown pony tail bobbing up and down. “But you will. I’m sure of it.”

  The trio caught up on the past few years before Morgan continued to show off the rest of the facility. They descended another level, which opened up into a massive workout facility. Malik Earvin, a former Navy SEAL who later worked for the Secret Service, was engaged in hand-to-hand combat training with three other men. When they took a break, Morgan motioned for Earvin to join them.

  Earvin grabbed Hawk’s hand, almost swallowing it, before pulling him in for a hug.

  “Big Earv,” Hawk said as he drew back and patted the hulking man on his bicep, “is it me or have you grown since the last time I saw you?”

  “I’ve gotten a little stronger,” Big Earv said with a grin, “and you look like you’ve shrunk. Probably just a combination of those two things.”

  “Get outta here,” Hawk said.

  Big Earv laughed, his baritone voice echoing off the gym walls.

  “And of course you two are well acquainted with one another,” Morgan said.

  “What is this place?” Hawk asked.

  “It’s more or less a continuing education for combat,” Big Earv said. “Close quarters combat here and then we have a range through that door for firearm training. We have a standard shooting range as well as a long-distance one.”

  “How long of a distance?”

  “On the level below us, there’s a specially designed one that’s a thousand meters,” Big Earv said. “It can even simulate various conditions such as wind and cold that will affect your shot.”

  “Incredible,” Hawk said.

  They caught up on a few personal matters before Morgan led Hawk and Alex back upstairs. She invited them into her office and shut the door.

  “So what do you think?” Morgan asked as she settled into the chair behind her desk.

  Hawk and Alex, seated side by side across from Morgan, both looked at each other and shrugged, neither one of them anxious to speak. After a few moments of awkward silence, Hawk answered first.

  “This is a state-of-the-art facility,” Hawk said. “It’s got everything an agent in a black ops program could dream of, plus a staff that’s large enough to handle bigger threats than anything we could take on by ourselves at the Phoenix Foundation—”

  “Not to mention the technology to make it happen,” Alex added.

  “I mean, what’s not to love about it?” Hawk said.

  Morgan leaned forward on her desk, resting her chin on her knuckles. “How come I get the feeling that there’s a but coming?”

  Hawk sighed. “We’ve talked about what this would mean for us, for John Daniel. And the truth was we don’t want to raise him in Los Angeles. He’s got an idyllic childhood in Montana.”

  “But is it your idyllic life?” Morgan asked. “Just mountains and horses and trees? You guys are good with that for the rest of your life?”

  “You’re selling us on Montana all over again,” Alex said.

  “Frankly, we’ve seen the world and what it has to offer,” Hawk said. “And Montana feels like home in a way neither one of us can describe. It’s like entering a simpler time when we weren’t all worried about terrorists and plots to kill thousands of innocent people.”

  “But it’s because of people like you that anyone can live in Montana and enjoy that kind of lifestyle,” Morgan said.

  “Exactly,” Hawk said. “And it looks like you’ve assembled a formidable team here already. What’s another duo like us going to add to your roster that you don’t already have?”

  Morgan didn’t blink. “The best,” she answered flatly. “You two are the stuff legends are made of. You took down corrupt politicians hell bent on destroying this country. You eliminated terrorists who were determined to murder massive amounts of American citizens. You exposed shadow organizations that wanted to turn the world on its head. Not someone else. You.”

  Morgan leaned back in her chair. She appeared satisfied, as if she was a lawyer who’d just delivered the closing arguments to a case she knew she was going to win.

  “Alex and I talked before we came,” Hawk said. “And we almost didn’t come at all. But we thought we owed it to ourselves to see what we were saying no to.”

  “Before you say anything else,” Morgan interrupted, “let me just say that you don’t have to work on site. We can set you up at home where you can operate in Montana. We’ll even provide you with the money to afford a full-time nanny for John Daniel when you don’t have time to drop him off at your aunt and uncle’s house.”

  “That’s very generous of you,” Hawk said, “but we decided that we will help you for this mission. But only this mission.”

  “That’s great,” Morgan said. “I can work with that.”

  “Eddie Tyson meant too much to me to just leave him twisting in the wind in the middle of Siberia,” Hawk said. “I will bring him home and give his son his father back.”

  Morgan pulled a cigar out of her top drawer and cut off the tip. She bit down on it before tossing it aside.

  “I don’t know how Uncle J.D. did that, but it’s not for me,” she said before standing up and sauntering over to the wet bar in one corner of the room. “But we must celebrate, even if it is for only one mission.”

  Hawk patted Alex on the leg as the two of them exchanged a knowing glance. He hoped this mission would end successfully as well as satisfy the itch he had to return to the field. Montana felt like home, but he couldn’t suppress his urge to flirt with danger for the sake of his country. He’d have to tell Alex how he felt soon. But he could wait.

  “Cheers, everyone,” Morgan said as she offered a tray of tumblers to her two guests.

  They clinked glasses before each downed a healthy serving of scotch. When they were finished, Morgan leaned on the wall behind her desk.

  “Welcome aboard, you two,” she said. “Now let’s get to work.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Washington, D.C.

  PRESIDENT FRANKLIN NORRIS WORKED the toothpick over in his mouth as he stood near a window in the Oval Office and peered out at the South Lawn. A few stray leaves tumbled along the faded grass, while the trees swayed with the wind. Overhead, the gray skies matched Norris’s mood after he’d just received his daily security briefing.

  For the past three years, his time in the White House had been relatively devoid of any drama. The country’s economy had exploded while experiencing an unprecedented time of peace. For the most part, military troops had remained stateside and terrorists had been kept at bay. But in the past couple of weeks, Norris sensed the tremors of an impending seismic shift. The security briefing confirmed his intuition.

  Emma Washburn, Norris’s chief of staff, swiped through a tablet situated on her lap.

  “I guess it’s time to get to work,” Norris said.

  “Well, sir, you do have several important calls today,” she said, tucking her curly brown locks behind her ears. “But I can postpone them if you want me to.”

  Norris turned around to face Emma and shook his head. “There’s no need to push anything back. I’m sure I can manage this growing crisis with everything else I have.”

  “In that case, I suggest you schedule a meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff this afternoon,” she said. “They may have a better sense of what North Korea is up to.”

  While North Korea had once been considered one of the biggest threats to the U.S., the isolated country’s inability to obtain viable nuclear weapons relegated them to the status of a rebel rouser, and nothing more. Their current leader, Kim Yong-ju, found an audience on social media and liked to post
incendiary messages. Years of threats that never yielded even a hint of danger grew to be dismissed, the fodder of late night TV show hosts looking for a cheap laugh. But for the past six months, Kim Yong-ju had gone silent, leading to plenty of speculation as to what he might be up to or if he’d just dropped the grift out of frustration.

  But when Norris sat through the morning security briefing, he realized Kim Yong-ju was serious about striking the U.S. and shredding his international image of being all talk and no action. Norris had served in the Marines and had once considered military action as the most direct route to peace. But with an election looming, he wasn’t sure that would sit well with the American people. Nobody wanted to be dragged into a protracted war. If he could swallow his pride and let Kim Yong-ju rattle his saber, Norris decided that a path of restraint could achieve a better resolution as well as keep his image pristine for voters.

  That wasn’t an easy proposition for Norris, who was bent toward conflict.

  “I know your inclination is to fire a pre-emptive strike, sir, but I don’t think that’s going to play well,” Emma said.

  Norris looked up at his chief of staff, her eyebrows arched upward, giving him the impression that her statement was more of a question.

  “Is that what you think, or are you just playing a hunch here?” he asked.

  “Americans want peace, plain and simple.”

  Norris nodded. “But sometimes peace is only achieved through a more violent means.”

  “You could be right about that, but look at what’s become of previous administrations that pursued peace in that manner,” she said. “Their legacies are left in shambles, and those presidents are widely mocked and remembered with disdain.”

  “I can’t govern, worried about what others might say,” Norris said. “And I certainly won’t let my decisions be dictated by what might get me elected. The American people put me here because they trusted me to lead them into peace and prosperity, something I’ve been quite adept at during my first term. And come hell or high water, I’m going to do what I feel like is best for this country.”

  “That’s a noble sentiment, sir,” Emma said. “But what happens if your great ideas are muted because of this one incident?”