Page 100 of Leading Conviction
Phoenix had his man at gunpoint as he writhed on the ground, holding his groin. Devil’s grip around his opponent’s neck meant he could break a few vertebrae with a bit of force.
But the others…
Draco was pinned on his stomach, a knee against his back and a knife against his throat. Whether he was wheezing from exertion or injury, Hawk didn’t know, but neither was good. Snake’s eyes were bleary and blood dripped from his mouth as he knelt in surrender, his hands clasped behind his head and the muzzle of an AK digging into his temple. Jaybird thrashed and cursed angrily on the ground with his hands zip-tied behind his back. His opponent angrily swiped at the blood pouring from a cut beneath his already blackening eye before he tightened Jaybird’s zip tie out of spite, eliciting more curses from Hawk’s teammate.
It’s a standoff. We know the FBI has people on the way. Just stall.
He didn’t dare lower his knife as he yelled loud enough for everyone to hear. “Who are you?”
His captured man spoke through clenched teeth, no doubt cautious of the knife at his throat. “Better if you don’t know. But I’m sure we can figure out a better resolution than this.”
Hawk glanced at his teammates and the gunmen, hoping to find some sort of leverage. But the teams had fought to a standstill. Evenly matched. Too much for his comfort to insist on fighting.
“Listen, the FBI is on the way. You’ll be outmanned. Surrender and we’ll make sure you’re treated fairly,” Hawk stated matter-of-factly, hoping he came off more confident than he felt.
The man holding Snake at gunpoint answered, but blood rushed in Hawk’s ears as a thought screamed into his brain.
We’re evenly matched.
But if that’s true then…
The realization came agonizingly late as the cool steel of a gun’s muzzle kissed the back of his head.
They still have their seventh man.
Hawk’s knees threatened to buckle as the pain of losing Eagle, and now potentially his entire team, crashed into him.
“Now who’s outmanned?” the guy asked mirthlessly as he circled in front of Hawk, still aiming the barrel at Hawk’s forehead a few feet away.
The new man’s black balaclava covered most of his face, revealing only serious blue eyes, with his lightly tanned skin creased at the corners. Hawk used all of his willpower to focus on the man’s gaze rather than the pistol still aimed at him. This seventh man had the power to end them all, but focusing on the weapon wouldn’t get them out of this. Hawk had to appeal to him using a different tactic.
“You’re MF7,” Hawk replied, his heart thundering before he made the difficult decision to lower his knife. It clattered to the concrete as Hawk stepped backward, away from his opponent, with his arms up. “Aren’t you?”
“Hawk, the fuck dude, what’re you doing?” Phoenix hissed.
In the corner of Hawk’s vision, the guy he’d just set free went slack-jawed, looking like he wanted to ask the same question.
“You are, aren’t you?” Hawk asked, not letting his focus stray too far from the man with the gun trained on him. “General Richard Smithers team?”
His opponent’s steady gaze didn’t reveal a change in his expression, but the man Hawk had just released tensed beside him.
“You are,” Hawk answered his own question, kicked the knife away, and took another step back, putting a couple of meters of space between them, hoping the added gestures of surrender would hit home.
It would if it were me.
“What does that mean to you?” the seventh man asked finally. From the way his teammates looked at him for direction, he must’ve been their team lead.
Their Eagle.
Hawk’s heart pounded at the risk he was taking. But if these men were anything like his team, there was hope for them all, yet.
“We used to be you,” Hawk explained and tilted his head forward to indicate the rest of his teammates. “MF7.”
“Bullshit. You’re nothing like us,” the man wrangling Jaybird spat.
“It’s true,” Hawk continued. “We began almost a decade ago. And then we were ‘psychologically discharged’ after a mission went wrong in Yemen two years ago.”
“That was you?” the man pinning Draco asked.
