She didn’t quite know what to say to that. She had started out teasing him and he had once again flummoxed her. She thought of how he had looked when she had first seen Hawk…the outline of his body against the windowpane, with outside snow flurries forming a halo around him. She hadn’t known he was totally nude then, but that sight of him had caused her to pause. In fact, she realized now that it had given him the split second he needed to realize he hadn’t been alone. She smiled ruefully. An assassin she was not.
Go to sleep.He interrupted her reverie.I’ll contact you when I’m able.
Where are you going?Would he tell?
No idea. D’s going on the road, and that’s good. He wants me with him on this trip, which has to do with other business, so that’s good.
She understood what he wasn’t saying. Dilaver was beginning to trust him more, and this trip had to do with weapons, not women.Okay, Hot Stuff. Hamburger waiting for ya when you get back.
5MW/MTL/PF/18/69. ’Night, Ambrosia.He signed off immediately.
Amber stared in disbelief. It was the same line he had written on the side of her thigh, but she had just realized 69 wasn’t on her menu. She clicked off the program with a snort. Smart-ass.
10
Veza.Every country has a form of exploitingconnections, and Hawk was finding out that the Slavic states were practically run throughveza.The right connections could get one a good government job, or a bigger, better-equipped hospital room, or a place in the university. In the world of mercenaries,vezacould get one freedom to move from province to province, state to state, without too much trouble.
Through his weapons and drug trades, Dragan Dilaver had accumulated and given manyvezas,thus making him very powerful. His weapons, Hawk discovered, were very much sought-after. He hadn’t been kidding when he’d told Hawk that what he had couldn’t be found on the streets yet, that they were the most current state-of-the-art weaponry. Someone in the United States had been dropping these shipments for him to distribute in any way he wanted, as long as he armed the KLA. Of course, Dilaver made sure he made a lot of money while following orders.
“My aunt is a genius, isn’t she?” Dilaver boasted, as they rode through the bumpy roads in a Humvee, courtesy of avezawith a high-end peacekeeping official. “She’s coordinated this for years, you know. I’m really looking forward to meeting her again.”
“When’s she coming?” Hawk asked. He wanted to know who this “aunt” was, too.
Dilaver shrugged. “She says she’s been delayed and will call again later. I want to get as much of the business in order as I can so she can see I can take care of bigger things, you know?”
Hence the road trip. Dilaver wanted to take care of certain gangs who hadn’t been “respectful” enough. He also wanted Hawk to see how it was done over here. Hawk knew it was also a test to see how he would handle a “situation” if he were to work for Dilaver.
Hawk didn’t mind. Taking out a gang was appealing, anyhow. Who cared whose side he was on? They were all alike, in the same trades, killing each other over illegal weapons and drugs. All this watching and waiting was wearing on him; he looked forward to taking a few of them out. And along the way, he would be mapping Dilaver’s routes and trying to find out where the weapon depots were.
Their convoy rode boldly through the city streets onto scenic country routes. Dilaver’s men were armed to the teeth, waving weapons at passing vehicles. Sometimes they shouted, their anticipation of some action ahead obvious to Hawk. He understood the adrenaline running through their blood; he felt it, too.
“Sometimes I miss being young,” Dilaver commented, gesturing at the younger men leaning out of their open Jeeps. “They aren’t afraid of dying. They just want to kill.”
“Are you afraid of dying?” Hawk asked.
“Of course not. But I don’t take stupid chances like I used to. Money and old age will make one a cautious man, Hawk.”
Hawk ran his hand down the AK-47 standing between his legs. It was on the tip of his tongue to point out that mercenary-turned-old-farts became pimps, just as Dilaver now was. Somehow, he didn’t think the kingpin would like to be called that. He deliberately changed the subject. “So we’re going to cautiously attack some group of militia, and then what?”
Dilaver laughed. “Cautiously attack? Damn your odd American-Serbian translations. In this country, it’s all war and no caution, my friend. That’s why I keep solidifying my power base. That’s why I make and take care of certain friends in need ofveza.You never know who will help you out later on, so you help out as much as you can.”
“That…doesn’t make one bit of sense, but keep talking,” Hawk said.
“It’s easy to demonstrate. This group we’re going after has been bothering a few friends of mine. I also suspect they’ve been hijacking my shipments. Now, you lead my guys and take out this group, right? My friends will hear of this, and also your connection to me, and now you can get some favors done throughveza,you see? You’ll be a friend, too. Around here, you can’t buy connections, like you do with the coffee money stuff in Asia; you earn it. Much more deserving, don’t you think?”
In a twisted sort of way, yes, it made sense. But then, everything in this world was twisted. The talk of friendship and loyalty. The camaraderie between two “blood” brothers, talking about life and sharing locker-room jokes. All this sandwiched between bouts of violence. These were things Hawk valued in his life with his SEAL brothers. Yet now he had to function the same way with his enemies.
It sickened him to see the horrifying similarity from the other side. And now he had to go out and kill in the name of collectingveza.He knew the veneer of humanity was very thin in the war front, and once killing became a cheap thrill, there was very little left to distinguish right from wrong. And those young men riding open shot in the convoys were just going for the cheap thrills of bloody action and quick cash.
Hawk thought of the girl who was so violently raped last night, and the look of anguish and betrayal in Amber’s eyes. He wanted to destroy Dilaver’s network and take out those men one by one, not for the thrill of action, and certainly not for cash. For those girls. And to take away Amber’s pain and grief.
He clung to the image of her crying and aiming a weapon at the group of rapists, and somehow it clicked in his mind that the sight of Amber represented reality to him. She knew and understood the twisted world she was living in was fake, that everything happening around her—the friendships and the bondings—wasn’t real. She had been able to do this for four years and still cried at not being able to help the helpless.
“Besides, I have good reasons to get rid of them,” Dilaver continued. “I want this area under my control.”
The closest city was a few hours drive away. The roads had slowly deteriorated and became more like country paths.
“Why?” Hawk asked the obvious question. There was nothing here.
