winched up and into the belly of the Chinese Changhe Z-8. He lay on his back, shivering. No one aboard would talk to him. He was quite sure they knew about the unidentified aircraft that had entered their airspace and been “shot down” by one of their SAMs. So they were sensibly predisposed not to be chatty. Hell with them—he was still alive, wasn’t he? He’d managed to avoid being eaten alive, had he not? Truth was, he’d gotten out of tougher scrapes than this one over the years.
Once the chopper was airborne, he got another surprise. The mammoth floating Good Samaritan, the ship that had stumbled across the downed pilot by the sheerest of luck? It was a bloody carrier! When the chopper set down on the aft deck, he saw, to his utter amazement, an advanced Chinese fighter jet, which was the spitting image of one he’d seen in a meeting at the Pentagon just two years earlier. Code-named “Critter” because of all its spindly appendages, it never went into full production because of government “cost cutting” as the White House chose to describe it.
And now there was a whole flock of the damn things out here in the South China Sea under cover of darkness.
Whatever lay ahead, the spy knew he’d hit the espionage equivalent of the jackpot.
C H A P T E R 1 0
T he initial interrogation aboard the Chinese aircraft carrier was short but brutal. Hawke gave up nothing, and he had gotten out of it with little more than a severely wounded left knee, a few broken ribs, a black eye, three broken fingers, and a concussion. The leg was the worst. Two gorillas had tried to break it by pulling it backward. The attempt failed, but they’d managed to snap a tendon or two. He could walk, but not far.
When they got bored with him, they told him he’d never leave the ship alive, then locked him up inside a stinking crew cabin in the bowels of the bilge with room for little more than a crappy bunk bed.
He now lay on the top berth thinking very seriously about how the hell to escape before these bastards came for him again. Tortured and killed him.
Two military policemen with automatic weapons had delivered him to this charming boudoir. He was fairly certain the same two would come for him when it was time for the more labor-intensive interrogation. They were merely thugs, those two, viciously abusive, but stupid. Just the way he liked them. He’d feigned a far worse concussion than he’d actually suffered, forcing them to half carry him down many flights of steel stairs, something they bitched about all the way down.
At one point they threw him to the deck and took turns kicking at his already damaged rib cage with their steel-toed boots. He’d passed out from the pain.
He was consciously unconscious when they returned. They slammed into the tiny space and manhandled him down from the upper bunk. As he expected, they yanked him to his feet and wrapped his arms around each of their shoulders in order to keep him moving.
He kept his head down, chin bouncing on his chest, mumbling incoherently. When the goon on the left paused to kick open the half-closed door, Hawke took advantage of the moment. His powerful arms reached out with all the speed and precision of two striking cobras as he swept the two men’s heads together with sickening force. The collision of the two skulls was sufficiently forceful to cause the two men to drop like sacks of stones to the floor.
He dropped to one knee and checked.
They were dead.
“Hit them too hard,” he whispered to himself.
He fished the keys to his handcuffs from one of their pockets and freed his wrists. Then he quickly stripped the uniform from the taller of the two. It fit him badly, but it might be good enough to get him safely up eight flights of metal steps to the carrier’s flight deck without hindrance.
Hawke had jet-black hair, which helped, and he kept the military police cap brim pulled down over his eyes, and his face lowered. He also had the advantage of
Once the chopper was airborne, he got another surprise. The mammoth floating Good Samaritan, the ship that had stumbled across the downed pilot by the sheerest of luck? It was a bloody carrier! When the chopper set down on the aft deck, he saw, to his utter amazement, an advanced Chinese fighter jet, which was the spitting image of one he’d seen in a meeting at the Pentagon just two years earlier. Code-named “Critter” because of all its spindly appendages, it never went into full production because of government “cost cutting” as the White House chose to describe it.
And now there was a whole flock of the damn things out here in the South China Sea under cover of darkness.
Whatever lay ahead, the spy knew he’d hit the espionage equivalent of the jackpot.
C H A P T E R 1 0
T he initial interrogation aboard the Chinese aircraft carrier was short but brutal. Hawke gave up nothing, and he had gotten out of it with little more than a severely wounded left knee, a few broken ribs, a black eye, three broken fingers, and a concussion. The leg was the worst. Two gorillas had tried to break it by pulling it backward. The attempt failed, but they’d managed to snap a tendon or two. He could walk, but not far.
When they got bored with him, they told him he’d never leave the ship alive, then locked him up inside a stinking crew cabin in the bowels of the bilge with room for little more than a crappy bunk bed.
He now lay on the top berth thinking very seriously about how the hell to escape before these bastards came for him again. Tortured and killed him.
Two military policemen with automatic weapons had delivered him to this charming boudoir. He was fairly certain the same two would come for him when it was time for the more labor-intensive interrogation. They were merely thugs, those two, viciously abusive, but stupid. Just the way he liked them. He’d feigned a far worse concussion than he’d actually suffered, forcing them to half carry him down many flights of steel stairs, something they bitched about all the way down.
At one point they threw him to the deck and took turns kicking at his already damaged rib cage with their steel-toed boots. He’d passed out from the pain.
He was consciously unconscious when they returned. They slammed into the tiny space and manhandled him down from the upper bunk. As he expected, they yanked him to his feet and wrapped his arms around each of their shoulders in order to keep him moving.
He kept his head down, chin bouncing on his chest, mumbling incoherently. When the goon on the left paused to kick open the half-closed door, Hawke took advantage of the moment. His powerful arms reached out with all the speed and precision of two striking cobras as he swept the two men’s heads together with sickening force. The collision of the two skulls was sufficiently forceful to cause the two men to drop like sacks of stones to the floor.
He dropped to one knee and checked.
They were dead.
“Hit them too hard,” he whispered to himself.
He fished the keys to his handcuffs from one of their pockets and freed his wrists. Then he quickly stripped the uniform from the taller of the two. It fit him badly, but it might be good enough to get him safely up eight flights of metal steps to the carrier’s flight deck without hindrance.
Hawke had jet-black hair, which helped, and he kept the military police cap brim pulled down over his eyes, and his face lowered. He also had the advantage of
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