Free CROSSFIRE by Jenna Mills Page B

him, even as he'd orchestrated the search for his youngest daughter. The ambassador had cared.
    While Elizabeth had not.
    To this day, Hawk didn't understand what fool notion had led him to think she might call, or write, or … anything. To say thank you for helping secure Miranda's freedom. To say she'd heard about the bullet he'd taken. To tell him she was glad he was alive.
    The burn started low, spread fast. Hawk gritted his teeth against it and stooped to smear mud on his face. Until the moment he chose to make his presence known, he needed to leverage whatever advantage he had, and that included blending in with the greens and browns of the forest.
    Voices drifted from the direction of the wreckage. He stepped over a young pine downed when the plane had cut through the trees and eased behind another that had to be at least a hundred years old. Funny that mere inches separated life from death. Some called it fate, but Hawk knew it was just luck. Either yours was bad or it was good, but he didn't for one second believe every minute of his life was predetermined from the moment he was conceived. That would mean he had no free will, that he couldn't change his destiny. And that, he could not abide.
    "You stay here. We'll get the girl."
    American, Hawk noted. Maybe Canadian, but definitely native English speaking. Carefully, with his back to the trunk, he turned to inspect the clearing. He saw the first man immediately, not ten feet away, tall, bulky, standing with his feet shoulder width apart, an MP50 in hand. The lookout.
    The poor bastard didn't have a prayer.
    Beyond, two others strode toward the wreckage, one breaking for the smoking fuselage, the other heading for the cockpit. He waited until both vanished before slipping around the tree and slamming his forearm against the lookout's windpipe.
    A grunt whooshed out as the man stiffened, then slumped with the grace of a fainting spell.

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    Chapter 5
    « ^ »
    A vicious stream of obscenities burst from the cockpit, followed by the older of the three men. He tore into view, the expression on his lean face tight, angry. "Did you find her?"
    The man kicking around the fuselage swung toward him. "She's not in there?"
    "No."
    "Then where the hell is she?"
    Lean face squinted against the late-afternoon sun. "She must have been thrown from the plane." He looked toward the edge of the clearing. "Yo, Mander—" His words broke off. "Where the hell is Mander?"
    The second man swung toward the spot where the lookout had been standing. "Must be taking a leak or something."
    "Idiot. Find him, then split up and find the girl. We can't go back without her."
    "What about the pilot?"
    Lean face spat a wad of tobacco. "I hear the bears are hungry this time of year. Maybe they'll appreciate a free snack."
    All his life Hawk had been underestimated. And all his life he'd taken pleasure in proving his naysayers wrong. This time would be no different.
    "Mander, dude, you'd better get back here." Heavy footfalls crunched on dry pine needles. "Durgen is pissed, can't find the girl."
    And neither will you, Hawk vowed silently. He slipped from his hiding spot and, as the Army had trained him to do, easily took the second man out. Two down, one to go. Anticipation blasted through him, but like every good special op, he tempered it with patience. Durgen was next, but before Hawk silenced him, the man was going to sing like a bird.
    * * *
    The birds had stopped singing. Elizabeth crouched in the thicket, listening carefully for the coo of a dove. Or the crunch of footsteps. Or worse, the sound of gunfire.
    Only the wind made its presence known, rattling the brittle pine needles surrounding her.
    At least, she hoped it was the wind.
    Her legs burned from the awkward position in which she sat, her hand cramped from holding the gun. But she refused to move, to relax, to let down her guard.
    In the hour since Hawk had left, the temperature had steadily dropped. Not much sunlight squeezed through the