Stringfellow Hawke tightened his grip on his pistol and peeked through a small gap in the crates. The SWAT team Commander was issuing orders animatedly to his men, initiating what Hawke quickly realised to be a military, tactical manoeuvre, designed to locate and quickly eliminate the enemy.
Hawke watched the team intently as they all fanned out in different directions, all the while, waiting for any gap, any sniff of an opportunity to escape undetected.
Hawke shifted position and winced in pain as his injured ribs protested at the simple movement. There was no way even alone , in his condition, he could out run the SWAT team, and O'Connor hadn't moved since he'd fallen behind the crates. Any sliver of hope, was slowly ebbing away.
"What's goin' on Hawke?" O'Connor asked weakly, shifting himself so he was sat half upright with his back against the crates. "Talk to me, man"
Hawke glanced down at his companion, the blossoming, dark red stain on his shoulder growing larger with every passing minute. His breathing was laboured, and the ghostly pallor of the Agents skin told Hawke he was quickly running out of time.
"We're surrounded" Hawke replied succinctly, turning his attention back to the SWAT team. Swallowing the lump that had already formed in his throat, Hawke hesitated before he spoke, already knowing the answer to his question.
"Can you move?"
O'Connor managed a faint smile as his eyelids slowly grew heavy.
"Hawke, if you tell me there's a tank out there loaded for bear, I'll crawl on my hands and knees if I have to"
O'Connor snorted with laughter at the irony of his own joke, and suddenly enveloped his arms around his stomach, as his laughter quickly turned into a painful, spluttering cough. Hawke's gaze once again shifted to O'Connor as the Agents head lolled ominously sideways.
"O'Connor!" Hawke growled, as O'Connor's lifeless body slid to the ground.
"I'm Okay! I'm Okay!" O'Connor breathed as his eyes snapped open, and with the last of the energy he still possessed, he heaved himself back to a seated position. He ignored the pain of the gravel tearing at the skin on the palms of his hands, oblivious to the warm, red liquid, slowly trickling down his forearms. He refused to give them the satisfaction.
"Y'know, Hawke. Before I came here, I went on my first date in almost a year"
Hawke frowned as he kept a well trained eye on the operative that slipped round the adjacent wall and trained his gun on the stack of crates.
"A cute little red head" O'Connor mused " She was so hot!"
He smiled at the memory.
Slowly lowering his gun, Hawke's arms fell to his side as he made a mental note, if by some miraculous turn of events, he got out of this alive, to keep O'Connor well away from Caitlin.. From his position on the ground, O'Connor rolled his eyes to look at the pilot.
"Anyone you gotta get back to, Hawke?"
With a quick glance over his shoulder at the advancing SWAT team, Hawke slid down beside the wounded Agent, draping the arm that held his weapon across his bent knee.
"We've all got someone to get back to" he answered, gesturing vaguely with his gun. "What happened?"
"She sold Life Insurance" O'Connor chuckled. "Thought I was too much of a liability"
One side of Hawke's lips twitched into a grin and a shout from the commanding officer drew Hawke's attention back to the SWAT Team.
"So, what's she like?"
Hawke's head whipped round.
"Who?" he responded with a trademark frown
"Your girl. What's she like?"
"I never said I had a girl"
"You don't say a lotta things " O'Connor replied, pinning Hawke with a stare with the last of the clarity left in his eyes "But you're more transparent than you think, Stringfellow Hawke"
Hawke opened his mouth to respond with a retort of denial, and was suddenly engulfed in a myriad of noise and flurry of activity.
"DROP YOUR WEAPONS! GET DOWN ON THE GROUND! NOW!"
Hawke made a move towards the stricken Agent, throwing a fist towards an advancing operative, connecting satisfyingly with the side of his jaw.
"Sonofabitch!"
Hawke was rewarded well for his efforts, as the but of an AK47 slammed painfully into his already delicate ribcage, and could only watch as his own weapon danced agonisingly away from his grasp.
Hawke whirled around at O'Connor's harrowing cry, a sound akin to the ones he'd heard in the burning jungles of Vietnam. His mind willed his body to move as the Agents arms were wrenched forcibly behind his back.
His body didn't move, it couldn't.
He waited.
Waited for O'Connor to recover and send all of these dirty and bought operatives straight to Hell.
Waited for Dom and The Lady to come to his aid as they always did.
Waited for Cait to suddenly materialise in front of him, unleashing those devastating karate moves that had gotten him out of trouble on more than one occasion. Despite the fact he knew there was only one possible outcome to this scenario, he couldn't help but smile at the image of Caitlin's face that permeated his foggy mind.
If he died, here and now, Hawke only had two regrets. That he never got to see Caitlin O'Shannessy's captivating, beaming smile one last time and the fact he'd never told her, just what a beautiful person she truly was.
O'Connor's body remained hauntingly still, and finally succumbing to the searing pain in his side, Hawke crumpled to the floor. Several pairs of strong hands hauled the pilot from the ground and flung him face down, pinning his cheek to the cold, harsh gravel.
"Well,well,well. String-fellow Hawke" came a deep, seemingly familiar voice. Hawke squinted up at the looming figure, his broad frame blocking the last of the light from the solitary lamp. "Even paper heroes cant run forever"
Hawke's head snapped backwards as his jaw felt the full force of a military standard issue boot.
"Who the hell are you?" Hawke bit out, trying desperately to regain a sense of his surroundings. "And who sent you?"
"Ah, Mr Hawke, I think you already know the answer to that question"
The blurry figure indicated to the prone Agent, lying spread-eagled on the floor
"Put him out of his misery"
AWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWAWA
Two of the men hauled O'Connor to his knees, and with all the last remaining energy left in his body, O' Connor slowly lifted his head to meet the flint grey eyes of his captor. Hawke noticed the shift in his eyes, the warmth he'd saw there earlier had been replaced with a cold, hard edge, a fierce determination to look his executioner straight in the eye. Hawke glanced at his gun laying a few feet away on the floor, and quickly calculated that as quick as his reactions were, if he made a move now, they'd both end up in the ground.
"Well, what are you waiting for?" O'Connor asked, buying Hawke a little time. "Why don't you just get it over with?"
Hawke shifted a little to his left.
"Whats the rush?" came the reply "I intend to enjoy this moment Agent O'Connor"
"What, like you did with my friends back there?" O' Connor spat, as Hawke shifted another few inches towards his gun "Or do you just get off on a being a little trigger happy?"
O'Connor chuckled to himself, acutely aware of the movement behind him as Hawke arrowed in on his errant weapon.
A low, dangerous rumble of laughter joined O'Connors
"Collateral damage, my friend. Whatever you may think, I am still an honourable man trying to protect his country"
"Honourable!" O'Connor snorted, as Hawke willed him to keep talking. He was within reaching distance of his gun, and he just had to wait for an opening, however slight, to make his move.
"You know what I think, Colonel Lynch?" O Connor asked, finally putting a name to the face "I think you're a coward.. And a murderer-" he paused briefly, observing the Colonel's burgeoning fury that he failed to suppress and silently congratulated himself.
The skill to push people to their limit had always been one of his finer character traits, or most infuriating, depending on which way you looked at it. It had cost him a few relationships over the years, he thought ruefully. The Colonel was no exception. He had him figured out from the very beginning, even when he was his commanding officer, and knew exactly what buttons to press and the subsequent reaction. The last five years of trying to take the murdering Colonel down had taught him that. But it had also saved his life more times than he could count, and had now provided the necessary distraction that Hawke needed to turn this whole sorry mess to their advantage. Sensing he was on a roll, O'Connor ploughed on.
"You don't deserve a single one of those medals on your chest. Those men in there-" O'Connor inclined his head towards the warehouse. "Were worth a hundred of you!"
"Enough!"
Hawke froze on the spot as the Colonels acid tongue silenced the Agent, and slowly, wanting to savour every second of his imminent victory, Lynch lowered his gun to O'Connor's temple.
"I think its time you and Captain Hawke joined your friends. I'm just sorry I wont be able to make your funeral. I'm sure you'll get a hero's send off"
"You kill me, and this place will be crawling with cops" O'Connor replied, using the Colonels momentary distraction to hook his foot around Hawke's gun, concealing it from the other operatives.
This time it was the Colonels turn to laugh
"You always did have a way with words, Lieutenant. But I think not. Now, prepare to join your friends-"
As Lynch's finger rested on the trigger, Hawke saw his opening and made his move. In one swift movement, he took the nearest Operative to the ground with a roundhouse kick, and barrelled unceremoniously into a second one that attempted to bring a premature halt to his plan. Landing on his weapon, he snatched it gratefully into his hands, sending a bullet straight into the shoulder of the Operative advancing on his injured partner. His hands still fastened behind his back, O'Connor took advantage of the only body part that still functioned, and rammed his head into the midriff of a bewildered Colonel Lynch, sending him crashing in a heap to the floor. O'Connor remained face down in the mud, motionless, and as Lynch fought to disentangle himself from the prone agent , a faint, ghost like sound teased the edge of his hearing, distracting him from his primary objective. It couldn't be. It simply wasn't possible.
Suddenly, all heads snapped to the darkened sky, as Airwolf careened from the sky like a bullet, screaming a challenge to those on the ground. With a new focus, the two men still on the ground forgotten, the team began their assault on this new, deadly threat. Lynch hadn't factored Airwolf into the equation. Hawke was on the ground, they had him cornered. There had been nothing in the intelligence he'd been given to suggest Dominic Santini was a second pilot. He hadn't even considered him an imminent threat to the operation. It was then and there Lynch came to the horrific conclusion this fact had been a deliberate omission. Now he had to fight his way out, just like 'Nam. Bullets chattered harmlessly off her armoured belly as Airwolf descended, creating a shield between her pilot and the SWAT team.
"C'mon String"
From his position in the Pilots seat, Dominic Santini muttered a prayer as he watched Hawke haul himself from the ground.
"Nice timing, Dom" Hawke groused, as he sprinted over to O'Connor and heaved the dead weight of his partner onto his already aching back.
The Operatives began to flee, as the fierce backwash from the rotors, rocked their jeep, marked with the familiar army camouflage, from side to side, flipping it on its roof as though it were no more than a playing card. Lynch watched in disbelief at his retreating Agents, and could do nothing but watch as Hawke climbed into the safety of Airwolf, and rose majestically from the ground, disappearing into into the shroud of darkness.
"What the hell happened, String?"
Dominic Santini's questioning gaze settled on Hawke as he gave O' Connor the once over, cataloguing every injury.
"Set up" Hawke replied succinctly, removing a piece of bloodied material from O' Connor's t-shirt to reveal a gaping bullet wound to the shoulder. Hawke almost smiled at O'Connor's understatement. Flesh wound, he said. Typical. For all the good it would do, Hawke applied firm pressure to his muscular shoulder.
"We were sold out"
Dom's eyes widened
"Isn't that our mole?"
"He's no mole! He's FBI" Hawke replied hotly.
The same sudden protectiveness he'd felt earlier mixed with a healthy dose of anger, suddenly encompassed him
"The same as there were no armour piercing weapons. Michaels stonewalling us Dom, and all I wanna know is, why"
His gaze returned to the stricken agent.
"Mr Clean? No, I don't believe it. I just don't" Dom returned, shaking his head at the implication. Hawke retreated into silence at Dom's words, not wanting to believe what was staring him straight in the face. The man that he'd made a deal with three years previously, the man he'd started to consider a friend had sent them straight into an ambush. Dom acquiesced to Hawke's familiar silence in an attempt to gather his own thoughts. If he was honest with himself, String's accusations had some merit. The information they'd been given had been sketchy at best, which wasn't like Michael to send them into a mission blind. He always demanded a thorough job before he risked Airwolf and its crew. Neither one of them had expected the arrival of the SWAT team, and it seemed that the erroneous information of a FIRM mole and fictitious weapons had them flying slap bang into an ambush. Michael sure had a lot of explaining to do. Someone had an ulterior motive, and Dom just didn't want to believe it was the man that had got them out of several sticky situations in the last three years. A man whose life they'd saved on more than one occasion.
"How's he holdin' up?"
Hawke's roughly spoken words broke the silence
"Sub-normal body temperature, String" Dom informed him, checking the scanners. "Life signs are weak, we need to get him to a hospital."
Hawke shifted resolutely in his seat, gripping the cyclic with determination.
A blip on the monitor had Dom's gaze turning to the scanner.
"String! I've got an incoming!" he announced, typing furiously on the keyboard.
"Couple-a F14's headed right this way!"
Hawke's blue eyes narrowed in the open visor of Airwolfs heavy helmet.
"And they knew right where to find us" he growled " Turbo's!"
"You got it, String!"
Hawke's thumb hit the red button and Airwolf streaked across the orange sky, screaming like a banshee.