Esteban Juarez leveled coal black obsidian eyes at his group of prisoners. Americanos, he thought with a sneer. Arrogant fools thought they could just waltz in here and steal his country's secrets without a second thought.
A devilish light brightened his eyes, thinking of the plane seated on the runway half an hour away and the cocky American pilot awaiting him in the next room.
He was going to enjoy breaking him, almost as much as he was going to enjoy gutting that plane.
Dazed blue eyes fluttered. As Jo tossed restlessly somewhere between waking and oblivion. Old ghosts had a way of returning home and hers were no different.
Darkness fell, cloaking the apartment in shadow. Worriedly, Jo paced the length of the rug in the living room. Saint John should've been home hours ago.
Nervous hands fingered the mug she held. "Sinj," she muttered on an anxious breath. "Sinj, where are you?"
Uneasily, she slept on.
Saint John Hawke froze, gun in hand, hazel eyes meeting blue. Silently, String motioned him back, his own shoulders pressed hard up against the concrete building at his back. The safety clicked off the .45 he held.
The only building anywhere near the runway that Airwolf's scans had picked up, this had to be where the T-3's crew was being held - he hoped, swallowing hard and watching a soldier pace by, Soviet made AK-47 in hand.
Right now, the silencer on the .45 made it the preferable weapon, though he had to admit he personally could've appreciated the superior firepower of the AK-47.
"Now," he hissed, motioning Saint John with his left hand and watching his brother slide silently around the corner. He paused for a heartbeat and then followed.
Booted steps paced rapidly down the empty hallway, String's shorter stride almost matching his brother's longer one.
A fisted hand crashed against Rivers' bruised and bloodied cheek. Senses reeling, the pilot's head snapped back from the force of the blow. The coppery, metallic taste of blood was strong in his mouth now.
"Just what did you hope to accomplish?" Juarez snarled contemptuously, "spying in my own backyard?"
"You mean, you can think of a better place?" Rivers taunted back, spitting blood at the man and knowing the words were likely to earn him another well-deserved blow for his trouble.
He had figured he was dead anyway the moment Pierson had let slide he was the pilot.
Juarez didn't disappoint. The next blow across his ribs had him retching and gasping for air. "You will talk," he promised, his swarthy face shoved up in Mike's, nearly nose to nose.
He should've told Sarah goodbye, Mike thought, abruptly sorry he hadn't. Sorry he hadn't told her one last time he loved her - even if her brothers would've kicked his sorry butt for saying it.
"Like hell I will," he gasped, narrowing blue eyes at the man.
Incensed, Juarez reached for him, snatching a handful of curly blonde hair and wrenching his head back. Furious, he shoved the business end of the 9mm he held into Mike's neck, just beneath the jawbone. "Then I really have no use for you, then do I?" he snarled angrily, shoving the gun harder into Rivers' throat.
Wincing, Mike flinched, squeezing his eyes shut as the safety clicked off the gun.
A shot rang out, deafeningly loud and ear piercing, so close he could smell the acrid scent of gunpowder in the air. Weight like a ton of bricks slammed into his chest, crushing him; his vision greyed as he fought to breathe.
And then, abruptly, Saint John was there, strong, muscular hands hauling Juarez's dead weight off him and dumping him unceremoniously into the floor. "You okay, Mike?" he demanded, hazel eyes worried as he gripped the younger man's shoulder.
Behind him, String shoved the .45 into his waistband.
Heaving in a shuddering breath, Rivers opened stunned blue eyes taking in Juarez's body at his feet. Flinching, he took in the cold, dead eyes and the perfectly centered bullet wound to the middle of the forehead, knowing by all rights it should've been him.
Swallowing hard, he ripped his gaze away. "What the hell took you two so long?" he rasped hoarsely.
His own blue eyes crinkling in relief, String shot his brother a grin. "Something tells me he'll be fine, Sinj." Fishing in his flight suit pocket, he dug out a pocketknife that he used to slice the bonds that held Mike. "Now, let's see about getting the heck out of here."
Frowning, Marella scowled at the computer screen in front of her, trying to make sense out of twenty year-old plus documents. Whoever had scanned these things in should've been shot, she thought with an irritated sigh. At best, they'd been incompetent.
Tired fingers massaged the pounding in her temple. She'd found out more about Hawke today than she'd ever dreamed of knowing - from where he'd gone to school, to when he'd had his appendix out at twelve. He'd joined the Army at seventeen, following his brother halfway around the world. Vaguely, she wondered how he'd gotten Santini to agree to that, eyeing the sprawling signature on the documents and wondering if it really was Dom's. Hawke had been determined enough even then and the Army desperate enough for good helo pilots she wouldn't have been surprised in the least if it wasn't.
None of which helped her in the least, she thought with a frustrated sigh. Hawke's military record in 'Nam had been exemplorary up until about two years in, shortly after his brother went missing.
Driven and obsessed, she would have expected - AWOL stunned her. Even then she couldn't have seen Hawke backing down from a fight - and yet, inexplicably that seemed to be exactly what he'd done - him and his bunkmate, Scott Reynolds disappearing for two days during some of the heaviest fighting his unit had seen.
And then Hawke had shown up two days later, a Vietnamese girlfriend and a newborn baby in tow, Reynolds dead. Dark eyebrows climbed as she read the action reports. Hawke had nearly got himself shot at the gate by an overenthusiastic sentry, passing out after the crisis was over from his wounds.
Shaking her head, Marella's grin was wry. Now that sounded like the Stringfellow Hawke she knew.
Hawke had demanded to marry the girl and somehow avoided being court-martialed. How, she'd never know…and he'd taken her back to the States, ...but not to Dom strangely enough, it seemed.
So, where? Fascinated despite herself, Marella paged through the next couple pages, cursor clicking before she found the information she was hunting - Denver, Colorado.
Why Denver? she wondered. Hawke had no relatives there that she knew of…and Dom would've looked out for Tuyen and Phuong when he'd gone back to the front like they were his own - nothing had meant more to the old Italian than family. String and Saint John were examples of that, even if they weren't blood.
And yet,... there was no sign Hawke had ever even told his foster father of them…
Puzzled, Marella took a sip of coffee gone almost cold.
Unless…
Suddenly sure, Marella's fingers clattered across the keyboard finding what she'd only suspected. Hawke's bunkmate, Reynolds had been from Denver and his parents still lived there.
Stunned, she sat back. Tuyen had been Reynold's girlfriend, not Hawke's.
Well, that explained the marriage and not telling Dom, she thought, finishing the now cold coffee. Unfortunately, it didn't do a thing to explain the divorce or lack there of.
Skimming forward a year, she looked at the duty reports for the month Hawke had said he'd filed the divorce paperwork. Nothing particularly stood out except for the fact a Staff Sergeant Michael Lewis had managed to get himself murdered the night before he was to fly home to the States.
Lousy luck, she thought frowning. Not particularly well-liked, it probably wouldn't have even made the duty reports had it not been for the inquiry the base police had made when they had trouble locating the next of kin.
Idly running a well-manicured finger down the list of personal effects listed as belonging to the deceased, Marella paused at the mention of a manila envelope.
She hesitated, looking at the date of the incident. There'd only been two helicopters carrying mail in the timespan Hawke had mentioned. Hawke's letter had to be on one of them. He said he knew it made it, because he'd personally handed it to some Staff Sergeant that was shipping out.
"Lewis," she breathed. It had to be. But what were the odds the envelope listed in his effects was Hawke's? Wouldn't it have been mailed?
She hit the intercom button nearly upsetting the empty coffee cup. "Lauren," she demanded, "Where would unclaimed personal effects in an open military murder investigation during Vietnam be kept?"
Stunned silence reigned on the other end of the line. "Uh-hhh, ma'am?" the bewildered assistant finally stuttered. "When?"
Hitting the print key, Marella hurriedly shoved the printed files into a folder as she went. "You heard me, Lauren, unclaimed personal effects from an open military murder investigation from Vietnam. Where would they be?"
"Um-m, National Personnel Records in saint Louis, ma'am," she answered, praying she was right.
"Then get me a flight," Marella ordered. "I've got some digging to do."