Hawk
2004
10:30 a.m. Typical Duluth weather. Fingers of fog creeping
up West 1st. Colder than the bottom bottle of Bud in the ice
chest. Somewhere high above Lake Superior, ghostly, riding
the moisture, a sweet melodic voice: “Stop children, what’s
that sound, ever-body look what’s goin’ down...”
Quentin Hawk’s old red Explorer rattled along icy I-35,
windows open wide, CD player cranked high as it would go.
Quent wasn’t really into Old School, but his policeman father
had just sent him an oldies CD for his 37th birthday. And he
was dutifully following the old man’s scribbled admonition.
“Rap’s for crap, Boyo. Stick this in that pile of junk you drive
and turn it up. This is real music.”
,
Joseph Quentin Hawk was on his way home from a little
game of three-man with his buds. He drained the last bit of
yellow from a bottle of Gatorade, did a half-genuflect at the 2nd
Street stop sign and hung a quick right into the handicapped
zone at Parkland Pharmacy. He jumped down from his truck
and left the motor running.
Only take a minute.
Pushing through the automatic door, Quent jogged to the
freezer and thumped a frosty yellow bottle out of its tray.
Before the refrigerator door had re-sealed, he was standing at
the front register, gulping down the cool sweetness.
With his free hand, he ripped a wrinkled fiver out of his
gym shorts and slapped it down in front of the young purplehaired checker.
She looked up into his compelling green eyes. The silver
spikes poking through her lip flashed in the neon overheads.
“Anything else I can get for you, sir? Anything at all?” she
cooed.
Sexual in-your-end-ohs. 6th grade humor from Quent’s little
sister, Mary Kate, when she noticed her girlfriends had started
acting weird around her handsome older brother. At the time,
both of them were still kids in grammar school. But the
phenomenon had continued non-stop.
Over the years, Mary Kate had witnessed a ton of startled
women caught doe-like in the lure of big brother’s notorious
green orbs.
To his credit, Quent remained honestly oblivious to his
own appeal, which only served to make him all the more
appealing.
“HELP! Somebody! Help me!” A woman’s terrified scream
ripped through the silence of the Pharmacy, ruining Miss
Purple-Hair’s big moment. Quent was already running toward
the cry.
“Hel...” The sharp crack of breaking glass cut the woman’s
second scream in half.
As Quent reached the last aisle of the store he froze in mid
step. He could see the bruised head of the pharmacy girl laying
in a pool of blood on the cracked counter. A huge man in a
triple X muscle shirt was standing over her, a foamy white
smear of saliva bubbling on his lips. The man’s neck was wider
than his head, the bulging arms heavily veined and tattooed.
The giant oaf was hopping back and forth from one foot to the
other like the floor was on fire, his bloated calves jiggling like
fat brown balloons.
The big man screamed down at the girl’s unconscious
form, howling like a wounded bull, his words distorted, “Euw
supid bitch gurk!”
Then, suddenly, he seemed to lose consciousness. His
eyes glazed. He stood motionless, staring into space as if his
system had crashed.
Then, just as suddenly, he came back to life, spun away
from the counter, and awkwardly lurched down the aisle
toward the prescription window.
Quentin leapt over the counter and caught the injured girl
just as she was sliding off the blood soaked counter. Her eyes
fluttered open. He could see from her vacant stare that she
was in shock.
Then another fearsome howl. Over by prescription counter,
“Gob-lin. Goblin. You hab lis?”
Quent could see the white-haired pharmacist trembling
behind the counter, raw panic in his eyes.
“You hab lis. I know. Gib heow to mee. Now. I’ll uck euw
up geud...”
The old man forced his lips into a tremulous smile.
“Certainly sir, now if you could repeat...”
A massive hand shot over the glass and grabbed him by
the throat. The words died in his windpipe. He coughed and
squirmed and lunged sideways, trying to pull himself away.
But the giant’s other hand caught hold of his tie and
jerked him off his feet like a rag doll. The old man’s head made
a dull nauseating thump as it punched through the glass
partition.
The big hands lifted him up off the floor so the angry words
would go directly into the old man’s ear. The garbled scream
pitched into a furious whine. “Gob-lin. You hab. I wunt it! Gib
me neow. I sweaaa I kill euw.”
Quentin was hunched behind the counter packing Kleenex
into the gash on the girl’s head.
"Syringes, where’re the syringes?" he whispered.
Her eyes opened wide, unblinking. Unresponsive. Quent
pulled her head close and spoke directly into her ear.
“Syringes! Where?”
She raised a shaking hand and pointed. He crawled toward
a stack of cardboard file boxes and looked back at the girl. She
nodded. He pulled out the bottom drawer and grabbed the
largest needle he could find. Snatching two vials of liquid off a
shelf, he jammed them into his pocket and raced back to the
girl and pressed her hand firmly against the wound. “Hang on.
I’ll get help”
Then he hurdled the counter and ran to his left.
The giant weightlifter was holding the old man’s limp body
high above his head, slamming him against the “Prescriptions”
sign.
"Hey GATOR," shouted Quent, calling the big man by his
professional name. The oversized head whipped around in
Quent’s direction, one hand still holding the druggist off the
ground.
He strained to see who’d called him by name, his eyes
blinking the sweat away. “Whah?!” he bellowed.
"I'm a doctor," said Quent, moving toward him. “Sports
medicine. Dude, you’ve been stacking. Synthol, Dianabol
prob’ly. I can fix it. Let me get this into your arm. Now!”
Quent held up the syringe and the two vials of liquid.
"Nubain! Like oxymorphone. Stop the pain. Guaranteed, man.
Two minutes. You need it. Let me give it to you.”
There was immediate recognition from the big man. He had
already ingested a pharmacy full of enhancement drugs. He
knew their names as well as he knew his own. He knew their
antidotes as well.
Gator Jennings, professional Pride Fighter, dropped the
pharmacist on the floor like a weightless T-shirt and lumbered
towards Quent, his eyes jigging in their sockets. He stopped
awkwardly in front of Quent. And like some huge obedient
child, knelt down on one knee, pushed up the sleeve of his
sweatshirt and stuck out his huge right arm. It looked like a
giant, bloated, purple-veined sausage.
Quentin took a step in closer. He raised one of the vials to
eye level, examining the liquid, ready to insert the syringe.
Then, without warning, he slammed downward and plunged
the long hypodermic needle directly into the center of the
monster’s right bicep.
The pain was instant, intense, and debilitating. Gator
Jennings screamed in pain and grabbed at the syringe with his
left hand. Quentin reached to his right, caught the top of a red
fire extinguisher, and swung it as hard as he could into the left
temple of the giant head. Gator crumpled to the ground, face
up.
Quentin dropped to the floor and slammed both of his legs
across Gator’s throat. He grabbed the big left arm and levered
it backward across his own knees, hoping to set the hold
before his opponent regained consciousness. Quentin leaned
back to get maximum leverage and pushed down hard on the
massive arm. Gator came to – screaming, the pain causing him
a moment of articulate clarity.
“Stop. Enuf. I give. I give. Stop!”
“Move and I’ll break it,” shouted Quent. He released the
pressure – but only slightly.
Behind him, there was a rush of commotion: metal hitting
the ground; stamping of feet; the squawk of a radio.
Something hard jammed into the back of Quent’s left ear.
"Let him go asshole!” said a male voice. "Parkland Police. It’s
over. You’re a bad ass, okay? Took the big man down. But it’s
over. Let him go. Now!”
The barrel of the cop’s revolver jammed repeatedly into the
skin behind Quent’s ear. “You hear me, asshole?” yelled the
cop. “Let him go. Now!"
"He’s a juicehead,” shouted Quent. “It’s roid rage. You
better cuff him before I let him go."
"Who the hell are you? Doctor Seuss?" A second policeman
un-holstered his weapon.
“CIA. I’m with the god damn CIA. Agent Quentin Hawk. My
badge’s out in the car.”
“Yeah. And I’m the Easter Bunny. Put your arms behind
your head jerkwad and step over here. Slow.”
CIA Satellite Office, Duluth Minnesota
Agent Joseph Quentin Hawk entered the Fremont Building
on West 34th Street, shoved his I.D. card into the slot at the
back of Elevator 3, and rode up to the penthouse level. Dark
oak panels spanned the length of the reception area. In the
center of the polished wood, the familiar blue and gold
insignia, the name deeply etched in two-dimensional letters:
Central Intelligence Agency
Charles Fontina, District Director
A dark-haired, middle-aged woman looked up from behind
the marble counter and smiled. "Good morning, Agent Hawk."
"Morning Diane, I hear Chucky Cheese wants to see me.”
"The Director is waiting for you. He’s in a bit of a mood. I
wouldn't let him hear you call him that."
"You mean I’m on the shit list again? Gee, what a
surprise,” Hawk smirked. “Thanks for the warning, Di.” He
walked to the chief’s door, knocked firmly and entered.
At 5’5,” 145 pounds, Director Charles Fontina was a small
man...with an even smaller brain. One of several colorful
descriptions offered by Agent Hawk when dining with his
buddies at the Oktoberfest Bar and Grille. To say that Hawk
and his boss didn’t exactly get along was an immediate cause
of laughter among field agents at the CIA’s Duluth office.
Chucky Cheese was crouched behind his massive brown
desk, holding an incident report in front of his 59-year-old
face. His opening words came from behind the report.
"You picked a fight in the back of a Rite Aid drug store out
in Parkland? Is that right, Agent Hawk?"
"I’m sure, sir, after you’ve have time to read my report,
you'll see that's not what happened.” Quent had chosen to
begin with an appeasement approach.
As usual, it wasn’t going to work for him. Director
Fontina’s response came back heavy with condescension.
“Where was your weapon when all this happened?"
"The guy's a Pride Fighter, sir. Name’s Gator Jennings.
6'7,” weighs in about 340. I've seen him fight. When I got
there, he was in the middle of steroid rage. Strangling the
pharmacist; holding the guy’s ass about three feet off the
ground.” Quent demonstrated with his hands. “My gun
wouldn't have done me any good, sir."
”An agent is never to be without his piece in public.”
replied Fontina, unmoved. “Where was yours?”
”I was on my way home from the gym, sir. Little intraagency half court game. We play every Tuesday. Ya see, I was
still wearing my shorts, so I left my gun...”
Hawk could see he was wasting his breath. So, he reverted
to form. “Not trying to brag, sir, but there isn't enough room in
my jock strap for me and my gun at the same time. You know
what I’m sayin’? Besides, sometimes it falls out in the middle
of my jump shot.”
Director Fontina’s face colored slightly. His teeth clamped
down hard several times before he responded. "Agent Hawk,
while you’re serving out your two-week suspension from duty
without pay for that last insubordination, you might consider
this. The U.S. Government has a strict code of behavior for its
law enforcement agents. You took an oath to uphold that code
when you joined. We of the Central Intelligence Agency are just
that, an intelligence gathering organization. We’re not a gang
of street fighters.”
Before Quent could respond, Fontina held up his hand for
silence. “This is not the first time you’ve received a suspension
for ‘acting in a manner unbefitting an agent in the service of
his government.’ You’re skating on thin ice.”
“So, what was I was supposed to do, sir? Just walk away
and let this juicehead kill the druggist? Maybe a couple of
women and kids too?”
“Fist fights are for the local police. Next time you see some
domestic violence, call the cops, and butt the hell out! Is that
clear? And stay out of Parkland. We don’t go there. It’s not our
kind of area.”
Director Fontina slammed the incident report into the out
box at the top of his desk, a look of disgust on his ferret face.
“Leave your badge with my assistant on your way out, Hawk.
Dismissed.”
,
The Garden of Doves – The 7 th Arrondissement
She had chosen the tiny café Jardin des Colombes (the
Garden of Doves), four little tables set in a sun-dappled
courtyard behind the old bakery Vieux Moulin. Each table had
its own umbrella of sun-yellow sailboats on a sea of Provence
blue.
At the edge of the huge courtyard stood a little white lattice
gazebo overflowing with fresh flowers. He arrived 10 minutes
early, and on a whim, stepped inside and ordered a small
bouquet.
“How about some white peonies and fracas?” suggested the
sensuous old vendor, a gypsy-like woman, bedecked from head
to toe in colorful scarves. Her eyes were bright, her smile
charged with mischief. “Guaranteed to cast a spell.”
“Merci, Madame.” He stepped aside to watch as she
carefully gathered the fragrant bundle. With a great flourish,
the old woman set about wrapping and tying the bouquet.
Only in Paris, he thought, concealing a smile; then he turned
away and looked out through the lattice.
And saw her!
P
P
He couldn’t believe his own reaction; he’d actually drawn
in his breath. Her beauty was devastating. His thoughts
started piling into each other like cars on a fog-bound freeway.
Like most career soldiers, he had had his share of women;
some local, some foreign; but in the looks department, most of
them had been 4s and 5s.
He peeked out through the ivy twined lattice. Whoa! This
one’s an 11. God, the color of her eyes! They’re turquoise!
He drew in a deep breath and walked straight out of the
gazebo forgetting the flowers he’d ordered.
She sat at a small table, oblivious to her surroundings,
sipping her coffee, studiously reading through a stack of
morning newspapers. She wore a white linen suit, its jacket
open to the waist with an emerald green blouse casually
knotted just above a very tan bare midriff.
She looked up and saw him approaching. Her lips, a dark
cinnamon color, served up a cover girl smile from the shadow
of the umbrella. She stepped out into the light to greet him.
The sun hit her face. The result was spectacular; her amazing
turquoise eyes deepened as did the copper tone of her skin.
When he extended his hand, she gracefully slipped past it,
stepped forward and placed both of her hands on his forearms.
She pulled herself next to him, then turned her cheek slightly
to greet him in the more intimate European fashion.
Later he would insist the move had saved his life.
As he turned his head sideways to complete the touch of
cheeks, his eye caught the sudden flash of sun on steel – to
the right, 70 yards across the square. He saw it clearly – a long
silver tube with a black silencer screwed onto its end.
His emotions went cold! The capillaries in his brain
ballooned with a rush of chemicals: casomorphin, endorphin,
adrenaline. His response was immediate. Instinctive.
The clarions in his head sounded the alarm. His memory
banks instantly fired.
Attack! Defend! Attack! Defend!
Time braked into stop-action – one slow frame at a time.
His periphery went big screen, widening to 180. His mind
flashed back to a thousand similar incidents in his military
life; Vietnam, the rice paddies, the sun flashing off the barrels
of the Cong 47s. He saw them again, hanging in the trees like
brown monkeys, raining death down on his men.
He saw the movement as one long perception; the arc of
the silver tube in the stranger’s hand; the sun glinting on the
silencer – coming to rest on the doorjamb; the blue Mini
Cooper breaking sideways into a four wheel drift; the door
swinging open, the eyes of the enemy; his tennis shoes
slamming the pavement as he leapt from the car, the gun
pointing as the enemy ran headlong toward them.
All of this superimposed against the upturned cheek of this
gorgeous woman. The sound of water dripping in the stone
fountain behind her was sending little clicks of warning to his
brain.
Move now. Move now! Move.
Pure instinct. His fingers locked on to her forearms. His
arms shot forward like pistons, thrusting her backwards out of
the line of fire. The backs of her knees hit the bull-nosed edge
of the fountain. The force of the contact twisted her body and
dropped her into the dark water.
Simultaneously, he hit the ground, flattened his body and
rolled to the left. Zing! A bullet ripped through the umbrella
where their heads were a millisecond earlier.
"Stay down," he shouted. And rolled violently back to the
right looking for cover. A second bullet slammed into the
umbrella’s aluminum pole and snapped it off with a loud
crack.
The umbrella spun to the ground. Momentary cover. He
sprang to his feet behind it. Head down, running as hard as he
could, he raced back toward the gazebo.
It was an 8-second eternity before he dodged inside. No
shots fired.
The old florist smiled, "I thought you'd be back for these,”
she said, extending the bouquet of peonies. But he was already
down on his knees, peering through the lattice looking back
toward the gunman.
“Get down!” he shouted, his eyes riveted, scanning the
square. It was crowded with locals going about their daily
chores. And for a moment, everything looked normal. Then, off
to the left, 40 yards from the gazebo he saw the commotion.
Two people fell to the ground; two more spun awkwardly to the
left, jolted by the impact of an onrushing body.
A hooded figure emerged!
He was about 6 feet tall, dressed in a dark blue tracksuit,
the hood pulled tightly around his head, running full force,
holding the long-nosed hand gun at waist level.
He heard the thunk of a bullet behind him. He spun
around and reached out for the flower peddler. The white
peonies in her hand had already changed color, stained red.
There was a jagged hole above the first tracheal cartilage where
the bullet had ripped into her throat.
Too late to stop her body’s forward momentum. The old
woman collapsed heavily on top of him. And for a few seconds,
her heart continued to pump, drenching the side of his face in
sickening warmth. One final shudder and the flower lady went
still.
Thump. Thump. Her dead body lurched; a second and
third bullet ripping into her corpse. She was shielding him
from death.
He pushed violently upward, launched her body into the
air, and rolled out from under it. He rose to his knees,
grimacing in expectation of the next bullet. For a moment,
there was no sound.
Suddenly, the fat nose of the killer’s gun smashed violently
through the lattice. The obscene eye jerked left to right,
searching.
Charging like a bull, he aimed his body to the left of the
protruding gun muzzle. His shoulder drove straight through
and into the killer’s stomach. The wooden lattice blew apart
and the man went down hard on his back, carrying the entire
back wall of the gazebo down on top of him.
As more of the structure collapsed, a section of latticework
locked around the gunman’s forearm. It forced his gun arm
straight up out of the rubble. As the heavy mass of lumber
started to settle, it began slowly bending the arm backwards
into an impossible angle. The gunman’s screams built to a
crescendo, like the shriek of a skill saw caught in the middle of
a wet two-by-four.
As the pain worsened, so did the horrid screams.
Crack; the snapping of the ulna. Snap; the ugly crunch of
the radius. Then an ugly staccato of small bones as each one
fractured and began poking through the flesh of the arm.
Finish it! The voice in his head. Years of Special Forces
training: take advantage of an enemy’s injury. End it now.
Crashing through the chest-high pile of debris, he moved
in quickly toward his attacker. The man’s right forearm was
sticking straight up through the rubble like a naked flag pole –
the pistol frozen in the grasp of his traumatized fingers.
When he bent down to reach for the gun barrel, he heard a
high pitched creak behind him. Wood against wood.
Splintering. The rest of the gazebo was about to collapse.
He hurled his body to the left, turning his face away, arms
thrown up to protect his head. With a dramatic groan, the
entire rotted wooden structure collapsed inward, launching
nails and jagged struts outward in all directions. A 10” wooden
shard stabbed into his shoulder as he rolled on the ground.
Unaware of the pain, he scrambled to his feet and whirled
around to face the fountain. She was there, submerged in the
fountain’s moat of water, peering at him over the wet stone
edge.
He shouted across the square, "Run! That way!"
When he saw her safely out of the fountain, he turned
away from the gazebo and began running in the opposite
direction. Too late to go for the killer. Take cover. Reassess.
Running hard, he reached the safety of the square’s
entrance and ducked behind its stone archway. Only then did
he look back toward the wreckage of the gazebo. What he saw
was inconceivable; a scene from a cheap horror film.
The killer’s right arm was sticking straight up from the
rubble, still clutching the weapon. But as he watched in
disbelief, the killer's left hand punched upward through the
debris and began prying his own locked fingers away from the
gun butt.
Screaming in pain from the effort, the man wrestled the
gun away from his dead right hand and pushed it into his left.
He began firing wildly in all directions. Two young children
enjoying the excitement suddenly went over backwards, blood
spurting from their stomachs. The next shot slammed into the
wall just six inches above He’s head. The son of a bitch is
gonna get loose.
Running full force, arms pumping, legs churning, He
charged blindly into the heart of the massive five-way
intersection of Rue Antoine Arnauld. Lurching left then right,
narrowly avoiding the crush of wheels, he set off a crescendo of
screeching tires and shouted obscenities. Cars and trucks
began slamming together like dominoes, reacting to the
apparent crazy man zigzagging through their midst.
His body struggling for air, he stuck a violent straight-arm
into the hood of a speeding green van and tried to push
himself to the right. The momentum spun him off balance and
knocked him to the ground, rolling like a pinball. The green
van jammed its brakes and crashed under the tailgate of a
pickup in front of it.
Fingers, arms and feet slapping and digging into the
graveled concrete for purchase, He fought to stop his
momentum. Finally coming to rest on his bloody hands and
knees, he sucked in a huge gasp of breath. He pushed down
hard he stood up again; disoriented.
Which way was I running?
Pop! Pop! Two bullets punctured a Citroën headlight to
his right. He sprung wildly to the left in front of an old Renault
and ducked down along the driver’s side. The Renault’s
windshield exploded. The driver’s head slammed into the
steering wheel.
The sounds of multiple collisions accelerated, echoing
down the narrow alleys off the intersection. A rapid fusillade of
bullets sprayed across the windshields surrounding him. But
he heard none of it! The sudden ringing in his right ear was
deafening. One of the shots had nicked his temple. The impact
dropped him behind the tailgate of an enormous black
Hummer. Out cold, but only for an instant.
The pain stabbed him back to consciousness.
Slowly he pulled himself up by holding on to the chrome
nerf bar at the back of the behemoth truck. He peered
cautiously around its fender trying to get a glimpse of his
assailant.
Nothing. Then he saw the blue cap 20 yards off, coming
hard; the left hand extended. Bang! The Hummer’s right front
tire exploded. The huge vehicle lurched forward, falling to one
knee like a wounded rhino.
Above the screaming pain in his right ear, He could hear
the sound of sirens. He saw the tiny French police car cutting
across the intersection. As it skidded to a halt, the door flew
open and the uniformed gendarme leapt out, weapon in hand.
Instantly, a bullet struck him in the pit of the stomach. He
collapsed in the street vomiting blood.
Run! Harder. Blindly, he ran toward a side street…