Page 1 of Hawk on the Hunt

1

With his back to the three-story building, Dylan Steele sat down at one of the café’s outdoor tables. It wasn’t busy. From here, he could see everybody entering and leaving the coffee shop that was open until early evening. It was getting dark, and the air felt muggy like during most of the summer months in Washington D.C. Even though it was still mid-June, and the temperatures hadn’t quite risen to the unbearable heat common in August, Dylan felt rivulets of sweat run down his back, making his casual shirt stick to his skin. He wasn’t used to this humidity anymore. He’d spent the last four years in the cooler climate of the Pacific Northwest and along the Canadian border, hiding from his enemies. However, circumstances had demanded that he come back to Washington D.C., back to the place where it had all begun, and where it had to end. Once and for all.

Dylan sipped his iced coffee, before setting the plastic cup back on the round bistro table. A tealight candle sitting in a glass bowl filled with multi-colored glass pebbles cast abstract figures that danced in rhythm with the flickering flame on the table. Dylan merely pretended to look at the candle, when in reality he let his eyes roam without moving his head, without giving away that he was watching his surroundings like a hawk. Assessing, analyzing, always alert.

Maybe his watchful eye was the reason he’d been given the code name Hawk. And while the CIA program he’d once been part of didn’t exist anymore, he was still Hawk, and he would always have to be vigilant like a hawk if he wanted to survive. The Stargate program was no more, but that didn’t mean that his enemies had vanished too. His enemy could be sitting at one of the other bistro tables, or inside the café, or perhaps across the street in a parked car, watching him, waiting for the best opportunity to strike.

He’d never been one to give into paranoia, but he knew when to keep his guard up. Maybe coming here was a trap, but he had to take the risk. He also knew that his survival hinged on whether the person meeting him here tonight was friend or foe. Trust didn’t come easy for him, but he would have to trust his gut once more, and hope that the instincts that had kept him alive for the last four years were still as sharp as ever. He crossed his fingers that the years away from D.C. hadn’t made him negligent, because one moment of distraction could mean death.

From the corner of his eye, Dylan saw a man exit the café, a cup of coffee and a piece of pastry in his hands. The guy had entered the café three minutes earlier. Without hesitation, the stranger who looked to be in his mid to late thirties, walked toward him, put his purchased items on the bistro table, and sat down with such confidence that a casual observer would assume they met at the same table every day.

“Hey,” the man with the dark hair and the five o’clock shadow said. “How’ve you been?”

Dylan gave a curt nod, while his nape prickled with awareness. “And you?”

“Same.” The stranger took a sip from his coffee, before adding, “Ever seen the movie Zulu? Michael Caine starred in it.”

There it was: the message to identify him as the man he was supposed to meet. Not that it was necessary. The prickling sensation on his nape had already identified the stranger. Dylan had first felt that same sensation when he’d met Henry Sheppard, the man who’d recruited him into the top-secret CIA program, in person. It had been a revelation.

“I saw Zulu only a few days ago,” Dylan replied, though he wasn’t talking about the movie, but the man whose code name was Zulu. Zulu was the reason why Dylan had traveled to Washington D.C.

“It’s good to finally meet you. I’m Ace.”

Dylan nodded, then rubbed his nape, not used to the feeling that was present whenever he was near a precognitive like Ace. It was nature’s way of like recognizing like. He too was a precognitive like Ace and Zulu, and the other agents of the CIA program that had been compromised four years earlier and sent them all running for their lives.

“Zulu vouched for you,” Dylan said. “He said you want to get the band back together.” He kept his voice low while he scanned his surroundings, watching as the couple at the table closest to his was getting up to leave.

“That’s right. He told me you were laying low in the West all these years.”

“Funny. He never told me much about you.”

“With good reason,” Ace said quietly, before taking a bite from his pastry.

Dylan tipped his chin up. “What reason would that be?”

“I’m the leader of the band so to speak. If they get me, they get the others, and everything we know… Couldn’t risk exposure.”

“And what makes you the leader?”

Ace smirked. “I called dibs.”

“Again, funny.”

“Gotta keep your ability to laugh once in a while. The things we’re dealing with are too serious.”

Ace wasn’t wrong. What they were dealing with was sobering. Dangerous even. And probably impossible to prevent. A nightmarish vision of death and destruction. The doomsday vision, Zulu had called it. It appeared that all the agents from the now-defunct Stargate program shared it.

“I know what you are. But Zulu mentioned that others switched sides. How can I trust you, and how can you trust me?” Dylan asked.

“The fact that you were hiding away in the West for the past four years already tells me all I need to know.”

“And what is that?”

“You’re still with us. You haven’t switched sides.”

“Why would I, after everything Sheppard gave me?” Dylan shook his head. Henry Sheppard, the leader of their program, and a precognitive himself, had given him a place to belong, a reason not to feel like a freak of nature. For the first time in his life, he’d felt that somebody understood him. But now that person was gone.

“I’m glad you feel that way.” Ace leaned forward. “Now the question is: do you want in?”