Snow Flowers and Blood: III Hawk Investigations, #2

By Mary K. Hanley

While June, Pauline, and Gina are dealing with a crazed killer in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of Califorina, the Ambassador sends Drake, Tom and Bill to destory a sex slave compound in Somalia, Africa. 

What they find there could destory Bill's hope for happiness.

The mission is dangerous enough, but Drake has to command an army consisting of retired Navy SEALs, rag-tag mercenaries, and Maasai warriors on a blood lust for revenge, against an enemy that has no consience about  human life and dignity...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mary K. Hanley
• Release date: Feb 25, 2014
• ISBN: 9781497790032

Book preview

PEOPLE TO THANK

There are so many people to thank I don’t know where to start.

Melissa Stevens. Without her, this book would never have gotten on e-books or printed copy. She is also an author of paranormal romance fiction. Check out her books on Kindle.

Thanks to the Yuma, Arizona’s writing group, Write on the Edge, for their support and knowledge.

To Lynn Edick, for editing. But even more, she has been my friend, encourager, public relations, seller of books and the list goes on.

Myrna and Keith McCormick, whom I have known and been friends with since seventh grade, for additional editing, encouraging, and making me, hopefully, a better writer.

They are my friends, but show me no mercy!

Christina Hollenbeck for the final reading and editing.

My sincere thanks and admiration to the United States Army. Starting with the first book in this series, Jessie J. Standridge, Sergeant First Class, United States Army, recruiting officer in Albuquerque, New Mexico who took me through the steps from Army recruiting to Ranger, and then, for those who become Special Forces. When I told him my idea of attacking a sex slave compound in South America, he suggested Africa instead, as there are many such horrible places there.

I was like a groupie when I became brazen enough to ask a man in an Army uniform, in a restaurant in Yuma, Arizona, if he could tell me when I might find the right website to get the weapons information I needed for this book. I was not as thrilled when I saw Elvis, as I was when I went over to his table and realized I was meeting with a Commander and his friend, a Major, both in the Special Forces. I think I just stood there with my mouth open. They took the time to tell me which countries in Africa to use, and the Commander even drew the compound and the strategy they would use to attack on a napkin, which I will keep forever.

We left Yuma soon after that and when I got to Sequim, Washington, I was still looking for a military person to help.

Thanks to Michelle Rhodes, at the Senior Center for introducing me to Erik Slater, retired Sergeant from the United States Army.

What an honor and a privilege it has been to work with him. I spent many fun hours picking his brain and giving him problems to solve. I certainly appreciate the fact that he has agreed to work with me on my next book in the III Hawk Series, which I have already started.

The Sgt. Slater had to rein me in a couple of times, when my imagination went on over-drive. You can’t do that, he would say and I would have to be less imaginative. I apologize if I went too far or overboard.

Thanks to Jason Harris for getting the cover the way I wanted it to look. His talent is outstanding.

Thanks to Kayla, Ron, and Brian at MD Cigars in Yuma for helping me find a cigar with a distinctive aroma the Killer smokes. The Kuba cigar comes from Nicaragua.

A big thank you to Vinny from the Longhouse Market and Deli in Sequim, Washington who smoked the Kuba so I could smell its’ distinctive aroma. He tells me I have him hooked on the Kuba. It might not smell good to me, but it was a sweet tasting cigar for him. Also, Vinny gave me the name of the beer, Hair of the Dog, the killer would drink.

When I was in Victoria, Canada, the salesman at the Old Morris Tobacconist Ltd. showed me what the expensive Cohiba- Behike 56 Cuban cigars look like which the Ambassador smokes.

A special big thanks to Jim Branham for driving me around, selling books and putting up with the endless hours of writing and research. He makes a very good PR man.

Thanks to my children for their support and to Joe, Tara, Jenna, Wendy, Dawn, and friends Lynn, Lee, and others for selling the first book, Romance and Murder in the Cinque Terra.

A big thanks for friends like Sharon Cates, Rhalyn Jones, Lee Cook, Sue Sandberg, all the RV gang, and so many others, for the love and encouragement they have given me through the years.

And I can’t forget my Fashion Consultant, Dennis Wong, although it has been a few years since he has consulted.

ABOUT SNOW FLOWERS AND BLOOD

One of the main things I want to express in this book is the bond that is woven between men and women in the military. Erik has assured me this is very true. He once told a man in his squad that he didn’t like him, but he would take a bullet for him. He allowed me to use that in the book.

Many of my characters are Christians. I am trying to convey what I think must be a struggle for those who are believers, yet have to kill.

Those who have hiked in the Sierras know most of the snow is melted when the snow flower grows. I am taking literary license.

Snow Mountain is a fictional town in the Sierras as are my characters.

The Ambassador is, of course, a fictional character, who represents someone I wish were real and could help right so many wrongs that others are not able to do.

Although the slave compound in my story is fictional, there are many other such terrible places in Africa, South America, and elsewhere.

What is accurate are the weapons and military jargons. Erik, my military consultant, advised me on the way a mission such as this would normally be carried out. A group of men, who trained together for months for such an action, would know what each man was doing and where he would be.

Then, the fun began, as I threw in mercenaries, Massai warriors, and natives from other villages in Africa.

Normally, the men would go in together, but of course, that would be too easy. So, we have the trio separated and entering Africa from separate locations and to overcome obstacles placed in their way.

The Maasai:

What I have read about the Maasai fascinates me and I wish I could visit a village.

I used what I learned about the people and, have added things I thought they might have done. My apologies if some statements are not accurate.

There is a list of characters and military terms in the back of the book.

Compound Diagram

Survelliance Alpha 2

SNOW FLOWERS & Blood

Prologue

The Sierra Nevada Mountains above Tahoe,   California

There it is! June yells gleefully as she bounces up and down in her snowshoes. I’ve found one. I found one first!

She quickly sets her backpack down on the snow and takes out a notepad, camera, and phone with the Footprints GPS system. She has to record this exactly. She isn’t going to let anyone in the group say they found one before her.

Her snowshoes crunching lightly on the snow, June starts climbing up to where the mysterious, gorgeous red flower called the snow flower shines in all its’ glory.

She has never seen anything like this before, nor had she ever heard of it, until her new friends at III Hawk Investigations persuaded her to go snowshoeing with them in the majestic Sierra Nevada Mountains above Sacramento.

There is still enough snow left in the mountains for the flower to appear. They explained that the snow flower has no chlorophyll and thus, is, totally red in color. The flower appears in the spring in the mountains when there is still a little snow left on the ground. They had shown her photos of some found in other years.  And now, she is the first in the group to find one. Or at least, she thinks she is the first. She had been so enthralled with the beauty of the snow, the quietness of the mountains, and the feeling of freedom that she had wandered off from the group. She is not afraid of being alone in the mountains. She has her GPS, her Kimber .45 compact pistol, a special gift from her father and three brothers, and her backpack. It holds enough essentials to keep her alive overnight, if it becomes necessary. She also has her cell phone, but it will be of little use to her on the mountain with no towers close by.

Annually the group has a fun outing based on who would be the first to find a snow flower. This year they chose to search an area above Lake Tahoe. The winner’s lunch would be bought for them at the Rainbow Lounge on the way home.

June doesn’t mind being separated from the group. It has given her some time to think about Tom. Tom O’Malley, the huge six foot, four inch, red headed Irishman who appeared in her life like a freight train bound for hell.  They met during a complicated case, involving a serial killer, and had traveled from Los Angeles, to Rome, to the Cinque Terre where the case had terminated in a suicide and murder.

June smiles softly to herself as she thinks of her Irish teddy bear, as she calls him. She is five foot, five inches next to his six foot, four inches. Never has she felt so smitten or so safe. June is no high maintenance woman. Her father and brothers have taught her how to take care of herself and to handle fire arms.

As an investigator, she has run into a couple of bad asses who thought they could take her, much to their sorrow. Yet, she does like the feeling of Tom’s caring.

But will those feelings last? Have they just been enraptured by the magic of the Cinque Terre?

Time will help figure that out, but for now she is enjoying being with Tom, that is, when he is around. Now he is off to who knows where - or when he and the others will return.

Her reverie is interrupted as she looks at the bright red snow flower pushing up from a small mound of snow.

June carefully makes her way up the steep slope of the mountain. Back from Italy and the Cinque Terre, she has just moved to San Francisco. Drake and the boys hired her away from the Los Angles firm she worked for. Now she is working for III Hawk Investigations. She and Tom had started seeing each other in Italy, but now he and his partners have been called away on a case that she or any of the employees know about.

She hoists her backpack to a more comfortable position and starts climbing. The cracking sound of a branch stops her in midstride. She stops and listens, thinking she hears it again. She slowly turns in a three sixty circle, trying to locate the direction of the noise. After listening for another minute and not hearing anything, she decides it must have been an animal and heads the twenty feet up the mountain to photograph her prize.

The brilliant red snow flower, curled and molded like a wax candle, is absolutely gorgeous. She pulls out her compass and camera, notes the GPS coordinates, and takes several pictures from various positions. Sighing with contentment for a job well done, she puts her things back in her pack. Then, looking around, she sees another red image higher up the mountain.

This time, she finds a cluster of four snow flowers. As she starts to take pictures of this great find, she notices that three of the flowers have been pulled up and torn apart. She spots more red, turns to look, and freezes.

What she is now seeing is not a snow flower, but blood. Fresh drops of blood head up the hill.  Broken bits of snow flowers are lying beside the drops.

She takes out her Kimber, releases the safety and looks around. She can see two sets of footprints in the snow and what looks like a scuffle. Then, something being dragged up the hill, drops of blood dotting the white, snow covered landscape.

June starts following the drops of blood. Tom and the boys told her to always have her weapon with her wherever she went, so it feels good to feel the heft of this old friend in her hand.

Slowly, she lifts one snowshoe, then the other, setting them down as carefully and as noiselessly as she can. The shoes make a soft crunching sound in the crisp morning air.

The blood drops are leading toward a thick stand of bushes. She cannot see through or into the center. Should she go on? Reason, and the sensation going up her spine, tells her not to go, but to turn back and call for help. It might be just an animal. But what if it isn’t? What if someone is hurt and needs her help?

Keeping a good grip on her pistol, she slowly inches forward, searching for an opening into the thicket.

She stops in mid-step and her blood runs cold as she hears an agonizing moan coming from inside the shrubs. Following the tracks, she finds an opening. As she hurries forward she does not see the man, covered in furs, circle around behind her.

Entering the thicket, June is suspended in place at the scene before her. A woman is stretched out in the center, her nude body turning blue from the cold and the bed of snow she is lying on. Around her body, on her breasts and the V shape leading to her womanhood, are parts of broken and torn snow flowers.

What appears to be a hunting knife is sticking out of her chest. She gives a weak moan and June can hear the death rattle as the woman takes her last breath.

June whirls as she hears the soft crunch of snow behind her, but not soon enough to miss the stunning blow to her head. The last thing she remembers is falling onto the white, glistening, cold snow.

CHAPTER 1

The Ambassador

Four days earlier, somewhere in a hidden location

United States

The Ambassador sits at his antiquated desk, slowly sipping from his glass of Johnny Walker Blue. A Cuban cigar, a Cohiba-Behike 56 lies smoldering in a nearby crystal ashtray. The cigar is the one illegal extravagance he allows himself. All the lights are off except for the brass reading lamp on the desk. Dark shadows hide the corners of the room. Priceless objects of art go unseen as their features became distorted by the swirling smoke from the cigar. It is like looking through a curtain of gauze.

On the desk lies a copy of the secret report he sent to Drake, Tom, and Bill. Nothing has affected him so grievously since the time, years ago, when he read the account of his daughter’s abduction. Daily, he receives a deluge of reports about the horrendous deeds the human race perpetrates on one another. Seeing and knowing about so many of these atrocities should make him immune to feelings. Sometimes it does. But, not very often, and not this time. His right hand begins to shake so violently drops of the whiskey splash on the desk.

Putting the glass aside, he massages his temples, trying to avoid the headache he feels building behind his eyes. Many agonizing hours had been spent pondering the decision to send the three owners of III Hawk Investigations on this mission. He desperately wants to send another group, but he knows that is out of the question.

The Ambassador is a mystery, a man known only to a few. His wealth rivals the wealthiest. His power outweighs that of the President. Yet this, too, is known only by a select group. He has not only power, but also knowledge of information that could ruin many a person if released. However, he never uses this knowledge unless it is against someone evil. Then, he can be ruthless.

He draws loyalty from those around him like a magnet draws nails. There are those who will never meet him personally and yet, they would gladly give their lives for him.

Standing ramrod straight at six feet, three inches, he is an imposing figure. His black wavy hair, fair skin, and brilliant blue eyes are the result of his Welsh heritage. The majority of those he meets at social events see only merriment and indulgence in those eyes. The unlucky few, provoking those eyes to flash with anger, will never forget the uncanny fear they felt.

A touch of gray showing at the temples, gives him a dashing, devil-may-care look. Many a woman has to excuse herself and find a place to calm down and restrain the urge to throw herself at him. Even men find themselves staring at him far too long.

When they were both seventeen, he and his beloved Malinda had eloped. Against all odds, not only had the marriage lasted, but their love deepened with each year and the births of their two children, Brian and Angel. Their love for one another, and their daughter, held them together after their son’s horrendous death.

That was the beginning. The Ambassador used his wealth and power to hunt down the vicious killers of his son and made sure they would never see the outside world again. The killers had been part of a sex slave ring working outside the United States. Brian had been an undercover agent with the CIA and had tracked down the leaders of the ring. There had been a million dollar contract put out on Brian. He had been tortured and thrown in an alley to die a slow, painful death. The Ambassador and his men had found him barely alive. The young man died in the Ambassador’s arms after getting a promise from his father and telling him how much he loved him and his mother.

With the help of friends and family, he, Malinda, and Angel had slowly worked through the grieving process, but that was not enough. Malinda had encouraged him to continue bringing criminals to justice, especially those operating outside the United States’ jurisdiction. He did so, in absolute secrecy.

Then, two years later, Malinda fought a losing battle with cancer. All the Ambassador’s money and power could not defeat this enemy. His daughter wanted to leave college and come home to be near him. He would not hear of it. He threw himself into the only thing, besides his daughter, which would keep him going and bring purpose to his life. As his daughter immersed herself into her studies, he continued his secret life in full force.

He will be seventy-five his next birthday, though he looks closer to sixty. In his public life, he is still known as a rich party widower who has never grown up, traveling the world and disappearing for weeks on end. No one could imagine him capable of a single serious thought. He is always the first to be invited to the parties and dinners to which only a select few are ever included. There is always a constant line of females hoping to be the one to end his single status.

This night he looks his age or older. The frown lines between his eyebrows deepen as he reads the report again. Though many are loyal to him, his loyalty, next to God, country, and family, is for one man, Drake Harrington.

His gaze shifts to the pictures in the gold leaf frames adorning his desk. His cherished wife’s picture is next to his murdered son Brian and his gorgeous daughter Angel, her husband Larry, and his ten year old grandson, Roger. The next frame holds four sets of pictures, each showing the same two youths at different ages. The first is the Ambassador and an African boy from a Maasai tribe in Kenya when they were around five years old. Both were giggling and making faces as children of that age do most anywhere. The boy’s name is Leboo, meaning born in the bush, outside the home. His mother had been visiting another village and did not make it home in time. Indeed, the name fit, for it was difficult for Leboo’s mother to get him inside the home to eat or sleep.

Leboo was not his first name. As is the custom of the Maasai, when a child is born, they are given the name of a relative, or someone respected and honored. Later, after circumcision, a new name is given.

His ears were pierced and two smooth, round, flat stones, about the size of dimes, adorned his earlobes.

The next picture is five years later. Young Leboo is poised in a proud stance. His right foot, wearing a cowhide sandal, rests on the head of a dead lion. His o-rinka, or weapon, held at his side; a serious look on his face. The killing of this lion insured him his rightful place as the next chief of his tribe. To be a Maasai, this was expected before the age of ten. The young Ambassador was on the other side, a 30-06 rifle held over his right shoulder, a smile spreading from ear to ear.

In the third picture, Leboo is dressed in black, his head completely shaved, larger stones are in his earlobes.

His face is set in hard lines as though not to show any emotion. The Ambassadors eyes are turned away from the camera and looking at Leboo with sympathy.

The fourth is the same boys six months later. Now the young Maasai has become a warrior and is dressed in animal skins, a wooden o-rinka held proudly by his side. His stance, that of a leader, the next in line to be chief. The young Ambassador looks at him with both pride and sorrow, for Leboo will soon be leaving him behind.

Next to these is a picture of three Maasai warriors, grandfather, father, and grandson.

On the paneled oak wall behind his desk, hangs an o-rinka and an old, battered 30-06 hunting rifle.

On the other side of the desk is a picture added several years after his son’s death.

Had it not been for Drake Harrington, two of those frames would be empty. The grandson would never have existed. Twelve years before, his daughter had been on vacation and, against all advice, went with several friends into Tijuana.

Being young, believing they were invincible, they ventured into an area that should have been completely off limits. They were having a grand time and congratulating themselves on how brave they were when a masked gang of men stopped the car they were driving. One of the boys was shot in the head, the other wounded, and his daughter and two other girls were kidnapped. They were taken deep into Mexico to be shipped to Africa and sold at a sex slave auction.

While the United State quibbled over the politics and laws about going in, the Ambassador was making other plans. The Mexican government said they would do what they could to find them, but the Ambassador knew it would be too late by then.

Drake and his friends were in Tijuana on vacation after their discharge from the army. Their vacation was almost over, and they were about to return to San Francisco to get serious about starting their investigative business when Drake heard about the abduction. He decided to go in after them. His two buddies, Tom and Bill, plus two other friends they had made while there, thought he was crazy, but never hesitated about going with him.

Drake went in first as point man. He was captured and severely tortured to a degree that no one, even his best friends, ever knew. He was there for two days before the Ambassador’s men joined Tom, Bill, and the others in a rescue. Despite his injuries, Drake would not leave until they had released all the captives that were being held and got them to safety. With the Ambassador’s power and connections, nothing was ever reported about the incident or Drakes’ ordeal.

The Ambassador had seen to it that not only his daughter, but also the rest of the captives were given the best treatment, both physical and mental, that money could buy. She finished school, began a career, married a fine doctor, and had given him a grandson.

That, and other secrets that only the Ambassador knew, had placed Drake and his friends at the top of the whatever I can do for you - I will list, especially Drake. He has been careful not to let his feelings about Drake become known to anyone, not even Drake. That kind of devotion could easily be used as a weapon against him.

A slow smile eases the stress lines around his mouth and eyes as he thinks about the threesome, the moniker given to them in grade school, and their company name, III Hawk Investigations. The boys have used hawk, I, II, and III as code names since Drake was twelve years old.

The boys had been on an all day hike with Drakes’ father and were on their way home when Drake heard a noise coming from a clump of bushes. He went to investigate and found a Swainson hawk, one wing broken, struggling to fly. He gently and carefully wrapped the wounded bird in his jacket and carried it all the way to the car. His dad drove them straight to Dr. Johnston. He had cared for their family pets for years.

The boys went to visit the hawk several times a week. The hawk fully recovered. When the veterinarian thought it was time, he let the boys go with him to release the hawk. They lay on the grass and watched in wonder as the hawk first tried out his wings on a small flight. Then gradually, the hawk increased the length of the flight until he was soaring so high he looked like he was flying among the clouds. They were astounded. Dr. Johnston explained to the boys how the hawk could