Hellfire: A Suspense Thriller (A Hawk Tate Novel Book 4) Read online

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  Praise for the Reed & Billie Series by Dustin Stevens:

  Must love dogs. Great story and great characters. I hope there will be many more about Reed and Billie. It took a while for me to figure out the why, but I like a good mystery and this is one. Thanks again Mr. Stevens. I look forward to reading the next one. – Amazon Customer

  Thrillers are some of my favorite reads because I love to be pulled into a story and through intense situations, all in the safety of my own home. I've read some pretty good ones lately and can now add to that list author Dustin Stevens' "The Boat Man". The story of Detective Reed Mattox, who is attempting to lay low after the death of his partner, yet is pulled into a pretty intense serial murder investigation. The killer is called The Boat Man and is name after Charon from Greek mythology, who carries souls across the rivers Styx into the world of the dead. This is essentially a story of vigilante justice and the mystery involved is a very good one. I found the read to be both intense and very enjoyable. Would definitely recommend and I now plan on checking out some of this author's other novels. – Top 500 Amazon Reviewer

  One of the best books I have read since getting my Kindle. The book is very suspenseful while dealing with a subject that has generated a great deal of controversy through the years. While reading the book there is a definite struggle between your heart and your brain over how you should be reacting to the events in the book. I wish every book I read was close to the quality I found in this book. – Kindle Customer

  Best book I've read in a long time and I read for hours every night. It was so good to read a police thriller without the main character being "saved" from himself by some hot woman. Fantastic character development and being a dog lover, loved that he is K-9 cop. The book held my attention and I didn't figure out what was going on until the end. I read so much that I rarely leave reviews but I want the author to know how much I enjoyed his work. I highly recommend this book. – Amazon Customer

  It certainly was a Thriller. I was intrigued by the complexity of sub-plots, the difficulties experienced by Maddox just trying to do his job; trying to do the right thing. Because doing the right thing is all we have to define our character once the cards are dealt. And in what was left of The Boat Man's mind he believed in his cause, too. First exposure to this author's excellent, engrossing work of art. – Amazon Reviewer

  I had never put much thought into the work life of highly-trained military and police dogs, and found it quite fascinating. Billie, along with the human she has trained to supply her with food, was an interesting character. The most interesting character was the Boat Man himself, both because of what he was doing and why and how he was doing it. It was impossible not to feel empathy for him. There were several other interesting people who helped make this book very readable. – Kindle Reviewer

  Praise for work written as T.R. Kohler:

  The twist and turns the writer uses keeps the reader on the edge of their seat. I love the way the characters are revealed. I also love the way the reader is allowed to follow all the characters. A book I would highly recommend. – Amazon Customer

  5 Stars ! Well done, well written. Great character development and suspense. Look forward to more by T.R. Kohler. – Kindle Reader

  Very well written and interesting plot. Making a clear statement about the misguided actions of a nation poignant. Forgoing the standard parades and eternal gratefulness of the nation is another unique touch. Thank you T.R. Kohler – Kindle Unlimited Reviewer

  Just finished 'Shoot to Wound' virtually in one sitting. It's that sort of novel so be prepared. Well drawn characters, another vengeful veteran and a clean writing style that is easy to read. Highly recommend. – Kindle Customer

  To me the mark of an excellent thriller writer is me having my idea of who the REALLY bad guy (because even some of the "good" guys are a bit bad sometimes) and getting to the end and being really surprised. This is that kind of author and this is that book. T. R. had me guessing the whole way through and just when I had it figured out - BAM! - I was wrong. Way wrong. – Amazon Reviewer

  Other works by Dustin Stevens:

  The Subway

  One Last Day

  The Debt

  Going Viral

  Quarterback

  Scars and Stars

  Catastrophic

  21 Hours

  Ohana

  Be My Eyes

  Twelve

  Liberation Day

  Just a Game

  Ink

  Four

  The Zoo Crew Novels:

  Moonblink

  The Glue Guy

  Tracer

  Dead Peasants

  The Zoo Crew

  The Hawk Tate Novels:

  Fire and Ice

  Cover Fire

  Cold Fire

  The Reed & Billie Novels:

  Justice

  The Partnership

  The Kid

  The Good Son

  The Boat Man

  Works Written as T.R. Kohler:

  The Ring

  Shoot to Wound

  Peeping Thoms

  Hellfire

  A Hawk Tate Novel

  Dustin Stevens

  Hellfire, A Hawk Tate Novel

  Copyright © 2018, Dustin Stevens

  Cover Art and Design: Paramita Bhattacharjee, www.creativeparamita.com

  Warning: All rights reserved. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work, in whole or part, in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, is illegal and forbidden, without the written permission of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Characters, settings, names, and occurrences are a product of the author’s imagination and bear no resemblance to any actual person, living or dead, places or settings, and/or occurrences. Any incidences of resemblance are purely coincidental.

  Truth, at the wrong time, can be dangerous.

  -Michael Ondaatje

  Remember not only to say the right thing in the right

  place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid

  the wrong thing at the tempting moment.

  -Benjamin Franklin

  My father had turned the engine off and taken the keys with him, a conditioned response performed without the slightest bit of forethought.

  Pull to a stop along the shoulder. Turn off the ignition. Remove the loose tangle of metal and shove it in his pocket as he exited.

  Just from that one simple open-and-close of the door, I could feel a blast of cold air push inside the car. From the passenger seat, I could even see the loose collection of snowflakes that had sauntered in, settling on the indented cushion in front of the steering wheel.

  And I could feel the temperature inside the car plummeting with each passing moment.

  Framed in the jagged cone of light from the single overhead stanchion alongside the road, the small sedan he had stopped to help was plainly visible. No more than a foot off the side of the highway, it was dark in color, the rear flashers winking at me in even intervals.

  Stooped alongside it was a single figure, their form masked from view by the swirl of bulky clothing enveloping them. Moving in slow, stilted motions, the person was going about the unenviable task of attempting to change a flat tire.

  A task that was being made much more difficult by the elements.

  A job that they might never have completed had my father not decided to stop.

  As a boy of ele
ven, I remember not being able to fathom such a gesture. The weather outside was abysmal, growing worse by the moment. Our own car was in dire need of new tires, not exactly equipped for the storm.

  Long before the days of cell phones, we were already late getting home, my mother no doubt terrified of what might have befallen us.

  Of course, my father must have already known all that and a hundred other reasons why we should have kept going.

  Not that a single one stopped him from doing it anyway.

  Start to finish, the endeavor took more than twenty minutes. Under optimal conditions, I’d seen him change a flat in less than half that, but given everything going on, I’m willing to bet the swap was seen as a success.

  By the time he was finished, the front windshield had frosted over, blocking my view. I was starting to feel a chill that resonated clear to the bone, meaning I couldn’t even imagine how he must have been feeling as he wrenched the door open and swung inside.

  Nor would I ever find out, as not once did he say a word about it. Instead, he merely brushed the collection of flakes from his coat and turned the heat up high, holding his exposed fingers to the vents.

  Not until the flesh was wet with snowmelt and bright pink in color did he put the car in drive and start away.

  By then, the car he had stopped to help had already done the same.

  “Who was that, Dad?” I remember asking as we inched our way forward in the storm.

  “A nice lady named Paula.”

  “Oh,” I said. “So you knew her?”

  “Not before tonight,” he answered.

  Again, as a child of that age, what had taken place was borderline incomprehensible. “So then, why...?”

  “Sometimes in life, we do things simply because there’s nobody else around to do them.”

  Not once did he even look my way, nor did we ever speak of it again after that night, but I’ll be damned if it wasn’t a story that resonated with me in a way he could have never intended.

  Or maybe he did...

  Part I

  Chapter One

  Edgar Belmonte was never much of a football fan. Despite it being known as the most beautiful sport in the world, despite it being viewed as the official pastime of Venezuela – the country he was now campaigning to become the leader of – the game had never really done it for him.

  A heavy-set child, he had not cared for the constant running. It made it impossible to participate in, and not much more fun to watch.

  If he was going to devote two or three hours to something, he wanted there to be a lot more action than one or two goals.

  Some might call such a thing an attention deficit issue. To him, it was merely a matter of priorities.

  Now a grown man in his forties, he still didn’t particularly care for the game. Gone was any of the baby fat that had dogged him through his youth. In its stead was a body that was fit and trim, now proudly displayed by the Armani suit that was cut to perfectly mirror his shape.

  Still, some preferences are established in youth, and his disdain for the sport was one that would stay with him through the end of his days.

  But that still didn’t change the fact that football stadiums could come in quite handy from time to time.

  One such instance being on nights like this, when more than thirty thousand people were crammed tight into the space, all waiting for him to take his place before the microphone.

  Tucked away in the underbelly of the structure, Belmonte and his team had acquired the home team locker room for the evening. A palatial area more than sixty yards in length, it was more than enough space for the tiny assemblage of people.

  All dressed in dark suits and matching ties, they were a harsh contrast to the blue-and-green color pattern around them, every surface capable of holding paint covered in the team colors.

  “This is fantastic,” Giselle Ruiz said. Standing in the center of the room, her feet were set wide, one on either side of the dragon emblazoned on the carpet. “I can feel the vibrations of the crowd rising up through the floor.”

  Standing perpendicular to her a few feet away, Chief of Staff Hector Ramon placed his hands out to either side, mimicking her pose. “Just wait until Edgar takes his place out there. This whole damn place will be moving.”

  From across the room, Belmonte’s only response was a thin smile, his lips pressed tight together. Tonight had been a long time coming. There would certainly be much more to do thereafter.

  But it was a turning point for sure. A spot that schoolchildren across the countryside would one day read about in textbooks.

  The night that a hero came forward, and Venezuelans moved toward finally taking back what was theirs.

  The preparations for the night had been in motion since the start of the campaign a month prior, though the big surprise they had in store was something they had thrown together just a few days before. The brainchild of Ruiz, Ramon, and himself, it was something so bold that it would either submarine them or catapult them into the stratosphere.

  No middle ground whatsoever.

  Belmonte was betting everything he had on the latter.

  Raising a bottle of water to his lips, he asked, “How much time do we have?”

  At the sound of his voice, any hint of side discussion bled away. Every head turned in his direction.

  “You go on in sixteen minutes, sir,” Ruiz said.

  “And how many people do we have out there right now?”

  “There are still about a thousand waiting to file in from outside,” Ramon answered. “They should all be in place in time.”

  Belmonte nodded. Tonight would be one of the most photographed and talked about in his nation’s history. It was imperative that every image showed a full stadium behind him.

  Sixteen minutes would be more than enough time to ensure that happened.

  Chapter Two

  The feed coming in was grainy and distorted. It jumped every few moments, reminding the people around the table of being inside a darkened room with a strobe light going at full capacity.

  Brief pockets of darkness interspersed with snippets of light, each offset enough that things seemed to be jumping ahead instead of moving in smooth motion.

  “Is this the best we can do?” Charles Vance asked from the head of the table. Despite the late hour, he was still wearing his full suit, the navy blue material free of wrinkles. With his chair twisted sideways, the heel of one polished wingtip rested on the corner of the table.

  As Special Director for South American Operations, there was plenty on Vance’s plate to keep him working ninety hours a week or more. In the previous year, the situation in Venezuela had escalated to a point that a country that had earned five percent of his attention when he started was now demanding almost a full day a week.

  This tonight was just the latest example. One more in what had been an interminable slog through the sham known as election season in that part of the world.

  “Let me see what I can do, sir,” a young man in the corner said. His age alone would have been enough to demarcate him as the tech wizard in the room. The shaggy hair and eyebrow ring he wore drove home that assumption.

  Despite all that, he was still wearing a suit. It was ill-fitting and the tie was loosened, but it was a suit.

  Vance demanded as much from every person in his employee. Regardless of gender or time of day. Regardless of location.

  If they were on the clock, they would look the part.

  The room was one of several tucked away in the bowels of the Central Intelligence Agency spread outside of the nation’s capital. Buried beneath three floors of concrete and soil, no more than a handful of people even knew the meeting was taking place.

  Of those, most were present, a trio of people seated around the table before Vance. On his right were Peter Reiff and Dan Andrews. Both in the same age bracket as Vance, they had all started around the same time together.

  These two had been brought in by him personally upon ascendin
g to the Special Director seat.

  With brown hair and olive skin, Reiff still held the ability to catch the stray glance from a passing female. A fact he was quite proud of, his suit was cut to enhance the effect.

  Beside him, Andrews was different in every way, his extra weight causing him to sweat profusely. Taken together, his suit had been reduced to a rumpled mess, his thinning hair plastered to his head.

  On the opposite side of the table sat Hannah Rowe, a woman several years their senior. In her early fifties, already her hair was trending toward silver, lines framing her eyes and lips.

  Vance might have had to appoint a few females when taking his new position to keep the powers that be in Human Resources happy, but that didn’t mean he had to bring on someone that would be a distraction.

  Or a temptation.

  “Who do we have on the ground there?” Andrews asked.

  Vance glanced down to the printout before him but was cut short by Rowe getting there first.

  “Ramirez,” she said. Nothing more.

  Cocking his head back a few inches, Andrews looked to Reiff in his periphery. “Ramirez. Which one is he again?”

  Again, Vance began to respond.

  Once more, he was cut short, the pattern fast growing to become an annoyance.

  “She is Manuela Ramirez from Miami,” Rowe said. “Thirty-one years old, she is posing as a local graduate student.”

  “Oh, right,” Andrews said, pretending to understand completely.

  It was clear from his tone and his expression that he didn’t.

  “She has joined up with a group calling themselves Libertate Loco,” Vance added. “Just another nameless faceless young adult getting swept up in the movement.”