Storming the Kingdom Read Online Free PDF Page A

them. He drove it into Hawk. As Hawk fell back into the wall, the attacker reached down to pick up the lost handgun. Hawk kicked the cart back over the fallen weapon, preventing the man from grabbing it, and once again the cart knocked him off balance. Hawk was surprised at the reflexes the man had as he slid the cart toward Hawk and rushed the door to make a hasty escape.
    After swinging the door open, the attacker stumbled into the hallway, drawing attention with the commotion. Hawk launched himself airborne, sailed through the door, and once again got a grip on the orderly of death. A vicious fist crashed into the side of Hawk’s face. Numbness spread across his cheek, darkness crawled in from the corners of his consciousness, and Hawk let loose the man who had come to kill him.
    As Grayson Hawkes hit his knees, battling to clear his head by shaking it back and forth, cobwebs dissipated. He looked to his right and saw an agitated Juliette speaking to Mitch Renner; both turned toward the activity. Looking back to his left, he saw the man whom he had almost stopped—now racing down the hall, then disappearing around the corner.
    Renner ran past him, followed by additional police officers who were in the hall. Hawk felt Juliette wrap her arm around him to steady him as he stood to his feet and a swarm of doctors and nurses arrived to assist him. Warning bells and alarms began to clang as security systems in the hospital were kicked into high gear. As medical attendants eased Hawk back toward his room, they paused. Blocking their entrance was an overturned cart with a bullet hole decorating it, and next to it on the floor, the sleek black handgun that had fired it.

CHAPTER FIVE
    Seven Days Ago
Night
    H awk sat in the waiting room, staring blankly out the window into the Central Florida night. He became aware of someone holding his hand. He looked down and watched tender circles being drawn by a delicate thumb, graced with a French-manicured thumbnail, steadily caressing him. Tightening his hand on the fingers touching his, he looked over at Kate Young.
    “Hey.” She nestled her head against his shoulder. “Where’ve you been?”
    “Here, I guess.”
    “Oh no, you’ve been sitting here with me, that’s true. But for the last hour, you’ve been staring out the window saying nothing. Your mind has been somewhere else.”
    Hawk breathed deeply as he looked her in the eyes. Those confident green eyes had mesmerized him the first time he had met her and still had that effect on him. Kate Young was one of the most powerful journalists in the world. She was smart, glamorous, and had managed to see Hawk at his best and worst. And they were still together. As reports leaked out that there had been a shooting in Orlando, she had not given the initial reports too much attention. When the sketchy details emerged, her curiosity had been tweaked as she heard the shooting was at a limousine, and she had tried to reach Hawk. While concluding her broadcast from Lake Eola, she received word of a shooting attempt at the hospital; at the same time, Juliette Keaton had called her and told her what had been happening.
    Hawk had to give the police permission to let her in, as she had been herded into an ever-growing media zone outside the hospital. Initially, police thought she was just there to cover the story, but finally one officer—who reportedly knew that Kate and Hawk were a couple because his wife read entertainment magazines—had contacted Mitch Renner, who secured permission from Hawk to let her in. The vast, usually overfilled waiting area had been cleared for the few people who now sat quietly, seated in a tight circle, occasionally speaking in hushed whispers to one another. Police stood guard at every entrance, locking down the area.
    Tim Keaton had arrived to be with Juliette. Tim, like Juliette, was one of Hawk’s closest friends. Jonathan Carlson and his wife, Sally, who had logged a lot of life with the preacher