The Hunter Read Online Free PDF Page B

course, the battery.
    He turned the phone over and pressed on the release button to the backing. Pulling out the battery, he found another, longer sliver of fiber optic, following it to the SIMM chip which stored the information for his phone. They had his number now, of course, and perhaps the number he had dialed. He wasn’t sure whether Jed had pulled the plug quickly enough to escape being traced.
    Hawk cursed softly. His fault. He had let his guard down somehow and could have put Jed in danger.
    He had been in Macedonia for a few months and hadn’t been challenged mentally or physically quite this cleverly till now. Being a friend of the top gangster had given him a measure of freedom that few foreigners here had—he had gone in and out of places that would have gotten other people into trouble with local KLA members.
    This was his first visit to Velesta and he had been warned, even by Dilaver, to be on his guard. And look what had already happened on his first night here. Not only was he attacked at night, in his own bedroom, but he’d been assaulted and compromised. He thought of the note in his pants pocket. Sexually assaulted, he corrected grimly. He was damn lucky it wasn’t more than a note tied to his dick. Except that it was.
    Fuck. Disgusted at his own carelessness, Hawk stared at the pieces of fiber optics, barely visible against the whiteness of the paper, weighing his options. He could get to Jed from another phone; that wasn’t his immediate problem. What he really wanted to do was get out of Dilaver’s crowd for a day and track down this problem and exact revenge. Hell, he was alone in Macedonia. He didn’t have to follow team protocol and wait for instructions for every move.
    What happened last night made it downright personal. Hawk pinched his chin thoughtfully. He was looking forward to making it even more so.

3
    Bradford Sun unclipped his official badge as he exited the UN security offices. He walked at a quick pace, unruffled by the knowing side glances and questioning looks from those outside the meeting who had heard the muffled but obviously heated exchange of words between the head of CIVPOL’s Trafficking and Prostitution Investigation Unit, the operations chief of CIVPOL’s Terrorist Unit, the general accountant of CIVPOL UN funds, and various other department heads.
    “Too many damn heads,” muttered Brad. Speaking too many damn languages, he silently added. The trouble with assigning personnel from different countries to be in one department was that there was no way to achieve the world peace the United Nations hoped for. Too many different opinions, too many ideological motives. Everyone was still working their own agenda to move up the diplomatic rung of their government. After all, no one wanted to be stuck in Macedonia. Not his predecessor, for sure.
    His lips twisted wryly as he punched the elevator button for the garage level. He was the new head of the drug-and sex-trafficking department and technically held quite a bit of power. But he was also considered the new boy in town, and had to be “shown the way.” Words like “protocol” and “procedure” had the same meaning in English, French, and German. He spoke all three languages like a native, and he knew meaningless shit when he heard it.
    He gave a short bark of laughter. Meaningless shit indeed. Four hours of debating whether to take down the biggest piece of human garbage in town, and his hands were tied because three out of five votes were against him. All he needed was one more person on his side, and he’d thought he would get Cezare’s, but something had happened between the meeting and the last time they’d talked at his office. Something had frightened the man badly.
    Brad sighed. Probably a threat. Everyone was living under a threat of some kind in these parts. The man he himself replaced had survived two car bombs during his tenure.
    The elevator doors opened and he stepped into the underground