War Hawk: A Tucker Wayne Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

passed it over to him. He stared down at a younger picture of himself, grinning goofily, thrusting out his chest, his arm around Jane, who in turn had her arm around a shorter, slender woman with mousy brown hair, wearing black-rimmed eyeglasses. At their feet sat two proud young dogs, Kane and Abel.
    A soft smile rose to his lips, remembering when this picture was taken. Sandy had been a civilian intelligence analyst attached to the 3rd Ranger Battalion out of Fort Benning, Georgia. She had been a frequent part of their gang. Thinking of her now, Tucker remembered her wry sense of humor, her bright laughter. This was another friendship he wished he’d never let slip.
    “What about her?” he asked.
    “She’s gone missing. I hadn’t heard from Sandy for about a month, so I called her mother three days ago. She lives outside Huntsville, up in the mountains. Backwater county. Banjoes, square dancing, moonshine, the works.”
    “Colorful. What did you learn from her?”
    “Not a whole lot, but enough to make me worried.”
    “Go on.”
    Jane took a deep breath. “Sandy had taken a new position about a year and a half ago. Prior to that she was working as an analyst for the DIA.”
    Defense Intelligence Agency .
    “In fact, it was Sandy who helped get me a job with the DIA. We worked alongside each other until she left.”
    “But you still work there.”
    She nodded.
    Tucker knew better than to ask for more details. Jane’s skill set had no doubt landed her work in a classified field.
    Jane continued. “After Sandy left, we stayed in casual touch. E-mails a few times a week. Phone calls a couple times a month. That sort of thing. But for the past several weeks, I sensed something off about her. At first I thought she was just preoccupied, but when I pressed her about it, she kept saying everything was fine.”
    “And it wasn’t.”
    “I could hear something in her voice, especially the last time we talked. She sounded scared.”
    From what Tucker remembered about Sandy, the woman wasn’t one to scare easily. She had steel in her veins.
    “Where was her new job?” he asked.
    “Out at Redstone.”
    Tucker recognized the name. “Redstone Arsenal?”
    She nodded.
    Redstone was a U.S. Army post down in Huntsville, Alabama. It was home to a slew of military commands, mostly involved with the aerospace industry, including the Missile Defense Agency and NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.
    “And her job?”
    “She never said. Maybe couldn’t say. I assume she was hired as some kind of consultant out there. Involved with some highly classified project.”
    “And now she’s gone?” he pressed. “And she left no word with anyone?”
    “According to her mother, Sandy visited her three weeks ago, said she was going to be out of touch for a couple weeks and not to worry. But what struck me as strange was that Sandy also told her mother not to call the base or make any inquiries.”
    “Odd thing for her to say.”
    “I thought so, too.” Jane let that sink in for a moment.
    “If you had to guess,” he asked, “what do you think happened?”
    “Someone took her.”
    Tucker sat straighter, reacting to the certainty in her voice. “What makes you say that?”
    “After speaking to Sandy’s mom, I started making some discreet inquiries, checking on friends of friends. Both hers and mine. I hoped someone else knew something. Instead, I discovered two more of our mutual colleagues have fallen off the face of the earth. But far more disturbing, four others were dead.”
    “Dead?”
    “All in the past month. One of a carbon monoxide leak in his house, another from a heart attack, and two others died in car accidents.”
    Too many for a coincidence .
    “What’s the common denominator among all of you?” he asked. “Did you work on something together? Were you all stationed somewhere?”
    Jane looked into his eyes and said nothing, which was an answer in itself. Tucker knew her well enough to know she was