Hollow Point Read online

  Hollow Point

  Jack Hunter Book 3

  Rawlin Cash

  Copyright © 2020 by Rawlin Cash

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Artwork by CreatorContact.com

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Note

  Prologue

  PART 1 - PEACE

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  PART 2 - WAR

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  PART 3 - BLOOD

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Note

  I want to sincerely thank you for purchasing this book. A lot of time and effort has gone in to its creation and I really do hope you enjoy what I have crafted for you.

  If you have any concerns at all with this copy, if you spot any errors, typos, please let me know by emailing: Rawlin Cash

  This year has affected us all and I truly hope that you find some light enjoyment with this story.

  I hope you and your families stay safe during this turbulent time,

  God bless,

  Rawlin Cash

  Prologue

  December 17, 1994, DMZ, South Korea

  The Bell OH-58 Kiowa helicopter was a single-engine, single-rotor, military helicopter that was primarily used for observation, utility, and direct fire support. The Mast Mounted Sight, or MMS, which resembled a beach ball attached just above the rotor system, gave the aircraft a thermal imaging system, and a laser range finder/designator. These enhancements gave the aircraft additional mission capability for target acquisition and laser designation in day or night, or even in limited visibility and adverse weather scenarios.

  Two Chief Warrant Officers, Davie Hillcock and Miles Sinclair, flew the aircraft into the dark of cold wintery night. It was snowy and a thick layer of frost had clung to the MMS, but not enough that it would have caused any instruments to read faulty. Everything looked good.

  Hillcock and Sinclar were flying a training mission along the Demilitarized Zone, or the DMZ, in South Korea, but their minds were on home. It was almost Christmas.

  "Two days to leave," Hillcock said to Sinclair. "Can't wait to see my little girl again."

  "I can't wait to hook up with Vanessa."

  "You ever gonna settle down?"

  Sinclair laughed. "You're ten years my senior, buddy. I'll slow down when I'm as bald as you."

  "Ah, fuck you."

  The two men chuckled. They'd been stationed at Camp Page in South Korea for two years, and they'd grown close. Shared things with each other that not even their wives knew—they were truly brothers in arms.

  "Fuck, this weather is bad," Sinclair said. “Damn bird is tossing left and right.”

  The forty-two foot long helicopter was flying at 127 mph and a height of 7,000 feet, about a half its service ceiling. Its Rolls-Royce T03-AD-700A turboshaft powerplant engine howled in the dark wind.

  "Is our GPS correct?" Hillcock asked.

  "Why wouldn't it be?"

  "I just thought we'd hear from Camp Page air traffic by now."

  "Yeah, I guess that is strange."

  "You should run a quick systems check."

  Hillcock proceeded to run through the helicopter's diagnostics. Sinclair kept his hands on the cyclic and looked out to the black morass ahead of them.

  Hillcock checked every readout and dial. He would have radioed Camp Page himself, but due to their proximity to North Korean airspace, they had to be careful about all radio transmissions out.

  "What the hell?" Hillcock said.

  "What is it?"

  "Look at the GPS."

  Sinclair looked down at the small GPS screen on the dashboard. "What? That can't be right?"

  "We're four miles into North Korean airspace. Where the hell are you flying us?"

  "I just looked at it. It said we were along the DMZ."

  "Well, now we're not."

  Sinclair violently turned the cyclic control and guided the helicopter back to South Korean airspace. They had to get on the right side of the border. "Explains why we haven't heard from Camp Page."

  Hillcock nodded.

  The helicopter tossed in the violent, turbulent winds. Due to the speed and altitude, it was more prone to pockets of air. It hobbled up and down. Hillcock and Sinclair had to hold on at times to keep themselves steady.

  One of the sensors blared.

  "What the hell is that?" Sinclair asked.

  "Oh, fuck."

  "What is it?"

  "Missile."

  "What?"

  Hillcock hit the button to release flares from the back of the helicopter. If the missile on their trail was heat-seeking, the flares might dissuade it from pursuit.

  The flares worked, but it was too late.

  The surface-to-air missile that had been fired at them exploded too close to the helicopter. The shockwave from the explosion damaged the engines and rotor blades.

  Sinclair vainly tried to regain control, but it was no use. Instead, the helicopter began to spin and descended violently toward the cold earth below.

  "Brace for impact!" Hillcock shouted.

  Sinclair wasn't the kind of guy to give up quickly. He held on to the helicopter's cyclic until they met the cold ground.

  The metal chassis crunched, the windows shattered, but because of Sinclair's efforts, the two men were still alive, albeit barely.

  The rotors spun slowly, digging into the dirty and snowy ground. Bits and pieces of electronic equipment were littered around the crash site. A small fire started inside the cockpit.

  Sinclair shook his head, patted his body to make sure that he hadn't been punctured by anything, and then unbuckled himself from his seat. He checked on Hillcock, who was unconscious, but breathing. Hillcock's head had whacked against the side of the cockpit's wall, and the
re was a gash on his forehead.

  Sinclair unbuckled Hillcock and dragged the injured officer out of the aircraft.

  Outside, the snow raged. It reminded Sinclair of the winter storms in Minnesota when he was young. The kind of storms that meant school would be canceled the next day. He loved those days. He'd spend the nights staring out of his house, watching the flakes build into a thick silence.

  He'd dragged Hillcock as far from the fires of the helicopter as he could manage. He thought briefly about trying to get back inside and trying to radio Camp Page for help, but he knew that the electronics inside would be fried. Instead, he just held on to the hope that someone at Camp Page would recognize that the helicopter's transponder had gone silent and would send help.

  As long as who'd ever fired that missile didn't come looking for them right away, they'd have a chance.

  He waited with Hillcock, holding the man in his arms, trying to keep his body temperature from falling.

  He had an M4 as a side-arm. American-made. 9mm. Standard-issue. If anyone tried to fuck with him, he'd have no choice.

  The M4 was an updated version of the Colt M1911 pistol designed by John Browning, the genius engineer, and inventor. He developed his first firearm at 13 in 1868. Browning has been long regarded as the most successful firearms designer of the 19th and 20th century--he pioneered many modern automatic and semi-automatic firearm designs. Many of which are still in use today.

  Thirty minutes passed, and his teeth began to rattle. He couldn't feel his fingers or his toes. The inclement weather was too intense, too hostile. Hillcock woke up and turned to Sinclair.

  "You should get out of here,” Hillcock said. “Go!”

  "Conserve your strength, you asshole."

  "Go," Hillcock said. "Let me be."

  "You have kids back home," Sinclair said. "You're going to spend Christmas with them."

  "Fuck you, man."

  "Shut up, you bald fuck."

  The two men chuckled.

  The wind howled and fire from the helicopter crackled in the black of the night.

  Voices cut through the darkness.

  "Shit," Sinclair said.

  "Don't shoot back,” Hillcock responded. “They’ll take us alive if we can.”

  The voices grew louder.

  Sinclair aimed his M4 in the direction of the dark. His hand was shaky and insecure.

  “Don’t be a fool,” Hillcock said.

  Sinclair didn't respond.

  Six North Korean soldiers emerged from the darkness. They were dressed in thick, winterized gear and were carrying Type-58 Kalashnikovs, a weapon that could fire more than x hundred rounds per minute.

  "You should leave. Your chances are better out there!”

  "Shut up." Sinclair said. “I can take ‘em.”

  The six North Korean soldiers spotted Sinclar and Hillcock. They approached slowly.

  "Don't move!" Sinclair shouted at them.

  The North Koreans responded with similar aggression in their native language. Their voices were loud. They echoed through the dark and the crackling of the flames.

  "I'll shoot!" Sinclair said. “Stand back!”

  "Stop acting like a cowboy," Hillcock said.

  Sinclair hands shook in the cold. His breaths and voluminous. “One more step forward, and I'll fire!"

  The North Korean soldiers didn't speak English. They looked at each other and nodded. One of them raised their Kalishnikov and fired into the snow close to Sinclair. Puffs of white flakes shot up from the frozen ground.

  A couple the soldiers began to argue. It looked like there was a disagreement of sorts.

  Sinclair kept his steely gaze and pistol aimed at the soldiers.

  The North Korean’s continued to argue. Sinclair was confused.

  “He assholes! Get out of here!” he shouted.

  "Put your pistol down, you dumb fuck!" Hillcock said.

  Sinclair, either too high on adrenaline or ready to die, ignored Hillcock's command. He just stood his ground.

  Hillcock sighed. He knew it wasn’t going to end well.

  The soldiers continued to argue with each other until one of them turned to Sinclair, lifted up his rifle and fired.

  Sinclair dropped to the ground, but not before firing back. His bullets hit one of the soldiers.

  “Sinclair!” Hillcock shouted.

  But it was too late. It was far too late. Sinclair was dead.

  The soldier who’d killed Sinclair turned to his comrade that had been hit. He tried to resuscitate the soldier, but he was gone. He screamed into the night. He turned to Hillcock and was lifted up his rifle, but another soldier stopped him from firing.

  The North Korean soldiers lifted Hillcock and brought him to their vehicle--a transport truck less than a mile away. Hillcock would have been lying if he said that he didn't feel some relief feeling the transport's warmth.

  They drove him into the dark and brought him to the capital in Pyongyang,

  Years later, the US military would refer to the incident as the DMZ disaster. Two dead soldiers, they believed. They never found the bodies, though.

  The North Korean government never took the blame for the helicopter crash or the missing bodies. They never released any evidence. All the US military had was the fault read out from the MMS. The last correspondence with the aircraft said it was well within North Korean territory.

  Hillcock was into a cell in a large military installation and he was forgotten.

  PART 1 - PEACE

  One

  Jack Hunter stared at his reflection. He was drunk, sweating, and in a room in a motel located near Broadway in Nashville. Outside, a light rain pelted the building's corrugated metal siding. It was dark—close to midnight.

  Hunter was holding a pistol to his temple.

  It was a Beretta M9.

  In his head, he began to countdown from ten.

  Ten.

  It'd been five years since the events in Saudi Arabia. During that time, he'd done his best to try to move on. But his mind was broken, shattered by the memory-erasing drugs that the former Director of the CIA, Jeff Hale, had given him.

  Hunter had taken the drugs because he had to do the unthinkable. He had to kill his own men. He had to kill his fellow Praying Mantis division operatives.

  They'd gone bad. A switch had been flipped in their heads and they’d gone on a killing rampage.

  They needed to be stopped.

  Hale had started Mantis years earlier, and he needed to Hunter to clean it up.

  So Hunter did what he had to do.

  He killed men he'd once considered brothers, wiped them from the face of the Earth. If he didn't do it, no one else would have been able to stop them. The CIA had created a legion of monsters, men that they thought they could control, but couldn't.

  There was one exception to the program, however.

  Hunter.

  He'd gone through the same training, had taken the same psyche tests, and been administered the same drugs. Why was he different? Why didn't he break? He didn't know.

  He felt guilty.

  Nine.

  Questions about his training swelled through his head like a bad dream.

  Eight.

  Was it only a matter of time before he snapped? Was it only a matter of time before he went on a killing spree? And who was going to stop him when he did?

  Seven.

  In the motel room beside his, a young couple was screaming at each other. Their shouts could be heard through the thin walls. The woman was accusing the man of cheating on her. He was defending himself but doing a bad job of it.

  Six.

  Hunter pulled slowly down on the trigger. This would be it. It would finally be over. Everything. The pain, the anguish. As he closed his eyes, he saw the face of Chianne—a woman he loved, a woman he'd lost.

  So much of his life had been painful. So much of it sorrow.

  Five.

  After he'd killed the Mantis operatives, he tried to di
sappear. And for some time, he'd thought he'd been able to run away from his demons. But the further he ran, the more he could feel his mind crack. He was slipping into madness.

  Years disappeared.

  Four.

  He spent some time in New Mexico before slowly making his way to Washington state. He couldn't remember what he'd done in either city. All he knew was that at some point he'd stayed in Seattle for six months and developed a bad drinking habit. He was trying to do whatever he had to do to bury his mind, to kill the memories—to tame the demon inside him.

  But he wasn't strong enough.

  The demon was winning.

  He could feel the pull.

  Its fingers were around his throat. Its voice whispering to him, "kill, kill, kill."

  Mantis operatives were poorly treated, and it wasn't like the stuff they did to CIA officers in the movies. No, nothing was ever that clean. A bullet kills a target, but it never stops a war. Mantis operatives were bullets. Their existence was a curse, not a blessing.

  Three.

  Hunter knew the M9 better than he knew his mind. He knew that with just a bit more pressure on the trigger, his messed up brain would be splattered across the motel room wall. He knew that the couple arguing next door would stop. They'd go outside and call the manager. They'd be horrified to learn that a man had ended his life while they were arguing over who cheated on who.