WASHINGTON FIELD

A CJ Hawk - FBI Thriller

Good Monday morning loyal followers. I mostly write here about the FBI, police, crime and one time culture, (some of you were “meh” on the culture article.) Every now and then I write about a book I’m working on. So here is a preview, and Chapter One of my latest CJ Hawk - FBI Thriller, WASHINGTON FIELD, that drops on September 2. It will be available in eBook, paperback and Audio. You can preorder the eBook now. amzn.to/4kMbvIC

PREVIEW

Zack Wise was a whip smart information technology specialist at the venerable Washington, D.C. lobbying firm Van Ness – Penn Consulting. Their biggest client – the Republican National Committee. When Zack is found dead in an alley after a night of heavy drinking, the Metropolitan D.C. Police are stumped. It looks like a robbery attempt, but his Rolex, cash, and Amex Platinum card are still on him.

Then Van Ness – Penn Consulting discovers their systems were pinged and data potentially exfiltrated. Including financial information that could prove damaging to President Wesley Rogers’ reelection efforts. Van Ness – Penn suspects the People’s Republic of China is responsible. They also suspect Zack had an external hard drive on him when he was shot.

FBI Director James Clark won’t touch the case. He was badly burned the last two times the FBI got involved in investigations this close to a presidential election. And if Wes Rogers’ opponent were to win the presidency, Clark has a shot at Attorney General. Maybe even the Supreme Court.

So, the Assistant Director of the Washington Field Office, Herb Andrews turns to his old squad mate, CJ Hawk who was removed from the rolls of the FBI several years ago for his role in a bad shooting. Hawk is a high-end private investigator now, although why was anybody’s guess. He inherited a hundred million dollars from his father who founded a Washington based global investment firm.

Hawk is running on an off-the-books investigation for Andrews and Washington Field and the list of potential suspects in Zack Wise’s murder multiplies by a factor of four. He finds himself up against a foreign intelligence service, two political parties, the White House, and the seventh floor at FBI Headquarters.

Fans of The Amateur, The Night Agent, and Jack Ryan are going to love CJ Hawk in Washington Field.

CHAPTER ONE

July 21^st

Washington, D.C.

There were two gunshots, although Zack Wise never felt the second one when he fell to the ground like a forty-pound bag of topsoil being dropped by a landscaper. A feeling of intense cold overcame him and the sweat on his forehead evaporated quickly. A pool of blood formed rapidly underneath him because one of the bullets nicked the main artery to his heart on its way through him.

Two hours before, Wise sat alone at the wood paneled bar at the Capital Grille on Pennsylvania Avenue in the shadow, ironically enough, of the U.S. Capitol. Ironic because the Capital Grille was an upscale franchise with several locations across the country. This one however was next to the real Capitol and routinely hosted Congressmen, lobbyists, and other politicos.

At twenty-two, Wise was just getting used to being able to spend money without worrying if he’d have enough the rent at the end of the month. It helped that his employer, Van Ness – Penn Consulting gave him a Platinum Amex card he could use liberally for ‘business development’ purposes.

“Just don’t go crazy with it,” a junior partner warned.

Zack didn’t grow up poor, but his mother was a teacher, his father a corrections officer, and there were three other Wise children in the modest home outside Wheeling, West Virginia. The family had all the necessities, but not a lot else.

Zack paid his way at Marshall University by working two jobs during the summers at eighty hours a week, and twenty hours a week at the dining hall during college. With a degree in Information Technology, he was highly employable when he landed the IT gig at Van Ness that he found online during his senior year.

The K Street consulting firm was heavily involved in Republican lobbying, and they paid Zack more than he was expecting. He had great benefits too. Like the Platinum Amex Card.

He wasn’t officially doing business development tonight, but just buying a drink or striking up a conversation with somebody in a place like the Capital Grille could lead anywhere. Hell, from his perch at the bar he could see the Deputy Director of the CIA entertaining a group from some Middle East country. He recognized her from a recently televised Senate hearing. Zack chuckled to himself that nobody in here was paying for anything with their own money. Including him.

It was late for a weeknight, and he had to be in the office by the usual nine a.m. start time tomorrow. If an IT crisis happened before that, an admin assistant in the office would call his cell phone and he could usually fix it from his apartment by routing into the system from his laptop.

He’d been hitting the cocktails hard lately and knew he had to slow down before it became a problem. He rationalized the drinking because things were not great with his girlfriend Laurie, who was two years younger and was going to be a senior this year at Marshall. With Zack no longer there, she started going to fraternity parties last year then told him she thought they should take a break from each other for a while to see if they were serious.

He watched the Nationals beat the Dodgers on the TV at the bar and decided on one more before he left. It was well after midnight when he walked outside and fired up a Camel Blue. He’d just started smoking but was sure he could quit when he wanted. He knew he shouldn’t, but he took out his phone and called Laurie in Wheeling.

“Zack, I’m sleeping. Why are you calling? I have to work in the morning.”

“Oh, come on,” he giggled. “You’re a nanny for some rich lady. How hard can that be?”

“Harder than you think. You try entertaining a two and four-year-old for ten hours a day. Look, I said we needed a break. Your calling me all the time is not helpful. If this is meant to be, we will both know it. But trying to force things is pushing me away. It feels like you’re trying to control me.”

Laurie Warner grew up on the other side of town than Zack and had a privileged background. Her grandfather started a Ford dealership which her father parlayed into a stable of several other car stores. Zack was the good-looking high school football player, and she looked every bit the cute cheerleader she was when they met during his senior year. She delt with the money issue better than Zack did, even though he was convinced that was behind the soft breakup. He was hoping the money he was now making would even things up between them.

“I really gotta go back to sleep. Maybe let’s talk this weekend, okay?”

“I was thinking of coming home this weekend. Maybe we could go out, just to talk in person,” Wise said.

“I don’t think so. Not yet. I’m not saying never. Just not this weekend, okay?”

She hung up without saying goodbye. The last couple of calls ended with him saying he loved her, to which she would not say it back. She used to say it all the time when they were a couple. He didn’t understand how taking a break from each other was going to end well if she could just stop saying she loved him like that.

He walked north on 7th Street toward Chinatown toward his apartment, north of the Metro Station. He was in a haze and knew he’d had too much to drink. With no warning he was grabbed roughly from behind. It was someone much bigger and stronger than Zack and he was forced into an alley behind the Capital One Arena. It could have been more than one of them, but there was such a hold on him he couldn’t turn his head to look.

“What the hell are you doing? Hey, let go of me. Let go goddamn it!” Zack screamed.

They said nothing. If there were two, one of them shoved a hand hard into his pants pockets, first the front then the back. He squirmed trying to thwart the attack, then screamed the same admonition to leave him alone.

Sure, it was late, but he didn’t think it was that late. It didn’t look like there had been any event at the arena tonight and the Metro was already closed. But there should have been people around. People like him returning to their apartments and condos from dining and drinking.

That was when he got shot.

Bleeding out with his eyes wide open, he saw an image of Laurie smiling at him in her cheerleading uniform after a big come from behind victory back in high school. He thought about going home this weekend.

F.X.

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