Whole Pieces by Ronie Kendig Read Free Book Online Page A

know, though, whether keeping the boy was good or bad. Right?
    What if Thomas Constant made his way to Hawk?
    Oh, man. The dude would probably hand-feed Hawk to Death. Piece by piece.
    But the nudge to look tugged at him, much the way time itself seemed to rip at his sleeves and clothes, his very skin.
    Hawk shot a sidelong glance to the kid. Trusting but scared, the boy watched him. Rolling onto his stomach, Hawk feigned getting back to work. He should be prepared to encounter Constant once he depressed the stem.
    Moonlight bathing the silver watch, Hawk stared down at the etched number 7. Gnawing his inner lip, he wondered what the slick immortal would do to Hawk for stealing the watch, for playing, as it were, with time?
    â€œHaytham, my mom will be scared,” Abda whispered in Pashto. “ I am scared.”
    You and me both, buddy.
    With that, he depressed the timepiece.

8
    Wind pulled and yanked at Hawk as if a tornado rushed in and whisked him away. Spinning, twirling, he kept his gaze on the watch. The only element in the blur of time that did not fragment or change. Smudged and bleeding. That’s the way his body looked. Surroundings whipped into a gray clump of nothingness, he resisted the urge to call out. Fought the pull on his mind. His thoughts.
    Why hadn’t he seen anything yet?
    Too much! Too much!
    Hawk released the stem.
    Silence dropped on him. Only the frantic pace of his breathing and heart rate whooshing in his ears rippled through the night. He stared at the watch.
    Do it right this time.
    Wetting his lips and tasting the paint smeared over his face, Hawk retrained his mind on the watch. On peeking into the future. With a slow depression, time once again whirled.
    Slower, clearer, smoother.
    With it—
    Men rushed them. Shouts scalded the night. A cloud of men crested the hill.
    Heads garbed in turbans, some wearing long brown tunics, some in black, they advanced. Freedom fighters! Who were they attacking, though? This wasn’t the location of Hawk’s team. He spun around, assessing, searching, trying to piece together this crazy-wicked puzzle.
    Dressed in black from head to toe, other men fired back. Fought hand to hand. Hawk caught a glimpse of a patch on the uniform. His pulse jackhammered. SEALs? No way. How could . . . ? Where . . . ?
    Hawk tried to look around through the blur of the hiccup in time. The houses lining the road and abutting the small hill were . . . Wait .
    â€œTaking fire, taking fire,” a SEAL cried into a mic he’d keyed.
    â€œOn your ten!”
    Enshrouded in the haze of time ripped from another point, Hawk instinctively ducked and checked to his left. No one. Just black night.
    â€œTake him!”
    Tat-tat-tat.
    Hawk wondered where he was, if he’d get shot peeking in from the vantage of Constant’s watch. Or was he safe, wrapped in a time that wasn’t?
    Or was it?
    There were SEALs here, watching the same village. With the same mission. How was that possible? Why hadn’t SOCOM or STRATCOM indicated the duplicate nature of the missions? Or did they have different purposes?
    Crazy. Who cared? The SEALs were under attack. Which meant ODA 375 would be mincemeat soon.
    Bullets tore past him. Snagged by the time-stream bubble, they slowed. Hawk’s heart pounded with each report of the guns.
    He looked up, then down. To his left. Trying to get his bearings. Oh, man. The SEALs were positioned to the Green Berets’ twelve o’clock position.
    And Taliban loyal to Tarazai had just found them.
    â€œNo!” He jerked.
    Taut like a rubber band, time snapped back into place. Dropped him back into position with ODA 375. Prone, he gulped adrenaline like air. This was bad. Bad bad bad. Taliban. SEALs. Massacre.
    Three hours left. More than half the time gone, and things weren’t on their way to better. To hell in a handbasket came to mind. Hawk hauled in a breath but felt as if someone had