The Hunter Read Online Free Page A

their leader relaxing back in his chair. “You’re one man here under my protection, Hawk. Never forget that. We don’t like or trust Americans here.”
    “You don’t like or trust Albanians, either, but you do business with them,” Hawk pointed out.
    “Money talks. And it’s all business.”
    “And I’m here to do business, that’s all. I have my own monetary concerns, Dragan. I got you home and as soon as I’m done, I’ll be out of your hair.”
    “You know, that’s what I like about you—everything is all about you, your work and money. You haven’t relaxed once since you helped me get back here. No girls, no drugs, no partying. Don’t you want anything else besides finishing your job?”
    Dilaver’s eyes were curious and challenging. Hawk knew that his refusal to be part of the other man’s carousing party had been the topic of discussion several times. Sorry, he didn’t like young girls. Reluctant young girls, at that.
    “Yeah, I want something,” Hawk said softly.
    “What, my friend? Anything I can get you?”
    “I want to know where the best place is in Macedonia to get a real hamburger.”
    Caught off guard by his answer, Dilaver stared at Hawk in astonishment. “A…what?” Then he laughed. He looked around at his men. “I lost a million dollars and all he thinks of is a hamburger!”
    “Not just any hamburger,” Hawk replied. “I’m jonesing for the real American thing.”
    “You’re insulting Macedonian food, too?” Dilaver accepted a bottle of beer from one of his men. “What’s with some mashed-up meat that looks like a pancake?”
    “It’s a matter of taste, I guess,” Hawk said.
    “Yes, like your…sexual preferences, I suppose.”
    Hawk cocked a brow but didn’t say anything. He wasn’t going to start on his distaste of Dilaver’s toying with very young girls.
    “Either you’re a homosexual, like some of my men have suggested, or maybe you just like something different. You’re a handsome devil, Hawk. Even some of the girls at the kafenas wouldn’t mind servicing you. You have even refused my offer of free females and it’s been a few months. It’s not as if you were shot near the vital parts like I was. A man has needs, you know…real men anyway.”
    Hawk laughed. How ironic that his enemy was echoing his thoughts from the night before. And look what happened when he was busy thinking about his needs. Someone attacked him and…he was still pissed that someone got that close to his naked body. He pushed his anger away. He would deal with that soon enough.
    “No, my friend .” Hawk emphasized the word so that everyone in the room could hear it. He deliberately added a touch of sarcasm in his voice. “I don’t need you to supply me with boys, either. But if any of your men want to try me out, I’d be happy to tear them a new asshole.”
    Dilaver roared with laughter. For the time being, his rage at the loss of revenue had dissipated. “Must be a new American sport. You come up with the funniest lines.” He reverted into heavily accented English. “‘I am happy to tear them a new arsehole.’ I must remember this one. What was the other one? ‘He sucks’…what…?”
    “He sucks canal water,” Hawk said obligingly.
    Dilaver laughed again and repeated the phrase. His amusement and eagerness at collecting catchy clichés would have made him almost likable, if Hawk hadn’t known firsthand the ruthlessness behind the façade.
    What would his team say if they knew that he spent his days teaching the enemy their favorite insults? He thought of Cucumber, the big SEAL who would have a few choice lines of his own about Dilaver and his kind. And Jazz, his best friend, who would have given Dilaver more than a limp, had he known, at the time Hawk ordered him to shoot, about the punch the bastard had landed on his girlfriend’s face. No, none of his SEAL brothers would understand this charade he was playing.
    Life as a covert agent, Hawk was discovering, was