As a DEA agent, Jeremiah “Hawk” Tate was one of the best at taking down drug traffickers. Then the cartels struck back—and destroyed everything he held dear. Five years later, Hawk has retreated from society and is living a quiet life as a Montana wilderness guide. He’s done with the DEA, done with the criminals, and done with the pain left over from his past. But his past isn’t done with him. When a mysterious woman offers him an enormous amount of money to find her lost brother, Hawk knows he should walk away, but, with a flash of gunfire, he gets pulled back in. Surrounded by old enemies and allies, he must face off with a new player planning to flood the market with a lethal drug. This may be the chance for revenge Hawk never thought he’d get. Revised edition: Previously published as Krokodil, this edition of Cold Fire includes editorial revisions.

Staked out in the Anza-Borrego Desert in the dead of night, young photographer Lake Pawlak is awoken by a clandestine meeting, bearing witness to something she never should have seen. Barely escaping, she turns to the authorities for help, bouncing through the criminal justice system before landing on the doorstep of DEA Special Agent in Charge Mia Diaz. Not yet knowing what, or even who, it was that Pawlak saw, Diaz is forced to call in a favor to Hawk Tate, a man whose story had always served as a cautionary tale in the Administration. Six months before he had emerged from the shadows for the first time in half a decade, managing to simultaneously right a long dormant wrong and confirm that every story ever whispered about him was true. If anybody can keep the girl tucked away and safe long enough for the DEA to investigate, it has to be him. Standing opposite though is a conglomerate spanning from California to Ecuador, their interest aimed at eliminating Pawlak and protecting the empire they have worked so long to build, the breadth of it encompassing most of the greater Los Angeles area. Employing a network of aliases and informants, soldiers and spies, they aim their concentrated energies on finding the unlikely duo as they attempt to stay hidden.

In the middle of a rare mid-April blizzard in eastern Montana, young emergency room doctor Yvonne Endicott steps outside to help a truck that arrives in the middle of night, the occupants appearing desperate, in dire need of aid. Only once she is too far removed from the safety of the building does she realize their true intentions, the entire incident just beyond the scope of the front door cameras, everybody disappearing into a swirling storm of wind and snow. Fielding the call for help is local sheriff Rake Ferris, a man so ingrained in the small community that he knows every person by their first name, takes every offense under his watch as a personal slight. Compounding the effect for him is a personal connection to the young doctor, forcing him to accept that the storm prevents any outside help from arriving and that the only aid he could possibly enlist comes in the form of Hawk Tate, the former DEA agent in town that has been the subject of widespread speculation since his arrival some years before. Both men acting against their better judgment, Ferris and Hawk form an uneasy alliance, digging into the abduction to find a plot that runs much deeper than a simple kidnapping. Fighting against time, the elements, and even each other, they begin a chase that leads them through the booming eastern Montana oil fields, the blossoming drug trade that has taken hold there, and ultimately the power players behind all of it.

WHO WOULD HAVE THE POWER NECESSARY TO FORCE DOWN AN INTERNATIONAL FLIGHT HALFWAY TO ITS DESTINATION? AND WHAT WOULD POSSIBLY BE THEIR GOAL IN DOING SO? The request was simple enough. A former client had booked the fishing trip of a lifetime, a week floating the pristine waters of Patagonia by day and enjoying a luxury cabin by night. The guide he had hired to go with him had backed out at the last second and he was hoping Hawk Tate might be able to fill in. Still weeks away from the start of the Yellowstone season, and never one to shy away from one of the premier fishing spots in the world or a hefty payday, Hawk agrees. What neither he nor his client could have possibly known was that at that moment in Venezuela, a presidential primary was just heating up. A campaign that was already plenty contentious, it reaches a fevered pitch when anti-American rhetoric is brought to the fore, complete with burning flags and spewing hostility. Halfway to their destination, the flight Hawk and his friend are on is forced down into Caracas, thrusting them into the middle of an international situation. A situation that fast goes terribly awry, forcing Hawk back into a life he has so desperately tried to leave behind…

HAWK TATE IS BACK IN HIS NEWEST ADVENTURE! Six years. Six long years have passed since the tragedy that took Hawk Tate’s wife and daughter. Ended his career with the DEA. Sent him into self-imposed exile, living and working in the rugged terrains of Yellowstone Park. Since he heard the voice on the other end of the line. The last time the two spoke, things didn’t end well. It was made clear that the blame for the fate of Hawk’s family was placed squarely on him, that as far as the caller was concerned he had suffered the same ending. But now, after all this time, something has happened, something strong enough to make them reach out, asking for his help. Something strong enough to strike to the core of who Hawk is, once more beckoning him out of the shadows…

The night was supposed to be a celebration. The culmination of another successful season for the guide service Hawk Tate and his business partner, Kaylan Quick, run together. A joyous occasion that saw them eat, drink, and toast the passing of another year. And ultimately ended with one of them in the hospital, both only narrowly escaping with their lives. At the same time, five hundred miles to the west, Hawk’s former DEA teammate Shawn Martin and his wife are feeling equally festive. Back from a weeklong business trip, they put the children to bed and slip outside, hoping to enjoy some champagne and time together in the hot tub. A plan that ends in ways neither of them could have ever imagined. After years of working throughout Central and South America, targeting some of the largest drug runners in the world, the coordination of the events is too much to be coincidence. Someone is coming after their team, looking to right some perceived wrong. Shocked and confused, Hawk is forced to plunge back into the life he left six years before. Relying on friends new and old, he begins to unravel what is happening, his hunt taking him across the western half of the United States in search of an answer that is much, much closer to home that he would have ever thought possible…

Knife fights are never what they look like in the movies. They aren’t a match between two men both lowered into crouches, each jabbing tentatively at the other. In an actual confrontation, people get cut. There was no way to avoid it. A war of attrition predicated on trading shots. Calculated real-time risk assessment. A maxim I learned many times over the years, bearing more than a few scars to prove as much. One I was all too happy to embrace again now. For the past year, Hawk Tate lived in a perpetual state of dread over when the phone might ring. A call stemming from his actions just north of the border many months before, resulting in a marker owed to a certain government agency. An organization that will not be refused, and always comes to collect their debts. A message from an unknown sender arrives on his work answering machine one Sunday morning. An individual with shared history needing help of a vastly different nature, and Hawk can’t say no. Not to Lake Pawlak, someone he first met when he was tasked with protecting her from an international cartel three years prior. Certainly not to Savanah Vinson, Lake’s friend and neighbor, and the reason Lake comes to seek Hawk’s help. Savanah, while fighting to provide for her and her young sister after the death of their parents, went missing two nights prior with nothing but a fraudulent text message to explain her sudden disappearance. Despite a litany of concerns, Hawk agrees to return to Los Angeles with his friend, embarking on a hunt that plunges him into a world he barely knew existed. Full immersion into social media influencing and launch parties. Southern California nightlife, online message boards, and international politics. A growing web far surpassing anything he understands, forcing him to rely on contacts and acquaintances new and old—including the very people he fought to avoid for so long...

“You want to go to the Zone of Death? Now?” I asked, my brows rising in disbelief. “Agent Rowe, I don’t care if the damn president is holed up in that cabin, you’re not getting there tonight.” Two years ago, rookie ATF agent Harper Rowe witnessed the death of her partner and mentor in a fiery explosion at the headquarters of a man they’d been investigating. The start of what became an obsession, tracking the man she held responsible for six months before finally apprehending him. The first major score of her career, elevating her to a full-blown agent and providing some modicum of justice for her fallen friend. Accountability that lasted until the prison transport van was hijacked three weeks ago, releasing the murderer and seven other criminals back onto the streets, renewing the fixation Rowe experienced so long ago. Total focus meaning that when a rumor was floated through the detention center where the prisoner was held that he might be hiding in one of a few cabins found in a sliver of Yellowstone Park beyond the jurisdictional reach of any law enforcement agency, she shows up on Hawk Tate’s doorstep asking for his help. Aid he only begrudgingly extends, culminating in a violent blast eerily similar to the one from years before. Total destruction that claims one life and just narrowly misses taking both of theirs. A trap that becomes the inadvertent start of a partnership between Hawk and Rowe that sends them both careening across the Pacific Northwest. A mad dash to uncover who was behind the attempted assassination, revealing layers and connections going back years, connecting to prior relationships and experiences both will need to draw from if they are to make it out alive...

“You know how when people show up at an emergency room, they’re admitted based on severity? Someone with the sniffles gets told to wait in the corner while a bullet wound gets rushed into surgery?” Tilting my head back in understanding, I replied, “I take it rainbow fentanyl is a bullet wound?” “Rainbow fentanyl is a shotgun blast to the chest.” When Hawk Tate went to bed the night before, he took the massive winter squall raging along the western front of the Rocky Mountain range as a sign the winter tour of Yellowstone Park scheduled for the next morning wasn’t meant to be. What he had no way of knowing was that while he was safe in his bed, a small plane was passing high overhead. A vessel en route from Seattle to Denver, with no choice but to try and push through. A doomed effort, forcing them down into the most remote part of the park with cargo that many parties will do anything to recover. Including kidnapping Hawk and his partner and demanding they take them to the crash site. Heavily outnumbered, and working under a dwindling timeframe, Hawk is forced to lead a race deep into the most isolated wilderness in the continental United States. A fight for survival, pitting him not just against the crew holding them captive, but the raw savagery of the elements. A battle against both man and nature, requiring every bit of experience amassed in both his time as a guide and as a DEA agent long before...