“What makes you think I want to speak with you?” Petrov asked as Hawk stepped inside and the door closed behind him.
“And hello to you, too,” Hawk said.
“Looking at you makes me sick,” she said as she turned away and stared at the floor.
“Katarina, I work with your daughter every day,” Hawk said, hoping to play on her sympathies. “I can convince her to come down here and meet you if you like. Meeting you would mean a lot to her. She has plenty of unanswered questions.”
Petrov laughed and then glared at him. “Do you think your emotional mind games will work on me? I couldn’t care less about Alex. She was just a means to an end, part of the assignment. That’s how it was and how it always will be.”
“I don’t believe you,” Hawk said. “I’ve seen how you look at her. You have questions too, don’t you?”
She turned away and looked at the wall across from Hawk.
He tried a different approach. “I can make things more comfortable for you in here, maybe get you some time above the surface, outside in the sun. Would you like that?”
“I’m not interested in making any deals with you.”
“Suit yourself. All I want is a way to contact Karif Fazil. After all, he’s the real danger now, not you. Are you going to let him get all the glory while you rot in this prison cell? Why not take him down with you? There’s no need for you to suffer under this weight alone.”
She waved him off. “Even if I told you how to connect with Fazil, he’s too smart for you. He’d know something wasn’t right. I know it sounds crazy, but he’s got a nose for these things. He can just tell when something is wrong.”
“And he’ll know why now? Because you didn’t send him the rest of the payment you promised him for taking out Verge? I’m sure he’s pretty upset at this point.”
“I don’t know what you’re trying to do, but if you want to get me to confess to a crime, you’re going to have to be smarter about it than that. Besides, I’m still alive, aren’t I? And when I get out of here, I’m coming for you.”
“You’re going to wish you died in here if you somehow manage to escape because I can promise you I’m not going to put you back in a cell.”
She laughed. “Is that a threat or a promise?”
“If you don’t want to help me, that’s fine,” Hawk said. “While I can make things more comfortable for you if you assist me, I can also make things more difficult if you don’t. You’ve obviously made your choice.”
Hawk stood and tapped on the door, signaling he was done. He stormed down the hall and asked for the warden to reduce her meal portions and number of showers she could have each week. It was a modest response to what she did, but it was all he had time for.
* * *
HAWK WAS ALMOST BACK to the team’s apartment when his phone buzzed with a call from Alex.
“Don’t worry,” he said as he answered. “I’m on my way back.”
“I’m glad to hear that, but that’s not why I called,” Alex said.
“Good because I’m in a foul mood.”
“Petrov?”
“Yeah, but we’ll talk about it later.”
“Well, hurry back,” she said. “Polat also sent another flash drive through the mail to Blunt, and I started digging through those files.”
“Anything interesting?”
“Yeah, you’re gonna want to see this.”
CHAPTER 39
Undisclosed location
Washington, D.C. area
BLUNT LEAPT TO HIS FEET at the sound of his perimeter alarm beeping. Maintaining a low profile and staying off everyone’s radar wasn’t easy to do in Washington, but he’d managed to do so successfully for longer than he thought possible. But as he glanced as the bank of monitors from the surveillance cameras surrounding his property, he knew his run of good fortune had come to a decisive end. SWAT team members rushed along the outer wall before two of them breached the front gate. Blunt’s gaze darted back and forth among the images, and he counted at least a dozen officers.
Cramming his cigar into his mouth, Blunt snatched his bottle of scotch off the counter and hobbled toward his panic room. He learned his lessons from previous secure hiding spots, having this one built with a discreet exit point a block away. If they managed to break into his panic room, he could seal himself off by ducking into a tunnel and scramble out before they could get the steel-reinforced door open. This time, Blunt had thought of everything. But he’d been around long enough to know no plan was foolproof.
Blunt watched on a laptop from his panic room as officers shouted at one another, systematically clearing each room. Access to the secret hideout came through the back of his closet by pressing a button built into the top of the doorjamb. It wasn’t visible and would give the most thorough agents fits if they were determined to find a way in.
Two SWAT team members slipped into Blunt’s room as he watched them on the video feed. They scoured every corner to uncover any potential hiding spots Blunt might be occupying. After a couple minutes, they left shaking their heads.
“Good,” Blunt said. “You bastards get out of my house.”
Blunt poured himself a glass of scotch in celebration, though he knew his house was burned. He’d have to escape to street level and find a new place, which wouldn’t be easy under the current circumstances.
Blunt’s phone rang with a call from an unknown number. He debated answering it for a fleeting second but knew it could be Hawk or someone else on the team with vital information.
“Hello,” Blunt said.
“I’m surprised you took my call,” President Michaels said.
“I don’t know what you think you’re doing but—”
“I’m the President of the United States. I’ll do whatever the hell I wanna do. And right now, what I
