“Except for me, of course,” she said. “I know you’d like to see me dead. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to see the look on your face when you realized I survived your attack in Paris. Oh, it would’ve been priceless. But here we are.”
“I don’t know what your end game is, but you need to let him go.”
“Of course—in due time,” she said. “But he’s my insurance. You get me what I want and get me safely out of the country, and I’ll make sure nothing happens to him. If not . . . boom!”
Michaels jumped a little, eliciting a squeal of delight from Petrov.
“This is going to be so much fun,” she said, pulling back Michaels’s blazer and revealing a bomb strapped to him.
Hawk eyed her closely, pondering how quickly he might be able to get a shot off and if it’d be true enough to kill her instantly.
“Now, I know what you’re thinking,” she said. “So, stop. The situation is this: I have a bomb set to detonate here on President Michaels, my once loyal subject who’s become greedy recently. If I don’t get your airplane and make it out of the country and back to where I need to go within the next twenty-four hours, he’s going to die.”
Hawk tightened the grip on his gun and took a deep breath.
“Now, you might be considering killing me, which would be a fair thought at this point,” she said. “However, if I don’t enter the code to kill the bomb in twenty-four hours, he dies. If he tries to remove the bomb, he dies. If he tries to defuse the bomb, he dies. Are you starting to see a trend here? Every heroic act you might have for saving Michaels ends the same way. The only way to make sure the ending is something different is that if you give me what I want and I save his life by giving you the passcode to unlock the bomb. Make sense?”
Hawk nodded slowly.
“So, do we have a deal?”
Michaels furiously shook his head, so much so that Petrov pulled his arm behind his back and twisted it, inflicting more pain.
“No one asked you,” she said as she grit her teeth. “If I don’t get what I want, you die. Is that so difficult for you to understand?”
Michaels calmed down, but he shook his head imperceptibly, his eyes pleading with Hawk to refuse the deal.
Hawk thought for a few seconds. “Okay, I’ll help you escape.”
She smiled. “Excellent choice, Mr. Hawk, and a noble one at that. I’m sure this worthless traitor will appreciate what you did today yet try to put you behind bars tomorrow. That’s just the kind of man you saved.”
Hawk narrowed his eyes. “I know what kind of man he is, but I also know what kind of woman you are. If I were you, I wouldn’t try to claim any moral high ground.”
Petrov shrugged. “How do you Americans say it? ‘To each his own?’ I know who’s the real criminal in this scenario.”
“Let’s go,” Hawk said. “We don’t have much time before this place will be crawling with agents. I’ll have them start refueling the plane.”
Hawk made a call to the airport and asked the crew to have the jet ready so they could take off minutes after he and Petrov arrived.
Petrov led them upstairs to the garage and loaded them into a four-door white sedan. Hawk still had his gun trained on her from his position in the backseat.
“You can drop the gun,” Petrov said. “The only way we’re all getting out of here alive is if I get what I want. Then you can get what you want. See how easy that is?”
Hawk dropped his weapon but kept it pointed in her direction—he was much more discreet about it.
“I can’t believe Alex turned out so well in spite of having you as her mother,” Hawk said.
“Flattery will get you nowhere,” Petrov said. “Hasn’t anyone told you that?”
“Just drive,” Hawk growled.
“Give me your phone,” Petrov said, snapping her fingers.
Hawk handed it to her and watched as she rolled her window down and tossed it outside.
“You won’t be needing that any more,” she said.
Not another word was spoken until they pulled into the executive entrance at Reagan National. She eased through a security gate where the guard waved them through with barely a glance. He saluted Petrov and returned to his post.
“The Chamber has people everywhere,” she said in a matter-of-fact way, almost as if she were bragging. “Every continent, every country. And, yes, before you even ask, that includes Antarctica.”
Once she reached the road that ran behind all the private hangars, she turned around and looked at Hawk.
“Which way to your hangar?”
Hawk pointed left. “Number sixty-five.”
She drove for just over half a mile before stopping in front of hangar number sixty-five. After she parked, she ordered them to get out of the car and then led the trio to the plane. She removed the tape from Michaels’s mouth.
“Is the jet fueled and ready to go?” Petrov asked the captain standing near the steps to the cabin.
“Who is she?” the pilot asked.
“She’s your passenger today,” Hawk answered.
The pilot then realized the man was President Michaels.
“Mr. President,” the captain said, “I’m sorry but I didn’t recognize you at first. Is everything okay?”
Michaels nodded and appeared to force a smile. “Just fine and dandy. Take good care of her now, will you?”
“Yes, sir,” the pilot said. “You bet.”
Within minutes, Petrov gave them the information they needed to file what Hawk suspected was a bogus flight plan. She handed Hawk a phone and gave him instructions for when the pilot would call him with the code to unlock Michaels’s bomb vest. Then Hawk watched the plane taxi on to the runway, carrying Petrov inside.
Michaels turned to Hawk. “I underestimated you.”
Hawk waved off the president. “As much as I would’ve preferred she put a bullet in your head, I couldn’t abandon you. You’re still Commander
