Australia? Check.
CHAPTER 9
Portree, Isle of Skye
Scotland
BLUNT STARED WIDE-EYED at the heaping plate of breakfast food in front of him. Bacon, scrambled eggs, hash browns, black coffee—Blunt found it all to be perfect. He placed his napkin in his lap and picked up his fork, anticipating what he suspected would be a delightful meal.
“How did you do this, Hawk?” Blunt asked as his agent entered the dining room.
“Is this place safe?” Hawk asked. “I remember what happened here last time.”
“Can you answer my question first and then leave? I simply want to savor every bite. It’s been far too long since I had a breakfast like this. If Texas could knight someone . . .”
Blunt picked up the bottle of hot sauce on the table and grinned.
“You thought of everything, didn’t you?”
Hawk forced a smile. “I figured you needed some comfort food, Texas style.”
“It’s perfect.”
“So, what about your security here?”
Blunt shook his head. “Do you ever listen to me? What don’t you understand about the word leave?”
“I heard you loud and clear, but after what happened the last time we were here.”
“Don’t worry. The house has been sold twice since we were last here. Once to an old friend of mine here who The Chamber would never be able to link us together and then to a shell corporation I created. It’s a non-profit that helps kids. They won’t touch us here.”
“You still didn’t answer my question about the security.”
“It’s been upgraded, state of the art. Now, will you either shut up about all that so I can eat in peace this incredible breakfast you made or go pester someone else?”
Hawk exited the room, where Blunt spent the next ten minutes scarfing down every morsel on the plate. For a few fleeting seconds, he contemplated licking it but decided against it in the off chance that one of the Firestorm team members would walk in and catch him in the act. Ultimately, he didn’t want to endure endless teasing for a momentary pleasure.
“Hawk, I’m done,” Blunt announced loudly.
He stood up and lumbered over to the kitchen sink where he placed his dishes.
“There is no kitchen fairy here,” Alex said, watching him from the doorway. “Those dishes don’t magically float into the dishwasher.”
“That’s not how that works?” Blunt asked with a wink.
“No, it’s not,” Hawk said as he joined them. “And when I’ve made a big meal like I did this morning, I don’t feel like it’s my job to clean everything else up. If you partook of the fruits of my labor, the least you can do is the dishes.”
“My, you’re jumpy today, Hawk,” Blunt said. “I know it’s only eight-thirty in the morning, but do you need a beer?”
Hawk headed straight toward the kitchen table and took a seat. Samuels pulled out the chair next to him and sat down.
“We’re safe here,” Samuels said, giving a reassuring pat on the back to Hawk.
“In this world, we’re never safe,” Hawk said. “There’s always something or someone lurking around the corner. Forgive me for refusing to join in your giant relaxation party, but I’m just anxious to get back out there and put an end to this once and for all.”
Blunt poured himself another cup of coffee and took a seat at the head of the table, opposite of where Alex had settled.
“If you ever think of this job as a task to be finished, you’re never going to be satisfied with your work,” Blunt said.
“Then what’s even the point?” Alex asked. “I mean, even if we are successful in taking down Petrov, does that really matter? Will the one-world currency movement live on after she dies?”
“That’s not something I can answer right now, but I hope to make this less of a hypothetical question and find out exactly what will happen in short order,” Blunt said.
“I think we should still go after Petrov,” Hawk said, tapping the table for emphasis. “She’s the one person holding this whole thing together for The Chamber. If she goes away, so does the momentum for this crazy plan that’s going to either set the U.S. back to the Dark Ages or put us under the thumb of an oppressive leader—and I’m not comfortable with either of those outcomes.”
Blunt’s phone rang and he snatched it up off the table.
“I need to take this,” he said.
Staggering to his feet, Blunt shuffled into the study and shut the door behind him.
“There’s something big happening in Washington right now,” said the man on the other end. “Very big.”
“Slow down, Noah,” Blunt said, determining quickly it was the Vice President, Noah Young. “What’s going on?”
“I just got a call from our mutual Secret Service friend,” Young said. “Apparently, Michaels just slipped his security detail and went down to the Library of Congress for a special meeting. But you won’t believe who he met with.”
“The Russians? The North Koreans?”
“Nothing quite that disturbing from the arena of global politics, but a group that makes meeting with him far more sinister.”
“You got me.”
“The Supreme Court.”
Blunt let out a long slow whistle. “I need more details on this.”
“I wish I had more, but I don’t. All I know is that one of our agents knew Michaels donned a disguise and proclaimed to be a man named George Orwell, using his false identity to book a meeting room at the Library of Congress. The agents found him, but only after the meeting had dispersed. A few minutes later, our mutual contact identified three Supreme Court justices in the building.”
“Perhaps the justices were there for research,” Blunt countered.
“You know how big that place is, which means you know how preposterous those words sound coming out of your mouth.”
“So, what if he did meet with them? What does that prove?” Blunt asked.
“The scuttlebutt around Washington right now is that the Supreme Court is going to agree to listen to a challenge to the Federal Reserve Act of 1913.”
“A law that’s been intact for over a
