“What are you working on?” Hawk said as he pushed his way past Hendridge into the apartment.
Hendridge closed the door. “I’m serious, Mr. Hawk. I am entrenched in this story and don’t have time to be unearthing any more conspiracies at the moment.”
Hawk walked over to the kitchen table, which was covered with pages of notes. He glanced at the computer and scanned the words on the screen.
“This is big,” Hawk said.
“Mr. Hawk, please,” Hendridge said. “Please stop looking at that. And I’m serious when I say that I need you to leave. They’ll kill me if they see me talking to you.”
“Nobody is going to kill you,” Hawk said. “Stop being so paranoid.”
“My paranoia is totally justified. Now will you please leave?”
Hawk glanced up at Hendridge. “What I’ve got is even bigger. Just hear me out, okay?”
Without waiting for an answer, Hawk launched into a truncated version of President Michaels’ plan to get the Federal Reserve Board to relinquish its control and turn it over to him.
Hendridge’s eyes lit up for a moment.
“That’s definitely some Pulitzer-worthy material there, but I’ll need more evidence to substantiate your claims before I start slinging them around in the paper.”
“I can get that for you, but you need to work fast on this before Michaels upends our entire economy and hands the power over to the Russians.”
“The Russians? They’re behind all this?”
“They’re the one pulling the strings right now—and as soon as Michaels green lights the U.S. joining the one world currency movement, the Russians are going to pull the rug out from underneath our entire country. We’ll go from being one of the wealthiest nations to one of the poorest overnight, and we’ll be beholden to the wishes of the Russians.”
“You’re leveling some serious accusations,” Hendridge said. “Are you sure you can get me evidence to prove all of this?”
“Positive,” Hawk said.
“Get it to me as fast as you can and I’ll talk with my editor about cobbling together this story as fast as possible. But I can assure you they’re going to want to move slowly on this. Plenty of legal ramifications if all your allegations aren’t true.”
“I understand. Just push hard to get your editor to run this the moment it’s ready to go.”
Hawk headed toward the door and stopped, spinning around to address Hendridge once more.
“Is everything okay?”
“I’m tired—and I think someone is out to get me.”
Hawk shrugged. “It’s the nature of the business, I suppose.”
“No, I think someone is trying to kill me. I hear strange noises when I’m on the phone. Some of my friends have told me that they’ve been questioned about me by some suits.”
“I feel your pain. Just be vigilant and keep doing what you do. Our freedoms depend upon serious journalists like yourself.”
“Be careful out there.”
“You do the same.”
Hawk exited the apartment and only went a few steps before he heard Hendridge’s deadbolt click behind him.
As he approached the elevators, one of them dinged and doors slid open. A man in a dark suit brushed past Hawk and kept his head down.
“Excuse me,” Hawk said.
The man didn’t look up. Hawk sensed something was wrong.
“Hey, sir,” Hawk said, “I’m talking to you.”
The man glanced over his shoulder at Hawk but kept walking.
Hawk didn’t waste another second. He broke into a dead sprint and hit the man from behind with a flying leap, sending the pair crashing to the ground. Hawk rolled up onto his knees and delivered two ferocious punches to the man’s head. The man scrambled to his feet and kicked Hawk in the chest. On the man’s second kick, Hawk grabbed the man’s foot and spun him around, knocking him off balance and sending him crashing against the wall.
The man then unholstered his gun and warned Hawk to stay put.
Meanwhile, Hendridge opened his door and shouted from down the hall. He clutched a gun and trained it on the man in the suit.
“That’s enough,” Hendridge said. “I suggest you leave right now.”
The agent dropped his guard for a second, just long enough for Hawk to kick the gun out of the man’s hand. After two more punches, Hawk subdued the man, knocking him out cold.
Hawk looked back down the hall at Hendridge.
“Good work,” Hendridge said.
The faint smile on Hawk’s face faded as he noticed another man in a dark suit, who’d just entered the hallway from the stairwell.
“Look out,” Hawk said.
By the time Hendridge turned around, the man was only a few feet away. He shoved Hendridge into his apartment and locked the door behind him. Hawk grabbed the agent’s gun and rushed down the hall. But before Hawk reached the apartment, he heard a single gunshot.
Hawk stood frozen, realizing that if he attempted to break into the apartment, he’d be walking into a kill zone. Instead, he decided to make a quick exit. He wiped his prints off the agent’s gun and placed it in his hands. Hawk then used the stairwell to exit onto the street.
He put on his sunglasses again and pulled his hat down over his eyes.
“Damn you, Michaels,” he muttered to himself.
CHAPTER 31
DISAPPEARING WASN’T HAWK’S FIRST CHOICE when it came to addressing the news that President Michaels had put out a kill order. During his Navy Seal training, he’d learned the finer points of going dark if his situation ever required it. And while he knew what details needed to be attended to in order to achieve a vanishing act, he wasn’t keen on the idea. He’d suggested it but only because it was the only way to make sure Alex and Blunt remained safe.
After the incident at Hendridge’s apartment, Hawk found a consignment shop and purchased some clothes. He needed every advantage he could in avoiding detection by Washington’s vast network of cameras that government law enforcement agencies all had access to. Hawk then spent the rest of the day dirtying up his clothes and changing his appearance.
