“Well, like father, like son. Right?”
“Look, I was looking out for my—for ourbest interests. I even warned Thaxton about this, but he wouldn’t listen. So after I found out that he was murdered, I put together the pieces and followed them to their logical conclusion.”
Hawk chuckled. “Yet, you, Mr. Logical Conclusion, slept with a woman you believed to be a lobbyist without considering for even a moment how you might be compromising yourself? Did logic escape you there?”
“Perhaps,” Thurman said with a mischievous grin “You should’ve seen her—”
“Hey, let’s stay focused here. Why all of a sudden did you return to your senses?”
“Self-preservation. I love Washington. I love my job. I can’t afford to have any of that put in jeopardy. And it would be if Minsky found out that I was having an affair with his wife. I’d either be subject to blackmail myself or end up just like Thaxton.”
“Fine,” Hawk said before blowing out a long breath. “I’ll expedite this for you, but the danger you face is your own doing.”
“I understand, and I’m truly sorry about it all. I cut off communication with my Russian friend as soon as I learned the truth about her identity.”
“Well, I’m not here to blow up your campaign,” Hawk said.
“That’s good because I know how things have a propensity to explode around you.”
“I’ll let you know when it’s done,” Hawk said. “But you shouldn’t worry. Minsky is in a CIA safe house and isn’t going anywhere.”
“Excellent. I’ll be awaiting word from you that it’s finished.”
Hawk left the restaurant with an uneasy feeling in his gut. He didn’t trust Thurman and wondered if there was more to the story that the senator wasn’t sharing.
But Hawk wasn’t completely dismayed over the meeting. He’d bought more time for Alex and himself—and Hawk intended to use every second of it.
CHAPTER 14
AFTER REALIZING MALLORY was going to be working on recovering all the deleted numbers for a while, Alex retreated to The Phoenix Foundation offices to do a little data mining. Blunt had alerted her to the fact that there was plenty of useable information on the files she and Hawk had photographed in Venice, but someone needed to sift through it. And Alex welcomed a break from the grind of the case.
The name Blunt found most intriguing was that of Yuri Kovalchuk, the agricultural equipment magnate. He owned a company named Harvest Master, which incorporated a sickle into its logo. The subtle nod wasn’t lost on Alex, but she wondered how many American farmers realized that Harvest Master was a Russian-based corporation, beguiled by the very Americanized company name.
Kovalchuk knows what he’s doing.
She cloaked her IP address, rerouting it through seventeen different countries before hacking into Harvest Master’s servers. Gleaning plenty of data on shipments that included dates, times, and merchandise, she shut down the portal to avoid getting caught. If anyone attempted to trace her breach, they wouldn’t find her. Alex was a virtual ghost in more ways than one.
Organizing the information into a spreadsheet, she scrolled through the data. After a few minutes, one particular item caught her eye.
Well, now that’s an interesting coincidence.
Before Alex could investigate any further, her phone rang with a call from an unknown number.
“This is Alex,” she said as she answered.
“It’s me,” Mallory said. “I found all the deleted files. Someone manually deleted them.”
“Is that unusual?” Alex asked.
“Yes. In most cases, it’s just a complete wipe from one time to another. But this time somebody systematically eliminated certain entries.”
“Strange how that happened.”
“But that’s not all.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, the phone was rarely used. I know—surprise, surprise. But all of the entries that had been deleted over the past six months were from the same number, except one.”
Alex sighed. “And who did that one belong to?”
“Nobody in particular. It corresponds to a payphone in Rock Creek Park.”
“And guess who lives near that particular park?”
“Let me guess—your top suspect?”
Alex smiled. “I think you could call him that.”
“Well, let me know if you find out anything else.”
Mallory sighed. “Actually, there is something I wanted to tell you about that I found while scanning some closed-circuit footage.”
“Go on.”
“I found some images of two U.S. senators meeting with four Chinese navy admirals. But get this—I researched their official public schedules, and neither one of them mentioned this meeting. Why would they be hiding this?”
“Why don’t you tell me? You’re the NSA analyst. Think about it.”
“I will,” Mallory said.
“Thanks, Mal,” Alex said. “I appreciate your help on this one.”
“Happy to,” Mallory said. “We’ll talk soon.”
Alex hung up and jotted down a few notes on her pad. She was anxious to pass along the news to Hawk, putting on hold her research of Harvest Master.
“How’d your meeting with Thurman go?” Alex asked as Hawk answered his phone.
“It went okay. Thurman is an idiot; that much is clear now.”
She listened as Hawk recounted the details of his conversation with the senator. When finished, she pressed Hawk for an assessment.
“What do you think now?”
“I think Thurman knows more than he’s saying, probably trying to cover his own ass.”
“That’s par for the course in this town.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t like it. We need all the facts, especially if we’re going to off an FSB agent. I don’t mind opening up a can of worms, but I want to know what else is going to be slithering out of them when I do.”
“I’m with you on that. We need to do some more digging into Thurman.”
“Have you heard from Mallory?” Hawk asked.
“She called me back a few minutes ago.”
“And did she find anything?”
“She sure did. There was an untraceable cell number that called at 5:00 a.m. every Monday just like Minsky said.”
“So, that much was true?”
“Yep, but there’s one exception.”
“The Monday before Thaxton
