“Well, you failed,” Blunt said. “And not only did you fail, we failed the American people by releasing a terrorist who’s now far more motivated to strike back at us after behind held captive. He may have been worthless before for his operational knowledge, but he’s certain to be a menace after being reunited with Al Fatihin.”
“Again, I’m sorry, sir,” Black said. “I wish there was something I could do to reverse what’s already happened.”
Blunt ignored Black and turned his steely gaze toward Hawk.
“And then there's you,” Blunt said. “You thought Evana Bahar would just volunteer the information about our mystery man. Need I remind you, she's not running a faux charity anymore. She's the freaking leader of a terrorist cell that's hell-bent on wreaking havoc on U.S. interests.”
“I understand, sir. Convincing her to help us was a long shot, though I did glean some intel from our meeting.”
“What? That’s she’s pregnant? Big deal,” Blunt said, waving his hand dismissively. “We need the kind of information that will lead to the capture of this man if we’re ever going to find out what really happened at the U.N. that night or figure out what Obsidian is planning next.”
Alex stormed into the room and flung a folder onto the table. “Gentlemen, I just solved our little problem. I know who our mystery man is.”
Hawk stared up at his wife, mouth agape. “You figured it out? How in the world did—”
She sat down next to him while the men sifted through the photos spilling out on the table.
“In this day and age, it’s almost impossible to be this off the grid,” she said. “With CCTV cameras everywhere gathering images and collecting them in a centralized database that we share worldwide with other agencies, the chances of someone being this mysterious and never appearing in any stills or videos while moving between countries made me wonder if there was some other way he could’ve subverted the system.”
“And what did you find?” Blunt asked.
“Well, I put this project on the backburner a few days ago, hoping that Hawk would get Evana Bahar to talk. But when that didn’t work, I resumed my research and came across a posting in a dark web chat room where one user was bragging about how slight reconstruction surgery was enough to throw off enough of the data points used in facial recognition software. The poster even listed the easiest places to tweak to fool the system.”
“That’s how you found this guy? On a dark web chat room?” Black asked as he studied one of the photos.
“No, I took his photo and adjusted the suggested points to come up with an old image of the guy and then inserted it back into the system. That's when I came up with this name—Dr. Daniel Becker.”
“Are you sure this is the same guy?” Hawk asked as he held up a picture.
Alex nodded before grabbing the folder and sifting to the last image, which showed Becker in an older photo next to her simulation of him.
“See for yourself,” she said.
“How do you know that you didn't just tweak the image of our mystery man just enough and come up with a spitting image of Becker?” Blunt asked.
“I wondered the same thing until I came across this nugget while doing a little background research on the doc,” she said. “He used to work as a fundraiser with Evana Bahar when he had a practice in London. What are the chances of her knowing the old Dr. Becker and a guy who looked just like the new one?”
“Slim to none,” Hawk said. “This is our guy.”
Alex dropped another folder onto the table. “But that isn’t all. Guess who else Dr. Becker had ties to?”
“Out with it,” Blunt said. “You and Hawk have to stop with these quiz show presentations.”
“Katarina Petrov, the same Katarina that ran The Chamber,” Alex said.
“What does this guy do exactly?” Black asked.
“I’m still a bit mystified as to his relationship with both of these groups since he’s a well-respected doctor, now practicing in Geneva,” Alex said. “His CV reads like some super doctor. You wouldn’t believe the number of times he’s consulted with the World Health Organization. He’s also been the lead doctor on several epidemic cases in Africa and the Middle East. From a legal standpoint, he’s spotless. But I found some loose links between key people with The Chamber and Al Fatihin. Then he’s at the United Nations the day Obsidian attempted to infect the world.”
“Too much smoke not to be fire,” Blunt said. “I agree with this analysis. Great work, Alex.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“This is impressive, how you did this,” Black said. “Have you ever considered a career in espionage?”
“There are days I wish I hadn’t—and then there are days like today,” she said as a big smile spread across her face.
“Amazing, honey,” Hawk said.
“I also figured out why Evana Bahar wasn’t so keen on turning on him,” Alex said. “Apparently, Dr. Becker used some experimental treatment to save Evana’s eldest daughter, who was diagnosed with a rare form of brain cancer at the age of two.”
“When did you find out that she had a daughter?” Hawk asked. “I had no idea she was ever married.”
“According to any official government records, she wasn’t,” Alex said. “But Dr. Becker wrote about working with a woman who ran a charity in London and how he helped cure her daughter. The timeline fits for when she was meeting with him, including several pictures time-stamped before and after the time of this article of the two of them together. And some of them looked rather chummy.”
“Are you suggesting what I think you are?” Blunt asked.
“I’m not saying anything definitively on this, but all the signs point to the two of them having some sort of relationship that extended beyond his help in attracting London’s wealthiest donors to several fundraisers to
