The two men rolled around, getting in body blows and quick jabs while they knocked over chairs. Black found himself covered in blood as the injured assassin didn’t seem bothered by his gunshot wound, fighting just as fiercely as anyone else Black had ever taken on in close-quarters combat.
In an attempt to end the scuffle, the assassin scrambled toward Black’s weapon. Seeing the scene unfold, Black dove onto the man’s back, pinning him to the ground. Black wrapped his arms around the man’s head and twisted, snapping his neck and ending the threat.
Black panted as he stood and surveyed the carnage in his room. He needed to work quickly to dispose of the bodies before any early morning workers caught him. After pondering how to proceed, Black remembered he’d seen several fishing boats beached on the shore in front of the resort. He wrapped the bodies in bed sheets and shuttled the men downstairs on a luggage cart. Dragging the corpses into a boat, he found a few large rocks and rope. He weighted the bodies down and rowed out to the middle of the sound before sinking the two failed assassins.
Upon returning to his room, Black locked his door again and finished cleaning up the blood off the hardwood floors. When he was satisfied that it wasn’t evident that two men had bled out there, he fell onto the bed and went back to sleep.
His phone rang, waking him up about an hour later. Fortner was on the other end.
“Hello,” Black said.
“Titus Black, I hope I didn’t wake you.”
“Surprised to hear my voice, aren’t you?”
Fortner chuckled. “Pleasantly so.”
“You just tried to have me killed, and you’re laughing about it as if this was something you do in your leisure time. You sicken me.”
“Actually, I was hoping you’d pass the test,” Fortner said. “I really like you, Titus.”
“What kind of sane person arranges a test like that?” Black asked. “I used to have a lot of respect for you as a general, but you’ve lost whatever sense of decency you ever had.”
“If it’s any consolation to you, I would’ve let your sister go if you didn’t survive.”
“Your time will come,” Black said.
“Our time will all come one day. It’s just a matter of when.”
“For you, it will be sooner rather than later.”
“As for you as well,” Fortner said. “Now, regarding the matter of your sister: Will it be sooner or later for her? What will you choose?”
“What makes you ever think I’m going to help you?” Black sneered.
“For all your altruism, I have a difficult time believing you still don’t see the world as it is, which is far more gray than black and white. Embrace the gray, Mr. Black.”
“And what if I decided to help you?”
“For one thing, Laura would live,” Fortner said. “And you’d have a very bright future within Obsidian. I’d make sure you were protected.”
“From what?”
"There's a reckoning coming, and what you choose will have great consequences one way or another, consequences that will have an immediate effect on your sister's life. You must simply decide if are you in or out and deal with the fallout."
“Suppose I agree to help,” Black began, “what will my first assignment be?”
“A simple one, really. I need you to tell me everything that Brady Hawk and the Phoenix Foundation team is doing. Where are they going? Who are they pursuing? What are their next targets? Think you can do that?”
“You want to eliminate Hawk, don’t you?”
“We want him eliminated, yes, but at the time of our choosing. And you might be called upon to do just that. Can you handle that?”
“Of course.”
“So can I count on you?”
“I’m in,” Black said. “You how to reach me.”
He hung up the phone and sighed. While he was relieved that Laura would be spared, he couldn’t help but lament what saving her life meant he would have to do. Black never envisioned having to make such an excruciating decision when he entered this profession, but he never really hesitated.
He wasn’t sure he would ever forgive himself for what he was about to do.
CHAPTER 6
Washington, D.C.
TWO DAYS LATER, the Phoenix Foundation team reassembled in the conference room to discuss next steps for how to proceed with Frank Stone. President Young wanted a ceremony in the White House’s Rose Garden, touting how the U.S. would not be intimidated or bullied by anyone. With a grand display, Young wanted to show off Stone and talk about how the U.S. military was making great strides in beating back the bastions of terror. “Outing terrorists at every turn” was a phrase Young ran on, and he couldn’t wait to show the fruit of employing such tactics. But not everyone was in favor of such a braggadocios claim, particularly since the terrorists always seemed to keep U.S. interests abroad on their heels.
Then there was the matter of how to handle the revelation that Evana Bahar was employing a body double to help her glide in and out of foreign countries with ease. It was a delicate situation for certain with Blunt unsure that the woman could be trusted.
Hawk settled into his seat next to Alex and sifted through an intelligence report on all of the latest Al Fatihin activity. There were rumblings of another strike in the U.S., though there was too much chatter according to Blunt.
“When we capture this much discussion about an attack, it’s almost a sure sign something else is being planned,” Blunt said as he gnawed on his cigar. “It’s a classic distraction tactic that we need to be wary of. When Al Hasib struck our embassy in Kirkuk, all we heard about for weeks was a potential mission taking place in Afghanistan. At the time, we even transferred some of our agents to Kabul to see if we could get a more definitive location. But it was all just one giant
