“That seems to be how Evana Bahar has chosen to get a leg up on our intelligence,” Alex said. “She leaves breadcrumbs in one direction only to be lying in wait elsewhere.”
“That’s why I’m somewhat concerned about this body double,” Blunt said. “How do we even know that you weren’t actually talking to Evana Bahar? What if someone switched the DNA records in the computer? Or what if she paid someone to make such a bold claim?”
“I plucked a hair from the brush in her bag just to check myself,” Alex said. “When I got back, I tested it and it didn’t come back a match.”
“What if that was planted?” Blunt asked.
Hawk sighed. “We could play this game all day, but when I looked into her eyes, I saw something I’d never seen in Evana’s—I saw warmth. And you can’t fake that.”
“What about everything else?” Blunt asked. “Did her story check out?”
Alex nodded. “I tasked a CIA field operative in Afghanistan to look into the woman’s claim about her daughter. And according to the report I received back, that was all true. Her husband was a suicide bomber and her daughter was injured in a market bombing and had her leg amputated. I’m not saying it would be impossible, but it’s not likely she could’ve concocted a story like that and convinced so many people to go along with it. Our agent spoke with nearly a dozen people reportedly close to Jahedah, and they all verified her story.”
“What about her brother?” Blunt asked.
“That’s true as well,” Alex said. “She has a brother, Ahmed, who lives next door and has been taking care of Jahedah and her daughter. According to her neighbors, Jahedah’s situation isn’t quite as dire as she made it out to be with Ahmed helping her, but it isn’t rosy. And her daughter’s health is a serious concern.”
“So what do we do?” Black asked. “If we bring the girl to the U.S., that’s inviting all kinds of problems.”
“We’re not inviting anything but an opportunity to demonstrate the goodwill that our country has, that we’re not monsters,” Alex said. “This is why we do what we do. We eliminate evil so that good may flourish.”
Blunt nodded. “Alex is right. Evana Bahar is going to be searching for a backdoor into the U.S. if that intelligence chatter is accurate. But I’m not convinced that it is. Knowing her, she’s got an entirely different agenda and she’s forcing us to allocate our resources to one place so she can roam free in another.”
“Then where?” Alex asked. “What else have we heard?”
"Maybe we need to go speak with Frank Stone again," Hawk said. "He might know something else other than just a meeting with Orlovsky in Istanbul."
“Hawk, go see if you can get anything else out of Stone,” Blunt said. “Anything standard operating procedures might be nice to know too, especially before we venture behind enemy lines.”
Hawk stood and nodded.
“So we’re going to get the girl?” Alex asked.
Blunt nodded. “If Jahedah is doing what she says she’s doing, we need to give her a show of faith. We need her to trust us and for her to know that we care about her before we ask her to do something incredibly difficult.”
“Like what?” Alex asked.
Blunt shrugged. “I’m not sure at this point, but it could be anything from slipping Evana Bahar poison to telling us her next mission location. What happens next with her will determine where we go from here.”
“And when do you want us to retrieve her?” Hawk asked.
“Within three days,” Blunt said. “We must act quickly before she suspects that we aren’t who we claim to be.”
“I’ll make it happen,” Hawk said before he strode out of the room and went to pay Frank Stone a visit at a CIA black site just outside of Washington.
* * *
TITUS BLACK SHIFTED in his seat as he stared at the monitor on the wall behind Blunt’s chair. A map appeared on the screen and zoomed in on Puyuhuapi, Chile.
“Now that the president’s pet project has morphed into something more than just a simple extraction, we need to follow where this is leading us,” Blunt said. “However, I don’t think we can afford to ignore what Obsidian is doing. That organization is working so quickly that the trail might go cold if we stand idly by. And on that note, I want Black to fill us in on what happened in Chile with Fortner.”
“Thanks,” Black said as he stood and walked over to the monitor. “One day I hope to go back to Chile and relax while I’m there, but my hunt for Fortner turned out to be more stressful than I ever imagined.”
“Did you find Fortner?” Alex asked.
Black shook his head. “But trouble found me in the way of a couple of mercenaries who were apparently hunting me. They told me that there was a bounty placed on my head. And while I couldn’t get a name out of them, I figured them to be Obsidian goons.”
“How close of a call was it?” Blunt asked.
“They broke into my room in the middle of the night and ambushed me. Fortunately, I heard the creaking down the hallway and was prepared when they entered. It was a harrowing experience.”
"And you took care of your own cleanup?" Alex asked.
“I always do. They’re both fish food now at the bottom of the channel.”
“But you never heard from Fortner or saw him while you were there?” Blunt asked again.
Black shook his head.
“Damn it,” Blunt said as he slammed his fist on the table. “I thought we had that little weasel this time.”
“I think he had to know I was coming,” Black said.
“What makes you come to that conclusion?” Alex asked.
“I know he had been there because I showed his picture to a bartender one night and he pointed me in the direction of where he said Fortner lived. When I arrived there, the place had been cleared out. Even the animals were gone.”
“Surely
