“Actually, she had a change of plans, but she’s trying to get to you as soon as possible. Once she lands here, we’ll make sure she gets right over here to see you.”
“Thank you,” A’isha said. “You’ve both been so kind. I can’t tell you how grateful I am.”
Hawk’s phone buzzed. He glanced at the screen before locking eyes with A’isha.
“We just wanted to stop by and check on you,” Hawk said. “Good luck with your new leg.”
He turned to Alex. “We need to go.”
Once Hawk was in the hallway, he answered the phone.
“Where are you?” Wood asked.
“We’re at Georgetown with A’isha. But we’re about to leave. What’s happening?”
“There’s a report of a woman who looks like Evana wearing a suicide vest who’s roaming Pennsylvania Avenue. Do you want to check it out, or do you want me to send in some of my agents?”
“We’ll take it,” Hawk said. “Text us her last known location and any images you have of her.”
“I’ll have it all to you in a couple minutes,” Wood said before ending the call.
Twenty minutes later, Hawk and Alex parked near the White House and raced to Pennsylvania Avenue. Law enforcement cleared the sidewalk along the street and kept tourists and other visitors from getting close to the famed presidential mansion. Wandering all alone was a woman who faintly resembled Evana Bahar.
“Do you think that’s her?” Alex asked. “You’ve seen her up close more than I have.”
“That woman certainly favors her, but I can’t tell from here. I’m going to need to get a closer look.”
“Did you bring your binoculars?” Alex asked.
“No, I need to get much closer.”
“Seriously? Look at her. She’s clearly crazy. That can’t be her. Not to mention that she’s obviously wearing a vest covered with explosives.”
“You can see that from here?”
“Can’t you?”
“I’m not going off any eyewitness reports until I’ve confirmed it for myself. I know how people are in this day and age. They see a bulge in a person’s pants pocket and think it’s a handgun. When really it’s just a set of car keys.”
“That’s the twenty-first century for you. Everyone is paranoid. You can thank those 9/11 terrorists for that.”
“You stay here,” he said. “I’m moving in for a closer look.”
Hawk moved stealthily toward the woman until he was about fifty meters away from her. The hood draped over her head shrouded her face.
“Evana, what are you doing here?” Hawk called as he crept toward her.
The woman looked up briefly and then put her head back down. She spun around and started to walk the other way.
Hawk pursued the woman as she weaved back and forth along the sidewalk. After a couple minutes, she stopped and Hawk darted closer.
“Evana!” Hawk called.
The woman turned around, and Hawk could see by the wrinkles around the woman’s eyes that she clearly wasn’t the terrorist mastermind.
“She told me you’d call me that,” the woman said as she removed her hood. “She said—”
A bullet ripped through her shoulder before she crumpled to the ground in a heap. Hawk glanced at the woman to determine the direction from where the shot was fired. Given how quickly situations had escalated in the past between Hawk and Evana, he wasn’t about to stick around and see if the woman was merely a distraction. He darted toward a row of trees and took cover behind one of them.
Five minutes passed before he fished his phone out of his pocket and called Alex.
“That’s not Evana,” he said. “And that vest isn’t packed with explosives, not that it matters to that woman any more. She’s bleeding out.”
Alex cursed under her breath, just loud enough for Hawk to hear it.
“My sentiments exactly,” he said. “Let law enforcement know she’s not really a threat. I need to call Wood.”
He hung up and stared at the woman, pitying her.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she said. “You can’t imagine how I feel. It’s what I had to do to eat today.”
He found an image of Evana on his phone and held it up for the woman. “Was this the lady who approached you?”
The woman squinted, trying to see the image, and then nodded. “She paid me fifty bucks to walk around with this thing. It’s made out of cardboard.”
“Are you sure?” Hawk asked.
“It’s just a bunch of cardboard boxes. See for yourself,” she said as she ripped open her coat.
Hawk immediately noticed a countdown mechanism with a screen.
“No!” he yelled as he dove behind a tree.
Before he hit the ground, the vest incinerated the woman. Hawk couldn’t even look. The scene was too gruesome.
His phone rang with a call from Alex.
“Are you all right?” she asked. “You’re not moving.”
“I’m alive,” Hawk said. “But Evana Bahar has to be stopped right now.”
CHAPTER 13
PRESIDENT YOUNG PACED around one of the rooms just off the House floor as he prepared to be introduced for the State of the Union address. Over twenty-four hours had gone by since he learned that Evana Bahar was in Washington. And while he had hoped to include her capture in his speech, she was still on the lam.
Mike Mitchum shifted through several pages of Young’s speech before handing it to him.
“Is this going to accomplish what I want it to?” Young asked.
"I guess that depends," Mitchum said. "We couldn't include anything about the capture of Evana Bahar, but I think your average American will be impressed with the sympathetic tone you strike during this speech. You're going to tell the public that we want freedom and opportunities for everyone all over the world. And sometimes that comes at a great price. Then you conclude by telling them that in the midst of great suffering, hope blossoms. That's when A'isha walks onto the stage and you tell her story. It's going to be a viral moment that captures the attention of the nation."
“Let’s hope so,” Young said. “I’m tired of letting the media
