They may have viewed Young as a pushover, but he wasn’t going down without a struggle. If they were going to kill him in the Washington Monument, he was going to make sure it was a mess. No neat beheading. No clean execution. He was going to fight them every step of the way.
Evana recoiled before striking him repeatedly in the back and sides with her cropping stick. She knelt next to him, putting her lips just a few inches from his ear.
“Is this a game to you?” she asked. “Because it’s not to me. This is very serious. Maybe you think this is fun, just like you do when you send drones to obliterate innocent people in my country, orphaning children and ripping families apart. No, you’re going to stand up and take this like a man, though some part of me is certain that you’ll be begging for your life like the gutless coward that you are.”
She drew back and spit on him before kicking him once more, this time in the face.
Young’s whole body ached from the torture. He wasn’t sure he had the stamina to do what she asked. Yet he knew it would take more will to deny her the pleasure than it would to get a quick end to his life. He wasn’t about to grant her any satisfaction.
“Get up,” she said, yanking him up by the back of his collar.
Young staggered to his feet, stumbled forward a few steps, and collapsed again.
“I don’t want to shoot you right here, but I will,” she said. “Now stand up.”
Young moved slowly, partially because he was in so much pain but also because he was hoping that by delaying things that would give someone an opportunity to find him. He groaned as he stood. While he wanted to fall down again and drag out the process, he decided ambling along might be a better approach. As he veered off to the path, Evana laid her shoulder into him, knocking Young back onto the sidewalk.
“I can make this even more painful, you know,” she said. “Keep going.”
Young plodded along toward the entrance to the Washington Monument. With the recent construction finally completed after several years, he realized Evana’s intentions.
Upon reaching the entrance, she swiped an access card in front of the security panel and proceeded to insert a key in the lock. She opened the door and ushered Young inside. But he didn’t move.
Instead, Young stood outside and looked toward the top. “I’m not going,” he said. “I hate heights.”
“Don’t worry,” Evana said. “You won’t be up there for very long.”
Young glanced over at Evana and the other Al Fatihin agents following her and made a break down the hill. With the wind in his face, he shouted with joy, even as he realized his final moment of freedom on Earth might be a brief instance of defiance.
The episode ended quickly when two operatives tackled, skinning up his face as he slid along the walkway.
Evana cracked Young several times behind his knees and then again in his ribs. She continued her torture by grabbing him by his hair and jerking a fistful of it up. He rose to his feet and stumbled back toward the entrance.
“You’re going up there one way or another,” Evana said as she pointed to the top. “Whether you do it consciously or unconsciously is up to you.”
Young dipped his shoulder and exploded up, jamming against the guard on his right. Before the other Al Fatihin terrorist on the left knew what was happening, he took a knock to his shoulder.
Young ran a few feet before crumpling and once again falling face first onto the pavement.
“Like I said, Mr. President, you’re going up to the top one way or another,” she said.
Young felt his cheek sticking to the icy sidewalk. That was the last thing he remembered before Evana kicked him in the head and knocked him out.
CHAPTER 27
HAWK PUMPED HIS ARMS, almost in unison with Black, as they ran toward the Washington Monument. Over the coms, Hawk heard Randy Wood doling out orders to his subordinates and discussing strategy with some other decision makers.
“Alex, let me talk to Wood,” Hawk said. “He doesn’t know Evana like I do.”
“Sure.”
After a few seconds, Wood’s voice boomed over the coms. “What is it, Hawk?”
“You can’t send the cavalry to the Washington Monument.”
“This is the President of the United States,” Wood said. “We need a decisive response to this brazen attack.”
Hawk gasped for breath as he responded. “I understand you’re upset, but if you go after her like this, it’s probably going to end up with Young getting shot—and I know that’s not the goal here.”
“Okay, let’s suppose for a second that you’re in charge,” Wood said. “How would you handle this situation?”
“Covertly, quietly, and quickly. If she wants this event streamed so every television station in the world can show the footage of the president getting murdered, then she’ll do it. Otherwise, I suggest we keep a low profile.”
“How low of a profile are we talking?”
“Let me handle it with Black,” Hawk said. “Let us be the ones to approach her.”
“Are you telling me you don’t think it’s a good idea to have a show of force?”
“Not initially. If she senses that it’s over, she might end it before we have a chance to save the president. Have them waiting in the wings, and when it’s time, you’ll know it.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Wood asked.
“Do you remember when Karif Fazil tried to kill Liam Davenport, England’s Secretary of State for Defense?”
“How could I forget?”
“Well, I think Evana Bahar is going for a dramatic murder, just like Karif Fazil attempted.”
Wood grunted. “It ended well for Davenport, but not for Fazil.”
“Exactly,” Hawk said. “That’s
