“Yet here you are, ignoring my advice by spilling the beans to me.”
“The irony isn’t lost on me, but I have to trust some people, though it’s a really short list. And of all those names, you’re the only one who can actually do something about it.”
“Well, we work under the radar, but it’s not like we’re totally invisible. And if we get caught . . .”
Wood shrugged. “Don’t you think it’s worth the risk?”
“That depends on what’s at stake.”
“If the presidency is compromised, our nation’s security is at stake. Forget what those terrorists are doing. We can’t let Obsidian sink its claws into Young.”
“Do want my team to eliminate the first lady?”
“Are you kidding me?” Wood asked. “She’s a national treasure. Aside from the fact that she’s as classy of a lady as you’ll find, she flew fighters in Iraq patrolling the no-fly zone. She’s not someone we want to try to remove with extreme measures.”
“You want to use her then?”
“I want you to use her.”
“Do you have any idea who’s running her?”
Wood shook his head. “We have a hunch, but it’s all speculation at this point. And to be honest, we came across this information by dumb luck. One of our analysts was sifting through some regular offshore deposits and traced them back to Madeline Young.”
“How do you know these payments are related to Obsidian?”
“We don’t for certain, but there is a deep-pockets lobbyist several of our agents believe is connected to Obsidian on some level. Henry Rutherford is a philanthropist by day and lobbyist by night for Wall Street. He maintains a low profile on Capitol Hill, but he is a puppet master, make no mistake about it. And Rutherford and the first lady have had several meetings as of late—and they haven’t been about any of her children’s charities or her STEM for Girls program, according to our sources. They’ve been closed door meetings, which is highly unusual.”
“Sure there’s nothing else going on?”
“No,” Wood said emphatically. “Rutherford isn’t about to get involved romantically with the first lady. He has multiple mistresses. But we’re monitoring him very closely and think we’ve determined another attack will happen soon.”
“That’s what my team has concluded,” Blunt said. “They’re predicting sometime within the next week. But don’t be fooled into thinking this is all about money. It’s ultimately about power. And Obsidian is going to make a power grab for sure.”
“Power and money are one in the same,” Wood said. “But I need your team to back off a little bit.”
“Back off? Right now?” Blunt’s attention was briefly arrested by a text message from Hawk.
“Is everything all right?”
“I’ll deal with it in a minute.”
Wood nodded. “We can’t charge ahead with a wide-sweeping investigation at the moment because we don’t need Rutherford or the first lady to have any reason to be nervous. We need to set a trap so we can see how far up the chain they are and then decide who to eliminate so we can shut down the entire organization.”
“So, do we play a game of poker to decide who gets to tell the president that his wife is on Obsidian’s payroll?”
Wood chuckled. “Is that what it would take to get you to play me again?”
“Well, it’s the only way to guarantee that you would be the one to have to deliver the bad news.”
“I’ll have to come up with another way to get you to play me then because we’re not telling him.”
Blunt furrowed his brow. “He needs to know.”
“I agree, but like I said earlier, I don’t trust any else. Obsidian could have someone in Secret Service who could overhear something or have Young’s office bugged. I’m just not willing to risk it. Right now, our biggest weapon is the element of surprise. If we can navigate these waters stealthily, we should be able to extract more intel out of this.”
Blunt glanced at his phone again as it vibrated on the table. He shook his head and held up the screen so Wood could see it.
“Who is that?” Wood asked.
“That’s Milton Reese, the head of the New York Branch of A Hand Up. And it’s too late now to handle this investigation quietly.”
“Damn it, Blunt. That’s what I get for getting your team involved. A bunch of renegades and rebels who force me to clean up their messes more often than not.”
“Can’t argue with the results.”
“I can in this case because it might just cost us a golden opportunity to start putting together an org chart of this group. Reese has been on our watch list for a while.”
“What am I supposed to tell them?” Blunt asked. “They’ve got Reese tied up, and he’s seen them. Cleaning this up would be like trying to put toothpaste back into the tube.”
“I don’t care how difficult of a task it is. Shut them down now.”
“Okay,” Blunt said. “I’ll take care of it.”
“I’ve gotta run, but I’m counting on you to handle this. Let’s talk soon about the first lady.”
Blunt watched Wood exit through the front door before he texted Hawk back and told him to back off Reese. Hawk quickly responded:
“That’s not what I meant when I asked you how to proceed.”
Blunt grunted and fired back another text:
“Make it seem like you are simply robbing him, not part of some covert ops team affiliated with the government.”
He waited for a few seconds while Hawk typed his reply:
“Too late for that now.”
Blunt tucked his phone in his pocket, choosing not to reply. The damage had already been done. His team would figure out a way, but he didn’t want to know about it. Plausible deniability was his best response when Wood inquired about how his team handled Reese.
CHAPTER 14
New York City
HAWK’S MOUTH GAPED as he read the response from Blunt. Back off? Based on that message alone, Hawk wondered if Blunt had
