Black shook his head. “What happened after we left Potomac Airfield?”
“Randy Wood sent in a special team to work with the FBI,” Blunt said. “The strange thing is they only found one body, and it belonged to General Fortner.”
“What’s the official position on what happened last night?” Hawk asked. “I’m sure any reporter worth his weight in salt will put two and two together after the bombing and the shady FBI dealings.”
“I already thought of that, which is why I gave Camille Youngblood a story about the airplane crash, one that FBI sources verified for her,” Blunt said as he reopened his paper. He pointed to an article on the back page of the metro section and slid it across the table to Hawk.
Hawk read the headline aloud. “DEA takes down Columbian drug lord trying to flee U.S.”
Alex’s eyes widened. “What?”
Hawk read the article for everyone, which detailed how well-known kingpin Hector Diaz was planning on leaving the U.S. with more than seventy-five million in cash in an airplane he’d stolen from Chile. But federal agents caught him as he tried to leave and shot his airplane, resulting in a catastrophe at the end of the Potomac Airfield runway.
“And Camille just ran with it?” Alex asked.
Blunt nodded and tried to suppress a smile. “It was a win-win situation for the bureau. They needed a plausible excuse for the response to the incident at the airport. And they also needed to explain to the Colombian consulate why Diaz was dead and wouldn’t be returning to his homeland. Some agent got a little trigger happy and shot Diaz in the face. A body incinerated in a fire created by jet fuel makes it difficult to assess the cause of death.”
“So Madeline Young is still out there?” Black asked.
“Apparently so,” Blunt said. “She’s been to survival training school and is sufficiently skilled to get out of the country, but she’ll need help if she’s going to stay hidden. If she resurfaces, that’d be a disaster and a black eye on the face of every federal law enforcement agency.”
Black sighed. “What are we gonna do about it?”
“Nothing right now,” Blunt said. “We’ve got other issues to attend to.”
“You think Young is going to let us pursue anything else but her when he finds out that she’s on the lam?” Alex asked.
“I’ll deal with him when that time comes,” Blunt said. “He’s stable but still in intensive care after nearly dying from smoke inhalation.”
“Big Earv is gonna get a medal of honor for saving the president, isn’t he?” Hawk asked.
Blunt smiled big and nodded. “Of course he is. And deservedly so in my opinion. That guy is a national treasure in my book.”
“So, what next?” Hawk asked. “With no Fortner, we’re only left with a name—Falcon Sinclair.”
“By the time Alex gets done picking through his dirty laundry, Sinclair is going to wish he was never born,” Blunt said as he trimmed the end of his cigar. “We might even use Camille Youngblood to turn the screws on him.”
“Whatever it takes,” Alex said.
Blunt chewed on his cigar and stared out the window. “Littleton and Joseph may yet provide us with plenty of information, the kind that can help us get a step ahead and be proactive as opposed to a step behind and very reactive.”
Blunt’s phone buzzed, arresting his attention. He swiped on the screen and read the text message, furrowing his brow as he did.
“What is it?” Alex asked.
“It’s from Randy Wood. He said President Young is stable and alert,” he said.
Hawk eyed Blunt closely. “That’s all it said?”
“No, he asked Wood to pass along a message, requesting that we track down Evana Bahar and bring her to justice.”
Black cocked his head to one side. “Evana Bahar? She’s not even responsible for this. This feels like 9/11 all over again.”
“Is he wrong for wanting that terrorist strung up?” Blunt asked.
Nobody said a word as an awkward silence fell over the room.
“It doesn’t matter,” Blunt said. “She deserves justice as well. And in the meantime, we can hunt down Sinclair.”
“What about Madeline Young?” Alex asked. “Are we just going to let her go free? Two people are dead because of her.”
Blunt sighed. “If she becomes a problem, we will. But in the meantime, let’s focus on the realized threats instead of the potential ones.”
Alex’s mouth gaped. “Doesn’t the president deserve to know that his wife was a traitor?”
Blunt shrugged. “The real question is this: Would he want to know the truth? I’ve experienced all levels of betrayal, and trust me when I say this, sometimes it’s just better to think a person is dead.”
Blunt dismissed the team, leaving him alone in the conference room with just his thoughts. He paced around the room and considered where his team would go from here. Then he glanced at his phone, which buzzed with another text message, this time from a number he didn’t recognize.
He opened the text and dropped the phone almost immediately. It was an image of his niece bound to a chair and screaming for the man with a knife to stop.
“If you’d be so kind to call me back,” the note read. “We need you to do us a favor.”
Blunt slung his phone against the wall and let out a string of expletives. Obsidian was going to go down in flames, even if it was the last thing he did.
THE END
To keep reading in the Brady Hawk series, order the next book DIVIDE AND CONQUER here.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am grateful to so many people who have helped with the creation of this project and the entire Brady Hawk series.
Krystal Wade was a big help in editing this book as always.
I would also like to thank my advance reader team for all their input in improving this book along with all the other
