Make it stop.
“Is this a convention for moronic fanboys?” Hawk asked over the coms.
Alex snickered as they walked.
“I’m sorry,” the man snapped as he turned around. “Did I say something humorous?”
Her expression turned serious as she shook her head. “I don’t find much funny these days.”
“Me either,” the man said. “But Mr. Sinclair is a breath of fresh air, about as big as you’re going to find. He might even make you smile.”
“I doubt that,” Alex said, scowling with a stern expression as she did.
“We’ll soon see.”
They wound around a hallway and into a small green room where Sinclair eased into a spot on the sofa. He accepted a glass of wine from one of the women attending to the guests. Tilting his head back, he closed his eyes for a moment and took a long, deep breath.
“Mr. Sinclair,” the public relations man said as he nudged the Aussie, “those two reporters I told you about are here to conduct a brief interview with you.”
As the man emphasized the word brief, he glared at Sterling and Alex.
“Of course, of course,” Sinclair said, his eyes still closed. When he opened his eyes, he stared strangely at Alex.
“This is Sheila Stanfield from The Atlantic and Nigel Preston from The Guardian,” the man said before stepping away from the area.
Sinclair offered his hand to Alex, who took it and shook enthusiastically. His greeting to Sterling consisted of a subtle nod.
While Alex had been critical of the way the rest of the press corps questioned Sinclair, she felt no need to get hostile in her interview, a concern Sterling expressed in planning for the encounter. She lobbed him some questions about how his ideas were not just shaping the current global society but also pointing history down a path of prosperity. As the words came out of her mouth, she wanted to vomit. Instead, she pasted a smile on her face and did her best to act as if she believed what she was saying.
During the conversation with Sinclair, he did nothing to endear himself to Alex. Most of his responses put his narcissism on full display. His carefully crafted responses sounded like he was more interested in giving soundbites to the judges on the Nobel Peace Prize committee than actually answering what she asked. When the fifteen-minute interview drew to a close, Alex mused how she hated Sinclair more than ever.
The symposium’s public relations manager returned, officially ending the conversation. But Alex had accomplished what she hoped to do, which was simply to shake his hand.
As she and Sterling stood to leave, Sinclair joined them. However, he didn’t last long before he collapsed back onto the couch, wheezing and coughing.
Alex leaned in to help. “Oh, no. What is it, Mr. Sinclair? Are you all right?”
He waved her off, unable to answer Alex amidst a coughing spell. The same two men who’d accompanied Sinclair in Italy rushed over to help their boss to his feet.
“You probably need to get him to a hospital,” she said. “His face is completely flush.”
“Are you a doctor or a nurse?” the media relations man asked.
“I attended many sickly men before I became a journalist,” she lied. “And I can tell you right now that if he doesn’t get to a hospital soon, there could be dire consequences for his health.”
The security detail rushed Sinclair out of the room and down the hall.
Alex watched them leave, suppressing a satisfied smile. After she and Sterling walked down the corridor and entered the lobby, Alex turned on her coms.
“How’d it go?” Hawk asked.
“Time for phase two,” she said.
CHAPTER 17
Undisclosed location
BLUNT STARED INTO DARKNESS, unable to see even the slightest glint of light. He would’ve settled for a scan beam penetrating from behind a closed door down the hall, anything but pitch black. The room was so dark that he began to question whether he was even alive. But hunger pangs and a growing thirst signaled that he was still kicking, even as he recognized the grave danger he was in.
Tired of lying on his lumpy bed, Blunt eased to his feet and groped around the room. The walls felt slick and textured, comprised of large blocks. He could see the stark-white paint on the cinderblocks if he tried hard enough.
After getting a sense of just how tight the space was, he cut through the center of the area and banged his shin on the edge of a cot. He cursed loudly, his voice echoing down the corridor. Frustrated and angry, he sat down to massage his fresh bruise.
Following his arrest by the Secret Service agents at the White House, he was thrown into an SUV before being injected with a sedative. He had no sense of time of day or even what day it was. Had he been out for several minutes? Hours? Days? He couldn’t be sure of anything.
A thousand thoughts flooded his mind as he tried to remain calm.
Will Morgan be okay? What’s going to happen to Hawk and Alex? And Black and Shields?
He worried about many of his other acquaintances, the men and women who served their country with great honor and integrity. Their reputations were about to be leveled if this was truly the beginning of Sinclair’s coup.
They’re clearing the deck, removing all signs of resistance.
The pit in his stomach superseded the hunger. America was teetering on the brink of a disaster, the type that would rewrite the nation’s future—and history, too.
And there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it locked up in a cell.
Blunt staggered to his feet and shuffled in the direction of the bars. With a deep breath, he let out a full-throated scream. His voice echoed into the abyss. If he could’ve seen something, he would’ve punched it.
Blunt sat back down on the cot and waited. He wasn’t sure how much time elapsed before he heard approaching footsteps. Seconds later, a series of dim fluorescent lights flickered to life. They seemed to brighten with
