“Except for me, of course,” she said. “I know you’d like to see me dead. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to see the look on your face when you realized I survived your attack in Paris. Oh, it would’ve been priceless. But here we are.”
“I don’t know what your end game is, but you need to let him go.”
“Of course—in due time,” she said. “But he’s my insurance. You get me what I want and get me safely out of the country, and I’ll make sure nothing happens to him. If not . . . boom!”
Michaels jumped a little, eliciting a squeal of delight from Petrov.
“This is going to be so much fun,” she said, pulling back Michaels’s blazer and revealing a bomb strapped to him.
Hawk eyed her closely, pondering how quickly he might be able to get a shot off and if it’d be true enough to kill her instantly.
“Now, I know what you’re thinking,” she said. “So, stop. The situation is this: I have a bomb set to detonate here on President Michaels, my once loyal subject who’s become greedy recently. If I don’t get your airplane and make it out of the country and back to where I need to go within the next twenty-four hours, he’s going to die.”
Hawk tightened the grip on his gun and took a deep breath.
“Now, you might be considering killing me, which would be a fair thought at this point,” she said. “However, if I don’t enter the code to kill the bomb in twenty-four hours, he dies. If he tries to remove the bomb, he dies. If he tries to defuse the bomb, he dies. Are you starting to see a trend here? Every heroic act you might have for saving Michaels ends the same way. The only way to make sure the ending is something different is that if you give me what I want and I save his life by giving you the passcode to unlock the bomb. Make sense?”
Hawk nodded slowly.
“So, do we have a deal?”
Michaels furiously shook his head, so much so that Petrov pulled his arm behind his back and twisted it, inflicting more pain.
“No one asked you,” she said as she grit her teeth. “If I don’t get what I want, you die. Is that so difficult for you to understand?”
Michaels calmed down, but he shook his head imperceptibly, his eyes pleading with Hawk to refuse the deal.
Hawk thought for a few seconds. “Okay, I’ll help you escape.”
She smiled. “Excellent choice, Mr. Hawk, and a noble one at that. I’m sure this worthless traitor will appreciate what you did today yet try to put you behind bars tomorrow. That’s just the kind of man you saved.”
Hawk narrowed his eyes. “I know what kind of man he is, but I also know what kind of woman you are. If I were you, I wouldn’t try to claim any moral high ground.”
Petrov shrugged. “How do you Americans say it? ‘To each his own?’ I know who’s the real criminal in this scenario.”
“Let’s go,” Hawk said. “We don’t have much time before this place will be crawling with agents. I’ll have them start refueling the plane.”
Hawk made a call to the airport and asked the crew to have the jet ready so they could take off minutes after he and Petrov arrived.
Petrov led them upstairs to the garage and loaded them into a four-door white sedan. Hawk still had his gun trained on her from his position in the backseat.
“You can drop the gun,” Petrov said. “The only way we’re all getting out of here alive is if I get what I want. Then you can get what you want. See how easy that is?”
Hawk dropped his weapon but kept it pointed in her direction—he was much more discreet about it.
“I can’t believe Alex turned out so well in spite of having you as her mother,” Hawk said.
“Flattery will get you nowhere,” Petrov said. “Hasn’t anyone told you that?”
“Just drive,” Hawk growled.
“Give me your phone,” Petrov said, snapping her fingers.
Hawk handed it to her and watched as she rolled her window down and tossed it outside.
“You won’t be needing that any more,” she said.
Not another word was spoken until they pulled into the executive entrance at Reagan National. She eased through a security gate where the guard waved them through with barely a glance. He saluted Petrov and returned to his post.
“The Chamber has people everywhere,” she said in a matter-of-fact way, almost as if she were bragging. “Every continent, every country. And, yes, before you even ask, that includes Antarctica.”
Once she reached the road that ran behind all the private hangars, she turned around and looked at Hawk.
“Which way to your hangar?”
Hawk pointed left. “Number sixty-five.”
She drove for just over half a mile before stopping in front of hangar number sixty-five. After she parked, she ordered them to get out of the car and then led the trio to the plane. She removed the tape from Michaels’s mouth.
“Is the jet fueled and ready to go?” Petrov asked the captain standing near the steps to the cabin.
“Who is she?” the pilot asked.
“She’s your passenger today,” Hawk answered.
The pilot then realized the man was President Michaels.
“Mr. President,” the captain said, “I’m sorry but I didn’t recognize you at first. Is everything okay?”
Michaels nodded and appeared to force a smile. “Just fine and dandy. Take good care of her now, will you?”
“Yes, sir,” the pilot said. “You bet.”
Within minutes, Petrov gave them the information they needed to file what Hawk suspected was a bogus flight plan. She handed Hawk a phone and gave him instructions for when the pilot would call him with the code to unlock Michaels’s bomb vest. Then Hawk watched the plane taxi on to the runway, carrying Petrov inside.
Michaels turned to Hawk. “I underestimated you.”
Hawk waved off the president. “As much as I would’ve preferred she put a bullet in your head, I couldn’t abandon you. You’re still Commander in Chief.”
“And she was playing on your loyalty to your country.”
“If she thought for one second that I had any loyalty to you, she would’ve been sorely mistaken,” Hawk said.
“What’s done is done,” Michaels said.
“To be honest, you’re not done,” Hawk said, pointing to Michaels’s vest. “She could still have a change in heart and let you die.”
“She’ll give us the code,” Michaels said. “I know it.”
“You have a lot more confidence in her than I do. But I guess all we have to do now is wait.”
CHAPTER 41
HAWK CALLED BIG EARV and gave him an update as well as their location so the Secret Service could attend to President Michaels. While the Secret Service was embarrassed they allowed someone to kidnap the president, it wasn’t their fault. Michaels admitted that he ducked his detail in order to settle a score with Petrov. According to his story, she managed to slip out of her bindings and walked out with a shiv pressed into Michaels’s back. After taking a gun off one of the agents, she forced Michaels to drive her out to her old home in the country.
“You had a score to settle with Petrov?” Hawk asked. “What kind of score?”
Michaels sighed and stared at the ground.
“You’re not getting out of this one. I don’t care if you are the President of the United States of America, you need to talk.”
“Kill me now then,” Michaels said, “because I’m not telling you a damn thing.”
“It’s all going to come out, you know,” Hawk said. “Best to be up front with the American people. They’re a forgiving bunch. But try to hide something? You’ll never be respected ever again.”
Michaels turned his back and walked toward a row of seats in the hangar.
“Let me know when the Secret Service arrives.”
Hawk watched as Michaels shuffled away. “Whatever you do, leave Noah Young alone. That man is a patriot.”
Michaels threw his hand in the air, giving Hawk a dismissive wave.
H
awk followed the president.
Michaels turned sharply. “Look, I’m grateful for what you did and I promise to make sure your name is officially cleared, but that’s it. I don’t owe you anything else, including considerations for Young. That will be between us. Got it?”
Hawk nodded, though he disagreed.
* * *
AFTER PRESIDENT MICHAELS LEFT with his security detail, Hawk called Alex and Samuels before leaving for the safe house, filling them in on all the details while driving. Once Hawk arrived, Alex nearly bowled him over when he walked through the door. He gave her a kiss before looking up to see Samuels staring at them.
“Come on, man,” Samuels said. “That’s my sister.”
Hawk smiled and nodded. “Is this going to be awkward for you? Because I can tell you right now that it’s not changing.”
“I think it’s sweet,” Alex said. “I never had a big brother to look out for me like that before.”
“Sweetness aside, you have a choice to either fume in the corner or join us on the couch for a Bollywood movie marathon,” Hawk said.
“Not before I show you something,” Alex said. She tugged on Hawk’s arm, leading him to the kitchen.
Hawk sat next to Alex and craned his neck to see her laptop screen, while Samuels hovered over both of them.
“Now, I’m convinced Petrov set us up with that original flash drive Polat had,” Alex said. “However, he sent Blunt another one in the mail that had a few extra files on them, including some hidden folders I managed to uncover. Apparently, he was being extra careful, unconvinced he could even get this to Blunt without The Chamber finding out.”
“Yet he succeeded,” Hawk said.
“Yes, he did,” Alex said, tapping on the keyboard. “Take a look at this.”
A spreadsheet materialized on the screen that revealed a list of all The Chamber’s properties and holdings. It also listed known secret agents in each country with titles and positions.
“Killing those bankers was nothing,” Hawk said, his jaw going slack.
“Calling what we did the tip of the iceberg is an overstatement,” Samuels said. “More like a pebble in a quarry.”
“Exactly,” Alex said. “But there’s one name in particular I thought you might want to pay attention to.”
She scrolled down and highlighted one row.
“President Michaels,” Hawk said aloud. “I don’t know why that doesn’t surprise me.”
“Makes sense now why he tried to escape the watchful eye of the Secret Service,” Samuels said. “He didn’t want anyone to find out he was a traitor.”
“So, do you think his abduction was real or staged?” Alex asked.
“Oh, it was real,” Hawk said. “Something between them went wrong. Michaels seems hell bent on killing her now, if not out of some sense of remorse, definitely out of a sense of patriotism. I think he’s figured out what her end game is.”
“And what is that?” Samuels asked.
“It’s definitely not about money,” Hawk said. “This spreadsheet shows she’s got more than enough for several lifetimes.”
“She’s making a play for a one-world government,” Alex said. “That’s the only thing that makes sense.”
“And once she holds the keys, all she has to do is hand them off to the Russians and we’re screwed,” Hawk said. “The first step is the currency, but after that, it’s all downhill.”
“What are we gonna do about it then?” Samuels asked.
Hawk smiled. “What do you think? We’re going after her.”
“And thanks to Polat, we have a blueprint for that,” Alex said, tapping a few buttons on her screen to reveal another spreadsheet. “He left us a map of her daily movements and gave us suggested locations where we could ambush her and take her out.”
“Let’s make sure Polat doesn’t die in vain,” Hawk said. “And that reminds me of something.”
“What?” Samuels asked.
“I need to call a certain reporter and thank him for what he did.”
Hawk grabbed Alex’s cell phone and called Lee Hendridge, expressing gratitude for helping clear their names in the general public.
“So, do you have any other stories for me?” Hendridge asked.
“Not yet, but we will have something soon,” Hawk said. “Stay tuned. We’re going to help you win a Pulitzer yet, just you wait.”
Hawk was halfway through relaying his conversation with Hendridge to the team when a knock at the door interrupted them. Samuels rushed to answer it.
“It’s Blunt,” Samuels said as he opened the door.
With a chewed cigar hanging from his lips, Blunt lumbered into the kitchen and took a seat across the table from Hawk and Alex.
“I can’t believe you saved the bastard,” Blunt said. “You should’ve taken her out and let her shoot him.”
Hawk eyed his boss closely. “That’s why I’m the agent you trust,” Hawk said. “If I’d let that happen . . .”
“There are probably worse outcomes,” Blunt began, “but I can’t think of any.”
“That’s not the kind of agent you hired—or the kind of man I am, not any more, anyway.”
“At least you derailed her plan,” Blunt said.
“For the time being,” Alex added. “But it won’t be long before she works to piece things back together and has a chance to push her single currency plan and put everything at risk again.”
“At least now we know where she’s headed,” Blunt said. “No surprises now.”
“So, Petrov kept her word?” Samuels asked.
Blunt sighed. “She did. The pilot relayed the code to free Michaels. But he’s the least of our worries now.”
“Agreed,” Hawk said as he nodded. “We don’t need Vice President Young to give us our next assignment. I think we all know what it’s going to be.”
A wry grin spread across Blunt’s face. “Seek and destroy Katarina Petrov.”
THE END
Keep reading in the Brady Hawk series by pre-ordering "Seek and Destroy" 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 has been a fantastic help in handling the editing of this book, and Dwight Kuhlman has produced another great audio version for your listening pleasure.
I would also like to thank my advance reader team for all their input in improving this book along with all the other readers who have enthusiastically embraced the story of Brady Hawk. Stay tuned ... there's more Brady Hawk coming soon.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
R.J. PATTERSON is an award-winning writer living in southeastern Idaho. He first began his illustrious writing career as a sports journalist, recording his exploits on the soccer fields in England as a young boy. Then when his father told him that people would pay him to watch sports if he would write about what he saw, he went all in. He landed his first writing job at age 15 as a sports writer for a daily newspaper in Orangeburg, S.C. He later attended earned a degree in newspaper journalism from the University of Georgia, where he took a job covering high school sports for the award-winning Athens Banner-Herald and Daily News.
He later became the sports editor of The Valdosta Daily Times before working in the magazine world as an editor and freelance journalist. He has won numerous writing awards, including a national award for his investigative reporting on a sordid tale surrounding an NCAA investigation over the University of Georgia football program.
R.J. enjoys the great outdoors of the Northwest while living there with his wife and three children. He still follows sports closely.
He also loves connecting with readers and would love to hear from you. To stay updated about future projects, connect with him over Facebook or on the interwebs at www.RJPbooks.com a
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Siege
© Copyright 2017 R.J. Patterson
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law.
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
First eBook Edition 2017
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Table of Contents
What Others are Saying about R.J. Patterson
Other titles by R.J. Patterson
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Brady Hawk 08 - Siege Page 17