Page 28 of Hawk on the Hunt

“That would make the current Speaker of the House the next president,” Dylan mused. “Who’s the new Speaker?”

“Johnson,” Fox said. “Fuck!”

“You think he’s James Johnson? Polo?” Dylan asked. It would all make sense then.

“Nah,” Michelle said. “I thought his first name is Philip.”

Fox tapped on his tablet. “Actually, it’s J. Philip Johnson.”

“What’s the J stand for?” Ace asked.

“Give me a sec.” It went silent in the room, and only the tapping of Fox’s fingers on the tablet could be heard. He finally looked up. “His full name is James Philip Johnson, but he uses his middle name, because his father’s name is also James, and he doesn’t like to be confused with him.”

Dylan felt excitement rush through his veins, and by the looks of the others in the room, they felt the same excitement.

“Photo?” Ace asked.

“Let’s go to the command room,” Fox suggested.

Everybody followed him. Fox sat down at the first computer and tapped on the keyboard, while Dylan stared at the screen. It took a few more seconds, before Fox brought up a photo on the large monitor on the wall.

“That’s the Speaker. He’s forty-one, so that would track with Polo’s age, whom we estimate to be in his late thirties to early forties. But here’s where it gets tricky,” Fox said, pointing to a second photo, which depicted Polo. “The Speaker of the House was injured about eleven or twelve years ago, some sort of chemical accident. He had to have facial reconstruction, which means it’s pretty much impossible to figure out if he’s Polo.”

“That tracks timewise with when Sheppard tossed him out of the program,” Dylan mused.

Ace nodded. “Yeah. How about the eyes?”

Fox shrugged. “Easy to change with colored contact lenses.”

“Aren’t there any photos of when the Speaker was younger?” Dylan asked.

“I’ll run a search, but so far, I can’t find any that might help. I’ll keep looking.”

“I’ll help you,” Michelle offered and sat down at the computer next to him.

Dylan turned to Ace. “You think that Polo orchestrated this? That’s a lot of moving pieces. How could he have known that the VP’s son would be shot in Afghanistan, and then die?”

“He could have had a premonition about the VP’s son, either his own, or one the quantum computer generated. He has some of the data, and the computer isn’t fully ready, but what if the brain scans he already has are enough for this?” Ace asked.

Yankee sidled up to them. “If he knew that the VP’s son would be injured, he could have taken it from there. I mean, he could have gotten somebody to kill him in Germany. It’s not that hard.”

Lilly nodded. “He’s right. Someone at the hospital could have introduced an air bubble into his drip, and he would have died of an embolism. Hard to trace.”

Dylan nodded. It would indeed be simple with the right connections and access. “He’s sent assassins after us, so how hard would it be for one of his people to infiltrate the hospital in Landstuhl and make sure the VP’s son dies, so that he’ll be flown back to the U.S.?”

“Not hard at all,” Ace agreed.

“And if he’s the Speaker, he probably knows what the VP and the president would do in such a case. The VP and the president’s families are close,” Yankee said. “It makes sense that President Mansfield would accompany Vice President Grossman to greet the coffin.”

“And boom,” Dylan added, “you wipe out two birds with one stone. And a psycho becomes president.”

“A psycho who has it in for all of us,” Tiger added.

“One who’ll have the power of the United States behind him. Nobody will be safe from his wrath,” Dylan surmised.

And that wasn’t a prospect any of them relished.

“We have to stop him before he can kill the VP and the president,” Ace said, his voice determined. “Let’s get to work.”