Page 29 of Hawk on the Hunt

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In the room she’d shared with Dylan, Zara showered and dressed, then reached for her cell phone and switched it on. She’d made it a habit to always switch it off when she slept, even though she knew that most other staffers on the Hill kept theirs on 24/7. She preferred to get a few hours of uninterrupted sleep rather than be constantly available to her employer. They didn’t pay her enough to sacrifice her private life for her work.

The moment her cell phone connected to the nearest cell tower, it began to ping with text messages and voice messages. She checked the latest text message first.

Where are you? It was a message from her colleague Clara.

Zara looked at the clock. She wasn’t late for work, in fact, if she left now, she could probably make it in to work at her usual time. So why was Clara texting her?

She scrolled up to read her previous messages. They were all from early this morning. When she read the first one, her heart stopped and she gasped.

VP’s son died in Germany.

She had to read the message twice, before she could trust her eyes. Hadn’t they said the day before that the vice president’s son was in stable condition? As she scrolled through Clara’s messages, she learned nothing new, only that everybody was expected in the office as early as possible to be on stand-by for whatever needed to be dealt with.

Zara quickly navigated to her voice messages. One was from Clara who left her essentially the same message as she’d sent by text. Even Nicky and Ben had tried to reach her, Nicky leaving a teary message of how tragic this was, and Ben already asking if she had any ideas of what their office could do for the vice president to express their deepest condolences. Clearly, Ben wanted to look good as always, showing the higher-ups how much he cared—about rising in the ranks, not about their grief.

Zara sent a quick text message to Clara, letting her know that she was on her way to the office.

She received an instant reply back. Thanks.

Zara shoved her cell phone back into her handbag, slung it over her shoulder, and snatched her jacket. She still wore her trainers, but she would put on the dress shoes she’d left in her car later.

In a hurry now, she went downstairs. Even though she could smell the coffee coming from the kitchen and heard somebody handling dishes and cutlery, she knew she didn’t have time for it. The door to a large room opposite the kitchen stood open, and she heard Dylan’s voice coming from there. She walked to it and entered.

“Dylan?” she called out.

All five men as well as Michelle were present, several of them hunched over computer keyboards, others with their heads in papers, talking to each other. On the oversized monitor on one wall, two photos were displayed: one of a young man she didn’t know, the other of a man she recognized immediately.

“Why’s there a picture of the Speaker of the House up?” she asked, just as Dylan turned to her.

“Hey, babe,” he said, approaching. “The VP’s son is dead.”

“I know. I got several messages from my office.” She pointed to the picture. “What’s going on with Speaker Johnson?”

“We believe he’s responsible for David Grossman’s death.”

“What?” She shook her head. “He died at an army hospital in Germany. And I know for certain that the Speaker is in town this week.”

Ace approached. “We’re not saying that he did the dirty work himself, but we’re pretty sure he staged this.”

Dylan added, “We believe he’s a rogue agent.” He pointed to the photo of the young man on the monitor. “This is Polo, an agent who washed out of the Stargate program twelve years ago. We believe Speaker Johnson is Polo. And we have reason to believe that he is planning to kill the president and vice president when the coffin arrives at Joint Base Andrews tomorrow, so he’ll become president.”

Frozen in shock, Zara could only stare at Dylan and Ace. “But that can’t be. The Speaker is a good man. I might not always agree with his politics, but he’s a decent man.”

Dylan shook his head. “Polo has borderline personality disorder. He’s a psychopath. Being dismissed by Henry Sheppard after less than six months in the program must have stung somebody like him. His ego would have been hit by such a humiliation. He wants revenge. And how better to get revenge on everybody in the program than by having the resources of the Presidency behind him?”

“He’s a megalomaniac,” Ace said.

Stunned by this revelation, Zara stared back at the two photos on the monitor. There wasn’t a strong resemblance between the two men, though she knew about the plastic surgery the Speaker had had over a decade ago after an accident. It was possible that the two pictures were of the same man.

“Oh my God!”

She felt fear travel up her spine. She’d met the Speaker a few times herself in the course of her duties, and he’d always struck her as charming and friendly. But didn’t they say that even serial killer Ted Bundy had been charming?

“Do you know what exactly he’s planning?” she asked.

“We know that there’ll be an explosion when the coffin arrives on U.S. soil.” Dylan pointed to Ace. “Ace had a premonition about it many times.”