Page 45 of Hawk on the Hunt

“Only the street, not the number.”

Dylan and Tiger exchanged a look. “Call Michelle. Let’s give her the street name, and she can check if anything on that street is registered in Johnson’s name, and if that doesn’t pan out, she can hack into the utility company’s records and find any property on that street that has unusually high usage.” He nodded at her. “How far from here is it?”

“Only about half a mile, but the streets will be clogged right now,” she advised. “Everybody will be trying to get as far away from the Capitol as possible. It’ll take too long to get my car out of the parking garage.”

“We’ll walk,” Dylan suggested. “We have to assume that Johnson faces the same predicament. He has to get there too. I doubt he’ll go back to fetch his car. It’s too risky for him. He probably thinks that we have a person waiting there for him. He’ll be on foot. And he can’t be that far ahead of us.”

“All right,” Zara said and headed out the door. “Let’s go. There’s a faster way to get out of the building from here.”

“Lead the way,” Dylan said, and all three of them rushed through the corridor and down the next flight of stairs.

25

Ace hurried down the stairs. He had only minutes until Phoebe’s next contraction, but he needed to check in with Michelle to see whether there was anything he needed to do. He entered the command center where Michelle was on the phone. She looked at him, and motioned him to approach.

“Okay, thanks Tiger, I’m on it,” she said, before disconnecting the call.

“What’s the latest?”

“Tiger and Hawk are still in the Capitol with Zara. Polo hid the discs with the brain scans in some hideaway office in the Capitol, but they got there too late. He’s already taken them and got away.”

“Fuck!” Earlier, Hawk had called in with the news that the Speaker of the House wasn’t Polo as they’d suspected. Instead, the senator Zara worked for was the man they’d been looking for. And Zara had inside knowledge of where he might be hiding.

“But they have another lead. I’ve gotta check on an address in D.C., not too far from the Capitol. They think that’s where he keeps the MRI machine—”

“Like the one we destroyed a few months ago?” Ace interrupted.

“Yep, looks like he’s built another one. Apparently, Zara saw a utility bill that was extremely high.” Michelle turned back to her computer. “I’d better get on it. They only have a partial address, but I should be able to narrow it down by the time they get close to it.”

“Can I help you with anything?”

A loud cry of pain came from upstairs.

“No. I’ve got this. Go! Phoebe needs you. I’ll use the speaker system if anything urgent comes up.”

“All right. Thanks, Michelle.”

Ace hurried out of the room and ran upstairs. In the master bedroom, Lilly and Olivia were busy making Phoebe comfortable. They had moved her onto a wide gurney with stirrups that Lilly had ordered from a medical supply company only a month earlier. She’d insisted that it would be easier for Phoebe to push with her feet in the stirrups than if she were lying in a bed. Ace could see now that Lilly had been right. Propped up against the backrest, both feet in the stirrups, Phoebe gripped one of Olivia’s hands tightly.

Lilly sat on a low stool between Phoebe’s legs. “The head’s crowning.”

Ace hurried to Phoebe’s side, and put one arm around her back, while he took her hand. She looked at him, her hair wet from perspiration, her face red, and beads of sweat running down her gown.

“I’m here, baby,” he murmured to her. “You can do this.”

Before she could answer, another contraction made her scream, while Lilly ordered, “Push, push, push.”

Ace felt Phoebe’s hand grip his with such force that she almost crushed it, but he didn’t care. He wished he could do more for her, but he didn’t have any medical skills to take away her pain. All he could do was to be there for her.

“You’re doing great, baby,” he murmured to her, massaging her lower back like Lilly had shown him earlier.

For a moment, Phoebe breathed evenly, indicating that this contraction had reached its end. But the next one was only a minute away.

“Next time I’m having a cesarean, or at least an epidural,” Phoebe swore, before her face contorted with pain.

“Breathe, breathe, breathe,” Lilly demanded. “His head is coming.” Lilly glanced up at Phoebe. “You’re doing great, honey. Just a little bit longer. Push a little more. You can do it.”

While Phoebe pushed again, grunting and cursing, Olivia moved to Lilly’s side now, fresh linens in her hands, ready for the baby.