“He’s still alive, isn’t he?” Tyson asked.
“Yeah, but at what cost? He needs you.”
“He needs me to be dead. And that’s where I’m going to stay.”
“Come on, T-Bone,” Hawk said, handing a recent photo of Tyson’s son to him. “Does that look like a little boy who can just go through life thinking his father is dead?”
“You need to respect my decision,” Tyson said.
“Fine,” Hawk said. “Can I at least get a drink with you before I leave?”
“Why not?” Tyson said. “You came this far, so it’s the least I can do.”
Tyson emptied his pockets on the end table before getting up and ambling to the kitchen. He pulled a couple of glasses out of the cupboard and opened a pair of beers.
“Russian beer isn’t any good, but it’s all I’ve got to offer at the moment,” Tyson said.
“Well, I’m sick of vodka already,” Hawk said.
“You wouldn’t last a week here,” Tyson said as he poured their drinks.
Moments later, he ventured into the living room and handed one glass to Hawk.
“Cheers, my friend,” Tyson said. “And best of luck on your journey home.”
HAWK LEFT TYSON’S APARTMENT in bewilderment. The cryptic excuse, the conspiratorial tone, the willingness to shrug off his son—it all bothered Hawk. Despite his best to avoid striking an adversarial tone, Hawk hadn’t succeeded. But maybe Tyson was justified in behaving this way, and there really was something else bigger going on. However, Hawk felt uneasy.
He picked up his burner phone and dialed Mia’s number.
“Well, if it isn’t Agent Hawk,” she said. “We had a bet going that you’d been eaten by a bear in the wild.”
“Did you lose any money?” he asked.
“Not a dime.”
“That a way,” Hawk said. “But that’s not why I called today.”
“Got any good news for me?”
“It’s a mix of good and bad. The good being that I found Tyson. The bad being that he refused to come with me.”
“Did he say why?”
“Nope. But I slipped that device Dr. Z gave me to the bottom of the end table in his living room. That ought to at least get you access to his phone and computer. I’m hoping you can then clear things up for us.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” she said.
Hawk hung up, unsure if he’d just risked his life for a Russian defector.
CHAPTER 23
Washington, D.C.
VICTOR EDGEFIELD TOOK a picture of the email before sending it to his contact. Even as he watched the image vanish from his device, Edgefield cringed. He wanted to be done. After he’d racked up a large gambling debt, he wanted to do what he could to eliminate it. And while that meant betraying his country, he didn’t want to be a traitor forever.
Later that evening, Edgefield almost couldn’t believe the message when it came across his computer screen. It was exactly the kind of material his contact had stressed that he wanted, loaded with the insider information that had been prioritized.
President Norris was willing to negotiate with what amounted to a terrorist threat, disguised as a nation.
Edgefield re-read the message a second time and then a third. In the midst of a brewing crisis in the Pacific, Norris was willing to cede his position of strength in an effort to avoid any type of conflict. And while Edgefield wasn’t an expert in international peacekeeping policy, even he could see it as a loser, no matter what the polls suggested.
But the poll attached to the email said otherwise as it pertained to the voters. And if there was anything that Edgefield had learned during his time at the U.S. State Department, it was that the only thing that mattered to presidents was public sentiment. When the people wanted something, the president was more than willing to give it to them to retain a high approval rating.
Edgefield turned on the television and flipped to a news channel to see what else had happened in the world during the day. If he didn’t know any better, he would’ve assumed the email he’d received was at the epicenter of the globe.
The newscaster set the scene for the situation in the Pacific between the U.S. and North Korea, explaining how the tensions had escalated. Then he turned his attention to an announcement from presidential candidate, Joseph Parker. The former senator from Ohio detailed how he would handle the potential conflict.
“I know President Norris is more inclined to get aggressive in a situation like the one with North Korea, but not me,” Parker said. “I think it’d be best if we pursued a peace treaty. Japan is best situated to broker a deal between the U.S. and North Korea. I think our allies there could help create a situation that was beneficial to everyone involved.”
Edgefield laughed aloud. The idea was preposterous. Kim Yong-ju wouldn’t listen to anyone, especially the Japanese. He was so prideful and narcissistic that if he didn’t come up with the idea himself, he wouldn’t even consider it.
But the newscaster pushed the idea as if it was incubated in nothing less than a genius mind.
Within seconds, the station’s social media page was awash with people dismissing the idea as sheer lunacy.
Edgefield chuckled, realizing that his contact had been duped, fed a complete lie. Whoever had been responsible for the email had almost surely wanted Parker to see it. And Edgefield had made sure that happened. While the concept made him smile, it almost made him nervous. Someone had figured out his role in feeding administration intel to Parker’s team and used him to do so. At the end of the day, that meant that Edgefield had been compromised, which wasn’t a good thing.
When Edgefield first started, he wasn’t sure who he was ultimately working for, nor did he care. The opportunity to rid himself of the crushing debt made him reluctant to ask questions. He justified agreeing to help: What would it hurt anyway? It’s not like I’m giving away state secrets.
And they weren’t state secrets that could compromise national security. Edgefield’s contact had wanted specific information related to policy moves. As time passed, Edgefield’s hunch about who was receiving all the information grew stronger that it was someone connected closely with Joseph Parker, the man poised to challenge President Norris for the White House and possibly unseat him. That put Edgefield at ease, making him even slightly eager to assist in passing along what he learned from his position at the state department. If truth be told, Edgefield wasn’t exactly a fan of Norris or his policies. The president seemed spineless, easily swayed by the prevailing opinions of the day. But from what Edgefield knew about Joseph Parker, he was far more principled.
Nevertheless, Edgefield knew he could lose his job if he got caught. A probe would undoubtedly lead back to him and that’d be the end of his career in Washington. Not that he was too concerned about it. He tolerated his job, but he wouldn’t shed a tear if he was fired. He’d already lost almost everything he cared about—everything but little Olly, his six-year-old son.
Olly was the only reason Edgefield hadn’t moved halfway across the country and started over again. His wife Rebecca was ambitious, something he didn’t think much of when he first met her. They’d never intended to have any kids, both so focused on their own careers that they didn’t have time for raising a child. As Rebecca’s goals intensified, she also started to believe she could have it all and had begged him for a son. With Edgefield out of the agency, the idea of having a child didn’t seem so farfetched. He went along with it just as his gambling debts started to catch up with him. And everything else in his life spiraled out of control along with it.