Hawke

One of Hawke’s favorite toys, however, was the shining silver seaplane now being positioned at the top of the ramp. Its lovely streamlined appearance looked like something Raymond Loewy himself might have designed in the early thirties. At a signal, the plane was lowered to the foot of a ramp that stretched directly into the sea. In seconds, the small plane was bobbing merrily on the mirrored surface of the blue water.

The name Kittyhawke was painted in script just below the cockpit window. And, under that, a painting of a very pretty young bathing beauty. Sutherland and Quick stood at the foot of the ramp, each holding a mooring line attached to the plane’s pontoons.

Hawke and Congreve stood watching the operation. Hawke was wearing his old Royal Navy flight suit. It was his standard wardrobe whenever he flew the seaplane. He was literally rubbing his hands together in keen anticipation of the flight to Nassau.

“Fine morning for the wild blue yonder,” Hawke exclaimed, taking in a deep breath of salt air.

“Lovely,” Congreve replied, expelling a plume of tobacco smoke the color of old milkglass.

“Now, listen, old boy. I want you to have a bit of fun while I’m gone. Do some more snorkeling. Get some sun. You look like an absolute fish.”

“About that treasure map. I do hope—”

“The box is open on the library desk. If you have to lift it out, there are tweezers in the drawer.”

“I’d like to include Sutherland in my research. He might prove extremely useful.”

“Smashing. Spent some time heading up your cartography section, didn’t he? Best of luck. Who couldn’t use an extra few hundred million in gold?”

“Should be good fun.”

Hawke zipped up his flying suit and put a hand on Congreve’s shoulder.

“I’ve left you all the notes I’ve made over the years. A lot to plow through. All those rainy afternoons at the British Museum digging up contemporaneous maps and manuscripts and what-not.”

“Really? I always imagined you whiling away those hours in a pub somewhere, huddled in a dark corner with a beautiful married woman.”

“Indeed? Well. Some excellent volumes of eighteenth-century history and cartography in the library, as you know. I’ve made a fair bit of progress, but, of course, I don’t read Spanish as well as you do.”

“I was wondering—” Congreve said, and then looked away.

“Yes?”

“I wonder—well, you said you’d been in these islands before,” he said, still not looking Hawke in the eye.

“Yes?”

“Well, I was thinking perhaps that voyage you took might itself have been some kind of treasure-hunting expedition. If the map has been in your family for generations, it might be that—”

“I really have no idea,” Hawke said, his face clouding up. He stepped onto the plane’s pontoon. “I told you. I was so young. I don’t remember anything.”

“Of course. You said that. Sorry.”

“I’m off, then.”

“Please give Victoria my best.”

“Oh, I will indeed,” Hawke said, merry blue eyes and a smile returning to his face. “And mine as well, I should hope.”

“Safe journey,” Congreve said. Hawke patted the rosy cheek of the painted bathing beauty for luck and climbed up into the cockpit. He pulled the door closed after him. The window on Hawke’s side slid open, and his curly black head appeared.

“Back in a few days, I should think,” Hawke shouted. “I’ll ring you right after my meeting at the State Department. Have some fun, will you? Play some golf!”

“Golf!” Congreve exclaimed. “There’s not a golf course within a hundred miles of this bloody place!”

Hawke smiled and pulled the window closed. He looked at the preflight check he’d strapped to his knee. God, he loved this airplane! Just the smell of the thing was enough to make him feel sharply alive. Since arriving in the Exumas, he’d made good use of the little plane, taking her up for early-morning explorations of the surrounding islands.

There were a few loud reports as Kittyhawke’s Packard-built Merlin 266 engine fired, and a short blast of flame erupted from the manifold. The engine was a custom version of the one that had powered the Supermarine Spitfires that had won the Battle of Britain.

As the polished steel propeller slowly started to spin, Congreve turned to Ross, who was now standing beside him, holding the plane’s mooring line.

“What’s the weather like between here and Nassau?” he asked his Scotland Yard colleague. “I saw a nasty front moving toward the Bahamas on the weather sat this morning.”

“Should be ideal, then,” Ross said, smiling with evident fondness for Hawke. “You know the skipper. Even as my squadron commander, when we were flying sorties in Tomcats, he was always frustrated he never got to be one of those hurricane hunter chaps. He does love the eye of the storm.”

“No,” Ambrose said with a puff of smoke, “the eye of the storm is far too quiet for Alex Hawke. He loves the storm.”

Ross quickly checked the plane’s exterior controls over, then gave Hawke the thumbs-up. He tossed the last mooring line out toward the pontoon where it was automatically spooled aboard.

The engine noise increased as Hawke ran up the motor. Testing his flaps, ailerons, and rudder, he turned the plane’s nose into the wind. With a sudden roar, the plane surged forward. Congreve, who hated flying contraptions, had to admit the silver plane looked splendid, catching the sun’s early rays on its wings as it darted across the glassy blue water.

The plane lifted, did a quick looping turn, dove back over Blackhawke’s stern, waggled its wings in salute, and was gone.

Into the “mild” blue yonder, Congreve thought, furious with himself for not coming up with the joke a few minutes earlier.

As it happened, there would be nothing mild about it.

Hawke gained a little altitude, climbing into his turn northwest. He would be flying right over Hog Island, home of the most famous pig in the Caribbean. The big hairy sow, named Betty, was completely blind and had been the island’s sole inhabitant for years. Hawke had discovered her only a few days earlier, shortly after Blackhawke’s arrival in these waters. He, Tom, and Brian had been bonefishing the flats just off the small island’s sandy white beach.

Betty lived on the generosity of the many tourists who would take their boats in near shore. She would come running out of the dense thicket of scrub palms at the sound of their outboard engines and plunge into the sea. She’d swim out toward the cries of the children and their families, who’d always bring Betty’s favorite meals, which consisted of apples, oranges, or potatoes, Hawke had noticed that day, watching the tourists.

Betty would swim right up to the side of the boat, sniffing, and take the food from the delighted children’s hands. Since then, Hawke himself had fed her many times and developed a great fondness for the old sow. On his morning sorties in Kittyhawke, he now made a great fuss of “airlifting” supplies in to Betty. In fact, he had a big canvas sack of apples in his lap at this very moment. And he was just coming up on Hog Island.

His method was always the same. Go in low on the first pass so Betty could hear his engine and know breakfast was about to be served. Then he’d bank Kittyhawke hard over and fly back out to his original position. By the time he got turned around, he could usually see Betty running through the scrub palms toward the water.

That’s what he did this morning.

He lined up on the island, staying low. The sunlit turquoise water racing beneath his wings was beautiful. Because of the hour, he was flying directly into the rising sun. There she was, he could make her out, still deep in the bush, trotting along. Odd, she’d usually made it to the water at this point.

He slid back his portside window and felt the sudden rush of air and the explosion of engine noise inside the cockpit. He held the sack of apples outside the cockpit, ready to release at just the right moment. Steady, hold your course, nose up, you’re coming in a bit low, and—bombs away! The apples tumbled into the sea. Hawke was laughing, looking ahead for Betty to emerge, when he saw a man all in black stand up in the midst of the scrub palms. What?

The man raised something to his shoulder and seemed to be pointing it directly at Hawke. Then the most amazing thing, Betty bursting from the palms directly behind the fellow and smashing him to the ground! He scrambled to his feet, kicking wildly at the relentless pig and aiming once more at the onrushing airplane.

Bloody hell. He could even see the man’s face now. Rasputin? Yes. Wild-eyed, grinning like a monkey.

Hawke yanked back on his stick just as he saw a puff of white smoke at Rasputin’s shoulder. The plane’s infrared detector warning sounded instantly, telling him what he already knew.

There was a heat-seeking missile screaming toward him, locked on. The bloody Russian had fired a Stinger at him! There it was, Christ, he could see the bloody thing hurtling right toward his goddamn nose!

This little chap is really starting to piss me off, Hawke said to himself. His forearm still burned where the Russian had stabbed him with the dagger. He instantly went to full throttle, feeling the full thrust of the Merlin engine kicking in, and banked hard left, then hard right, jinking violently. He had the Kittyhawke right down on the deck and his wingtips were brushing the tops of the scrub palms every time he banked her.

His enormous burst of acceleration had confused the missile, and he saw the little silver killer scream beneath his fuselage, missing him by maybe a foot. Maybe less. He didn’t have time to congratulate himself. He knew, even now, the Stinger would be correcting, arcing around and coming at him from behind.

His missile alarm warnings confirmed his fears. Still locked on.

Even for a fighter pilot, the inside loop at low altitude is easily one of the most dangerous maneuvers you can attempt. A flawless execution is critical. It was also, he knew, the only chance he had. He leveled his wings and pulled straight back on the stick. Kittyhawke responded instantly, going into an almost vertical climb. The g-forces were enormous, and Hawke was shoved back into his seat, hearing the constant wail of the alarm telling him the missile was still locked on.

At the top of the loop, the hard part started. You had to keep the aircraft with her belly skyward as you came over the top and started your descent. He strained around in his seat, looking for the Stinger. It was sticking right with him.

As he nosed over, the g-forces increased. And so did the airspeed, because he had the plane in a vertical dive, screaming down toward the scrubby little island. This was the most dangerous part, the part where you could easily “red out,” as pilots called blacking out.

He smelled the fire before he saw it. He heard popping noises behind him, electrical, and smoke started to fill the cockpit. The missile must have clipped one of the transponders dangling from the belly of the plane. Now, in addition to the Stinger, he had an electrical fire on his hands.

Well, the fire would have to wait. He just hoped it would wait long enough.

“Bastard,” he shouted, craning his head around and seeing the missile gaining on him. The ground was rushing up so fast, he could literally see crabs scurrying across the sand. Do-or-die time. If he was to have any chance at all, he had to wait until it was too late to pull out.

Then one of two things would happen. He would be obliterated. Or he wouldn’t.

Now! He hauled back on the stick and accelerated out of the dive. He’d come within mere feet of the earth and the plane was slicing through the tops of scrub palms. As long as he didn’t hit anything solid before he got a little altitude—

WHUMPF!!!

The Stinger hit the earth and exploded.

Hawke, busily avoiding the taller palm trees by banking hard left and right, managed a quick look over his shoulder toward the rear of the small cockpit. Flames were licking at the back of his seat and the smoke was starting to burn his eyes. The fire hadn’t waited. It was seconds from spreading out of control. He had to get to the fire extinguisher mounted very inconveniently on the portside bulkhead behind him. The fire was directly between Hawke and the extinguisher.

It’s these little design flaws that make life so interesting, Hawke thought, struggling out of his shoulder belts. He leveled Kittyhawke, flipped on the autopilot, and climbed out of his seat.

There was nothing for it but to wade into the flames, grab the Halon extinguisher, and use it before he was incinerated. The legs of his vintage flight suit caught fire instantly, and he ripped the suit off with one hand while stretching out his other to grab the Halon.

He put out his flaming jumpsuit, then emptied the canister’s contents into the heart of the blaze. Wonder of wonders, it actually worked! The fire was out as quickly as it had started. Now all he had to do was open the cockpit windows on both sides and get all the bloody smoke out of the plane. And hope the fire hadn’t damaged any of his critical controls.

Climbing back into his seat he saw that, while all the hair on his legs was singed off, he wasn’t badly burned. He flipped off the autopilot and banked hard left. He’d make a pass over the island and see if he could spot the bastard who’d almost killed him.

Flames and black smoke from the crashed Stinger had already climbed into the sky, and a brush fire had started to spread at the heart of Hog Island. The Russian was nowhere to be seen. But Betty, thank God, was now safely offshore, swimming blindly around in a sea of apples.

Hawke allowed himself a deep sigh of relief.

Betty had saved his life. If she hadn’t knocked the little cretin down and he’d gotten that first shot off, Hawke would surely be a dead man.

“Toast,” as the Americans would have it.

19

“If you’ll join me in the library, Inspector Sutherland?” Congreve said, after Hawke was safely airborne and they had entered the hangar elevator. “Scotland Yard, Caribbean Section, namely you and me, suddenly has a great deal of work to do in the next few days.”

“Yes. These Russians are a bad lot, sir.”

“Oh, it’s not the Russkies we’re on to. That’s purely Hawke’s affair for the time being.”

“What then?”

Congreve touched the button for the main deck and said, “Oh, we’re on to much more thrilling stuff, I assure you.”

“Really? Such as?”

“Pirates. Golden doubloons buried under silver moons. Skulls. Crossbones, and dead man talk. All that sort of thing.”

“Sounds fairly exciting.”

“It does have that potential, yes.”

The elevator came to a stop and the door slid open. As the two men walked toward the ship’s library, Congreve said, “Do you remember hearing stories about Blackhawke the pirate in your childhood?”

“Of course. Everyone did. Silver skulls braided into his beard, as I remember. Fond of decapitating chaps and hanging their heads in the rigging as a warning sign.”

“That’s the fellow. It may surprise you to learn that our dear friend and benefactor Alex Hawke is a direct descendant of that notorious pirate. Alex has acquired a treasure map from his grandfather drawn by Blackhawke himself just before he was hung for piracy and murder.”

“Astounding! I like this already,” Sutherland said, following his superior into the library. He was literally rubbing his hands together in anticipation.

“The map is in that box on the table. Have a look.”

Sutherland went to the table and peered into the open box. He pulled back a chair, sat, and stared at the contents for several long moments before speaking.

“Good Lord, Ambrose, you can still read the thing,” Sutherland said, excitement in his voice.

“Astounding, isn’t it? Over three hundred years old and entirely legible.” Congreve put his old leather satchel on the table beside the box and pulled out a thick file, yellowed with age.

“What’s that?”

“It’s an old CID file, Ross,” Congreve said, looking at the man thoughtfully. “A cold case, almost thirty years old now. Murder. An unsolved double homicide, in fact.” Congreve looked away, and pulled a pipe from his tweed jacket.

“Is something wrong?” Sutherland said, looking at his superior, for clearly there was.

“It’s a delicate matter,” Congreve said, tamping tobacco into the pipe’s bowl. “I’m probably one of the few people left alive who even know of this file’s existence.”

“Well, sir, if you’d rather I not—”

“No, no. Sit, please. I need your help here, Ross. But I must ask for your absolute assurances that this matter will not be discussed outside this room. And that includes the owner of this vessel. Am I clear?”

“Certainly. You have my word,” Sutherland said, puzzled. He simply couldn’t imagine any secrets between Hawke and his lifelong friend Congreve. “I will not discuss anything you share with me with anyone.”

Congreve looked at the man carefully. He was one of the best of the Yard’s new generation, that much was certain. And the young fellow had enormous respect for Hawke, his squadron commander in the Navy and the man who literally saved his life during the Desert Storm affair. Still, it was a risky business.

“Well, good,” Congreve said finally, and opened the file. “You see, Ross, I suspect that the contents in this file and the map in that box are connected in some way.”

“A three-hundred-year-old map and a thirty-year-old murder case? Connected?”

“Yes, I rather think they are.”

He pushed the file across the table toward Sutherland.

“You’re free to read it in its entirety after we’re done here. You will see that the murders took place aboard a yacht moored in these very waters.”

“And the victims?”

“The mother and father of Alexander Hawke.”

“Good Lord,” Ross said, taking a deep breath. “Any witnesses?”

“Just one. A seven-year-old boy. Alex Hawke himself.”

Well after midnight, Congreve and Sutherland were still in the ship’s library.

Three meals had been brought in, served, and removed. The desk and two tables were piled with books, folios, maps, and satellite photographs of the region. Ross had ordered the sat photos printed on the bridge that morning and delivered down to the library.

Ross had also scanned the pirate’s crude drawing of the island into his computer, enhanced it, and had it blown up. It was now taped to the wall above Hawke’s desk. The sat photos, too, were taped to the wall, surrounding the computer’s version of the pirate’s drawing.

He had been on his feet for hours, poring over the photos with a magnifying glass, comparing them to the three-hundred-year-old drawing. So far, he’d seen nothing in the Exuma chain of islands that remotely resembled the island in the drawing. He was exhausted, but determined not to give up until he’d cracked it, a trait that had stood him in good stead at New Scotland Yard.

Congreve, meanwhile, had pulled up a chair next to the gas fire that was lit in the small fireplace. The cold front he’d seen on the satellite that morning had moved down through the Bahamas to the Exumas. The fresh salty breeze now flowing through the open port-holes was actually chilly. Most refreshing, he thought. A welcome respite from the brutal heat he’d experienced since his arrival.

He was puffing contentedly on his old brier pipe, working his way through the voluminous notes relating to the search for the treasure. He was also combing a small stack of ancient and crumbling leather-bound ship’s logs and histories of the Caribbean. Occasionally, he would emit an “a-ha” or a “well, well, well,” but, to Sutherland’s frustration, he never elaborated on the source of these exclamations.

“Do you fancy some tea, Ross?” he asked as the ship’s clock on the mantelpiece struck one.

“Yes, please.”

Congreve pressed the button on the remote that summoned the steward and said “A-ha,” for perhaps the tenth time since supper. Ross sighed, put down the glass, and collapsed in the chair opposite Congreve.

“A-ha what exactly?” he asked.

“I am referring to this Spanish corsair that Blackhawke mentioned in his final message to his wife. This ‘Andrés Manso de Herreras’ specifically,” Congreve said. “I was beginning to doubt his existence, but here he is all right. He’s mentioned by name in this ship’s log. Penned by a contemporary of de Herreras. A Captain Manolo Caracol who was then sailing for the Spanish crown.”

“A-ha,” Ross said, peering excitedly at the ancient book written in a fine Spanish hand. “Well, that’s quite good progress, isn’t it, Chief? And what does it say exactly?”

“Well, according to Manolo Caracol’s log, this fellow de Herreras wreaked a good deal of havoc in these waters. He was a Spanish privateer, born in Seville, who lurked about in the Windward Passage. His specialty was intercepting his colleagues, those headed for Spain loaded to the gunwales with gold. He’d relieve them of their cargo, slit a lot of throats, set them afire, and send them to the bottom.”

“Testy bloke,” Ross allowed, feeling some excitement for the first time that evening. “Suddenly, Captain Blackhawke’s letter appears to be more than the rum-sodden ramblings of a condemned man. The thing actually smacks of authenticity now, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Yes. Hmm. Let me quote this chap Caracol:

“On the seventh of September of this year of our Lord, 1705, the villainous Manso de Herreras sailed from Havana Bay, embarking on a voyage to the Isle of Brittania. I witnessed this myself. My bosun and I stood on our foredeck and watched his departure in wonder. The sun struck gold on his stern. It was a sign. His barque, the Santa Clara, was so full of gold, she was nearly foundering at the harbor mouth.”

Congreve paused and puffed thoughtfully on his pipe.

“Is that it?” Ross asked. “Read on, read on!”

“Yes, of course,” Congreve replied. “I was just thinking that if de Herreras was bound for England, why then would he—at any rate Caracol continues:

“My bosun, Angeles Ortiz, said de Herreras was bound for London Town, where he planned to deposit the vast quantities of his ill-gotten gold in the Bank of England. Still, we were glad of seeing his stern lights and all our ship’s officers raised a tumbler at table that night in hopes that we’d seen the last of him.”

“But,” said Sutherland, “according to Blackhawke’s document here, Manso de Herreras never made it to England. He was done unto as he had done unto others apparently.”

“Precisely.”

“And Blackhawke’s letter to his wife indicates he captured the de Herreras flagship and buried the plunder on something called Dog’s Island.”

“I’m not so sure of that,” Congreve said, rubbing his chin. “I was just thinking that, in his letter, Blackhawke claims to have encountered de Herreras’s Santa Clara off the island of Hispaniola, am I right?”

“Yes,” Sutherland said, sipping the tea the steward had brought in. “That’s right. And if the Spaniard was bound from Havana for England, fully loaded, his fastest route would be to head straight for the Straits of Florida. Or take the safer route through the Windward Passage. So, what was he doing down off Hispaniola?”

“According to the letter, it was September,” Congreve said, taking a sip of tea.

“Hurricane season.”

“Hmm. The Spanish ship could easily have been blown off course and ended up down there. And Blackhawke only encountered him by sheer luck.”

“And,” Sutherland said, “once Blackhawke had claimed this prize, he would be carrying an enormous amount of booty around with him. One would think he’d want to get it ashore and buried as quickly as possible.”

“Exactly my thinking, Sutherland,” Congreve said, rising from his chair and going to one of the maps taped above the desktop. He stood there with his back to Sutherland, small puffs of white smoke rising above his head like Indian smoke signals. He seemed to stand there for hours, puffing away, hmm-ing and a-ha-ing till Ross could stand it no longer.

“Find anything?” Sutherland asked his colleague’s back.

“Perhaps,” Congreve said. “Do you play much golf, Ross?”

“Golf?” Sutherland was dumbstruck. He knew his boss at the Yard hated any physical activity. Still, he was a fanatic about the sport of golf. Ross couldn’t imagine a less appropriate time to discuss it. “Complete duffer, but I do enjoy an occasional round, Chief.”

“Pity. Marvelous old game. I myself am somewhat obsessed with it, I’m afraid. Having never managed a hole in one at my age often keeps me awake at night. I dream about…never mind. Come over here a second, will you?”

Sutherland went to stand beside Congreve. The chief was standing before the oversized printout of what historically had been the island of Hispaniola. Now, of course, the western end of the island was called Haiti. The eastern and much larger portion was the Dominican Republic.

“Alex, naturally enough, has been looking for a small island,” Congreve said, staring at the image on the wall. He had a small laser pointer in his hand.

“Yes, well, Dog Island would certainly lead one in that direction.”

“But I have a hunch we should be looking for a big island. This very one, in fact,” Congreve said, and the red pinpoint of light moved across the map. “Here, to be exact. This bit of coastline on the island of Hispaniola.”

“But Blackhawke called it Dog’s Island,” Sutherland said. “Wouldn’t he have called it by its name at the time? Hispaniola?”

“One would assume,” Congreve said. “But look. A careful reading of the passage has him saying ‘that Dog’s island’ and referring to its teeth as being ‘sharp enough to rip you to bits’ if you try to get ashore. He even gives his wife a stern warning. Cave canem!”

“Sorry, my Latin’s a little rusty.”

“Beware of the dog,” Congreve said. “I wonder if the ‘dog’s teeth’ might not be the vicious outcroppings of jagged coral along this coast. Sharp enough to rip the bottom out of any boat attempting to land there.”

Pointing his finger at the southeastern tip of the Dominican Republic, Congreve said, “I’m talking about this bit of coastline here, Ross. There’s a town here called La Romana. It’s a sugar town. Thousands of acres of sugar cane. A huge refinery. Some thirty thousand employees in the fields. All owned by one family, the Hillo family.”

“I’ve heard of them, certainly, but what does all this—”

“Please. Patience,” Congreve said. “Two brothers control this vast sugar empire. The world’s largest, in fact. Pepe and Paquiero Hillo. Both world-class sportsmen. Polo, hunting, and game fishing. And, of course, golf.”

“Golf.”

“Yes, golf. And here, just east of La Romana, they built one of the most famous golf courses in the world. It takes its name from the name the ancients gave to the rocks that line this treacherous stretch of coastline.”

Congreve turned to Sutherland and smiled, raising his teacup to the bewildered man standing beside him.

“They named their golf course Dientes de Perro,” Congreve said.

“Which means?”

“Which means, my dear Inspector Sutherland, the Teeth of the Dog.”

He picked up a black marker and put a large X on the Hillos’ golf course.

“By God, I think you’re on to something,” Sutherland said with a broad smile.

“Might be,” Congreve said, puffing away, his blue eyes alight with satisfaction. “Just might be.”

20

Stokely Jones was waiting for Hawke just outside customs. Stoke, a former NYPD cop, had been with him ever since Hawke’s kidnapping five years ago. Gangsters from New Jersey had carjacked Hawke’s Bentley at a stoplight on Park Avenue, shot his chaffeur, and abducted Alex at gunpoint. Stoke had climbed six flights of burning stairs to rescue Hawke from where the kidnappers had left him to die. The top floor of an abandoned warehouse, a blazing inferno in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn.

Thanks largely to Stoke’s determined police work, Hawke’s two kidnappers went off to spend life sentences in a maximum security New Jersey charm school, and the ten million in ransom was recovered from a motel room in Trenton.

Stoke was standing there, a huge grin on his broad face, holding up a sign that said “Dr. Brown.” It was their code at airports and hotels. “Dr. Brown” meant no immediate security issues.

“Dr. Brown has come to town!” Hawke said, dropping his small duffel bag and flinging an arm around the man’s massive shoulders. To say that Stoke was about the size of your average armoire would be an understatement.

Stoke had managed to have a fairly checkered career in his young life. A judge in the South Bronx had given him two choices. The slam on Riker’s Island or the U.S. Navy.

Stokely Jones had joined the latter, eventually winding up in San Diego at the Navy SEAL Training Center. Out on Santa Catalina, where the SEAL teams practiced using their munitions, he discovered a love of jumping out of airplanes, swimming huge distances underwater, and blowing things up. He became an expert in underwater demolition and search-and-seizure operations.

Stoke ended up as the legendary leader of the legendary SEAL Team Six. Six was the most elite and deadly of the SEAL teams, a top-secret counterterrorist unit founded by another Navy legend, the baddest of the bad, Richard Marcinko.

Needless to say, when Stoke left the Navy and joined the NYPD, he was one of the toughest rookies ever to walk a beat. He was still massive, and still took exceedingly good care of himself. He worked for Hawke, but in his heart, he was and always would be a Navy man.

“My man,” Stoke said, “look at you! Got yourself a tan! Why, you brown as a berry! What you been doin’ down in them islands?”

“Let’s just say that in the course of my current assignment, I was able to catch the occasional ray,” Hawke said, laughing. He picked up his bag and followed Stoke through the revolving doors.

“Well, get ready for changes in latitude, bossman,” Stoke said over his shoulder, “’cause you ’bout to freeze your skinny white ass off!”

He knew it might be a bit cool, still the sting of icy air took his breath away. December in Washington was usually just wet and chilly, but this was seriously cold weather. Under his flight suit, which had burned up in the fire, he’d been wearing nothing but khaki shorts, a Royal Navy T-shirt, and flip-flops. Mistake.

Flip-flops weren’t all that ideal for icy puddle-hopping, Hawke discovered following Stoke through the maze of snow-laden cars in the parking lot.

“So. Tell me. How was your flight, boss?”

“A little unexpected turbulence on the first leg. I’ll tell you all about it later.”

“So we going straight to the State Department,” Stoke said. “Conch called on the car phone and said it was urgent. Said bring your ass over there as soon as humanly possible.”

Stoke unlocked the doors to the beat-up black Hummer and climbed behind the wheel. For a Hummer, the car was deliberatelyun assuming. The fact that there was a turbocharged four-hundred-horsepower engine up front and that the entire body of the car was armor-plated was hidden by a disguise of dust and dents. The banged-up Virginia vanity plates on the Hummer read:

HUM THIS

Hawke opened the passenger side door and climbed in. He was hugging himself, shaking with cold. “Right, then. State Department,” he said, his words forming puffy white clouds of vapor that hung before his face. “And step on it.”

“You got it,” Stokely said, downshifting and roaring out of the parking lot.

“Any danger of getting some heat in here, Stoke?”

“Chill a minute, brother,” Stoke said.

“Oh, I am, I am chilling. I can assure you that much,” Hawke said, his teeth literally chattering.

“Hell happened to your arm?” Stoke asked, noticing the bandage.

“I cut myself shaving,” Hawke said, and Stokely just looked at him. Man said some crazy shit sometimes. Funny, but crazy.

“Good old Foggy Bottom, coming up,” Stoke said, stepping on the gas.

“Well,” Hawke said, settling back in his seat now that a blast of hot air was coming up from under the dashboard. “You look chipper, Stoke. Fine fettle, I must say.”

“Hell does that mean, ‘fine fettle’?”

“It means you look fit, Stoke, that’s all. In good form. Are the decorators all out of the new house?”

“Yeah, they out. None too soon for me, I’m telling you something. I ain’t had lots of experience with no decorators, but what I just had is plenty. Kinda shit we talk about at lunch? You ever heard of cerulean blue, boss? Me, either. But it’s serious blue. Nothing candy-ass like robin’s egg blue, you understand. Cerulean blue is darker, more like cobalt when it’s done. Anyway, that’s your bedroom.”

“Cerulean.”

“That’s it, boss. But this is one prime piece of real estate you got now. Man, wait till you see it. I still haven’t figured out all the security shit.”

“That’s reassuring. You being chief of security and all that.”

“No, man, I got most of it down. But this is some major high-tech shit you got goin’ on now. Hell, we got so many TV monitors ’round that house, our monitors has monitors! Know how they call the house The Oaks?”

“That’s been its name for two hundred years.”

“Well, my thought is we oughta change it. We oughta call it The Monitors. Got a hell of a lot more monitors than we got oaks.”

“It’s a thought.”

“So. Whassup? We chillin’ ’round here tonight or you flyin’ back to the Bahamas or wherever?”

“Spending tonight here,” Hawke said. “First night in the new house. I hope Pelham has seen to the flowers. Vicky will probably be—joining me there tonight.”

“Vicky? You still messin’ with that chick? Man, you are something else.”

“In what sense?” Hawke asked as Stoke turned into the underground garage. At the security booth, the guard leaned into the car, saw Hawke holding up his pass, and, smiling, waved them in.

“In the sense that you don’t ever understand nothing about women.” Stoke pulled the Hummer into a space and shut it down. “For instance, you got a perfectly good woman upstairs waiting for you, totally in love with your ass. Now, you chasing around with Vicky.”

“So?”

“I don’t know. What’s going on with Conch?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, well, maybe you still working in there, too, is all I’m saying.”

“I’d never do that, Stoke,” Hawke said, reaching for the door handle. “It wouldn’t be chivalrous.”

“Chivalrous? Oh, yeah. I forgot. Wouldn’t be chivalrous.”

“Are you coming in?”

“No, I ain’t coming in that building. That place spooks me. All them chivalrous white people running around wearing them little polka-dot bow ties and shit. Place is spooky.”

“Matter of fact, I’m meeting a couple of spooks. That’s why I’m here,” Hawke said, smiling at Stokely. “I’ll be about an hour, if you want to go get yourself something to eat.”

Stoke watched Hawke walk away.

Spooks?

Is that what the man said? Wasn’t very damn chivalrous, now, was it?

21

Spooks, here I come.

Hawke was still grinning at Stoke’s obvious misinterpretation of the word when the elevator arrived. He showed his badge to the stoic marine twins at the metal detector, and passed through into the elevator.

Reaching the top floor, the very kingdom of spookdom, Hawke returned the salutes of two more marines standing duty by the double doors to the secretary’s outer office. Both wore odd expressions, he thought, until he looked down at his own wardrobe.

Marines, apparently, were unaccustomed to visitors wearing flip-flops.

“Ah. Yes. Just flew up from the Bahamas,” he said as one of the marines pulled the door open. “Called the secretary from the plane. Wanted me to come directly from the airport. No time to change, you see.”

Entering the outer office, now feeling self-conscious about his appearance, he thought he saw a familiar face behind the reception desk.

“Sarah?” he said hopefully. Sarah? Sally? “It’s Alex Hawke. Remember me?”

A pretty, heavyset woman in her mid-forties looked up into his face. “Good Lord,” she said. “I mean, why, Lord Hawke! Well. What a surprise! I certainly don’t have you down in my book this early! Wonderful to see you, your lordship!”

Hawke started to say something, then bit his lip. He’d always found his title a little embarrassing and off-putting. He allowed no one to use his title except his butler, Pelham, who threatened to quit if he could not use his employer’s proper title. Still, this was hardly a time to press the issue.

“And you as well, Sarah,” Hawke said. “Now, look at you. You’ve changed your hair. It’s most becoming, I must say.”

“And look at you,” Sarah said, fighting the pink flush she knew was rising up her throat. “You look—”

“Dreadful,” Hawke said. “I know. Sorry. I just flew in, actually. Your boss insisted I come here straightaway so I had no time to, you know, tidy up.”

“They must be expecting you, Lord Hawke,” Sarah said. “Please go right in.”

The double mahogany doors swung open and Hawke strode into the secretary of state’s office.

“Hello, good looking! Bienvenidos!” the secretary said, moving toward him with her slender arms outstretched. She was tall and elegantly dressed. Something from Paris, Hawke guessed. Her glorious hair fell in a blue-black curtain to her shoulders.

Consuelo de los Reyes, only in office a few months, was already the most photographed secretary of state in history. You were just as likely to see her on the cover of W or Vanity Fair as on the cover of Time. Alex embraced his old friend and inhaled the familiar perfume.

“The new secretary, herself. You look absolutely gorgeous, Conch,” Alex said.

“And you look absolutely ridiculous, Hawke.”

Despite the wardrobe, she still found him impossibly attractive. Six-three and right around 180 pounds. The wavy black hair, going the slightest bit gray at the temples. The bushy black eyebrows over those intense blue eyes. The imperiously straight nose above the firm lips, the constant hint of mischief in the grin lurking around the mouth. In that cursory appraisal, she instantly remembered why she’d fallen so hard.

“Reporting as ordered, sir.” Hawke grinned, executing a snappy salute. “Straightaway from the airport. Your assistant said you told her to, quote, ‘get his ass over here.’”

“Yeah, well, pardon my effing French. I haven’t got all that bureaucratic protocol crap down yet, but I’m working on it.”

“Suggestion. Don’t ever get it down.”

Conch smiled. “Bingo. So you flew up here in that get-up?”

“The marines outside considered it quite a fashion statement. Not the foggiest what that statement is, nonetheless a statement.”

“Let’s see,” she said, rubbing her chin and eyeing him carefully. “I would call it Haute Margaritaville, as a matter of fact. Cute. Wildly inappropriate, but cute.”

The secretary was a huge fan of the American singer Jimmy Buffett. She’d gotten Alex hooked on him to the point where he now played Buffett CDs aboard his yacht and in his planes constantly. His current favorite, he noticed, was now playing softly in her office. “Beach House on the Moon.”

“Do me a small favor, Conch?”

“Name it.”

“Turn up ‘Beach House’ just a smidge?”

“No way,” she whispered. “And, please. I know it’s difficult but try and act professional. I’m the secretary of state now, Alex.”

Hawke smiled at her. “Oh, right. I forgot.”

“Yeah, well. Next time you see your pal the president, tell him to stop playing grabass with me every time I’m alone with him in the Oval Office, okay?”

“Yes, Madame Secretary.”

The secretary’s family, de los Reyes, was one of the oldest sugar families in Cuba. They’d lost thousands of acres when Fidel entered Havana, and the secretary’s father had moved his whole family to Key West. Bought a large Victorian just across the road from Truman’s Little White House. Consuelo had grown up a true citizen of the Conch Republic, bonefishing, drinking beer, swearing like a sailor.

After earning her doctorate in political science at Harvard, and before entering politics, Conch had taken a few years off. Returning to her beloved Florida Keys, she’d become one of the best bonefishing guides in the islands. Hawke had spent a week under her tutelage at Islamorada Key and fallen for her almost immediately.

In addition to being the most beautiful woman he’d ever known, she could spot the mere shadow of an elusive bone sliding over the shallows at sixty yards. After a glorious week in the Keys, fishing the flats, drinking beer, and listening to Buffett while the sun went down, he was hooked. That was all long ago, but it was a time neither of them had forgotten, nor were they likely to forget.

Conch took Hawke by the hand and led him across an expanse of richly colored Aubusson rug to the large windows overlooking the Lincoln Memorial. It was still snowing, but you could see the majestic structure where Lincoln sat.

“I see you’ve moved your office,” Hawke said.

“I did,” she replied. “To be able to see my hero over there. He helps me, Alex, I promise you. Now, let me introduce you to my colleagues.”

They entered a small anteroom the secretary often used for meetings like this one. On a large silk brocade sofa, two men unfamiliar to Hawke were seated, sipping coffee. Both stood up as they approached, and Consuelo did the introductions.

“This is Alexander Hawke, gentlemen. An old fishing buddy of mine. Alex, this is Jeremy Tate from the CIA and Jeffrey Weinberg, the deputy secretary of defense for nuclear matters. Both of them have been wetting their pants at the idea of meeting you.”

Both men uttered small coughing noises at this remark and stuck their hands out.

Alex shook hands with Weinberg, then Tate. The CIA chap had small eyes set in a porcine face. Aggressive type, Hawke thought, withdrawing his hand from Tate’s grip before any fingers were broken. Weinberg was tall, thin, and bushy-browed, looked like a rumpled academician from Harvard come to Washington with the new administration. Which is exactly what he was.

“What’s this? The latest from Savile Row?” Tate said, smirking at Hawke’s odd outfit. “I’ve always admired the British flair for understated elegance.”

Hawke had taken an instant dislike to the man. He ignored the comment and turned to Weinberg.

“What, exactly, do you do, Mr. Weinberg?”

“He’s a bomb baby-sitter,” Tate said.

“That’s not far from the truth,” Weinberg said, smiling. “I keep track of all our nuclear weapons, making sure every single one is under the command and control of the president.”

“Don’t fall for this false modesty bullshit, Alex,” Consuelo said. “He also monitors every single nuclear weapon possessed by any nation on earth. It is his primary task to identify and locate any weapon that may have fallen into the hands of terrorists. He’s the one that noticed a Borzoi had disappeared.”

“And once you’ve located them, what then?” Hawke asked Weinberg.

“I develop techniques and strategies to seize or neutralize such weapons. I believe the use of a nuclear weapon is a sin against humanity. I’m the lucky guy in charge of global sin prevention.”

“I think I may have found you a whole boatload of sinners, Mr. Weinberg,” Hawke said. “Shall I begin?”

“Yes, of course,” Secretary de los Reyes replied. “Sit down, please, everyone. Coffee, Alex?”

“This Fiji water is fine, thank you,” Hawke said, pulling up a side chair and sitting down. He looked at each of them in turn before he started speaking.

“Yesterday afternoon, on Staniel Cay in the Exumas, I met with two Russian arms dealers. Based on information I’ve gathered since receiving the assignment, I felt they might be very helpful,” Hawke began. The CIA fellow pulled out a notebook and pen and started noisily turning the pages of his book. Hawke stared at him until he looked up. “Ready?” Hawke asked.

“Sure. Sorry,” Tate said, but he didn’t look it.

“Their names are Golgolkin and Bolkonski. The former being the one who did all the talking. Both are ex-Navy, Soviet Submarine Command at Vladivostok, childhood friends, classmates at the Academy. Am I going too fast for you?”

“No, no,” Tate said. “Go ahead.”

“I was shown a portfolio of weapons for purchase which I can describe in detail should anyone want to hear it. Soviet scuds, scud launchers, SAM-7’s, hovercraft. All the usual hardware and materiel, I can assure you.”

“Submarines?” Weinberg asked.

“No. I had to make that request specifically,” Hawke replied. “I told them I was interested in purchasing an Akula-class bomber.”

“You mean ‘boomer,’” Tate said.

“No. I mean bomber. You call them boomers. In the Royal Navy, we call them bombers.”

“Whatever. And what did the Russkies say?” Tate asked.

“They said they had an Akula. 1995-vintage Typhoon. Fifty million, half up front, half on delivery. Six months to get the vessel seaworthy and assemble a trained crew. Then delivery to the specified location.”

“I’m wondering,” Weinberg said. “Did you get any sense at all for whom they might be working?”

“None,” Hawke said. “I got the feeling they were independent agents. Of course, I could be wrong. Obviously, there’s some kind of infrastructure behind them. What they do is a bit more complicated than selling used autos.”

“What happened next, Alex?” the secretary asked.

“I told them I really wasn’t interested in the Akula I. I really wanted a Borzoi. They denied any knowledge of such a craft. After a bit of unpleasantness, they admitted the possibility that such a submarine might be purchased. I invited them aboard Blackhawke to continue negotiations. You’re looking for a Borzoi, these are your guys, all right.”

There was a heavy silence in the room. The secretary of state looked at Weinberg and mouthed the word bingo.

“Blackhawke?” Tate asked.

“My yacht,” Hawke said.

“Of course,” the CIA man said. “Your yacht.”

“Quite. I invited them to join me for dinner. I showed them the money provided me by your CIA station man in Nassau. After dinner, I invited them on a tour of the yacht. It was then that I offered them an immediate five million in earnest money if they met my conditions.”

“Good strategy, Alex,” the secretary said. “Bait the hook immediately.”

“Thank you. I told them I wanted a guaranteed six-month delivery. I wanted to personally inspect the boat before any commissioning took place. And, finally, as the secretary and I discussed, I said that I wanted to speak directly to their last purchaser as a confirming reference.”

The two men and Consuelo de los Reyes leaned forward to hear what he had to say next.

“How did they respond?” the secretary asked.

“They refused to reveal any names, of course. But, after a little, how shall I put it, prodding, they reconsidered.”

“Tell me. What did you find out, Alex?” the secretary asked, lines of anxiety forming around her eyes.

“That payment for the last submarine Mr. Golgolkin sold was wire-transferred to Golgolkin’s numbered account in Switzerland—”

“When would that have been?” Weinberg asked.

“He claims about six months ago.”

“Shit,” Tate said. “It’s on its way.” “Maybe,” Weinberg said. “Maybe not. Things happen to schedules. Anyway, please continue, Mr. Hawke. This is very good stuff indeed.”

“According to our boy, Golgolkin,” Alex continued, “the money was wired from a bank in Miami. The Sunstate Bank.”

“Were you able to get the account name?” Weinberg asked. He was leaning forward, excitement plain on his face.

“As a matter of fact, I was. The money was wired from an account in the name of Telaraña.”

“Telaraña,” the secretary said, standing and moving to the window. “Unbelievable!” She gazed out at the swirling snowfall. “Look out this window, Mr. Tate. See it? There goes your pan–Islamic jihad theory.”

Jeremy Tate frowned and sat back in his chair. It occurred to Hawke that he seemed almost disappointed to discover that the combined nations of Islam weren’t purchasing a weapon capable of killing millions.

“You’ve heard of this Telaraña, I take it, Madame Secretary?” Weinberg said. “I have not.”

“Oh, yes,” she said. “You’re damn right I’ve heard of Telaraña. A coterie of generals at the very top of Castro’s ladder. Three brothers, all dirty. Cocaine cowboys. I ordered our Cuban station to get all over them like white on rice, starting six months ago when we started getting sporadic tips of a possible coup. They take their name from a small island fortress they’ve been pouring tens of millions into. Telaraña. It means ‘the spider’s web.’”

“Sounds like these guys wouldn’t be much of an improvement over the status quo, Madame Secretary,” Weinberg said.

“Remember the old Cold War expression about dealing with the Russians?” de los Reyes asked. “‘Two steps forward, three steps back’? Should Telaraña successfully topple Castro, we would be looking at three steps backwards followed by three hundred steps backwards.”

“How’d you get all this stuff out of them?” Tate asked.

“Let’s say the Russians were encouraged to be forthcoming in our conversations,” Hawke said. “I didn’t hurt them, just scared them a bit. I might add that they didn’t take it very well.”

“What do you mean?” the secretary asked.

“I mean this little chap Bolkonski, a dead ringer for the mad monk, Rasputin, tried to kill me. Twice, actually.”

“Both unsuccessful attempts, obviously,” Tate said.

Alex looked at the man and held his eyes for a long moment before speaking. “This Telaraña. Anyone you know personally, Conch?” Alex asked.

“Not personally, no,” the secretary replied. “It’s basically the mafia. The Cuban-version mafia at any rate. The personal narco-fiefdom of Cuba’s top generals. They’ve built a huge military installation on an island just off Manzanillo. Telaraña is built on the site of one of the rebel general’s haciendas.”

“But of course you knew that,” Hawke said, smiling at Tate.

“All right, all right,” Conch said, quickly riding over the obvious animosity between Tate and Hawke. “Here’s what we’re going to do. I want immediate U-2 and Predator surveillance flights over the entire southwest coast of Cuba. I want a twenty-four-hour bird in the sky snapping pictures and gathering thermals of the Telaraña complex.”

“No problem,” Weinberg said.

“How many guys do we have on the ground in Cuba, Jeremy?” she asked Tate.

“A ton in Havana,” Tate said. “Out in the sticks, nada.”

“Rectify that. Like, today. I want our people fucking crawling all over Oriente province.”

“Right. And I’ll get us on the president’s calendar immediately,” Tate said.

Conch looked at him until he literally squirmed.

“Unless, of course, you’d rather handle that one personally, Madame Secretary?” Tate said.

She ignored him. “Good job, Alex. The president will be delighted to get this off his ‘to do’ list.”

“This Borzoi, it’s that bad, huh?” Tate asked.

“Our worst nightmare. Borzoi is huge,” Weinberg said. “She carries forty warheads, twenty on each wing. All sharp angles and planes, so no round surfaces to bounce back radar or sonar. Coated stem to stern with a three-foot-thick coating of some new absorptive substances the Russians developed. Vastly superior to the old Anechoic rubbercoating.”

“What’s that do?” Tate asked.

“Well, it means she’s virtually invisible to sonar, radar, you name it. She’s also got what’s commonly called a ‘decoupling’ coating, which dramatically reduces the amount of sound she puts into the water. She was going to be the Soviets’ last-ditch effort in an Armageddon showdown with the U.S. Navy.”

“A desperate come-from-behind finish,” Tate said, rubbing his chin.

“And now this nightmare contraption is in the hands of some very unstable Cubans,” Conch said, getting to her feet and walking over to the window overlooking Lincoln’s memorial. “Sweet Jesus.”

Snow had become a hard sleeting rain beating against the windowpanes of Dr. Victoria Sweet’s two-hundred-year-old brick townhouse. In her ground-floor office, a crackling fire kept the chill outside at bay. It was late afternoon, and the gray light was fading rapidly from the skies of the nation’s capital, especially the snowy, tree-lined streets of Georgetown.

Still, the woman lowered the light from the red-shaded lamps by the couch where the man was lying, and said, “Enough light?”

“It’s fine, thank you.”

She pulled a chair closer to the couch and sat down, crossing her long legs. There was the faintest whisper of silk on silk as she did so.

“Comfy?” she asked.

“Quite.”

“Then let’s begin, shall we?”

“Yes, Doctor.”

“What would you like to talk about today?”

“My addiction.”

“Addiction? I wasn’t aware that you had one.”

“Neither was I. Until quite recently, that is.”

“Are we talking about drugs? Food? Alcohol?”

“We are talking about sex.”

“Sex?”

“Yes. I’ve discovered I’m a sex addict.”

“I see. And how did you come by this amazing discovery?”

“I’m constantly overwhelmed with…thoughts. Day and night. I can’t sleep at night. I can’t function by daylight.”

“These thoughts. Can you describe them?”

“Some of them. Others—”

“All right. Let’s begin with the ones you’re comfortable describing.”

“Well, a recent one, then. I’m in your office, lying on the couch, and there’s a fire in the fireplace. It’s early evening. It’s sleeting outside, you can hear icy pellets beating against the windowpanes and—”

“Wait a minute. My office?”

“Yes.”

“And where am I? Am I in your dream?”

“Yes. You’ve turned the lights down, so most of the light comes from the fire. I can see its shadows flickering on the ceiling above my head.”

“And where am I?”

“You’ve pulled up a chair next to the couch. My eyes are closed but I hear you. You’ve crossed your legs. I hear a rustle of silk when you do it and open my eyes. I try to catch a glimpse of—”

“Yes?”

“You know. When you cross them, I try to see.”

“What I’m wearing, you mean. Underneath my skirt.”

“Yes.”

“And in the dream, do you see?”

“No. I see nothing.”

“But sometimes I do this. Is that part of your dream, too? What do you see then?”

“I see everything.”

“In these dreams. Do I ever unbutton my blouse like this?”

“Yes. Just like that.”

“Remove it? Drop it to the floor? Like this?”

“Yes.”

“And you can smell my perfume when I bend over you, can’t you.”

“Yes. I breathe it. Deep into my lungs.”

“Perhaps I kiss your mouth. Like this?”

“Yes.”

“And touch you…here.”

“Yes.”

“And how does it make you feel?”

“Like I’m drowning. Like falling.”

“I’ve missed you, Alex. So much.”

“Be here, Doc.”

“Yes. I’m here. I’m here now.”

22

Victoria Sweet took one last look in the mirror in her front hall.

Hair? Check.

Makeup? Check.

Dress? Check.

Jewelry? Check.

Sanity? Well, maybe not, but what the hey? She was in love. She and Alex had spent a wonderful hour together earlier, and, already, she was aching to see him again. Getting dressed, she had imagined him standing before his mirror shaving, perhaps even feeling just the way she was feeling.

“Ta-da,” she said to her reflection, as she slipped into her warmest winter coat and opened her front door. Stokely was out there at the curb with the engine running and, hopefully, the heat on. It had stopped sleeting finally, but the temperature was dropping.

She somehow managed to negotiate her icy walkway without ending up ass over teakettle. And there was Stokely standing on the curb, holding the passenger side door open. Holding the door open? It was not a Stokely thing to do.

“Evenin’, Miz Vicky,” he said in his best Driving Miss Daisy accent. “Y’all lookin’ partickly fine, this evenin’. Yas’m. Y’all in partickly fine fettle tonight all right.”

“Fine fettle?” she said, climbing in. “Let me guess where you came up with that.” Stokely smiled, shut her door, and went around to the driver’s side. He eased his big frame behind the wheel.

“Fine fettle, yes indeed!” he said.

“Okay, Stoke,” she said. “What’s all this stuff about?”

“What’s all what stuff about?” He cranked up the Hummer and pulled out into the snowy neighborhood street. It was mercifully warm inside the bizarre vehicle.

“Oh, holding my door open,” Vicky said. “All this ‘shufflin’ shoes and silver trays’ stuff.”

“Actin’ on orders, is all,” Stoke said, pulling away from the curb. “Bossman say jump, old Stoke, he leaps around like a long-tailed cat in a room full of rockin’ chairs!” Stoke slapped his knee. “Yassuh!”

“Are you on some kind of medication, Stoke?” Vicky asked, grinning at him. “I can tell, you know. I’m a professional.”

“Alex, he says, ‘Stoke, you be nice to Vicky,’ is all I’m sayin’,” Stokely said. “So, I’m bein’ nice to Vicky.”

“Funny, I thought you were always nice.”

“Try to be, mostly. But the boss, now he thinks I need noodging. That’s what folks call encouragement in New York.”

“Noodging.”

“That’s it. He asked me put on this damn sport coat, just for you. Sharp, ain’t it? Boss looks sharp tonight, too. Got on his tux. Man is fixated with tuxedos. Hell, wouldn’t surprise me he wore one he was taking you to KFC.”

“I know. Weird. Do you think he’s weird?”

“Hell, everybody’s weird. You ought to know that more than most folks.”

Vicky nodded her head and said, “I mean, do you think he’s a little bit…abnormal?”

“’Course he’s abnormal! Normal folks is a dime a dozen. Now, maybe I ain’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I do know one thing. Alex Hawke is a fine man. Maybe the finest I ever knew. Rich as he is, that man will do anything for anybody at any time. You know what I’m sayin’?”

Vicky was silent the rest of the way, lost in thought. Stoke had taken a series of turns that brought them to the entrance of the Georgetown Club. A doorman stepped out from under the canopied walk and opened Vicky’s door.

Before she got out, she said, “Thanks, Stoke. I wasn’t trying to get you to say anything negative about Alex, you know. I love him, too. I just thought you could help me understand him a little better.”

“I know what you’re sayin’. He does act funny sometimes, way he dresses and talks and shit. Part of that whole English thing, I guess. But I think it all comes down to this. That boy is chipper.”

“Chipper?” Vicky said, shaking her head. “Yeah, now that you mention it, he is chipper.”

She blew Stoke a kiss and turned away to go inside. It was freezing out in the wind.

“I’m going to tell you something, Vicky,” Stoke said then.

“Yes?”

“I seen ’em come and I seen ’em go. Women been chasin’ Alex all his life. Ain’t no thing. He never cared about one of them. Until you, I mean.”

“Thanks, Stoke,” Vicky said.

“See, you figured the boy out. You want to catch Alex Hawke, rule number one is you don’t chase him.”

“Nobody’s chasing anybody here, Stoke,” Vicky said. “Believe me.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s right. Must be the reason why he’s so happy these days.”

The maître d’ didn’t bother to look up as she approached his podium. He was new, she saw, and didn’t know who she was. When he deigned to lift his head from his reservations book, he was somehow able to look down his nose at her at the same time. Even though Vicky was a good foot taller than he was.

“Oui?” the man said, assuming she was French for some unknown reason.

“I’m meeting someone,” Vicky said. “He may be waiting.”

“The name of the reservation?”

“Hawke. Alexander Hawke,” Vicky said, and started a mental countdown to see how long it took the name to have its predictable effect. One point five seconds.

“Ah, mais oui, mademoiselle! Monsieur Hawke. Oui, Monsieur Hawke, il attenderait au bar. Mais certainement!” the man said, bowing from the waist.

He had metamorphosed from an imperious little snob into a groveling little toad in just less than three seconds. It wasn’t even a world record.

“You prefer smoking or nonsmoking?” he asked.

“You’re new. You probably never heard what my father said about smoking sections in restaurants?”

“Mais non, mademoiselle. He said?”

“He said having a smoking section in a restaurant was just like having a pissing section in a swimming pool.”

He looked at her for a second, not sure if this was funny or serious.

“Monsieur, il est là,” the man finally said, pointing in the direction of the bar. “You go through the door and—”

I’ve known where the bar is a lot longer than you have, buster, Vicky wanted to say, but she merely plucked the menu from his chubby little fingers and headed happily for the bar.

She’d been wondering why Alex had chosen the Georgetown Club. Alex had no idea how happy the choice had made her. It was her favorite restaurant in all of Washington. She still recalled the countless hours she’d spent here alone with her father, Senator Harlan Augustus Sweet. There were fireplaces in every room, all ablaze on a cold, snowy night like this. Large, overstuffed leather chairs were scattered everywhere, and the dark paneled walls were adorned with gilt-framed English landscapes and foxhunting scenes.

Coming here as a little girl had always felt like sneaking into the secret world of men. There was the intoxicating aroma of fine whisky and illegal Cuban cigars, and the clink of ice in crystal glasses. There were whispered stories she was too young for and the raucous laughter at their completion.

“Cover your ears, Victoria” was the way she knew when one of those was coming.

Her father, the retired United States senator from Louisiana, had been a much-loved figure in these rooms. He loved a good story and could tell one better than any man. He could also drink most of them under the table and frequently, to her mother’s dismay, did just that.

If the senator wasn’t at his office or on the Senate floor, he was on the Chevy Chase golf course. If he wasn’t on the golf course, he was here, holding down the bar at the Georgetown Club.

And his curly-haired daughter had always been the little princess by his side. Now she squeezed her way through a press of loud, cigar-smoking lobbyists and politicos and saw Alex waiting for her at the cozy little bar.

23

Fidel Castro had gone pale as death.

He had not said a word in the last hour, which was fine with Manso. He still had his big black Cohiba stuck between his teeth, but had never gotten around to lighting the trademark cigar. He sat hunched against the window, staring down at his green island. His silence had become as ominous as the furious diatribe that preceded it.

Through the forward cockpit window, you could see lush mountains and valleys rushing beneath your feet. To the south, you could already see the blue waters of the Guacanayabo Bay, now tinged with the gold of the setting sun. Endless echelons of whitecaps were rolling in, row after row breaking upon the white beaches. He was almost home.

Beyond, Manso could see a pale green hump of land lying about a mile off the town of Manzanillo. The island known as Telaraña. He could only imagine the state his men on the ground must be in, seeing the approach of the familiar olive-green chopper. It would signal the end of all their endless planning and plotting. Events now would take on a life of their own. Every move they made would write a line in history.

Manso himself would be happy just to get this goddamn machine on the ground. His nerves were like strings of barbed wire running from the base of his skull down his arms to his fingers. He had a death grip on the control stick of an aircraft that demanded a light touch.

In the last half hour, Manso had lost anything even resembling a light touch. The chopper was pitching and yawing as he corrected, overcorrected, and then overcompensated for every correction.

It’s like flying in combat, Manso tried to tell himself; you have to keep your wits about you. Steel your nerves and fly the plane. He had many happy memories of his days as a narco, flying for Pablo. The Colombian army and the americanos had shot up his planes many times. He always counted the holes in his wings and fuselage once he’d returned to one of the cartel’s secret airstrips.

All the pilots considered their drug runs “combat.” In their minds they were at war with the norteamericanos. The gunpowder their planes carried was white and it killed an enemy not only willing to die, but to pay outrageous fortunes for the privilege. In their jungle hideouts, they would laugh at the stupidity and poor marksmanship of the U.S.-sponsored government soldiers.

This was just another combat mission, he told himself.

But what about when your adversary was seated only two feet away?

“Save yourself, Manso, my son,” the leader said, breaking the silence. “Tell me where this bomb is hidden, and I will put a stop to this insanity. I will see to it that you and your family are allowed to leave the country safely.”

“Too late, Comandante.”

“You can buy a fancy mansion in Miami and fill it with whores, just like Batista.”

“It’s too late for these lies, Comandante.”

“Lies? No. Not to you, Manso. I have always treated you as a son. I am not a father who would harm his son. No matter how disgracefully he would betray me.”

“I am sorry for so much pain between us. But our country has suffered much pain in much silence for long enough. Something had to be done. Someone had to do it. I am only sorry that it had to be me.”

“What exactly is it you think you’re doing, Manso? Do you even know the answer to that question?”

“I am taking the first steps toward saving what is left of our beloved Cuba, Comandante.”

“So the son stabs the father and anoints himself savior. It’s too biblical for words. Even in Hollywood they would call this shit.”

“Your life will be spared. And, of course, your son, Fidelito. I promise you that. I have bought a beautiful finca for you in Oriente.”

“You promise me? Your life is as worthless as your promises. You were never a revolutionary. You have no political philosophy, no idealism. Money is your religion. You are nothing but a highly paid killer, a terrorist. And you should kill yourself before I do. I guarantee it will be less painful.”

“I learned much from Pablo during my time in the jungle, Comandante. Terrorism is the atomic bomb for poor people. It is the only way for poor people to strike back. The old experiment must make way for the new. The old one is over.”

“For you it is, I can promise.”

“We will be landing at Telaraña in twenty minutes. My guard will escort you to the main house. I have set up a television studio at Telaraña, Comandante,” Manso said. “After you have had some refreshments, you will be escorted to the station where you will address the nation.”

“You will be hunted down like a dog and killed like one before the eyes of your family.”

“You will tell them that the revolución has been a great political success. But, sadly, you have come to believe, not an economic one. So, after great thought, and with the good of your country at heart, you have decided to step down. It is time for a new generation of leadership.”

“Leadership? This is a farce!”

Castro turned toward Manso and spat in his face.

Manso ignored the saliva dribbling down his cheek and said calmly, “Sí, Comandante, spit. Spit until you are dry. It’s the only weapon you have left.”

“Fool. I have the hearts of my country. I have my army. You are a dead man when this is over.”

“The few remaining officers loyal to you will be imprisoned. My men are prepared to seize control of all telephone, television, and radio stations. It will happen as soon as you address the nation and announce that you are stepping aside. When I said the word mango over the radio, the wheels started turning.”

Castro reddened. That particular song not only mocked him and his green fatigues, it said that though the mango was still green it was ripe and ready to fall down.

“And as for the hearts of our country,” Manso continued, “their hearts have too long been the prisoners of their stomachs. I will feed one and so win the other.”

“You are nothing. No one. I made you. I will unmake you. The country will spit you out. And then spit on your grave. Just as I spit on you now.” Castro unbuckled himself, leaned over, and spat on Manso again, square in the face.

“No, Comandante, they will not,” Manso said, ignoring the attack once more. “The entire country, like the army, is successfully brainwashed. You have erased cause and effect in the mind of the populace. You have achieved a magnificent success in that regard, no one will dispute. The result is a total lack of loyalty. Of values. Of beliefs. We could install an illiterate jinetera, a stupid whore, as presidente and the whole of the country would bow down.”

“It sounds like exactly what you intend to do, Colonel Manso de Herreras. It sounds as if it is you who is to be the new presidente.”

Manso knew better than to rise to the bait.

“After you have told the nation your decision, I will speak. I will tell the people that our new government has your blessings. That we remain united against the Americans. I will name the new presidente. We will then be giving the americanos exactly thirty hours to lift the paralyzing blockade and evacuate every last soul from Guantánamo Naval Station.”

“And why the hell should they listen to you, little pissant?”

“I have initiated certain reprisals if they do not.”

“Idiot! The americanos will take any provocation as a declaration of war. They will bomb our country into a fucking parking lot. Do you understand nothing? Does your pitiful memory not even stretch back to the year oh-two, when the Amerians flattened what was left of Afghanistan? The Soviet traitors have left us completely exposed and vulnerable! The americanos have been praying for just such an excuse as yours!”

“The Americans will not touch us.”

“May I ask why not?”

“We have purchased a weapon that will prevent any thought of reprisal. Borzoi. The most lethal submarine ever built. It was constructed by the Russians in total secrecy in the last years of the Cold War. It utilizes the American stealth technology and is completely invisible to sonar and radar. Twice the size of conventional subs. She carries forty ballistic missiles.”

Castro was struck speechless.

“And we have cultivated new, powerful allies,” Manso added.

“My brother Raul’s trips to China?” Castro sputtered. “You are beyond stupid, Manso. You believe anything my brother says? The Chinese don’t give a rat’s ass about Cuba. Or Raul either.”

“How do you know the Americans would not prefer our new government, Comandante?”

“You have betrayed us to the Americans?”

“My brother Carlitos and I have many friends in America, from our days working for el doctor Escobar in Colombia. Carlitos is a very powerful player in that world, you know.”

“Carlitos is a drug-addled lunatic. Out of control. And Pablo Escobar’s Mafiosi friends in America, what’s left of them, are nothing but pitiful gangsters. Powerless, castrated eunuchs who sell their stories to the magazines and movies.”

“Ours will not be the first government to include a few sympathetic outlaws, Comandante. In fact, one of them has just purchased the Hotel Nacional. He intends to create a beautiful new casino like the one of Señor Meyer Lansky. Our new government will welcome these investors with open arms.”

“Infidel! You will have no government because you won’t live long enough to preside, you filthy—”

Castro must have pulled his revolver from its holster because he now had it jammed into Manso’s temple.

“It is a fitting way to end the struggle, Manso,” Fidel said, his voice barely under control. “I kill the ignoble traitor who would murder our noble revolución!”

He pressed the gun to Manso’s temple and pulled the trigger.

“The gun is empty, jefe,” Manso said. “Don’t waste your time.”

Castro heard the hammer’s harmless click five more times before he screamed in frustration and threw the useless weapon at Manso’s head, barely missing him.

“How?” he asked.

“Don Julio,” Manso said. “Your beloved manservant. This morning, very early, before we left for the dedication, he removed the cartridges while you were ‘busy. ’”

“Don Julio! No! He, of all men, would never betray—”

“You, of all men, should not be surprised at who any man will betray for the right amount of money, Comandante.”

Castro lunged for the control stick and wrested control of the cyclic from Manso. He shoved it forward.

“I will go down then, Manso. But we go down together!” Castro screamed over the jet turbine engine’s roar.

The helicopter instantly went into a precipitous dive. Manso screamed and fought for the cyclic. But Castro had a death grip on the control stick. The old man was ready to die, Manso could see it in his eyes. The green mountains rushed up to meet them as the chopper began its sickening death spiral.

24

Hawke was standing at the bar with a martini glass in his hand. The other hand was stuck in the pocket of his dinner jacket. Unlike those of most men she knew, Alex’s hands were always naturally quiet. A good sign. A sign of inner calm, she thought.

He looked pretty good in his tuxedo. Very Mel Gibson, she decided, with his black hair slicked back in waves from his forehead and the deep tan he’d acquired down in the Caribbean. He didn’t see her coming.

She planted a big wet one on his unsuspecting cheek.

“Hey, sailor,” Vicky said, taking the stool next to him, “buy a lady a drink?”

Hawke smiled, and said, “Name your poison, darling.”

“Yours looks lethal enough. My daddy called those ‘see-throughs.’ I’ll have one, too,” Vicky said. “Used to be, Daddy never would drink liquor he couldn’t see through. Now, all he drinks is bourbon. He says gin brings out unpleasant qualities in a man. ‘Loudmouth soup,’ he calls it. And when he flew on an airplane, he always took a flask.”

“Why?”

“He said he just plain didn’t trust airplane gin.”

“My beautiful girl.”

“Yes?”

“Did you come here with him very often?”

“Yes. All the time. It’s my most favorite place in Washington. That’s why I was so surprised when you suggested it.”

“I hoped you’d like it. Does your father get to Washington much?”

“I wish. Ever since he went back home to Seven Oaks, it’s been tough to get him out of his rocker on the front veranda. He’s got some old hunting dogs and he likes to stomp around his fields with them, looking for quail or pheasant. That’s about the extent of his current travels.”

“I’ve never been to Louisiana,” Hawke said. “Perhaps we could go down and visit him sometime.”

“I’d like that very much. You’d love Seven Oaks. It’s smack dab on the Mississippi River, on the River Road, about twenty miles south of Baton Rouge.”

“It all sounds very Scarlett O’Hara.”

“A whole lot of good things in the South have gone with the wind, but not Seven Oaks. I had a heavenly childhood. There’s a reason for all those stories about the Mississippi. It’s a storybook river. Daddy loved politics, but he hated living in Washington. He once said that if he owned Washington and Hell, he’d rent out Washington and live in Hell.”

Hawke smiled and reached across the table to squeeze Vicky’s hand. Seeing her here where she’d had so many cheerful hours with her father was wonderful.

Hawke signaled the bartender and ordered her drink.

“I’m very happy to be here with you tonight,” he said, putting his hand to her cheek and caressing it.

“Funny, I was just thinking the same thing,” Vicky said, trying to hide the effect his touch had on her. Her martini arrived and Hawke raised his glass.

“Who shall we toast?” Vicky asked.

“Let’s see. How about Tom, Huck, and Vicky? Or was it Becky?”

“You are a total and complete piece of work, you know that, Hawke?” Vicky said, laughing. She clinked her glass against his, and said, “Cheers. I need this.”

“A brutal day at the office, Doc? Anything you can talk about?”

“A new patient,” Vicky said, swirling her olive around in the vodka. “Poor guy. He’s suffering from an addiction. Incurable.”

“Really? Odd. I should think you could cure anyone of anything. I read in The Washingtonian, the magazine so prominently displayed all over your reception room, that you are considered one of the best doctors in town.”

“Some addictions are best left untreated. Let me borrow your pen, honey.”

Hawke pulled a slim gold pen from his inside pocket.

“Thanks,” Vicky said, and began scribbling all over the menu. Female behavior at times was mystifying, as he’d told Stokely on the way in from the airport. But then again, as a woman, he supposed she was entitled.

“Monsieur Hawke,” the obsequious little maître d’ said, “your table is ready.”

He followed Vicky into the small dining room, unable to take his eyes off the movement of her body under the swishing red silk skirt. Pleats. What was it about pleats?

When they’d been seated, the waiter arrived. He was an ancient white-haired gentleman wearing white gloves.

“Why, good evening, Mr. Hawke! You too, Miz Vicky,” he said. “Lord, I haven’t seen you since you was a little thing. Look at you! You grown into a beautiful woman.”

“Herbert! I can’t believe you’re still here.”

“I can’t either, Miz Vicky. I just turned ninety-two years old today and still going strong.”

“Happy Birthday! Alex, Herbert was a great friend of Daddy’s and always took care of me when I came here.”

“I imagine he did,” Hawke said, rising to shake the old fellow’s hand. “He’s certainly taken good care of me. Happy Birthday, Herbert.”

“Thank you, suh. You know, Miz Vicky,” Herbert said, “this old place ain’t ever been the same since your daddy left town. I still remember him playing the piano and telling his jokes. Have everybody in the place laughing.”

“And you used to let me slide across the parquet dance floor in my socks. It was just like ice skating.”

“Lord, we had us a good time, didn’t we?” Herbert said, a smile lighting up his soft brown eyes. “Can I bring you all something more to drink?”

“That would be great, Herbert,” Vicky said. “Two Ketel One martinis straight up, please.”

After the elderly waiter left, there was a long silence in which Hawke simply sat there staring at her. Vicky was not one easily embarrassed by silences at the table, but the intensity of his stare finally got to her. She noticed that he still had his right hand stuffed into the pocket of his dinner jacket.

“Gun in your pocket, big boy? Or, you all just happy to see me?” she asked, unable to think of anything more original.

“No gun,” he said. “Just this.” He pulled a small black velvet box out of his pocket and placed it on the table. He saw the look in her eyes, and said, “Don’t worry, Doc, it won’t bite. Open it.”

She reached for the velvet box. “Oh, Alex, I—”

“Miz Vicky?” The waiter had somehow reappeared at their table.

“Yes?” Vicky said. “What is it, Herbert?”

“My apologies for disturbing you all,” Herbert said, “but there is a telephone call for Dr. Sweet. The gentleman said it was urgent.”

She looked at Alex. “Oh, Alex, I’m so sorry. I have to take it. It could be one of my patients, an emergency.”

“Of course you should take it,” Alex said, standing up as she pushed her chair back. “I understand completely.”

“Order me something yummy, will you? Whatever you’re having.”

Alex picked up the menu she’d been scribbling on at the bar. For a moment he couldn’t figure out what she’d been writing and then he saw it. She’d been correcting all the French errors. There was a note at the bottom, in French, addressed to the maître d’. It suggested that he take a crash course at the nearest Berlitz school before handing out any more mangled menus.

Alex smiled. He’d taken an instant dislike to this new chap they’d put at the gate. Disliked him despite the fact that Hawke was quite sure he wasn’t remotely French.

“That was quick,” he said, standing when Vicky returned and took her seat. She picked up the little black box she’d left on her empty serving plate.

“Hmm,” she said, looking from the box to Alex and back to the velvet box.

“Yes, hmm,” Alex replied.

“Weird. There was no one there, Alex,” she said, smiling and brushing a wing of auburn hair away from her eyes.

“No one there?”

“No.”

“Well, they’d hung up, then?” Hawke asked, lines of worry suddenly furrowing his brow. “Been disconnected.”

“I don’t think so, Alex,” Vicky said. “I could hear breathing at the other end. It’s so strange. I was thinking, none of my patients would have any idea of how to reach me here. I’ve got my cell phone, but of course you can’t have it on in here.”

“I’m sure it’s just a mistake.”

“It didn’t sound like a mistake, Alex,” Vicky said. “It sounded horribly deliberate. Almost like—”

She never finished her sentence.

A brutal explosion rocked the room. The sound and force of the shock wave hit instantaneously. Watches and clocks stood still. Time itself stopped and was exploded into countless pieces of flying glass, masonry, and human agony.

Alex found that he was no longer seated at a small, round table talking to Vicky. He seemed to be on his back, staring up into a roiling white fog. A fog that smelled more like harsh, choking smoke. There were cries and moans coming from all around him. He was aware of a jabbing pain in his shoulder and tried to roll away from it.

It got worse. He seemed to be lying on a bed of broken glass and cutlery. He held his hands up before his face and saw that they were sticky and bright red. He felt it might be a good thing to get out of there. He just wasn’t sure where he was. He heard a woman’s voice nearby, whimpering. He recognized it. It was Vicky.

“Doc?” he said, but there was no reply.

The acrid smoke was so thick now, he couldn’t see where any of the cries were coming from. He couldn’t see anything at all.

He got to his hands and knees and started crawling over the glass in the direction he thought her voice came from.

“Vicky,” he shouted. “Vicky!” That’s when he heard her.

“Alex, it hurts,” the voice said. “I’m cold. Where’s Daddy? Where’s my daddy?”

And then the voice stopped.

25

“Christ, it’s hot,” Congreve said to Sutherland. “Hotter than the bloody Exumas, if that’s not a physical impossibility.”

“You could probably take off that blue blazer without offending the local citizenry,” Ross said.

Ross wasn’t exactly sure what an actual “harrumph” sounded like, but it had to be something similar to what emerged from Congreve’s direction.

It was ten o’clock Saturday morning. The temperature had already climbed into the nineties.

They were in Nassau. And time had not been kind to Nassau.

An invasion of giant cruise ships, disgorging their legions of T-shirt shoppers, had laid waste to old Nassau Town. Straw markets and lazy little shops on Bay Street had been replaced with cheap souvenir emporiums full of worthless gewgaws. American fast food outlets had replaced the clubby little Bahamian restaurants. Everywhere he looked, Ross saw to his dismay that the island had succumbed completely to the dollar.

“Well, Ross, you were quite right. This is a lovely spot,” Congreve said, straining to be heard over the angry buzz of motorbikes careening through the crowded streets. He and Ross were negotiating their way along Bay Street, dodging the hordes of invading Americans as best they could.

Inspector Sutherland had flown them up at first light in Hawke’s little seaplane. Mechanics aboard Blackhawke had worked through the night to repair the damage done by the missile and the ensuing fire. Ross had risen at dawn, gone to the hangar for an inspection, and pronounced Kittyhawke airworthy.

“Must you fly so bloody low over the water, Ross?” Ambrose had asked, once they were airborne. “We’re not exactly a pair of jet jockeys sneaking in under the radar screen, after all.”

“Sorry, Chief,” Ross had said, pulling back on the stick and gaining altitude. “I thought you might actually think it was fun.”

Fun? There was nothing remotely fun about being sealed in an aluminium tube that might plunge from the heavens into the briny depths at any moment.

Now, having made it to Nassau alive, the two Scotland Yard detectives were decidedly lost. The house they were looking for was supposedly on this small street. They’d turned right off of Bay Street onto Whitehall Road as directed. After the blistering sun and crowded sidewalks of Bay Street, they found themselves plunged into shade. The road was choked with overhanging banyan trees. Birds of every hue sang from the branches. Multicolored oleanders and orchids and falling blossoms of frangipani filled the air with narcotic fragrances.

“I’ve never ventured into an actual South American rainforest, Sutherland,” Congreve announced, “but I imagine it to be a vast sunny plain compared to Whitehall Road.”

The trip to Nassau had been planned the evening before. The two detectives had spent a long frustrating day with the files pertaining to the murder of Alex’s parents.

The CID files had yielded a few names of officers and detectives who’d worked the case here in Nassau, but all of them seemed to be either dead or retired. Endless phone calls, countless dead ends. They’d almost given up the angle when Ross had noticed a faded signature at the bottom of the police report.

“Hold on, what’s this?” Ross asked.

Congreve leaned over to take a look. “Just some ordinary policeman by the looks of it. The signature is so smudged and faded, you can’t even make it out. Believe me, I’ve been over it with a magnifying glass a thousand times.”

“Well, it’s our last shot. Let’s see if we can’t enhance it enough to get something out of it.”

Ross scanned the document into the computer. He then used a program called Photoshop to enhance the entire image. After long minutes of fiddling with it, and endless hemming and hawing by Congreve, he had it. A legible signature suddenly appeared.

Officer Stubbs Witherspoon.

The signature belonged to an obscure member of the Nassau Constabulary, probably now dead or long retired.

“Here’s a thought, Ross. Why don’t we just ring Nassau directory information? Maybe the old fellow still has a listing.” In short order, they had Witherspoon’s home number from Bahamian information. Both holding their breath, they dialed the number on the sat phone.

Someone picked up the phone on the first ring and said, “Stubbs Witherspoon.”

Mr. Stubbs Witherspoon, upon hearing what the English detective was interested in, had immediately invited them to Nassau. He had told Congreve to look for number 37 Whitehall Road. He had said it was a pale pink house, with blue shutters and that he’d find an arched gate covered with white bougainvillea. It had all sounded simple enough when Congreve had been standing on the bridge of Blackhawke writing it down.

Now he and Ross had been up one side of the street and down the other three times.

“If you wish to pay a visit to someone in this road, you’d better arrive armed with a machete,” Congreve said, using his sodden handkerchief to mop his brow.

“Perhaps we should go somewhere and ring him up, Chief,” Ross said. “It’s already gone half past ten.”

And that’s when a woman magically appeared from the dense shrubbery pushing a baby carriage.

“I wonder if you might help us,” Congreve said. “We’re in a bit of a fog here, you see. We’re looking for number 37 Whitehall Road. Can you possibly steer us in that direction?”

“Why, number 37 is right here,” she said, smiling. “You standing right in front of it! See? Here’s the gate!” With a great laugh, she pulled back a massive portion of green shrubbery and revealed an ancient arch covered in white bougainvillea. “Mr. Stubbs, he live in dere. Always has.”

“Most kind of you, madam,” Congreve said, tipping his hat once more. “You’ve been most helpful. I wish you a pleasant morning.”

Ambrose and Ross pressed through the thick foliage and emerged into a lovely, well-tended garden. At the end of a short pathway stood a small pink house with blue shutters. There was an ancient white-haired man sitting on the covered porch in a rocking chair. A sleeping dog of no recognizable breed was at his feet.

“Scotland Yard!” the old fellow shouted as they made their way up his walkway. “Always get your man! Even if you do it half an hour late! Ha!”

He laughed and rose a bit unsteadily from his chair.

“I believe it’s the Mounties who always get their man,” Congreve said, climbing the steps and shaking the frail brown hand of Stubbs Witherspoon. The man had extended his left hand. Congreve saw that the right sleeve of his simple linen shirt hung empty from his shoulder. Somehow, the poor fellow had lost his right arm.

“My apologies for the lateness of our arrival. I’m afraid we were unable to locate your gate. May I present Inspector Sutherland, also of Special Branch at New Scotland Yard.”

“You’re a hard man to find, Mr. Witherspoon,” Ross said, shaking hands. “Sorry we’re late.”

“Well,” Witherspoon said, “you know, I thought about that after we hung up the phone. And then I thought, good Lord, if Scotland Yard can’t find me, no one can!” He laughed again, almost doubling over. “Why don’t we just step inside?” Witherspoon asked. “I’ve made some iced lemonade and the fans in there keep it nice and breezy.”

They followed Witherspoon inside and he disappeared through a swinging door, presumably leading to the kitchen. The shuttered living room windows were all thrown open and yellow hibiscus branches were drooping inside at every window. You could hear the trills of songbirds in the trees outside as well as the yellow canary in the cage standing in the corner. Witherspoon returned from the kitchen carrying a large frosted pitcher.

“Let’s all take a seat,” the old man said, pouring lemonade. “This is my rocking chair. I like to rock.”

“Well,” Congreve said, “we’re honored to meet you, Mr. Witherspoon. As I said last evening on the telephone, Inspector Sutherland and I are looking into a very old murder case. An unsolved double homicide that took place here in the islands back in the 1970s.”

“Yes. Lord and Lady Hawke,” Stubbs said. “Brutally murdered aboard their yacht Seahawke. Well, that was a bad one, I’ll tell you. One of the worst I ever saw. I just joined the force at that time, no big cases under my belt. Until that one.”

“Can you tell us about it, Mr. Witherspoon?”

“Better than that. I’ve got the entire Hawke file right over there in my desk. I dug it out last evening after your call. Sip your lemonade, I’ll get it, I’ll get it. Soon come.”

“I like to rock,” Ross whispered under his breath, and Congreve broke into a big grin.

Witherspoon returned with a large cardboard box held tightly to his chest with his left hand. He sat down and looked at his two guests.

“Before I show you the file’s contents, may I tell you gentlemen something? I may have still been wet behind the ears on that case, but what I did know was the name of the man responsible for the murders aboard the yacht Seahawke.”

“You know his name?” Congreve said.

26

“Hey.”

“Good morning, Doc.”

“What time is it?”

“I think a little after seven—wait, don’t get up. You’re supposed to stay in bed until the doctor comes.”

“Oh. That’s right. I’m in the hospital.”

“Good. You haven’t lost your remarkable powers of perception.”

“Oh. God. I’ve got a terrible headache.”

“I should imagine you do, darling.”

“Did I have a lot to drink last night?”

“You were working your way through two rather large vodka martinis.”

“That’s all? Wow, what a hangover. It feels like I really got bombed.”

“Bombed?”

“Why aren’t you laughing? You don’t get it?”

“Feeling sluggish. Slow on the uptake.”

“You look awful. Have you been sitting there in that chair all night? Doesn’t look very comfy.”

“Me? No, no. I raced home straightaway after you were admitted to the hospital. There I cracked a bottle of champers, soaked in a long hot bath, shaved, and jumped right back into this bloody tuxedo.”

“That’s funny, too.”

“Really? Why is that funny, too?”

“Because you’re always saying ‘bloody this’ and ‘bloody that.’”

“And?”

“And this time, your tuxedo really is bloody. Get it? Ouch, that hurts.”

“Stop laughing. You’ll kill yourself.”

“I feel fine. Can I get out of here?”

“The doctor’s coming by at eight when he does his rounds. I think he’ll let you make a run for it if you can convince him you’re feeling well enough to walk.”

“What are my chances for escape?”

“Fairly good, I should say. You’ve suffered a mild concussion. Under those lovely bandages, you’ve got a number of stitches on the top of your head. Assorted contusions, scrapes, and scratches. Otherwise, fine fettle.”

“How about you? Are you in fine fettle?”

“I got a fork through the hand. That’s about it.”

“Next time you invite me to dinner, let’s order in Chinese.”

“Brilliant idea. Chopsticks being a lot less dangerous than salad forks. Are you hungry? Your breakfast is on the tray in front of you.”

“I can’t even look at food. What’s this little box thingy?”

“The nurse put it on the tray with your cereal. You were clutching it in your hand when they wheeled you into the Georgetown University emergency room.”

“What is it?”

“It appears to be a small black velvet box.”

“What’s in it?”

“Perhaps you should open it. I gave it to you last night, before we were so rudely interrupted.”

“I’m terrified of men bearing small black velvet boxes.”

“Go ahead and open it, Doc. It’s something I want you to have.”

“Oh, Alex.”

“Yes?”

“Alex, it’s lovely.”

“It’s quite an old locket, actually. It, well, it belonged to my mother.”

“It’s the most beautiful thing anyone’s ever given me.”

“You can open it up, too. There are little heart-shaped pictures inside.”

“Oh, look! It’s—”

“Hard to see, I know. On the left side of the heart is my mother and me. On the right, that’s me and Scoundrel. He was a fine old dog.”

“How old are you in the pictures, Alex?”

“Not more than five or six, I shouldn’t think. Those were taken in England. On the beach below my grandfather’s house on Greybeard Island. It was summer. Just before a bad storm. See the waves breaking?”

“Alex, I don’t know what to say. It’s—”

There was a knocking at the door then, just as Alex was bending over the hospital bed to kiss Victoria.

Stoke was standing in the doorway with a huge bouquet of yellow roses.

“Man, I can’t leave y’all alone for twenty minutes y’all don’t manage to get y’allselves all blown to shit and back.”

“Hi, Stoke,” Vicky said. “Those are beautiful. Thank you.”

“Mornin’, boss,” Stoke said, handing the flowers to Vicky. “Be glad you alive, my brother. You front page news.”

“Oh, God, just what I need,” Hawke said, giving Vicky a kiss on her bandaged forehead and taking the Post from Stokely.

What he did not need at the moment was publicity. He started skimming the long article.

“It was a bomb, all right, boss,” Stoke said. “Plastic. C-4. Joint was so full of dignitaries it’s hard to say who it was intended for.”

“Anybody killed?” Hawke asked.

“Lots hurt. Just one killed. An employee. Some cat who’d only been a waiter there for about seventy years. Five hospitalized including you, Vicky. Your name is in there, too, boss. Says you were treated and released.”

“Any group claiming responsibility?” asked Hawke.

“Nope, nobody. Hell, half of Washington was in that joint last night. Target could have been anybody. The police think it was PLO, Hezbollah, or the Mujahideen, though. Least that’s what my D.C. boys are sayin’ privately.”

“Not a particularly bright idea on the part of our Arab friends, blowing up a Washington restaurant in the middle of peace talks,” Hawke said.

“Well,” Stoke said, “no actual fingers are pointed yet. Naturally, FBI, CIA, NSA, all them initials are in there now, poking around. But I hear the focus is on the PLO.”

“Why the PLO?”

“Remember that Israeli commander who bombed the shit out of Arafat’s West Bank headquarters last month? Boy had himself a reservation at eight o’clock. Bomb exploded at eight-thirty right beside his table.”

“Was he hurt?” Alex asked.

“Lucky for him, he hadn’t showed up.”

“Alex?” Vicky said softly from her hospital bed.

“Yes?”

“Do you remember that urgent phone call for me?”

“Of course, Vicky.”

“When Herbert showed me which of the telephone booths to take it in—”

“Yes? Go on.”

“Well, I’m sure this doesn’t mean anything. But when I sat down to take the call, I felt something with my foot. There was a black briefcase. It was on the floor, tucked under the little shelf where the phone sits.”

“And?”

“When there was no one on the line, other than the breathing, I mean, I hung up. I picked up the briefcase figuring someone had forgotten it.”

“What did you do with it, Vicky?” Alex asked, looking at her intently now.

“I handed it to Herbert on the way back to our table. A couple of minutes before—”

Alex and Stokely stared at her.

“Oh my God,” she said.

“Don’t jump to any conclusions, darling. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence. We don’t know anything about that briefcase. Now, eat your breakfast. You’re getting up and out of here. Stoke, could I speak to you out in the hall for a second?”

“You think it was for Vicky?” Stoke said as soon as they were out in the hallway, out of earshot. “Don’t make no sense at all.”

“It could have been for anybody.”

“Yeah. Could be political, could be mob stuff, type of clientele they got.”

“The doctor said Vicky could be released this morning if she’s feeling all right. I want to get her out of here.”

“Say the word. What are we doing?”

“I’m going back into the room to calm Vicky down. I want you to get my pilots on your mobile and tell them to light the candle on the G-IV, we’re getting out of town.”

“Pilots know where they supposed to be flying to?”

“Nassau. Tell them to have my seaplane meet me at the Atlantis Marina. The doctors told me last night that Vicky was going to need a couple of weeks’ rest. And she owes herself some holiday time anyway. No better place to do that than a few weeks in the Caribbean aboard Blackhawke.”

“How else can I help out, boss?”

“We’ll figure that out when we get down there.”

“We? You mean I’m goin’?”

Hawke nodded. “Yes. Please help Vicky get checked out of here. Then you go to her house and help her get a few of her things together. Maybe she could rest for a couple of hours. Then pick her up and meet me at the plane. Say three hours, max.”

“Got it, boss. What you up to on this fine morning?”

“I’ve invited the secretary of state for an early breakfast at the new house. I’ve barely seen it myself.”

“I better call Pelham and tell him to turn the perimeter alarms off. I showed him how to do it, but you know how he is. Boy is definitely not a techno-geek.”

“Pelham is the definition of old school, all right. I’ve got to go, I’m late already. I hope the secretary isn’t bringing those damn spooks with her.”

Stoke decided it probably wouldn’t be chivalrous to call his boss on that one. Best let that one pass.

“That bomb that got that waiter, boss?”

“Yes?”

“Decapitated his ass.”

“Did they print his name?”

“Yeah. Cat named Herbert Carrington.”

“Bloody hell,” Hawke said, and walked back down the hallway toward Vicky’s hospital room.

“The man that died last night,” Hawke said, crossing to her bed and taking her hand. “It was your friend. Herbert Carrington. I’m so sorry.”

“Herbert?”

Vicky looked up at him with tears in her eyes.

“It was his birthday,” she said. “Ninety-two years old and still going strong.”

27

The Russian chopper plunged from the Caribbean heavens, falling, sideslipping, and twisting all at the same time. The instrument panel was a blurred nightmare of wildly spinning needles. The terrain warning alarm was howling. The screaming tail rotor blade was about to go. Without that blade, the chopper was lost.

They were moments from entering the “crescent of death,” namely, the failure of forward velocity and total loss of control of the helicopter. Lose your tail rotor and the chopper begins to rotate. Because of gyroscopic action, it begins to swing like a pendulum. Your chances of crashing vertically, coming down on your skids, are reduced dramatically. Which is bad because, as Manso well knew, you might actually survive a vertical crash. But if any part of its main rotor blade touches solid ground, the chopper would just do a flaming cartwheel into the jungle.

All these thoughts went through Manso’s head. In seconds it would be beyond man’s, or machine’s, ability to recover. They were plunging down through two thousand feet, with maybe a minute to live.

Castro’s hold on the control stick was unshakable. For an ailing man in his late seventies, his grip was iron.

Manso had no choice.

He pulled the slim stiletto from the sheath attached to his right leg. He showed the Maximum Leader the blade, giving him just enough time to register what was about to happen to him and release the control stick.

“Let it go!” Manso shouted. “Now!”

“I don’t negotiate with traitors!” Castro shouted back, thick white spittle forming at the corners of his mouth. “Fuck you!”

When Castro did not remove his hand, Manso jammed the blade down into his muscular thigh with all the force he could muster. Blood spurted from Castro’s wound, spraying the instrument cluster and the leader’s fatigues. It wasn’t mortal. Manso had deliberately avoided the femoral artery. Still, sticking a blade in a man’s leg down to the bone takes a lot of the fuck-you out of him.

Castro howled in pain, releasing his hold on the control stick. He looked down at his bloody leg in shocked disbelief. Manso yanked the knife out of the leader’s thigh and threw it clattering to the cockpit floor between his foot pedals.

He then grabbed the blood-covered control and hauled back on it, twisting hard left. The chopper kept plunging for a few desperate seconds as Manso worked the controls, cursing and praying at the same time. There was now a big green mountain in his immediate future. With seconds to live, he wrestled the beast, twisting, tugging, pumping. His only chance was to drop the helicopter as rapidly as possible. And hope to come down vertically.

Suddenly, he felt it responding and stabilizing. He had it under control. Still breathing hard, he banked and started climbing, with the mountain still looming massively before him. Too late? His skids were brushing the treetops as Manso held back on the stick, holding his breath, his heart exploding in his chest. He was waiting for the shuddering crunch of the undercarriage hitting solid wood, which would bring him crashing into the face of the mountain.

It didn’t happen.

He gained a few hundred feet of breathing room, banked hard right, and found himself in clear air. He took a peek at Castro. The man was obviously in shock. He was losing a fair amount of blood and had gone a deathly shade of gray. His eyes were cloudy, out of focus.

“Comandante, I will radio for emergency medical to stand by for our landing. Press your finger into the wound. Hold on. We should be on the ground at Telaraña in ten minutes.”

He got on the radio and made the request.

“Everything okay up there, Colonel?” the tense voice in his earphones said.

“Sí! Viva Cuba!” Manso responded.

Castro was silent and remained so for the short balance of the flight. Ever the survivor, he’d wrapped his own belt around his thigh and cinched it tight, staunching the bleeding.

The sun was dipping below the western horizon when Manso flared up and prepared to land. A large concrete structure, only recently completed, stood astride a wide river, flowing out to the sea. Now the giant structure was bathed in pure white light. Manso had not seen it since its completion and the mere sight of it gave him enormous satisfaction.

To a spy plane or satellite it could be anything. A convention hall, a movie theater. Better yet, a ballet theater. The Borzoi ballet. This huge building would house the world’s largest and deadliest submarine.

An encircled red H, newly painted on the broad, flat roof of the building marked the helicopter landing pad. As Manso hovered over it, he could see a squadron of heavily armed men forming up into a solid perimeter around the pad.

Manso turned to Castro.

“On behalf of our entire crew, let me be the first to welcome you to Telaraña, Comandante,” Manso said when the skids were solidly down. “You will notice a few changes since your last visit.” The Maximum Leader grunted but said nothing. Two soldiers approached the helicopter at a run from either side as Manso shut down the engines. They pulled open the doors and the pilot and his passenger stepped out onto the brilliantly illuminated pad. Castro limped some twenty yards, head held high, glaring at the soldiers who ringed the chopper. No one around the perimeter said a word.

“Lower your weapons!” a defiant Fidel Castro shrieked at the soldiers. “I said lower your fucking weapons!”

Without a word, and only out of respect, every soldier lowered his gun.

“El jefe needs immediate medical attention,” Manso said to his brother Juanito, who had come forward to embrace him. “He has lost a lot of blood.”

“Sí, mi hermano,” Juanito de Herreras said. “The emergency medics are on the way. Welcome and well done.”

Juanito called to Castro. “There is someone most anxious to speak to you, Comandante,” he said. “Here he comes now.”

The formation of soldiers parted and allowed a man onto the pad. He strode toward Manso, Juanito, and Castro, smiling. He was young and handsome, and bore a striking resemblance to someone Castro had not seen in over thirty years.

“Comandante,” Manso said to Castro, “may I present the new presidente of Cuba?”

“Bienvenidos,” Fulgencio Batista said.

It was the grandson of the man Castro had overthrown more than thirty years earlier. The new presidente was to be Fulgencio Batista’s grandson!

Fidel Castro shot Manso a look of palpable hatred.

This was simply more irony than he could stand.

28

Gomez ducked inside the cool gloom of St. Mary’s Cathedral. It was the Naval Air Station’s oldest and most beautiful church.

It was four o’clock in the afternoon, hot as hell out in the sun, and he was supposed to be at the pistol range. He’d slept in all morning, then had a long liquid lunch and decided to blow off target practice. Brewskis and bullets don’t mix, he knew that much. Hell, he had a couple of missing toes to prove it.

He’d been blowing off a lot of stuff lately. He’d even spent another few nights in the brig after a stupid fight he got into with a noncom who’d called him a dumb spic in the mess hall. He couldn’t remember who’d started it, but he’d finished it. Look at it this way. He went to the brig. The noncom went to the infirmary. So, you gotta ask yourself. Who won?

Gomez walked quickly up the left side of the nave and entered the confessional booth. As soon as he was seated, the small partition opened and he could see the silhouette of Father Menendez through the screen.

“Father, forgive me, for I have sinned,” Gomez said. “It has been six months since my last confession.”

Gomez took a deep breath and tried to get his act together. He realized that he was literally shaking. He shook out a few Tic Tacs and popped them into his mouth. He probably smelled like a goddamn brewery. His mouth was dry as dust, too. He’d woken up feeling like a lizard lying on a hot rock.

“Have you had sex outside of your marriage?” the priest asked.

Sex?

Sex had been one of the last things on his mind for nearly a month. But this Menendez, he always wanted to hear about sex. He steered every confession that way. He always asked if you had “spilled your seed.”

Gomer was worried about much more important things than screwing some chiquita and spilling any goddamn seed. Rita had sent him to church to talk about his drinking. His “violence.” What lovely Rita peter maid didn’t know was that his drinking was the result of a few underlying problems.

Problem, name it. Solution, beer. Secret of a happy and successful life.

The nuns at the Catholic schools he’d gone to in Miami always said you should treat your body like a temple. In the last few months, Gomez had been treating his more like an amusement park. And, lately, the combination of beer, Cuban rum, and tranks he’d been on was starting to get to him in some fairly scary ways.

He put his hands together as if in prayer and squeezed them between his knees to stop the shaking.

He began his confession.

“Father, I—” He stopped. “Father, give me a second—please. I’m praying.”

And the truth of it was that he was praying.

At six o’clock on that very morning, Gomez had been sitting in his small kitchen with a gun in his mouth. He was staring out the window at the sunrise. He’d been up all night. There was an empty rum bottle on the kitchen table. A lamp cast its yellow glow on an unfinished letter to Rita and a picture of him and his family.

The barrel of the gun in his mouth tasted like the Hoppe’s gun oil he remembered as smelling pretty good when he was a kid. Didn’t taste all that great, however. Felt like his teeth were coated with it. Pretty goddamn ironic. This was the exact same revolver his grandfather carried at the stupid Bay of Pigs. Grandpa gave the gun to Gomez upon his graduation from St. Ignatius High School. The pistol held six bullets. Gomez had loaded one bullet into the cylinder and spun it a few times.

He had already pulled the trigger four times unsuccessfully.

Click. He pulled it again.

Nada.

How lucky can one guy get? Five pulls, five misses? Five out of five? Nada? Come on. Nobody got that lucky. Maybe somebody up there was trying to tell him something, he told himself. The hell you going to do when you get a message like this, he’d like to know. He took the gun out of his mouth and put it down on the kitchen countertop. He reached over to the little TV and snapped off CNN, which he’d only been sort of half listening to, anyway. Something about Cuba.

The sun was up now.

Everybody in the house was still asleep. He could use a couple of winks himself, couldn’t he? Maybe feel better when he woke up. Unless he dreamed about that damned teddy bear again. The big white one standing in the corner in the little pink room with the white lace curtains.

Goddamn teddy bear was driving him crazy. Ever since the birthday party. He’d imagined it would be easy, handing the bear to the little girl. Walking away. It wasn’t like that. Oh, no. She didn’t let him just walk away.

Little Cindy had laughed when he tore the paper off and showed it to her. Her eyes were wide open, just looking at that bear like it was her favorite present of her whole life or something. She’d stood up on her tippy-toes and given Gomer a big smacker. She hugged that bear to her chest and never let go of it all afternoon. Even though it was almost as big as she was.

Then, when it was finally time to go, Ginny Nettles, who was Fightin’ Joe’s wife and the kid’s mother, had come up to him. Thanked him for his generosity. Said what a wonderful present it was, how it was just what Cindy wanted. Told him she’d like to have Amber and Tiffany spend the night at their house with little Cindy. His own daughters. Right there in the Nettles kid’s room.

Sleeping right there in the same room with the big white teddy bear.

And the bad thing, the really bad thing, was he’d said to her, “Sure, why not?”

Nothing had happened, of course. That’s not how it was going to work. That was definitely not the Big Plan. Still, he never felt right about himself after that night. He would lie there next to Rita, wide-awake, thinking about how he’d let his two kids sleep in that kid’s room with the bear. He tried to get his mind off of it. Think about his million dollars waiting for him in Switzerland. Growing like mushrooms in the dark. A dark vault. With a big white bear in the corner, its eyes glowing bright red.

Rita had finally thrown him out of the house three days prior to this little visit with the padre.

He’d come home pretty messed up that night and she’d gotten more pissed than he’d ever seen her. Gave him living hell. So he’d smacked her a couple of times to shut her up. Nothing serious. No stitches, for chrissakes. No broken anything. Nothing to get your panties in an uproar and kicked out of your own friggin’ house over.

She’d be sorry. Wait till she found out how rich her soon-to-be ex-husband was. That would be something. He could see himself driving up in a brand new Corvette Z06, telling her about the bank in Switzerland, the money. But, hey, just stopped by to say good-bye. See ya.

Hey, way cool plate for his new ’Vette.

SEE YA

He was now living on a pullout sofa. In the upstairs apartment of his buddy Sparky Rollins, one of the guards up on the tower. It wasn’t so bad. He could watch dirty movies on TV. Drink all the beer he wanted. Eat stuff with his hands. Burp, fart, leave the toilet seat up. Hang at the USO until closing time. Nobody ragging his ass all day and night, right? Not a bad life.

Want to hear something funny? Kind of life he was living? He woke up one morning, went into the head to pee, and noticed his pecker had turned orange. Talk about freaked out! He was dialing 911 when he remembered. He’d fallen asleep watching Debbie Does Denver or Tina Does the Tri-Cities or one of those—and he’d been eating Chee-tos! Yes!

Mystery of the orange pecker disease solved, Sherlock. Life was good.

So why had he snuck back inside his house last night? He’d used the key under the mat to let himself in through the kitchen door. Opened a bottle of Mount Gay and had a few. Gone and got his gun out of the garage and stuck it in his mouth. Pulled the trigger five friggin’ times. Man. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. You talk about dodging a bullet.

After he decided not to pull the trigger that one more time, he’d put the gun down and started crying. Staring at the picture of his kids. Watching the sunrise. Crying like a goddamn baby.

He’d gone upstairs to Rita. Gotten down on his knees beside the bed and begged her to take him back. Said how sorry he was and how he’d never hit her again. She said she thought he was sick. Crazy in the head. She’d made him swear to go to church and talk to Father Menendez about whatever it was that was wrong with him. He’d wanted to crawl in bed with her so bad he’d said yes.

And here he was, just like he promised.

“Father, I’m afraid I’ve done a terrible thing,” Gomez said in the confession booth. “I don’t know if treason is a mortal sin or not, but it’s a bitch all right—sorry, I didn’t mean to say that word—it’s a real bad thing, I know that.”

“Tell me your sins,” the priest said.

For about half a minute, he actually thought he was going to be doing just that. And that’s when he forgot about the bear with the bomb in his belly and thought about the million dollars again.

“Sorry, Father, I guess I’m not feeling all that great right now,” he said. “I’ll catch you later.”

He stood up and left the confessional, hurried out of the church, and got in his broiling car.

Christ, he could use a cold one, he thought, starting the Yugo. He’d seen a cool Corvette ad in one of his magazines. Showed a guy in a red ’Vette, and in big type it said, “Know that warm feeling of belonging you have owning a Yugo? We don’t either.”

29

“You say you know the name of the murderer?” Congreve said, staring at Stubbs Witherspoon in disbelief.

The elderly gentleman had returned to the table with an ancient cardboard box containing the Hawke file. He removed the cover and pulled out a pale blue folder.

“No. I said I know the name of the man responsible for the murders, Chief Congreve,” Witherspoon said. “I will come to that. Please bear with me.”

The old man put his hand on the blue folder. “These are the crime-scene photographs,” he said. “Before I show them to you, could you indulge me a moment? I’m a little curious about Scotland Yard’s interest in a thirty-year-old murder case.”

“Of course. I should have explained that earlier. Have you ever heard the name Alexander Hawke?” Congreve asked.

“Yes. That was the child’s name. The sole witness,” Witherspoon replied. “The husband was Alexander. An English lord. The wife, of course, was Catherine, although everyone called her Kitty. A famous actress. She was one of the truly great beauties of that era. An American, from the south. New Orleans, I believe.”

“Yes, it was a famous marriage on both sides of the Atlantic. The sole issue of that marriage is my employer as of this moment. I met young Alex Hawke over twenty years ago. A famous jewel robber was holed up down on one of the Channel Islands and I was hot on his trail. I found him on the same island where Alex was living with his grandfather, Lord Richard Hawke. A brilliant detective himself, he helped me solve the case. And his grandson has been like a son to me ever since.”

“So the reason for your interest in the case is personal?” Witherspoon asked.

“Entirely,” Congreve said. “I should explain that I am mostly retired at this point. Although I do maintain an office in the Special Branch, I work, as I said, primarily on assignments for Alex Hawke himself. As does Inspector Sutherland here, who is on loan from Scotland Yard.”

“So, Mr. Hawke has decided to reopen the issue of his parents’ murders?”

“No! Alex Hawke has no idea I’m even looking into this. In fact, he has no memory of the actual murders—”

“Which he witnessed,” said Witherspoon, shaking his head sadly. He poured each of them some more lemonade.

“Which he witnessed,” Congreve said. “He has those memories buried very deeply in his mind. He has, in effect, erected a wall of denial around them. He never, ever refers to that terrifying chapter in his life. But, I think it haunts him to this day. In fact, I know it does. It is a source of enormous pain.”

“You want to exorcise your friend Alexander Hawke’s old ghosts, Chief Congreve?” Witherspoon asked.

“I’d like very much to somehow put his mind at rest, yes,” Congreve said. “That’s why we’re here in Nassau. If we could solve this thing, even bring the murderers to justice, it might offer him a bit of peace.”

“I see.”

“You should probably know that Alex Hawke is one of the wealthiest men on earth,” Ross said. “He controls a vast business empire. You may have heard the name of the holding company. Blackhawke Industries.”

“They own a shipping company based here in Nassau, I believe,” Witherspoon said.

“Not to mention the banks and brokerages,” Congreve said. “Blackhawke’s central operations are run out of London, but the reach is worldwide. Because of this, he has tremendous contacts at the highest levels of every major corporation and many governments.”

“In recent years,” Congreve added, “he has been doing a lot of work with both the British and American governments. Because of who he is and whom he knows, he has been invaluable to both governments in certain delicate matters.”

“One such mission for the Americans has brought us to your beautiful islands, Mr. Witherspoon,” Ross said. “But my superior and I are here in Nassau completely unofficially. We are looking into these murders on our own.”

“I think I understand now. Thank you,” Witherspoon said, holding the blue folder in his hand as if he were unsure about sharing it.

“We are eager to hear what you have to say,” Ross said.

“Well. I told you that I know the name of the man responsible for the murders. That is true. His name is revealed in these photographs.” Witherspoon slid the file across the table to Congreve.

Only the birds outside and the whir of the fan could be heard in the room. The minutes stretched out as Congreve studied each black-and-white photograph and then handed it to Sutherland, who did the same.

The old policeman rose from his rocker and crossed the room to stand at the window. He had no need to see the photographs again. He had been first to board the yacht when it arrived in the harbor. The first police officer to view the crime scene. The image of that stifling room and what horrors lay inside it would be engraved in his mind forever.

A small, bright green bird alighted in the yellow hibiscus outside his window. The bird turned its darting glance this way and that, finally settling its tiny black eyes on the old man standing in the window. Stubbs Witherspoon willed the vision of the little bird to drive the other vision from his mind. It almost worked.

When he finally turned away from the window, he saw Congreve slumped in his chair, staring down at his hands, which were folded in his lap. Tears were streaming down the Englishman’s face. He made no effort to wipe them away.

Inspector Sutherland was gathering the photographs and returning them to the folder. His eyes, too, were red. It occurred to Witherspoon that these two men had been looking at the nightmarish pictures not with their own eyes, but through the eyes of a seven-year-old boy. A boy, now a man, whom they both deeply admired, perhaps even loved.

“Would you like to take a little walk in my garden?” Stubbs Witherspoon said, putting his hand on Congreve’s shoulder.

“Yes,” Congreve said, composing himself. “Indeed, we should both like that very much.”

“Come along then,” the old fellow said, picking up his folder, and they followed him outside onto the porch.

“Those plants are quite amazing,” Sutherland said, pointing at a bizarre group of palms. “Nothing like that in an English garden, Mr. Witherspoon.”

“Thank you. Birds of Paradise. And that tree? That’s what I call a ‘Tourist Tree.’”

“Why is that?” Congreve asked.

“Just look at de bark of it, mon! It always red and peeling!” Witherspoon said with his merry laugh. “Real name of it is Gumbo Limbo. You see that other tree over there past the Tourist Trees? That big old Calusa tree?”

“It’s lovely,” Congreve said.

“Alex Hawke and his grandfather helped me to plant that tree.”

“You don’t say?” Congreve said. “How extraordinary!”

“Not really. I had just bought this old place at the time. I invited them for luncheon one day, just before they flew back to England. Considering the circumstances, we had ourselves a fairly jolly good time, I remember. Little Alex and my dog Trouble, he was the grandfather of old Roscoe over there, runnin’ all over the place, chasing Trouble’s little red ball.” The three men walked out into the yard. There were a few wooden chairs under the Calusa, and they all sat down in the quiet shade of its branches.

“Of course,” Congreve said quietly. “You would have interviewed little Alex in the course of your investigation.”

“Oh, I wasn’t the lead investigator. Far from it. But I loved that little fellow. I took some little toy or something to that hospital room every single day,” Witherspoon said. “I sat by his bed most of the time. But I wouldn’t call it investigation. Just keeping him company. Poor boy Alex, he couldn’t talk at all at first. When his grandfather got down here, well, he started to come back a little.”

“No memory of the crime, even then?”

“None at all. The first time I saw him he kept repeatin’ somethin’ over and over. Three knocks. He never would explain it, but I figured it out eventually.”

“Three knocks. What do you think it meant, Stubbs?” Congreve asked, leaning forward in his chair.

“I think it was a code. Between him and his father, I mean. See, little Alex was locked in that locker from the inside. And the key to the locker was found in Alex’s pocket.”

“So his father, probably having heard someone up on deck, had hidden him in the locker, then given him the key and told him to lock himself inside,” Ross said.

“And told him not to come out for anyone unless he heard three knocks on the door,” Congreve concluded.

“That’s just the way I saw it,” Witherspoon said. “His father, he died with his back to that door. Wasn’t any way anybody was going to get through him to that child.”

“How do you know that?” Ross asked.

“If you look closely at the photo of the bulkhead wall where the door was, you’ll see two deep holes on either side of the door. Those holes match the two knife wounds that penetrated the victim’s hands.”

“He was nailed to the wall?”

“He was crucified. As I said, the photographs reveal the name of the man responsible for the murders,” Witherspoon said.

“The method of killing then?” Congreve asked.

“Yes. You see, that kind of mutilation—the throat slit with the tongue drawn out through the opening and left hanging on the chest, for instance—”

“The infamous ‘Colombian necktie,’” Ross said, and Witherspoon nodded at him.

“We had a reign of terror down here, early in the seventies and into the eighties,” Witherspoon said. “Anti-British feelings in the islands. Then, anti-American. It was also the beginning of narco-terrorism. Everywhere in these islands were the narco-traffickers and sicarios, or the assassins. Most learned their trade at the foot of a vicious Colombian drug king we called el doctor.”

“And that’s the man you think is responsible for the Hawke murders?” Congreve asked.

“Yes, sir. I’m sure of it. Whoever killed Alex’s parents, he worked directly for a man named Pablo Escobar.”

“Escobar is dead, as you know, Chief,” Ross said to Congreve. “Tracked down and assassinated in Medellín in 1989 by a team of Colombian special forces. No one will admit it, of course, but there were Americans involved, Delta Force black ops.”

“So the murderers are Colombian,” Congreve said.

“No,” Witherspoon said, “I think they were Cuban.”

“Please explain,” Ross said.

“Three Cuban boys on a murderous rampage. I think the killings occurred in the Exumas. That’s where Seahawke was last seen, moored in a little cove near Staniel Cay.”

Sutherland and Congreve looked at each other but said nothing.

“But the style of the thing, it was pure Colombian. So, I went down there to Staniel Cay myself,” Witherspoon said, “on a tip from a friend of mine, a young policeman down there by the name of Bajun. He said there had been three Cuban boys, brothers, who’d been working odd jobs in the Exumas. Bartenders, paid hands, fishermen, you know.”

“Yes, go on, please,” Congreve said, plainly excited.

“They attracted Bajun’s attention, he told me, because they all wore expensive gold jewelry. Colombian jewelry. He thought they were narcos killing time between drug drops, and he had his eye on them.”

“So. Not Escobar himself. But three Cubans who might have been working for him at the time,” Ross said, mulling it over. “Entirely plausible.”

“That was our thinking, me and Bajun. We dusted the murder scene for prints but our techniques were pretty primitive back then. We did find three sets of footprints, in addition to the victims’. All had bare feet. So, there were three murderers. And the three Cubans disappeared the same night that the yacht did. Never seen again.”

“What happened then?” Congreve asked, leaning forward and rubbing his hands together. A chill of excitement had made him forget all about the tropic heat.

“Nobody paid me no mind. I didn’t have too much credibility at that time. And we had a backlog of cases two miles long. So I went out on my own. I tried the Americans first. The CIA station chief here at the time was an acquaintance of my father’s. His name was Benjamin Hill.

“Now, Ben knew that I knew the CIA and the U.S. Army were all over Colombia. It was the worst-kept secret down here. They had the Medellín cartel under daily surveillance. But, of course, Ben couldn’t admit to anything, even though he wanted to help. Officially, the Americans were not in Colombia, so I hit a stone wall.”

“What did you do then?” asked Ross.

“Simple. I emptied my savings account and borrowed some money from my father. Then I went down to Colombia,” Witherspoon said. “I had a good description of the three brothers from Bajun. And a warrant based on the evidence we had gathered in Staniel Cay. I poked around a little. ’Bout a week. People smile in your face, shake they heads. Got nowhere. Finally, I met with the chief of police in Medellín. I showed him the police sketches I’d had done of the suspects.”

“Sorry to interrupt,” Congreve said, his words tinged with excitement. “You still have those sketches?”

“Of course. Anyway, I got nowhere with that damn man. It was clear the chief down there was, like most everybody in those days, in Escobar’s pocket.”

“May I see those sketches?” Ambrose asked.

“You can have them,” Witherspoon said, taking the tattered sheaves from his folder and handing them over.

“And that was the end of it, then?” asked Congreve, studying the rough caricatures.

“Not exactly,” Witherspoon said. He stood up from his chair and gazed up into the sun-dappled branches of the Calusa tree, the empty flap of his sleeve floating in the breeze.

“That last night in Colombia after I met with the chief of police,” he said, continuing to gaze upwards, “an automobile packed with one hundred kilos of dynamite exploded right outside my hotel. The entire front of the building collapsed into the street. Six people were killed. There was a young mother and her two infant children, just entering the hotel when the bomb—all I lost was my right arm.”

“It was not your fault, Mr. Witherspoon,” Congreve said to the old man, putting a hand on his bony shoulder.

“It wasn’t?” Witherspoon said.

30

“Welcome home, m’lord,” Pelham said, swinging open the wide mahogany door at the entrance of Hawke’s new Georgetown home. He’d heard the familiar roar of Hawke’s motorcycle outside and made his way across the black-and-white checked floor of the foyer.

Hawke shut down the motorcycle and reluctantly climbed off. He loved firing up the old Norton Commando and was glad of any excuse to use it. After leaving Vicky’s office the previous afternoon, he’d had only an hour or so in his new home. In the splendor of his cerulean blue bedroom, he’d had just time enough to call his decorator Le Coney in New York, thank her for the splendid job, then hop into a shower, a dinner jacket, and then out to the garage and onto his Norton for the short sprint around to the Georgetown Club.

“Hullo, Pelham, old thing,” Hawke said, mounting the stone steps and smiling at his butler. “Glad to see you’re still among the living this morning.”

“As Alfred Lord Tennyson put it so succinctly in his poem ‘The Brook,’ I go on forever, m’lord,” the aged butler said, with a slight bow.

Pelham Grenville had to be nearly a hundred years old. He still had a good head of thick white hair, an imperious nose, and twinkling blue eyes. He wore spotless white gloves, a cutaway jacket, striped trousers, and a stiff white tie at his throat every day of his life.

He’d spent the majority of that lifetime working for one member of the Hawke family or another. Though he was in fact a thoroughly professional butler, the family had long since ceased to think of him as a servant. He was a member of the family. He was Pelham, that charming fellow who kept successions of Hawke properties, town and country houses, well oiled. And, until they could be shipped off to Eton or Harrow or, later, Dartmouth, he also kept generations of Hawke children on the straight and narrow.

Pelham had insisted on coming over to Washington to supervise the restoration and decoration of The Oaks. Hawke didn’t have the heart to say no. With Hawke away on business, and with only the odd aging aunt or cousin dropping by for tea, there was certainly not much activity in the London house in Belgrave Square. Besides, he enjoyed Grenville’s company enormously.

Hawke gave Pelham a stern look.

“Now, none of this bowing and scraping stuff to anybody over here,” Hawke said, as the butler took his overcoat. “This is America, Pelham. Land of freedom and equality.”

“Please,” Pelham sniffed. “I’ve been in service for over eighty years. I hardly need—good heavens! Look at you, m’lord, you’re all bloody.”

“Must have been someplace I ate,” Hawke said, smiling at his own little joke. “Do I have time for a quick shower?”

“Very little, I’m afraid,” Pelham said. “Madame Secretary just rang. She’s on her way.”

“Is it that bloody late?” Hawke said, looking at his shattered watch. He’d been unable to tear himself away from Vicky’s bedside and forgotten all about the time.

“I tried your mobile, but as usual it wasn’t turned on.”

“Well, yes, there’s that. I wonder if you could possibly get the secretary some tea and apologize for me, will you? I’m going to have a scrub and put on something clean.”

“Indeed, sir. Your current appearance leaves a great deal to be desired. One might use the word ‘frightening.’ I’ve taken the liberty of laying out one of your favorite gray Huntsman suits,” the butler said. “And may I suggest a tie? A nice Turnbull Navy foulard should do quite nicely. After all, your guest is a personage of great—”

But Hawke was already halfway up the sweeping marble staircase, mounting the steps three at a time.

“Lord Hawke is bloodied but unbowed, I see!” the old fellow muttered under his breath.

“Indeed, I am!” Hawke shouted back over his shoulder.

Ten minutes later, he’d showered and, ignoring the wardrobe laid out by Pelham, donned a pair of faded Levis, Royal Navy T-shirt, and an old black cashmere sweater. If Conch saw him in a coat and tie, she wouldn’t recognize him.

Entering the library, he found Consuelo de los Reyes sitting by a crackling fire, sipping a can of Diet Coke through a straw, and staring at the television.

“You’re here!” Hawke said. “Sorry, I didn’t—”

“I figured out how to turn this damn thing on. Hope you don’t mind.”

She was watching herself on CNN Newsbreakers. Hawke couldn’t help smiling at Conch’s television appearance and demeanor.

Very genteel. Black dress, pearls. And, Hawke noticed, a marked absence of the usual stream of four-letter words that flowed so naturally from the mouth of the American Secretary of State.

“Does that dress make me look fat?” Conch asked.

“No dress makes you look fat, Conch.”

Today, Conch had on a tight pink cashmere sweater. It was a sweater he remembered quite well. It buttoned up the back. Or unbut-toned, as the case may be. Beyond the tall crystalline windows on either side of the hearth, a snow-covered Washington basked in the brilliant morning sunlight.

“Well, you’re my first guest,” Hawke said, pulling up a chair by the fireside. “I guess since you found the house for me, by all rights it should be you.” Conch owned the house just across the street and had first shown Alex the pretty Georgian brick home he now owned.

“Good God almighty, Alex,” she said, reaching over to flip off the television and looking around. “You’ve turned the old dump into Brideshead Manor.”

“Decorators certainly captured the English Country look in this room, didn’t they?”

“Feel like I’m sitting in the middle of a goddamn Polo ad. Like Ralph’s going to walk through the door any minute and plop down amidst the chintz with a couple of springer spaniels.”

Hawke smiled. Conch’s tastes ran to bamboo, rattan, and mounted blue marlins, even in Georgetown.

“Dreadful business last night at the Georgetown Club,” he said. “I’ve just come from the hospital.”

“Hell of a fright, buster. I got a call during dinner with the president. The Georgetown Club! We’ll nail these guys, whoever they are. And then we’ll nail the sonsabitches’ balls to the walls, believe me. Tell me about it. What happened to your hand?”

“Just a salad fork through it, Conch. I was lucky.”

“And Victoria?”

“I would say that she is extremely lucky.”

“Meaning?”

“This may be difficult for you to believe, but—” Alex broke off what he was saying when Pelham suddenly floated into the room.

“I’ve laid a breakfast out on the table there, m’lord,” he said. “Fruit, cereal, coffee, tea. Muffins with your favorite strawberry jam. Please ring if you need me. Otherwise I shan’t disturb you further.”

Hawke smiled as the butler withdrew, pulling the double doors closed, and said, “At any rate, I know it’s preposterous, but I think it’s possible that bomb was meant for Vicky.”

“Oh, Alex, get serious. Why in hell would anyone—”

“The bloody Cubans, perhaps. After all, that submarine was purchased by this Telaraña bunch. Could be trying to scare me away.”

“Alex, if they really wanted to, why not just kill you?”

“Too much bad publicity? I don’t know. Look, I’ll be honest. I gave those Russians a fairly rough go of it. Forced them to divulge who bought the Borzoi. They were terrified of the possible repercussions. In order to cover themselves, they’d go straight to the Cubans and tell them about my keen interest in their activities. So, I expect the new Cuban government aren’t exactly happy with me at the moment.”

“Big-time CYA.”

“Sorry?”

“Cover Your Ass. Your Russian friends are covering theirs with the Cubans,” Conch said. “That’s precisely what your little arms-dealing buddies would do. Go to the Cubans, tell their sob story, blame everything on you. Cuban Secret Service does a little backtracking and ends up in Kuwait City, where the first deal fell apart. CIA just received word that your friend Cap Adams just turned up dead. Sorry.”

“What?”

“London Metro Police found him last night in his apartment in St. John’s Wood. No apparent cause of death. Pathologists using an electron microscope detected a minute pellet of Ricin in his thigh muscle.”

“Ricin?”

“Toxic albumin found in castor beans. Remember the famous ‘Umbrella Murder’? A KGB thug with a trick umbrella assassinated an inconvenient Bulgarian named Marlgov on the Waterloo Bridge way back in ’78. Ancient history to us, but apparently not to the Cubans. Kudos to your British forensic boys for getting to the bottom of this one so quickly.”

“Kudos all around. Hope someone gets word of their brilliant success to Cap’s wife, Anne, and children in Arlington. Christ. I’ve got to call Anne.”

“Stick with Vicky a moment, Alex. What makes you think Vicky might be the target?”

“She was called to the phone by the waiter just minutes before the explosion. When she got to the booth, there was no one on the line. Just breathing. There was a black briefcase on the floor. Thinking someone had simply forgotten it, she gave it to the waiter on her way back to the table.”

“And it exploded in his hands minutes later,” the secretary said, shaking her head. “I’ll get this info to the lead team right away.”

“Thanks.”

“Alex, the reason the president asked me to stop by this morning is Cuba. What we don’t need at State right now is another hotspot right on our doorstep. That island is coming to a fast boil. I’m going to need a little help with this one.”

“Whatever I can do. Tell me.”

“As I told you, rumors of a coup have been circulating for a while. Now, a televised speech Fidel was scheduled to make last evening was canceled at the last minute. It’s not at all like him. I’ve got a shitload of HUMINT pouring in through our Cuban desk at the Swiss embassy in Havana.”

“HUMINT?”

“Sorry. Human intelligence. State Department speak for spies. I try like hell not to talk like that, but sometimes…”

“Castro’s had a rough go of it with Parkinson’s, you know. Relapse?”

“Possible. But we know he’d had a major recovery after the pope’s last visit. We get weekly medical reports on him from a doctor on our payroll. He’s down, but he’s not out by a long shot. Tough old bird. And every male in his family lives to be at least a hundred.”

“So. What’s next?”

“I’m going from here right back to the White House. We’ve had contingency planning for a Cuban overthrow on the books forever, as you can well imagine. We’re moving to the implementation stage right now.”

“Any news on the submarine front?”

“You bet. Here, look at these,” de los Reyes said, and handed Hawke a bright red folder full of black-and-white photographs.

“Where were these taken?” Hawke asked, flipping through the pictures.

“Predator spy photos, taken yesterday. About an hour after you identified the purchaser as Telaraña, we got a Predator in the air out of Gitmo. Look. There’s the southeast coast of Cuba. That’s the town of Manzanillo. On Guacanayabo Bay. There’s Telaraña, that small island off the coast, do you see it?”

“Yes,” Hawke said, rising and taking the pictures to the window where the light was stronger. “A lot of construction. Looks like barracks, warehouses. And, here, mobile scud launchers.”

“Yes. We think they’re recently purchased massive numbers of Russian scuds. There’s also a large white structure at the mouth of the river, do you see that?”

“Yes, it looks huge. What is it?”

“Navy at the Pentagon says it’s some kind of amphitheater. I think it’s a submarine pen disguised to look like a public building. Certainly wide enough for the beam of a Boomerang. We really don’t know, Alex,” the secretary said.

“The plot, as they say, sickens. The new Cuba—a dog or a rat in every pot and a half-billion-dollar invisible nuclear submarine in every garage.”

“Alex?” Something in her tone had changed.

“Yes?” He looked into her incredibly beautiful brown eyes for an extra second and then turned back to the window.

“Look at me.”

“Bad idea.”

“Turn around and look at me.”

“Terrible idea, Conch.”

As a charter member of the bad idea club, he knew one when he saw one coming. And his intense desire to unbutton that tight pink sweater was definitely not a good idea. He didn’t need this now. Especially now, in fact. He was in love. And the woman he loved was lying in the hospital. Christ.

“I can’t do it, Conch. I won’t do it,” he said. He heard a rustle of papers and folders being gathered up behind him. When he turned around, she was headed for the door.

“Conch?”

She paused and turned to look at him. The expression on her face was all business.

“The president has asked me to form an emergency task force to deal with this,” she said. “I’ve asked the two men you met in my office to head it up. He sent me here to ask you to be part of the team.”

“Consuelo, you know I’m always at your disposal. But if you look carefully at my résumé, you’ll see the telltale notation, ‘Doesn’t work well with others.’”

“I expected that. But this is obviously a matter of enormous consequence to the president. We simply cannot have this goddamn thing floating around out there, a couple of miles off Miami Beach. He is deeply appreciative of your stunning success in the Caribbean. Hell, we all are.”

“He was kind enough to call.”

“You found out who bought it. Now all we’ve got to do is find and neutralize the sonofabitch. I promised him I’d secure your help. See it through to the end.”

“Really? That’s a fairly staggering thing for you to do, Conch.”

“Isn’t it? I take so much for granted. I just never learn.”

“Conch, listen. I was a sorry little shit, dreadful. Forgive me one day?”

“Yeah, well, I hated the way we ended. You caught me looking, I’ll give you that much. No warning signs. Nothing. It really hurt, okay? I felt like you never even gave me a chance. Gave us a chance.”

“Yes. Well, if you really think about it, we never—”

“Please shut up, Hawke. You’re really crappy at this kind of stuff.”

Alex had no reply for that.

“What’s your schedule look like?” she asked, all business once more.

“I’m headed right back down to the Exumas. Vicky’s had a mild concussion and could use a couple of weeks away from her office anyway. I’m taking her to the islands for two weeks aboard Blackhawke.”

“Lucky girl.”

“I’m flying down this afternoon. When I get there, I’m your man. Whatever I can do. Just don’t drag me into another one of those bloody task force meetings.”

“Remember what you did at the last one?”

“No. I try to forget these things.”

“Halfway through, you stood up and announced that, while you were enjoying the meeting immensely, you had to leave because you had a leg of lamb in the oven.”

“Ah, yes. Mustn’t overcook lamb. Quite a good one, wasn’t it?”

“Okay, my man.” The secretary of state grabbed her coat from the back of a chair and headed for the door without looking back.

“’Bye, Conch.”

“Scoot over and borrow a cup of sugar anytime,” she said, pulling the door closed behind her.

31

Manso and his two brothers, Carlos and Juanito, stood together at the very end of a long jetty. Waves were breaking over the rocks, soaking the three men to the skin. There was no moon and no stars, only the raging sea. It was a miserable Cuban night. It was a magnificent Cuban night.

Manso, shivering in the cold rain, was aglow inside. He’d done it. They had all done it. The country would soon learn that a new Cuba was about to be born. Right now, looking at their exuberant smiles, he felt like this small band of brothers were the three happiest men in all of Cuba.

They stood on the concrete jetty, just at the base of a newly installed red channel marker. Every three seconds it flashed, splashing the three men with brilliant red light. A green marker flashed at the end of the other jetty, a halo of light some two hundred yards across the mouth of the river in the darkness.

It was almost midnight and raining hard, but they didn’t care. In the long, tortuous history of their country, this was a moment of historic importance. The de Herreras brothers were euphoric as they peered through the slashing rain, out across the black water.

“Anything?” Manso asked.

“I thought I saw something,” Carlos said, “but I think it’s only salt water in my eyes.” He took a swig from a silver flask and stuck the container back inside his jacket.

“You’re going to see something, mi hermano,” Juanito said, laughing and clapping him on the back. “You are definitely going to see a great big something!” All three men had night-vision binoculars hanging from their necks.

Nothing.

“The television was a disaster,” Manso said, after a few more moments of scanning the black horizon with his binoculars. “He was a wild man, even with the sedatives. I had the announcer say that he was rescheduled for tomorrow. I don’t think he’s going to cooperate.”

“Who cares?” Carlos asked. “He’s irrelevant. Right now, all the Cuban people know is that he missed a telecast. Unfortunate. But remember that they saw him at the Yacht Club only this morning. The Granma reporter was there, so it will be in the paper. If he ultimately refuses to go before the cameras, so what? You and Fulgencio will announce the change of government and that’s the end of it. Everything else is accomplished.”

“It’s better if Fidel does it, Carlitos,” Juanito insisted. “Easier for all of us. In the long run, the people won’t care. But, for now, I—”

“Listen. I have an idea,” Manso said. “I was talking after supper to the video technician. He tells me we can make him say whatever we want.”

“Of course we can always do that.” Carlos laughed. “Rodrigo and his silver scissors can make anyone say anything.”

“I don’t mean that way, Carlitos,” Manso said, looking at his crazy brother Carlos with eyes like black stones.

“You mean there is another way?” Juanito asked.

“There is a way to digitally alter his speech and lip movements,” Manso said. “As long as it’s kept very short.”

“How short?” Juanito asked. “You mean, like, ‘I quit, here’s the new guy’?” He laughed and took another pull on his flask.

“My God, look at that,” Carlos said. “Look!”

“Turn on the lights!” Manso said. Carlos flipped a switch mounted on the base of the channel marker and massive banks of floodlights above them lit up the storm-torn night.

All three raised their binoculars and aimed them in the direction Carlos had pointed.

“There!” he said. “See it?”

“Where? Oh…Mother of Christ!”

Out of the sea came the head of the monster, black and knife-edged, its V-shaped snout spewing not fire but boiling white water as it rose ever higher into the rain-whipped skies. It was a dull deadly black, looking like some evil engineer’s nightmare machine. There was in fact no more efficient killing device on earth.

“I told you you were going to see something, my brothers!” Juanito shouted. “Oh, my God, look at this thing! Have you ever seen anything so huge?”

The deadly thing was still rising, a froth of white water pouring off the sleek, sharp-angled sides of its twin swept-back hulls and diving planes. Then that amazing snout came crashing down into the sea and the submarine surged toward the jetties. It was immense.

Water broke over her V-bow. They heard an alarm and saw something rising slowly from the forward-most part of the hull, another sharply angled shape with faint lights glowing from within. Then the structure was looming above the decks, and they understood at once that this was the retractable conning tower. After a moment, they could see the small black silhouettes of men begin to appear at the very top.

A powerful searchlight on the sub’s tower was illuminated and swept back and forth across the river’s entrance.

Manso couldn’t make out any faces, of course, the men were just black figures at this distance, but he knew the identity of one of them. Then he caught a face in his powerful night-vision glasses.

“Commander Nikita Zukov,” Manso said under his breath. “Welcome to Cuba. We’ve been expecting you.”

The three brothers embraced, rain splashing on their faces. It was a moment they seemed to have been imagining forever. But their imaginations had been capable of nothing so grand as the events of the day and this sight and this historic night.

The mammoth black-winged creature from the deep was now entering the mouth of the river. It was the most stunning thing Manso had ever seen. He waved at the men atop the conning tower and they returned his salute.

“Well, my brave brothers, I have a question for you,” he said, gathering them together. “Walk with me.”

Arm in arm, they started walking back along the jetty, toward the sub pen. They wanted to be inside the newly constructed pen with the construction crews and all the on-shore support teams when the sub made its dramatic appearance.

“Just one little question,” Manso said, looking back at the sub sliding majestically toward them.

“Sí, Manso?” they replied in unison.

“I want to know, my brothers, exactly how does it feel to be a super-power?”

Laughing, the three men raced ahead of the submarine back towards the pen. The huge doors were sliding open, revealing the cavernous interior. Light poured out and so did many of the workers, charged with excitement at the sight of the approaching sub.

It was hard to say who was more excited, the Cubans or the Russians. There were over a hundred Russian electronic engineers, machinists, plumbers, electricians, and various nuclear technicians. They’d been working side by side with the Cubans for months, building the necessary machine and tool shops it would take to support such a sophisticated nuclear submarine.

As the giant sub finally eased into the wide mouth of her slip, there was a deafening roar as the men surged down the floating docks running along each hull, cheering wildly.

Commander Nikita Zukov stood atop the towering sail of his submarine, surveying the sea of activity taking place all around him. He had his hands over his ears to block out the terrible sound. It wasn’t the sound of the arc welders or the steelworkers still putting the finishing touches on the sub pen that bothered him. It was a small orchestra struggling through yet another rehearsal of the Cuban national anthem.

The band was practicing for the dedication ceremony. They stood at the end of a long concrete pier, only twenty feet from where the sub was moored. Commander Zukov thought that if he had to listen to one more stanza, he might well go insane.

“Not bad, not bad,” Admiral Carlos de Herreras said in Spanish. “I think by the time of the May Day ceremony, they’ll be perfect.” Zukov, who spoke fluent Spanish, looked at the man to see if he could possibly be serious. He was.

Zukov’s father had been a Soviet navy “adviser” to Cuba and had married a Cuban woman. So he’d grown up in a house where everyone spoke both Spanish and Russian. Born in Havana thirty-five years ago, he had not been in Cuba in many years. He was ten years old when his father had taken the family back to Moscow. He was accepted at the Naval Academy at eighteen, and became a submarine officer, gaining command of his own boat by age thirty.

Zukov’s Cuban background accounted for the fact that he happened to be standing here instead of any of a dozen former Soviet sub commanders vying for the job. He knew the language and the culture. He knew and loved the people. He had served his country with great distinction. And he’d never forgiven the politburo for their betrayal of his homeland. And his navy.

“The band, they sound pretty good to you, Commander?” the Cuban admiral asked him.

“Symphonic,” Zukov replied, straining to be heard over the orchestra, the arc welders, and the steelworkers.

A crew was already painting the sub’s new name on both the starboard and portside flanks of the gleaming black hull.

Zukov recognized the new name instantly.

José Martí.

Named in honor of the great patriot who had liberated Cuba from Spain after a long bloody war, the José Martí was a splendid symbol of the new Cuba. The excitement inside the submarine pen verged on hysteria. Flags and bunting hung from every corner of the building in preparation for the celebration of May Day, the great Communist holiday, just three days hence. The mood inside was frantic, but festive.

One man had started whistling the “Mango” melody and soon the whole construction and support battalion was singing the ironic lyrics at the top of their lungs.

The mango, the mango, even though it is green, it is ripe and ready to fall…

Mercifully, the swelling voices drowned out the band.

Admiral Carlos de Herreras, CNO of the Cuban navy, and his two brothers had boarded the sub soon after Zukov guided it expertly up the narrow shoaled river and into its slip. After the sub was properly moored and her propulsion systems shut down, Zukov had welcomed them aboard. He had offered them some chilled vodka in the wardroom, then given them the official guided tour, stem to stern.

Although their questions were outrageously naive, it was obvious the Cuban officers were more than delighted with their new toy. They were giddy with excitement, and hurried from one end of the boat to the other, laughing with glee.

The Cubans were especially excited, he noticed, when they entered the starboard hull compartment where, in their silos, twenty gleaming warheads sat atop twenty ballistic missiles. Over on the port hull, a matching set of twenty more. With forty warheads, you could blow up the world. No one had yet told Zukov what his first mission would be, and he had only a rough idea of the primary targets. But the very thought of going to war in such a magnificent machine sent an electric charge racing through him. A feeling he hadn’t experienced since the glory days of the Cold War.

The commander’s Russian crew of one hundred thirty men, all former submariners under his Cold War command, were also in a jolly mood. All of them were now, like Zukov himself, mercenaries. And all of them, after a frozen winter in Vladivostok, were equally ecstatic at the very idea of a shore leave on the beautiful tropical island of Cuba.

For Zukov, this return elicited deeper emotions.

Zukov had been deeply humiliated when the Soviet empire collapsed. As a naval officer in command on an Akula, he’d spent his entire life playing undersea cat-and-mouse with the Americans. Endless days and nights rehearsing for a war that would never get fought. He’d spent months under the polar ice cap, stalking the SSN George Washington, praying for any excuse to engage. Once he had tracked the carrier John F. Kennedy for weeks, staying dead astern of his prey, so that the signature sound of his screws went completely undetected by enemy sonar. All this, at a time when the ultimate weapon, his new command, Borzoi, was still on the drawing boards.

Like many of his warrior comrades, he was bored to stupor with the decade or so of “peace” following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

On a purely personal level, Commander Zukov was happy just to return to his homeland. Memories of his beautiful birthplace haunted him still. On a professional level, he was ecstatic at the prospect of killing a whole lot of Americans.

He sensed in the wild-eyed Cuban admiral, Carlos de Herreras, a kindred spirit. He’d seen the man in the missile compartment out of the corner of his eye. He had been rubbing his hands together gleefully, almost maniacally.

Bloodlust. He knew it well, for it coursed through every vein in his body.

32

“Hey, Doc, you awake?”

“Alex? Yes, I guess so. What time is it?”

“I don’t know. A little before midnight, I think. Sorry. I just need to—no, don’t turn on the light. It’s all right.”

Alex had temporarily given Vicky her own stateroom in the vain hope that she might get more rest the first few days. He’d promised himself he’d stay away from her for at least three days. He hadn’t even made it through the first night.

“Alex, your hand is freezing. You’re trembling. What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know. I’m sorry to bother you. I got up to use the loo and—sorry—can I climb in with you?”

“Of course you can, darling. Here, let me move over.”

“Thank you. Oh, God, you feel warm.”

“You’re trembling all over!”

“I know. It’s the strangest thing. I think I passed out. I went to my stateroom right after we—we said good night. Went right to sleep, too, out like a light. Something woke me up. A bad dream maybe. Anyway, I was looking in the mirror over the basin and then—I woke up on the floor.”

“You fainted?”

“I don’t know. I remember I felt really odd, looking at my face in the mirror. As if it weren’t me. Or, it was me, but only vaguely. I didn’t recognize myself. So, I—”

“Is this the first time this has happened? Close your eyes a second, I’m turning on the light. I need to look at your pupils.”

“Yes. I mean no, not the first time. Ouch. That’s bright.”

“It is, or it isn’t the first time?” she asked, examining him. His eyes, normally a hard blue, now looked breakable, like china.

“I’m not sure. A few days ago, just before I flew up to Washington, I was standing up on deck. Just looking at the stars. Thinking about you, actually. How much I missed you. And then, my breathing went all arsey-versey and my heart sort of went pounding off the rails and—”

“Is there a physician here on board the QEII?”

“Of course.”

“I want you to see the doctor first thing in the morning, Alex. No excuses.”

“Why? Hell, I just fainted, Vicky. I’m fine. See? I’m not even shaking anymore. This is just an elaborate ruse to come down and bother you. Check out which nightie you’re wearing. Good selection.”

“I’m sure it’s nothing serious. But you do need to see him. Get a complete blood workup done. He may want you to have an MRI.”

“It’s a she.”

“What?”

“The ship’s doctor. He’s a she.”

“Of course. Your nurse-uniform fetish. God, how stupid of me.”

“What do you think is wrong with me, Vicky? Brain tumor?”

“I think you’re fine, darling. I think you’ve had a panic attack.”

“Panic? Over what? I’ve never been happier.”

“I don’t know. You’re not really my patient, remember?”

“We’ll fix that.”

“You said you had a bad dream, Alex. Can you remember anything about it?”

“No. It’s a very bad dream.”

“Tell me about it.”

“May I have a sip of your water? Thank you. Well. It’s always the same at the beginning. I’m locked inside a small—I’ve never told anyone this before, Doc.”

“It’s all right, Alex. Tell me.”

“Can we just make love again instead? I’ll tell you first thing tomorrow.”

“No.”

“All right, all right. It’s frightfully mundane. I’m locked in a small room. A closet of some kind and—why am I talking about this? It’s only a stupid childish dream.”

“Dreams are important because they offer clues to our deepest feelings.”

“You sound just like a bad textbook, darling. ‘Our deepest feelings.’ Well, in my case this shouldn’t take long because deep down I’m a very shallow person.”

“Tell me the goddamn dream, darling.”

“Yes. Anyway, in my dream, I’m locked inside a small closet. It’s insufferably hot and foul-smelling. There’s a small hole in the door, and I can see into the next room.”

“What’s in the other room?”

“Nothing. But there’s a hole in its ceiling. And I know something bad is coming down through that hole. That’s the feeling I have. A bad thing is coming.”

“Is it always the same bad thing?”

“Yes. It’s—it’s a spider. It wants to kill me. It wants to kill everybody.”

“And you’re powerless to stop it?”

“Um, yes. I am.”

“Because of the locked door?”

“Because I’m so little. And the door. Yes, it’s locked. I’m hiding so the spider won’t find me.”

“How old are you in the dream?”

“I don’t know. Six or seven maybe.”

“What do you do? Where are your parents? Can’t they help you?”

“I don’t have any bloody parents. I never had any! I was raised by my grandfather!”

“Alex, calm down. It’s all right.”

“Sorry. There’s no one in the closet but me. I’m all alone. I’ve always been alone. I want to scream. But I can’t because then the spider will hear me and find me. After a while, I don’t care. I want to open my mouth and scream and scream but nothing comes out.”

“Alex, you’re shaking again. Are you all right?”

“No. I’m not all right. My dreams, my life. Sometimes I can’t tell the difference. I always seem to be somewhere on the road between Heaven and Hell, and I never know which way I’m headed.”

“Oh, Alex.”

“You know—I really don’t want to talk about this, Doc. Drop it, all right? I’m thirty-seven fucking years old. I managed, somehow, to make it this far through my life without a lot of psychobabbling doctors digging into my past, and I’m not bloody well about to start digging into it now.”

“Why are you so angry?”

“This is my life you’re poking around in. I’m a private person.”

“I’m just trying to help. You came to me, remember?”

“Right. My mistake. Sorry. I don’t need any bloody help. I’m sorry I disturbed you. I’ll go back to my bed now, thank you very much. Good night.”

“Alex, you need to talk to someone. Maybe not me, but someone.”

The door slammed and he was gone.

“Good night, Alex,” Vicky said, and turned out the light.

She lay staring into the darkness for about ten minutes, arranging and rearranging her pillows. There was no possible way she could go back to sleep. She’d been in bed for the best part of forty-eight hours. She felt great. Mild concussion? Obvious misdiagnosis. Minor concussion, that was this doctor’s second opinion.

She flipped on the light, got up, and pulled on a pair of khaki shorts. Then the white T-shirt with the big black hawk that the captain had given her when she’d first come aboard. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. She’d completely forgotten about the bandages around her head.

Pulling open a drawer, she grabbed the lovely Hermès scarf that Alex had found for her on New Bond Street in London. Dolphins and whales. She wrapped it around her head and went off in search of the nearest stairwell.

She hadn’t been on the yacht long, but she already knew where to find Ambrose. She knew his habits well enough to know that right now, he was sitting out on deck under the stars, probably at the business end of a vintage cognac. It was Ambrose, after all, who’d introduced her to Alex in London. There’d been a dinner dance at the home of the American ambassador. Vicky was a guest there because the current ambassador to the Court of St. James, Patrick Brickhouse Kelly, and his wife had been great friends of her father’s.

And, besides, she had a new children’s book out called The Whirl-o-Drome that had won all sorts of English literary prizes and was all the rage in London. She’d found herself invited to countless dinner parties because of it.

Alex was the guest of honor that evening, and she’d been seated next to him. He was devastatingly good-looking, and she was sure this seating had been carefully arranged. When the beautiful man proceeded to ignore her all through the first course, she’d turned once more to the charming older man on her left, Ambrose Congreve, and asked if he knew why the rude guest on her right was ignoring her. He said he happened to be the man’s closest friend and would be happy to assist.

He scribbled something on the back of his engraved place card, and handed it to Vicky. It was folded and said “Alex Hawke” on the outside. She tapped the rude man on his shoulder and handed it to him. He read it, looked pale, and then said to Vicky, “Excuse me, I’m a dreadful bore. But I would be twice honored if you would do me the singular honor of the next dance.”

Ambrose would never tell her what he’d written on the place card. But when she’d turned and asked the gorgeous man if “twice honored” meant two dances, well, that was the beginning of everything.

In the event, the three of them spent the next two weeks in a merry whirlwind of pub crawls, parties, and weekend trips to lovely old country houses. She and Alex spent the last weekend alone at his rambling home, Hawke’s Lair, deep in the Cotswolds. They had, of course, fallen deeply in love by then. And Ambrose had become a frequent companion as well.

So she knew Ambrose’s nocturnal habits. Now, he’d most likely be up on the topmost deck in the open stern lounge. It was his favorite haunt and he’d nicknamed it the Fantail Club. He’d be smoking his pipe and having his Hine cognac, which is exactly what she wanted at the moment.

She emerged into the cool night air. The stars were so bright she wished she’d brought sunglasses. Seated at the rounded banquette in the curvature of the stern were two familiar silhouettes. Their heads were bowed together, deep in conversation, and neither saw or heard her barefoot approach.

She bent and kissed the nearly bare pate.

“Ah, the very lovely Doctor Victoria Sweet!” Ambrose said, standing up. “Up for a midnight stroll round the decks, no doubt? The sharp sea air? Smashing idea!”

“I couldn’t sleep a wink,” Vicky said. “Hello, Ambrose. Hello, Stoke.”

“Evenin’, Doc,” Stoke said. “Sit down, girl. We’ve got us a fine night goin’ up here. Hell, you sit up here long enough, you bound to see meteors, comets, sputniks, and at least three or four shooting stars. Leastways Ambrose sees ’em, but then he’s on his fourth star and his fifth brandy.”

“I don’t want to sit,” Vicky said. “I feel lucky to be alive. I want to have some fun. Go somewhere and dance by the light of the moon. Isn’t there someplace where a girl could get you two to dance and buy me a seriously good rum drink?”

“Staniel Cay Yacht Club fits that description,” Ambrose said. “Amen Lillywhite, the barman there, serves a notable concoction called the Suffering Bastard, which I’ve found to be extremely serious.”

“Let’s go, then!” Vicky said. “How do we get there?”

“Ain’t far. See all them Christmas lights hanging in the trees on that island over there? Only a couple of miles. We could swim it,” Stokely said. “But Mr. Congreve, he old-fashioned. He likes to take the launch.”

“Can we go, Ambrose? Will you and Stoke escort me?”

“Of course, my dear, we would be delighted. Stokely, would you please ring down to Brian at the launch deck and arrange a transfer?”

“It’s all happening as we speak,” Stoke said.

“Should we see if Alex would like to join us?” Ambrose said.

“Yes, of course,” Vicky said. “Might cheer him up. He’s having an awful night.”

“Ah. A bad night,” Ambrose said, looking at her. “Bad dreams, no doubt.” Vicky nodded.

“That old joint going to be jumping long about now,” Stoke said. “There’s a junkanoo on tonight. You listen very carefully, you can almost hear the music floating over the water.”

“Junkanoo? What’s that?” Vicky asked.

“Junkanoo’s where a cat can get so rum-brained his eyes and his brains stop communicating to each other and the cat don’t know half how ugly the person he dancing with is,” Stoke said, getting up and going over to the intercom phone. “That’s junkanoo,” he said over his shoulder. “Might cheer us all up. I’ll go arrange the launch.”

“Sounds pretty good to me, Stoke,” Vicky called after him.

33

“Tell me about Alex’s bad night,” Congreve said quietly, once he and Vicky were alone. Stokely had gone below to arrange the launch and they were still sitting under the stars.

And she did.

“You say ‘panic attacks,’” Ambrose asked, concern furrowing his brow. “How many?”

“I’d say this is his second or third,” Vicky said. “He passed out tonight. Not good. I’m hoping they are panic attacks, Ambrose. We could be looking at something serious.”

“How serious?”

“If I had to hazard a guess, epilepsy. Possibly meningitis. Worst-case scenario, a cranial tumor. I want him to get a complete blood workup tomorrow.”

“He seems in perfect health.”

“Seems being the operative word given his symptoms.”

“Stick with panic attacks a moment,” Congreve said. “Alex was in these islands once before. When he was a very small boy. A terrible thing happened. His parents were murdered in cold blood.”

“Good God. He’s always been so circular and oblique about his childhood. I just assumed he’d been adopted and didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t ever push it.”

Ambrose looked at her closely and made a decision. Discretion here was pointless. She was a doctor. And Alex was in love with her.

“It’s worse, Victoria. Alex was an eyewitness to the murders. He has buried this horror successfully for most of his life. I think returning here, to the exact place where it happened, is bringing the submerged images floating to the surface.”

“How horrible.”

“Unimaginable.”

“All I want to do is help him, Ambrose,” Vicky said.

“That’s all any of us want to do, dear girl. You can perhaps bring some of your professional gifts to bear. I know that some of your work involves children with problems. I am certainly trying to utilize my own experience.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning, my dear, that I’ve been trying to solve these blasted murders for nearly three decades. On my own, of course. The case was consigned to the Yard’s dead file long ago. Sometime in the early eighties.”

“Does Alex know what you’re doing?”

“On some level, perhaps. We’ve never discussed it.”

“Do you think it’s wise? Proceeding without his knowledge, I mean?”

“It was the only way. Recently, I’ve made some considerable progress. If I begin to get close, really close, I’m going to tell him everything.”

“Be careful how you do that, please, Ambrose.”

Congreve gave her a look suggesting impertinence on her part.

“Sorry. That was very stupid of me. From what I’ve seen you are the very soul of delicacy and discretion. Shall I go fetch Alex and we’ll all go to the junkanoo?”

“By all means, dear girl, by all means!” Ambrose said, and Vicky raced down the wide and gently curving set of steps that led to Alex’s quarters in the stern.

As predicted, the Yacht Club was a seething organic mass of sweating, writhing bodies. Flaming torches mounted high on the walls painted the intertwined mass below with flickering yellows, blacks, and oranges. On a small bandstand toward the rear, a trio of dreadlocked Rastafarians was deep into some vintage Marley.

The atmosphere was a potent admixture of sweat, heavy rhythm, and sweet-smelling ganja; the whole crowd looked explosive, as if you threw a match at them, the junkanoo might blow sky high.

Vicky and her two escorts fought their way to the bar and miraculously found three stools side-by-side. Alex, despite Vicky’s pleadings, had begged her to go on without him. He even asked her to keep an eye on Congreve lest his old chum be “overserved,” as sometimes happened. His mood seemed much improved, and Vicky finally relented, leaving him to a good night’s sleep.

A bare-chested bartender appeared and was introduced to her by Ambrose as Amen. It was instantly apparent to Vicky that Amen and Ambrose seemed to go way back. Ambrose ordered them two Suffering Bastards, and Stoke ordered himself a caffeine-free Diet Coke. The drinks arrived immediately and Vicky took a deep pull on the straw.

It was a potent elixir, a potion easily underestimated by Vicky, who, despite her self-diagnosis, was still suffering the aftereffects of the explosion.

Polishing off this delicious poison, she debated ordering another and quickly gave in. As Amen served her, Vicky surveyed the over-heated scene and said to no one in particular, “This place reeks of sex.”

Stoke laughed and said, “How would you know that, Doc? Little sleepy-time-down-South gal like you?”

She sipped deeply from the cocktail and regarded Stoke with laughing eyes.

“Just because I know what something smells like, doesn’t mean I know what it looks like.”

Stoke laughed again, and she noticed that a beautiful dark-skinned girl seemed to have appeared at Stokely’s side and he had his arm around her waist. She looked very soft and shy, and had a wonderful smile.

“This is Gloria,” Stoke said, and Vicky shook her hand. “We met this afternoon down by the beach. Girl was fishin’ and obviously didn’t know what she was doin’, so old Stoke, he gave her some professional fishin’ lessons. Gal was in serious need of instruction. Girl caught herself a fine fish after that. Big damn fish.”

“How big?” Vicky asked, smiling.

He held his hands about two feet apart and Gloria laughed.

“Is Stokely a friend of yours?” Gloria asked Vicky, with the tiniest bit of suspicion in her eyes.

“Shoot, he’s a friend of everybody’s,” Vicky said, sipping her drink. “But I’m pretty sure he likes you a whole lot better than the rest of us.” She giggled at that, which was odd because it wasn’t even slightly funny.

“I work here,” Gloria said to Vicky. “Tonight’s my night off, but if there’s anything you need, please let me know.”

“I know what I need,” Stoke said. “I need to go fishin’ in the moonlight!” Gloria laughed.

“You tink they bitin’ tonight, Mr. Jones?” Gloria said.

“I hope so,” Stoke said. “Long as they ain’t bitin’ too damn hard.”

Laughing, the two of them quickly disappeared into the crowd.

“How about a dance, Constable?” Vicky said to Ambrose, who was swirling his drink around his glass with his finger.

“I have the notion under serious consideration. I was thinking of perhaps climbing up onto the bar,” Ambrose said, “and demonstrating the traditional Highland Fling. Do you think that’s unwise?”

She didn’t get around to answering because a very handsome boy, blond and deeply tanned, held out his hand to her and asked her, with his eyes, to dance. She smiled apologetically at Ambrose and plunged into the throbbing tumult holding the boy’s hand. She must have danced far too long with the pretty little boat boy, because when he returned her to the bar, Ambrose had deserted his post.

She finally spotted him in a far corner of the room, dancing with a tall blonde. Because of the press of bodies, it would take an hour to get over there and ask him to take her home.

She looked at her watch but somehow couldn’t see what time it was. Her watch seemed to be shimmering, hazy. Couldn’t be that late anyway, she thought, and called Amen over to order another of whatever they were called.

“Good evening,” a man said, suddenly appearing on the stool next to hers. “I buy you drink?”

He had a thick accent, Hungarian or something Slavic, she decided. Russian? Dark hypnotic eyes and long straight hair pulled back into a ponytail. Thin face, long nose, all dressed in black. Exotic. Interesting. A little scary, but interesting.

“I have one very strict rule,” Vicky said, smiling at her new friend. “I only drink when I’m alone, or with somebody. So, I guess I’ll accept.”

It was one of Alex’s old jokes and she laughed even though he didn’t. She thought she was funny and if nobody else did, so what? He just kept staring at her with those crazy eyes. Good thing she couldn’t focus very well because she’d swear he was trying to hypnotize her.

“What’s your name?” Vicky asked him.

“I’m Grigory.”

“Nice to meet you, Grigory. I’m drunk.” She giggled and stuck out her hand. He shook it and his hands were hot and moist.

“You stay here, on this little island?” he asked, leaning toward her. He was stirring his drink with his long white finger.

“Me? Oh, hell no. I’m on the QEII out there.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“The Elizabeth, Mary, some old queen. See it out there, all lit up?”

“Oh. Such a beautiful yacht. To whom does it belong?”

“Oh, a friend of mine.”

“Not Alexander Hawke?”

“You know him?”

“Not well. Only by reputation, of course. He is famous, you know.”

“Really? For what? Oh, thanks, Amen. Cut me off after this one, okay? I’ve bagged my limit. Sorry, what did you say, uh, Grigory, is it?”

“Is not important. You and your friend are here long?”

“A week or two, I think.”

“That long? How boring. Whatever will you do all day?”

Boring? His eyes were boring into hers. Is that what he meant? Boring? No. He wanted to know what she was going to do all day. That was it. Well, something exciting and glamorous, that’s for sure. What? This European sophisticate expected something exotic, she was pretty sure about that.

“Well, I don’t know, exactly,” she said finally. She was having trouble remembering why she was even here. “Oh, I know! Tomorrow afternoon, we’re going to a place called Hog Island. Doesn’t that sound like fun? There’s a blind pig there named Betty. Have you heard of her?”

“Oh yes, she’s quite famous in these islands. Well, good-bye. My pleasure speaking with you, Miss—”

“Sweet,” she said. “Like sugar.”

The strange man was gone. Poof, like in a horror movie.

She scanned the dance floor for Stoke, but everyone looked the same. She thought she saw Ambrose chatting up the blonde in the far corner but he was a bit blurry. She felt uneasy. She looked for Amen. Maybe some coffee would be good. She called him but he couldn’t hear her above all the hubbub.

Suddenly, she needed air.

She climbed off the stool, pressed herself into the writhing mass on the dance floor, and headed for the door, smashing through the bodies, desperate for a gulp of fresh air. She was outside. She seemed to have acquired a glass of delicious dark rum. The moon was so bright, it seemed like another day had begun.

Steps led down to the beach. She walked along the surf and found a little stand of palms with a great view of the harbor. Soft, powdery white sand in the moonlight. Blackhawke all ablaze out on the horizon. She sat beneath the whispering palms, sipping the rum, enjoying herself immensely, finally drifting into a lovely tropical dream.

Stokely and Ambrose, having searched most of the island, finally found her on the beach about half an hour later, sound asleep under a coconut palm. Stoke threw her over his shoulder and they carried her back to the waiting launch.

“Girl fell asleep,” he said to Brian, who was driving the boat. “Long day. Needs a good night’s rest and she’ll be good as new.”

Vicky woke briefly, said something incomprehensible, and then collapsed with her head on Ambrose’s shoulder. She snored deeply all the way across the bay.

Stoke was right.

It had been a long day. But the long days were really just beginning.

34

At eight o’clock in the morning, Commander Zukov was summoned to the main finca to breakfast alone with General Manso de Herreras. Two heavily armed guards posted outside the dining room waved him inside. Manso was seated at the huge table all alone, drinking a solitary glass of fruit juice. A place setting of solid gold had been set opposite the general and he motioned for Zukov to sit down. He did so, but waved away the approaching waiter. The general stared at him for an eternity before speaking.

“This fucking Russian who sold me the submarine. Golgolkin. You know him?”

“Yes, slightly,” Zukov said. “Black Fleet. Vladivostok. At one time, a promising officer.”

“Then?”

“The cliché Soviet scenario. Peace, vodka, and women. One night he surfaced without periscope surveillance and struck one of our own destroyers in the South China Sea. Considerable loss of life. That was it.”

“He has come here, the idiot, begging for his life.”

“General. Tell me. What has he done?”

“Done? Put everything in jeopardy! Everything! Met with some fucking Englishman named Hawke in the Exumas a week ago. Trying to peddle the second Borzoi, I hear. The Englishman apparently asks a lot of questions and Golgolkin gives a lot of answers. My sources in Washington say the Englishman was in the American capital the very next day! Bastard! I initiated reprisals against this Hawke, using Golgolkin’s contacts at the Russian embassy. But they, too, were disastrous.”

“What will you do?”

“What I always do. Go through, not around.”

“I will deal with Golgolkin. He is an embarrassment.”

“No. Bring him to me. I may have one last use for him.”

Zukov opened the door to the fat Russian’s room without knocking. There were three naked girls in his bed. One leapt up, a short, chubby little thing with enormous breasts bouncing, and ran to the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. Zukov couldn’t tell if she was laughing or crying.

“The majordomo told me you were ill and could not come down for your breakfast,” Zukov said. “You were missed.”

“I am better now,” Golgolkin said, the two men speaking in Russian. Leaning back against the pillows, one fat pink arm around each of the two girls, he said, “Room service.”

“Fidel is scheduled to go before the cameras in three hours. He is refusing to step down. Two of the brothers want to shoot him.”