Patriot

CHAPTER 12

After the service, Hawke told Brick Kelly they needed to talk. Something that couldn’t wait until next morning, when Hawke was giving the director a lift down to Washington in his plane. He’d drop him off at Andrews Air Force Base before heading back to Bermuda.

The night of the funeral, the two old friends walked in light rain down into town from the Hooker place. They were quiet, admiring the lights just coming on in the little village of North Haven, the old boatyards, and the casino before climbing the hill to the Nebo Lodge. The inn overlooked the sailboats swinging on their moorings in the tranquil sunset harbor. Hawke saw the familiar white picket fence with the hand-carved sign on the gate, NEBO LODGE. Inside was the only restaurant on the island and it was a damn good one.

They ate in the bar. Every face Hawke saw there that night he’d seen earlier at Hook’s funeral. None of the lobstermen or their families paid the slightest mind to the two off-islanders talking quietly at a corner table. Hawke had discreetly given the hostess a substantial gratuity to ensure no one was seated near them.

Their drinks came and Brick solemnly raised his glass of amber whiskey, no ice.

“To Hook,” the Virginian said. “None finer, and many a damn sight worse.”

“We loved you, Hooker,” Hawke said simply and downed his rum.

“We sure as hell did,” Brick said and signaled the waitress for another round.

He looked at Hawke, glad of his company. It had been far too long since they’d been able to spend a quiet evening together in a place like this. Something they used to do all the time. Just bullshit each other and drink. Small talk would come later tonight, though; they had real business to discuss first.

“Well? You said you had something to tell me,” Brick said. “Now’s as good a time as any.”

The tall and lanky Virginian settled back with his chair tilted toward the window, his curly red hair aflame in the sunset’s last rays, his sea-blue eyes alight. Brick had always had an old-fashioned, almost Jeffersonian air about him that Hawke found both admirable and fine in a man of his stature and accomplishment. He even looked a good deal like old Tom Jefferson, to some people, with his reddish-blond hair.

Hawke said, “And you said you had something you wanted to tell me. You first.”

Brick Kelly laughed.

“All right, if that’s how you want to be. There was a message waiting for me upstairs in my room after the funeral. The deputy director at Langley. Ready?”

“Ready.”

“Remember I told you one of my guys who died recently was a guy named Harding Torrance? He was the chief of station in Paris. A lifer. Old friend of the Houston oil crowd, Bush 41 appointee.”

“I remember him, yeah. Cowboyish, as I recall.”

“Yeah, well, let me explain what more we’ve learned.”

“Okay.”

“Died with his boots on, apparently. In a suite at the Hotel Bristol in Paris. He was with a woman, married, whom he’d just met in the hotel bar. Her room; she was a registered guest. You should know that this was not unusual behavior on his part. Torrance considered himself quite the swordsman. Neither here nor there, he never let it interfere with his work. He saved a lot of innocent lives in the aftermath of 9/11.”

“Cause of death?”

“Coronary. Big-time. Massive. Happened in the sack. According to his inamorata, they were having some kind of kinky sex when the event occurred. She immediately called for the house doctor and administered CPR, but it was too late. Apparently her husband walked in while she was still nude and attempting mouth-to-mouth on the victim, but that’s only hearsay. One of my guys on the scene, you know how they are.”

“Foul play?”

“The gendarmes have already called it. Natural causes.”

“No sign of succinylcholine in his bloodstream? Or that new disappearing heart attack dart?”

“I ordered an autopsy. Nada on the drugs, so far. No denatured poisons, and no sign of a dart entry.”

“Dart leaves a mark? I didn’t know that.”

“Yeah, a tiny red dot on the skin. Easy to miss. Goes away quickly though.”

“So? Clean?”

“Yeah, maybe. I still don’t like the timing, but yeah, I guess he just had a heart attack brought on by excessive sexual exertion. Happens all the time. I guess.”

“You guess? You never guess. What’s wrong, Brick?”

“Hell, I don’t know. Maybe nothing. My guys found heart meds in his pocket. This coronary was no surprise attack. Nitro pills and beta-blockers in his pocket? We checked. He’s under the care of the top cardiac specialist in Paris. He feels a heart attack coming on, he immediately tells the woman to call his doctor and to go get his damn pills, right? Like, right now?”

“Anybody ask the woman that question about that?”

“They will tomorrow morning. I’m having her brought in. So that’s my latest tale of woe. Let’s order some dinner and you tell me yours.”

Hawke told Kelly everything Ben Sparhawk had said about Cam’s death while they waited for their food.

Hawke waited a beat and said, “Can you connect any dots, Brick? Between these two guys and the other ones?”

Brick took a bite of his steak and said, “Not yet. But I’m on it, don’t worry. I’ll call your Bermuda number end of the day tomorrow if I get any hits.”

The rain had stopped.

After dinner, Hawke and Brick walked back up to the Hooker place, taking the main road along the harbor. It was a full moon, bright and white and big in the sky. Each man knew what the other was thinking. There was no need of talking about it.

Finally, as they turned into the long Hooker drive, Brick stopped and looked at his friend.

“What’s your gut telling you, Alex?” Brick said. “Right this minute.”

“Torrance and Cam dying within a couple of months of each other is no coincidence. That you’ve got a rogue agent running around the planet systematically killing your own guys.”

“Yeah. That’s where I come out, too.”

“Let me find him for you, Brick.”

“Are you kidding? It’s my problem, not yours. My agency. My people getting killed. God knows, MI6 has got enough of its own problems these days. That intel meltdown in Syria, for starters.”

“This guy, whoever he is, killed my friend Cam, Brick. That makes him my problem, too.”

“You’re serious. You want to take this on?”

“I do.”

“You even have time to do this?”

“I’ve got another two weeks before C wants me to mysteriously appear in a Damascus souk, looking to purchase some bargain-rate sarin gas.”

Brick looked at him and they started climbing the hill.

“Two weeks isn’t a long time to find a seasoned operative who’s gone to ground without a trace. But, listen, Alex. Hell, I won’t stop you from looking. Nobody is better at this than you. Just tell me what you need.”

“Don’t worry, I will. This is obviously not an MI6 operation. And C at MI6 will pitch a fit if he finds out I’ve gone freelance. So I need somebody attached to this op at Langley. Files on every possible disaffected agent who had ties to multiple victims for starters. Active and inactive. Send everything to Bermuda. I’ll get Ambrose Congreve on this with me. He’s there in Bermuda now, as luck would have it.”

“Your very own ‘weapon of mass deduction.’ If he can’t solve this, no one can.”

“Exactly.”

“I’ll tell you one thing,” Brick said, never breaking his stride but taking a deep breath and staring up at the blazing moon. “I’m really going to miss Hook, that old bastard, won’t you, Alex?”

“I sure as hell will. But I’ll feel a whole lot better when I catch the sonofabitch who bloody killed him, I can tell you that bloody much.”

“Easy,” Brick said. “Easy there, old compadre.”

“Who the hell, I ask you, would ever want to murder a fine old gentleman like Hook?”

“Go find out, Alex. Whoever he is, he needs killing.”

“Yeah.”

“Ambrose will have every shred of evidence we can pull together within forty-eight hours. Give him three or four days to analyze his findings and come up with something.”

“Sooner the better. Tell him he’s got two days.”