Patriot

CHAPTER 24

A few things Alex Hawke noticed immediately when the president of the United States strode into the Oval Office: he had the strongest, longest grip in the long and virile history of male handshaking. But his grey eyes seemed to wander from your face when you were speaking. As if he was casting about for someone else to talk to. It was odd. Hawke’s worst fears were immediately confirmed. The focus just wasn’t there anymore.

President Rosow was of medium height, fit and trim, a man who obviously had a long and enduring relationship with the rewards of the weight room. But was he healthy? If Hawke had to make the prognosis based on what he saw in the man’s eyes, the answer was no. The president of the United States was either ill or deeply troubled. And it was taking a toll.

The president and Ambrose Congreve had found each other kindred spirits and were already talking Sherlock Holmes. Rosow lit up; he clearly found whatever the renowned English criminalist was saying about the world’s most famous detective riveting.

“And you are Lord Hawke,” President Rosow said, turning to him with a ready grin. “Or Alex, I’ve been reminded. An honor to have you with us. Never again will I have to listen to your friend Brick Kelly over there saying, ‘You have to meet this guy!’”

Hawke laughed.

“Alex will do fine, Mr. President. But it’s a very great honor to see you as well. My men and I were deeply grateful for your support in our Chinese and North Korean actions of last year. That rescue mission would have been impossible without your personal efforts on our behalf.”

“That mission was impossible under any circumstances, Alex, even with our help. But you and your guys did it anyway. And I want to extend my personal sympathy for your combat losses. I know you personally lost a good friend.”

“I did, sir. Thank you. A French Foreign Legionnaire. His name was Froggy and he was one of the bravest men I ever knew.”

“Our country remains in your debt. The true story of the rescue of Dr. Chase and his family will remain classified until long after we’re all gone. But, around here, we know what you did. And how much it meant to the world and the cause of peace. At any rate, welcome to the White House, Alex. My wife, Jeanne, and I are delighted to have your handsome young son and Nell Spooner as our houseguests for a few days. I hope you found them well taken care of?”

“They’re very comfortable, sir. Things are a bit spicy on the home front right now, and I feel vastly more secure knowing that they’ll be safe here while I’m away. I want you to know how very much I appreciate it, Mr. President. I know it’s not… I know it’s an unusual request coming from someone whom you barely know.”

“Not at all, not at all, Alex. You’ve been a friend of this old house and its prior inhabitants for many years. And certainly a very dear friend of my country. Did you know that the princess of Norway spent the entirety of World War II under this roof? FDR did it as a favor to her father the king after the Nazis invaded. It’s something of a tradition around here, although we don’t talk about it much. We’ll look after Alexei and Miss Spooner, I assure you. I believe the Secret Service is giving them a tour of the place as we speak. Now. Shall we have a seat on the sofas over there and get down to business? Okay with you, Director Kelly? I think this is your meeting.”

“Absolutely, Mr. President.”

As soon as they were all comfortable, Brick handed them each a thick red dossier marked TOP SECRET POTUS ONLY. The four men leafed through the dossiers quickly, already familiar with the up-front contents that had set the stage for this meeting.

Brick sat forward in his armchair to the left of the president.

“Alex, it goes without saying the president and I deeply appreciate your willingness to travel, especially in light of the recent near tragic events in London. And, Chief Inspector Congreve, we know how hard it is to take time away from your new bride and your lovely Bermuda.”

“I assure you, Brick, there is no place on earth I’d rather be than sitting here in this room in present company,” Congreve assured him.

Brick acknowledged the compliment and said, “I think it safe to say that all of us are aware of the peculiarity of this request from the president of Russia. Unusual, to say the least, you’ll agree.”

Hawke smiled and said, “Yes, Brick, I’d say Ambrose and I sailing off to solve an internal murder case involving the innermost power sanctum of the Kremlin and the KGB, is, as you say, rather ‘peculiar.’”

Brick smiled.

“And were it not for the president’s specific desire for you to gather intelligence and make close-up observations of the Russian leader at this very delicate moment in history, there is no way in hell we would have assented to his request. Mr. President?”

The president got out of his chair and walked over to the fireplace, resting his shoulder against the mantel.

“We’ll get to the details of this KGB murder in Monte Carlo in a moment. But I would like to sketch a broader picture. First, the old post — Cold War era is over. Dead and buried. The old borders, treaties, mandates, and back-channel political dealings with friends and foes alike — none of that remains in play. The United States and Britain face two paramount common enemies in this still-new century. China. And Russia. One is ascendant, economically and militarily, and that is China. As Alex knows firsthand, they become more warlike with every passing month, it seems. The other, Russia, while in a slow decline on all fronts, is inimical to any hope of worldwide peace in the immediate future. It’s ironic, isn’t it, that, in its apparent weakness, Russia has become the more powerful, more immediate existential threat.”

Brick said, “Alex, you dealt with a revanchist Russia during the Korsakov tsarist affair. You know how Putin, in fact how Russia, perceives its former client states and in fact, every state with whom she shares a common border.”

“I do,” Hawke said. “It’s very simple. They want all of it, every square mile of that Soviet real estate, back under the Kremlin’s iron fist. Crimea was the first to go. Ukraine, Estonia, and the rest will follow. And, unless we’re willing to start a war over this, there’s not a hell of a lot we can do about it.”

“Exactly, Alex,” the president said. “Precisely why you’re here. We need some kind of goddamn strategy and we don’t have one. ‘Our hands are tied, Mr. President’; that’s what everyone around here tells me. Maybe so, but what can we do? We can’t sit on our hands and wait for the whole world to come crashing down around us. That strategy is not an option in this White House.”

“With all due respect, Mr. President, I’m a spy, not a global strategist. But I certainly concede the point.”

“Point taken. I’m not looking for you to come back with a strategy, Alex. I want you to come back with intelligence that can help me formulate a strategy. Because, for some very odd reason, this guy, our most dangerous foe, likes you. Putin respects you. Hell, Brick tells me Putin keeps asking you to come work for him! Comical in some spy movie, maybe, but ridiculous. And the most critical thing of all, for me, is that he’s willing to talk to you, one-on-one, with no one else in the room. Apparently with no subject taboo or off the table. Is that right?”

“Depending on the hour and the amount of vodka consumed, I’d say that’s correct, Mr. President.”

“Could you just quickly fill me in on how the living hell you two came to be such bosom buddies?”

“My pleasure. We met in a Russian prison. A lovely little spot called Energetika, built on an island that was formerly the Soviet Navy’s nuclear waste dump. Still off-the-charts radioactive. The kind of place where you check in but you don’t check out. At the start of the tsarist coup, Putin was arrested and stowed in the basement. But he still had a lot of power. When I was arrested in Moscow for my role in bringing down the conspirators and assassinating the new tsar, they sentenced me to death at Energetika. I was scheduled for execution the morning after my arrival, death by impalement. Putin saved my life. He had me brought to his cell under his protection. We smoked cigarettes into the wee hours. He said he ‘admired my work.’ Truth is, we share a sort of weird satirical sense of humor, I think. Anyway, he had the execution called off, helped me escape, and here I am.”

“Hear, hear!” Ambrose laughed and started clapping.

The president seemed nearly speechless at this fantastical tale, but managed to say, “Well, thank God you are. Now, Brick, we’ve got another topic to discuss. Some new information the CIA has picked up regarding the recent spate of killings involving high-level intelligence officers.”

“Yes, sir. It seems this recent KGB murder is just the latest in an ongoing war against all foreign intel officers regardless of political affiliation. To recap, we, meaning CIA, lost Torrance in Paris, and our old friend Cam Hooker up in Maine, as you well know. Now this thing in Monte Carlo apparently involved a female assassin. Strikingly similar in appearance and modus operandi to the woman who picked up Torrance in the Hotel Bristol bar, murdered him in her suite. Some kind of pattern there we’d like Chief Inspector Congreve to look into. But this is where it gets interesting.”

“Oh, it’s already interesting, Brick,” Congreve said.

“Well, get this. We can now account for at least three murders of high-ranking intel officers that occurred prior to Torrance and Hooker at CIA. Alex, you remember that one of your MI6 colleagues went missing while on assignment in Bangkok three years ago? Sir Miles Peele?”

“Yes, of course. I knew Miles well. Great officer. Case still open.”

“We’ve recently uncovered evidence to suggest Miles was murdered by a woman he met at the Raffles Bar Singapore. The woman was arrested on another matter, we talked to her, and she confessed she’d been with Miles on the night he disappeared.”

“You are kidding me,” Hawke said.

“Not even a little. Next we have a victim from Delhi, Vidal Soong, retired head of station for India’s National Intelligence Agency. The killers were never caught but again, the circumstances surrounding the murder have a familiar ring, to say the least. Honey trap, seduction, murder. And next the case of the Flying Dutchman, the head of the secret service in Amsterdam whose small single-engine airplane disappeared off the radar over the North Sea on a clear day. He never radioed a Mayday, just vanished. The body was recovered, traces of polonium in his blood. My point is obvious. That’s six victims with a whole lot in common besides their job descriptions. And it begins three years prior to the murder by a female assassin in Paris.”

Ambrose was literally humming with excitement. Now here was a case he could sink his teeth into. “I’m sorry, forgive me, but has anyone here ever heard of a film, back in the late ’70s as I recall, with the title Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe? It was quite amusing. And what you’re describing, Brick, sounds like a carbon copy of that screenplay. Am I wrong?”

“No. You’re right. Only this time it’s Who Is Killing the Great Spies of Europe.”

“Fascinating,” the president muttered, thinking it all through. “You’d better make that Great Spies of the World, I think. This profile seems to be spreading far beyond Europe.”

Brick stood up. “Here’s the question that occurs to me. Who the hell has a grudge against the whole world? It doesn’t make any sense. Certainly not KGB, given this recent murder in Monte Carlo. Or am I missing something? Is there a lone rogue out there responsible? Or, perhaps more likely, someone highly organized with the resources of both men and money to pull off sophisticated hits on intel officers of different nationalities all around the world?”

“We’ve got to start with motive,” Congreve said. “What is it that ties all the victims together? Aside from the fact that they were all spies in one capacity or another.”

“He’s absolutely right,” Rosow said. “Motive will take us where we need to go. Brick, I want a dedicated team inside Langley to take this on effective immediately. With the chief inspector here available to them on an as-needed basis. And vice versa. Understood?”

Brick nodded in the affirmative and got to his feet.

“Well, I think we’ve taken all the president’s time we’ve been allotted. But I do want to add something before we go in for dinner. Langley has been looking hard at your late friend Spider Payne, Alex. And he was a very busy boy before he showed up in Maine. We found a safe when we swept his so-called island fortress on a beach in Costa Rica. Fake passports, visas, receipts for travel, enormous sums of cash, et cetera. Guess where Artemis Payne spent six months of his life sometime before he came to Maine to kill Cam Hooker? Anybody?”

The president gazed out into the Rose Garden and shook his head.

“God knows,” Hawke finally said.

Rosow said, “And more to the point, since our presumed spy-killer Spider Payne has been dead for weeks now, who the hell killed the top Russian spy in Monte Carlo two days ago?”

Congreve stood up, firing up his pipe. “I’ve no idea, Mr. President. It’s a mystery,” he said. “But I will tell you this. Alex Hawke and I shall not return here until we’ve found out.”

“I very much appreciate your involvement in this case, Chief Inspector.”

“I am flattered to be included, sir. I will give it my all, I assure you.”

“Gentlemen, you’ll excuse me but I’ve got another briefing,” the president said. “I’ll join you for dinner in my private dining room. But don’t spare the whiskey on my account. Oh, and Alex, please tell that handsome boy of yours that I’d like him sitting next to the president at dinner this evening.”

The meeting was apparently over.