Patriot

CHAPTER 41

You want a nightcap, boss?” Stoke asked Hawke. Standing at the railing overlooking the wide bay lit by pinprick stars, he turned to look at his old friend. Hawke had no reply.

“You okay?” he asked Hawke.

“I will be.”

“Yeah, I know that. Future tense. Present even worse. Past debatable.”

Hawke smiled. A line from Congreve? He couldn’t remember for the life of him.

After a sunset supper spent in the golden light of Stokely’s upstairs porch, Hawke had excused himself. Had to put Alexei to bed. He’d promised Stoke he’d return, but he had spent a long time getting Alexei to sleep.

Stoke waited at the table outside, gazing at the silvery lights on Coconut Grove glimmering across the bay. Normally, it was a view that gave him a lot of pleasure, but not tonight. Tonight, for the first time in a long time, he was afraid.

Hawke was in trouble. He had a look in his eyes that Stoke couldn’t quite find the right word for. And then he did. He looked… he looked haunted.

Fancha had given Alex two third-floor bedrooms that adjoined so the child would not feel far away from his father. After finally coaxing his son into bed, Hawke read him a story by E. B. White. It was one that the little boy never tired of hearing. Charlotte’s Web. When, after twenty minutes, his son still couldn’t go to sleep, Hawke simply sat on the edge of Alexei’s bed with a hand on his shoulder, reading softly, until he finally did.

Now the two men sat outside, staring at the carpet of stars over the dark and shining bay.

“He finally go to sleep?” Stoke asked.

“Yes. Poor little guy. He’s brokenhearted. It’s going to take a long time for him to get over the loss of Nell. If he ever does.”

“I figured that much. But listen. Alexei’s safe here. Nobody knows where he is. And we’ve got world-class security around the clock.”

“Why’s that, Stoke? Don’t tell me you’re expecting trouble, too?”

“Somebody stalking Fancha got over the wall one night. I have a night watchman, but the guy was asleep. Stalker got all the way up into our bedroom, standing by the bed looking down at her when I woke up. Unlucky for him.”

“That’s when you got serious about security?”

“Damn straight. When we first got married, I upgraded the security. Cameras front and rear, bulletproof glass in every window, steel-frame doors on the ground level — nothing startling. But. All this you see and don’t see now? Serious shit. I even had a sign up out at the gate said: INTRUDERS WARMLY GREETED WITH GUNFIRE.

“But that was before Fancha made me take it down. You talk about Casa Que Canta today — you talk about the House That Sings? Man, it’s a fortress, boss.”

Hawke looked out into the night. The windy bay, the small waves rolling ashore on Stoke’s white crescent of beach.

“What about the approach from the water?”

“Armed night watchman lives on the top floor of the boathouse down there. Night-vision goggles, security cameras, heat sensors in the sand, motion detectors covering the approach from the bay out to a thousand yards.”

“I wonder. Would you mind if Alexei stayed here for a while? Just until I can take him back to England? Or, a bank vault in Switzerland.”

“Of course, Alex. It’s safe. He’s known me since he was born. And Fancha, she loves that little kid like he was her own. You see them playing together in the pool this afternoon? Man.”

“Stoke, no offense to what you’ve already got in place, but the president has kindly offered to provide Alexei with two DSS agents to be on duty round the clock. One’s a guy I know named Chris Kopeck; works with SO14, Royal Protection Branch, who covers Prince Charles.”

“Cool. What is DSS, again?”

“Diplomatic Security. You got room for all these people?”

“Look around you, boss. We got rooms that have rooms. Rooms nobody’s ever even seen. They can stay downstairs in the boathouse. Two bedrooms, one head, and a kitchen upstairs.”

“Perfect. Thank you, Sir Stokely, for your generous hospitality.”

“When can they be here? These protection guys?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Done. What about that nightcap?”

“Yeah,” Hawke said. “Got any Gosling’s rum?”

Stoke smiled. “That question is not worthy of me.”

Hawke laughed. “These bloody Russians must be getting to me.”

“Maybe its high time we should begin getting to them,” Stoke said, dead serious.

“You know what’s most worrisome, Stoke? Putin. Alexei used to be under his protection. Hell, the guy invites Congreve and me aboard his yacht for four days in the south of France. And, somehow, he knows my son is staying at the White House! What the hell? And then this human nightmare, Szell, Jules Szell, appears at Alexei’s White House birthday party? The very same KGB assassin who tried to poison Alexei in London. And when that failed, the bastard follows him to Washington? How does that happen, Stoke?”

“You think Putin’s behind that? After all that’s gone down between you two during these years? Boss, you’re friends with the man, right?”

“If you’d asked me that a month ago, you’d have gotten a different answer. Hell, I don’t know anymore. Szell is a low-life renegade KGB killer. So maybe he’s off Putin’s radar. Working for those retired KGB guys who’re still pissed off at us for taking out their beloved Tsar Korsakov.”

“I’m not sure anything is off that man’s radar anymore, boss. He seems to be calling the shots these worldwide days.”

“You know what, I’m starting to agree with you. He was acting very strangely during that stay aboard Tsar. Ambrose had the same reaction to him in France. Beware the wolf, he told me.”

Hawke took a deep breath and expelled it slowly.

“He wants the old USSR back, Stoke. The glory days he remembers so fondly. And I can tell you that he sincerely believes no one has the guts to stop him. Not France, Germany, Britain, and certainly not the former United States of America.”

“Damn. He’s got that right.”

“He practically admitted his primary objectives to me. Going back to the old borders. Fairly amazing.”

“It’s weird all right. Good move on the White House’s part, right? Taking all those missile defense systems away from the Poles and Czechs. Stoning NATO back to the Stone Age. Those folks in Eastern Europe must be shitting bricks right about now. You heard Russian troops are already moving in that direction, right? War games, the Kremlin says. Ain’t no game about it, way I see it.”

“Worse than that. He sees a new world order. Beginning with a new European Empire with Moscow as the capitol.”

“You’re talking Hitler, now, boss. That’s how he envisioned Berlin. Templehof, you remember, that was going to be Europe’s airport.”

“I honestly think that’s how he sees himself. The new Hitler. It’s that classic sociopathic narcissism run completely amok. He believes someone needs to rule the world, and he has no question but that he’s the only man for the job.”

“Wheels coming off the damn world, you ask me.”

“That’s an understatement. Listen, Stoke. I had another reason for coming to Miami. Brick Kelly at CIA is flying down tonight. He wants an offshore meeting with me first thing in the morning. Aboard a Coast Guard cutter.”

“What’s up with that?”

“He wants to debrief me on my visit with Putin. I’m going to tell him what my gut told me. Vladimir Putin is right on the verge of going to a world war footing and he doesn’t care who knows it. Brick would like you to be there. He’s got an assignment for Tactics that’s apparently urgent. Black ops. You, Brock, and, ultimately, whatever local CIA resources you need. Involves travel. A nighttime insertion into an armed facility. You know the drill.”

“Yeah. Where we drilling this time?”

“No idea. We’ll both find out in the morning. Is Brock in jail yet or is he around these days?”

“Oh, yeah. He’s around all right.”

“Tell him you’re meeting with his boss, Director Kelly, bright and early tomorrow morning at the U.S. Coast Guard HQ. That you thought he might want to be there so you don’t bad-mouth him any more than is absolutely necessary.”

“All due respect, boss, what do you need us for? I’m talking ‘big picture’ kind of thing.”

“Somebody’s going to have to figure out how to stop the newly combatant Russians before this thing spirals completely out of control. Brick thinks I have as good a chance at doing it as anyone. At least I’ve got an inside track. Maybe so. As long as you’ve got my back. Or standing in front of me or right by my side.”

“You got that right.”

“Call Harry now. Tell him to be at USCG Station Miami at 0530. Come aboard the USCG Sentinel at 0600. I’ll be waiting for you both on board. There’s a big clock in the sky and it’s ticking like a goddamn doomsday bomb right now. Tell him that.”

The day had dawned to light rain and drifting patches of fog. Aboard Sentinel, Brick Kelly had welcomed the attendees at a full breakfast served in the officers’ wardroom. A lot of navy brass were down from Washington — some of whom Hawke knew — plus CIA, plus God knows who else. Brick would make sure Alex met whoever he needed to meet before the voyage was over.

Hawke had been trying to follow a conversation he’d been having with an elderly American admiral on his right, but the old fellow was feeling poorly and had excused himself. Hawke turned to Brick Kelly seated to his left at the wardroom table.

“I noticed we’re not just swimming in circles out in the Atlantic this morning,” he said to Brick.

“You noticed? Yeah. We’re bound for Cuban waters. Should arrive on station any moment now.”

“Any particular reason?”

“I got sat intel that a vessel I’m interested in will be departing Havana harbor today. I plan to intercept her. I need you guys to see up close and personal what we’re dealing with now.”

“Which is?”

“Putin has entered into a secret agreement with El Presidente, Raúl Castro, to rebuild the old supersecret Soviet spy base at Isla de Pinos, an island just off the Cuban coast. The compound was built in the 1960s to eavesdrop on U.S. communications from Miami to all points south. The largest espionage installation in the Western Hemisphere. Twenty-eight square miles. Fifteen hundred KGB and GRU military intelligence officers manning an array of antennas and electronic surveillances systems back in the day.”

“Good God,” Hawke said.

“Yeah.”

“But hasn’t that old technology been superseded by spy satellites and NSA-style eavesdropping from space?”

“Yes, precisely why I’m interested in it. Russian freighters and supply ships have been arriving and departing Havana and Isla de Pinos on a very regular basis lately. If they’re not building a new spy station on that island, then what the hell are they building?”

At that moment, a young naval officer appeared at Brick’s side and said, “Director, the captain asks that you and your party adjourn to the bridge. We have the target vessel in radar contact. Visual contact expected in… twenty minutes.”

“Tell Captain Wick we’ll be right there. Thank you, Lieutenant.”