Patriot

CHAPTER 66

Bing Crosby and Louis Armstrong. He’d never forget it. The two crooners were singing that lovely old duet “Gone Fishin’,” from the 1940s. Pelham Grenville would later recall that, when he first heard explosive gunfire erupt beyond the kitchen windows, it was playing softly on his old radio. And Satchmo was singing…

“You gone fishin’, you ain’t got no ambition…”

It had just gone midnight. He was perched on his stool in the butler’s pantry, finishing the needlepoint Christmas belt for Alexei, singing right along with the two crooners:

Gone fishin’ by a shady, wady pool

I’m wishin’ I could be that kinda fool

And then it started. Bombs. Explosions. A terrific fusillade of gunshots ringing out in the night as, outside on the lawn, the heavily armed Scotland Yard Royalty Protection officers defended the house. They were up against a sudden and devastating ground attack. Pelham shook off the shock and moved.

He dropped his needlework and ran for the main hall. The exchange of gunfire rapidly grew in intensity and volume out on the lawns. His sense of terror grew. It was quickly turning into a pitched battle with the Scotland Yard and MI6 defenders; and it was edging nearer to the house now, much closer than when he’d first heard the single shots ring out. He raced into the darkened main hall and switched off all belowstairs illumination, his mind suddenly reeling at what he next heard.

Was that noise coming from upstairs?

Distant echoes of gunfire could be heard from somewhere inside the house! The intruders must be inside now! Had someone gotten in through a blown-out window up there? Had an exterior door been breached in another wing? Racing up the winding marble staircase, Pelham called out to Inspector Walker and Archie Carstairs. Pelham shouted, “Walker! Carstairs! They’ve gotten inside the house! Shooting over in the west wing and getting closer. Turn around! Go grab Alexei from his bed and head for the roof. NOW!”

He continued to shout at the top of his lungs over and over as he climbed. Perhaps Tristan and Archie had been firing upstairs, probably shooting from their windows overlooking the entrance to the main house. But now he heard shouting and gunfire in the Great Hall below. No more doubts; gunmen were in the house now. He almost made it to the top floor.

“Is Alexei all right?” Pelham cried out to Detective Walker. The boy’s room was to the left of the stairs. When they emerged, Walker cradling the boy in his arms, Alexei appeared to be unhurt.

Walker said, “Yes! He’s fine, but we’ve not a second to lose. Russian paratroopers with mortars, a bloody invasion. We counted a dozen or more on the south lawn — they’re about to breach the main entrance to the house — every second counts!”

There then came that rumble and explosion, the deep roar of it rolling up the staircase, the mammoth oak doors blown off their hinges, gunfire on the night wind howling inside. And that sound was soon overwhelmed by the horrific chatter of automatic weapons being fired indiscriminately into the dark chambers of the massive old seventeenth-century pile. More shots on the first floor, ricocheting off the marble floors, ripping up art and centuries of priceless old masterpieces of furniture and woodwork and portraits of Hawke ancestors.

There was not a second to grieve. This legendary country seat of the Hawke family had been through fire, pestilence, and war, time and time again down the centuries; and yet here it still stood. And it would survive this invasion, too. Somehow. But a dozen or more armed foreign invaders, intent on murdering the heir to the Hawke throne in the sanctity of his home?

Not if he had anything to say about it.

Pelham’s white-hot anger at the enormity of this outrage mounted second by second. He was filled with a strange energy, almost a felt force, that inhabited his very being. He would deny them their young and innocent prey or he himself would most certainly die trying.

Reaching the top of the stairs, Pelham eyed a towering mahogany armoire standing on the landing of the third floor.

The ancient piece of furniture was almost twelve feet high and as broad and as heavy as two grand pianos. But, if you could somehow manage to just tip it forward enough, it would go careening down the three flights of marble steps all the way to the ground floor, killing or gravely injuring anyone in its path and… perhaps even stalling the assault long enough for them to reach the…

“They’ve breached the front entrance!” Pelham shouted to the two guardians. “They’re coming up the staircase. Detective Walker, you’ve got to get Alexei up to the roof now! Archie, come down here and help me topple this wooden behemoth and we’ll send those who dare ascend a little present. It might buy us a few minutes…”

In an instant the brawny bodyguard was beside him and throwing all his might and muscle against the thing. It creaked loudly and then started to pitch forward an inch or so. Pelham, with his newfound power, also put his shoulder into the thing at the critical moment, and it leaned over well past the recovery point. Over and down it went, like a runaway freight train careening down a steep mountain slope.

He and Archie could hear the screams of men ascending the staircase being crushed as they saw it coming. They tried vainly to get out of the way of the mahogany hurtling toward them.

Pelham and Archie then turned and raced up stairs to the topmost floor. There they found the opened door and narrow stairway leading up to the roof. Pelham called out to the inspector.

“Have you got him, Inspector Walker?” Pelham cried out. “Are you out there?”

But there was no answer.

Detective Tristan Walker swung open the heavy iron door onto the roof. The yellow moon, scudded with dark clouds, was nearly full and he could see the dark silhouette of Hawke’s black helicopter waiting for them amid the maze of chimneys. He held Alexei in one arm and gripped his automatic weapon in his right hand, scanning the skies for more descending paratroopers as he and his young charge raced across the rooftops toward salvation.

All was still across the vast black sea of ancient tarpaper and towering brick chimneys, some dating back hundreds of years.

Tristan was nearly halfway to the helo when a black figure jumped out from behind a tower of ancient brick and fired at him twice, point blank, then turned and ran for the chopper. Walker had been completely spun around when one of the rounds found his left shoulder, missing Alexei by an inch or so. His upper arm erupted in pain, and he saw his blood had spattered the boy.

He ignored the burning wound and set the child down on the tarpapered roof. Then he bent down and said, calmly, “Wait here for a moment, Alexei. Don’t move, all right? We’re going to be fine. Pelham and Archie will be here to get you in a second. That bad man wants to destroy our helicopter. I’ve got to stop him…”

“He shot you…” Alexei said through tears.

“Mosquito bite,” Walker said, kissing the top of his head. “Happens all the time.” Then he turned and ran toward the escaping Russian militiaman, firing as he ran.

A moment later, Pelham, having heard the gunfire on the roof, was on his knees with his arms around the boy. He was shocked by the amount of glistening blood on Alexei’s face and in his hair and feared for the worst.

“Are you hurt, Alexei?” he said, fear pumping madly inside his poor old heart.

“No, sir, not me. Inspector Walker is. He ran over there, where the helicopter is.”

“I’ll take him, Pelham,” Archie said, bending down to gather the boy up in his arms. “Chopper’s over that way. Let’s go!”

They ran through the chimney forest, startled at the chatter of an automatic weapon nearby. They saw the detective now, hiding behind a large pipe and firing his machine gun. At that moment they saw another man, dressed in black from head to toe, dart out from behind the helicopter. He was running soundlessly, racing toward Walker from his blind side, his gun up, unseen…

The Russian raised his gun to fire and… suddenly screamed and twisted, then collapsed to the roof, still and silent. Pelham saw that Archie had fired his pistol, dropping the assailant on the run. Now, the bodyguard called to them as he raced to the aid of his wounded comrade, Walker, crouched in the shadow of the waiting chopper. Pelham was right on his heels.

“Let’s go, Pelham,” Walker cried. “They’ll reach the roof at any second!”

Archie had started the chopper’s motor.

Pelham took Alexei’s hand and they raced toward their only hope of escape. Its large blades beginning to rotate slowly beneath the unblinking white stare of the cold and oblivious moon.