Patriot

CHAPTER 73

The Great Hall at Castle Drum was filled with laughter. It was a chilly but clear midmorning. Six-year-old Alexei Hawke was sitting cross-legged on a rug before a crackling fire in the open hearth. An arctic air mass had moved down over the islands of the Outer Hebrides the night before. It felt more like early onset winter than fall. A sustained downpour the night before had left the earth sodden and the trees drooping beneath the residual weight of water.

In a leather armchair pulled up near the fireside, Inspector Tristan Walker of Scotland Yard was reading from a book to his young charge. The boy’s exuberant black Scottie, Harry, was bounding around the room, charging ahead at full speed from one end of the long room to the other, before turning around and doing it again. Over and over.

Then Harry would abruptly apply his brakes, skidding to a screeching halt right in front of his young owner. The little bowser would then proceed to lick Alexei’s face, bringing forth peals of laughter not only from the delighted little boy, but from Walker as well.

Above the stone mantel hung a large portrait of the child’s great-grandfather, the Duke of Antrim, sitting astride his fine black steed, Dreadnought. On the ground around the duke were his frolicsome gun dogs, including a few Gordon setters just like the real one now playing with Alexei’s puppy. That Gordon, who took its name, Robbie, from the hero Robert the Bruce, was the constant companion of Mr. McPhee, known as Laddie, the caretaker at Castle Drum.

Robbie and Harry were now chasing each other through all the rooms of the ground floor, going round and round the endless oval of the dining room table in a race akin to Michael Schumacher’s Ferrari chasing Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes around Nürburgring.

Pelham, who was in the butler’s pantry quietly working on his latest needlepoint project, soon came out and shooed the noisy dogs out of his domain. He watched them charge up the wide stone staircase, shook his head, and withdrew into his sanctuary. Pelham had found the quiet life at Castle Drum to be, for the most part, quite salubrious. The recent mad escape from the rooftops of Hawkesmoor had taken a toll on the old fellow; he was glad of the peaceful respite offered by this remote outpost.

Here, in this house, Alexei was at last safe from all those who would do him harm.

At that very moment, the wide front door swung open and in walked Mr. McPhee, as Alexei called the old man everyone always called Laddie. The caretaker strode right through the doorway leading into the Great Hall, curious as to where all this laughter was coming from.

“Hullo?” Laddie called out. “Hullo!”

“Mr. McPhee!” Alexei said, scrambling to his feet and racing over to his new friend. “Is it time? Can we go now? May we go and hunt for the secret of the Lost River, please, sir? You promised!”

McPhee smiled and pulled off his soaking tweed cap, shaking off the dew and scratching the top of his head. He had a full head of thick white hair, bushy snow-white eyebrows, and huge blue eyes that always seemed to be laughing. His cheeks were red with the glow of a long walk of a frosty morning.

“Well, now, laddie boy, I’m not sure as I rightly know the answer to that question. Is it time yet?”

“Look at the clock down the hall, sir! The big hand just went on twelve… and the little hand is on ten. It’s ten o’clock, sir. Time to go!”

Laddie went down on one knee and hugged the boy closely to his breast. The child was the spitting image of his father, Lord Alex Hawke, at this age. In the child’s company, the elderly man felt as if he was reliving his wonderful past with his lordship. Father and son were both full of life, the love of life, really, and all the joy and laughter that each new day brought forth. The boy even had his father’s sly sense of humor.

He tousled the youth’s unruly black hair and said, “Did Inspector Walker say it was all right? Did you ask the boss his permission yet?”

A dark cloud passed over Alexei’s face. “I forgot to ask him, sir.”

“No worries, me lad, we’ll go ask him now.”

McPhee rose and gathered the boy up into his arms. For a man his age, he had enormous strength, probably because he spent so much time felling trees in the forest and splitting logs for the approaching winter.

“Inspector?” McPhee said, entering the great room. “Would you mind terribly if Alexei and I went for a walk in the woods this morning? I’ve found a secret something I’d like to show him down by the river.”

Walker looked up from his book (a tale about King Arthur and his knights) and said, “I don’t see why not. As long as Archie tags along. And speak of the devil! Good morning, Archie! Completed your rounds, have you?”

“Aye, and nothing much of note to report, Inspector.”

“Good. All that chatter about some mysterious submarine on BBC Glasgow last night had me worried. We’d better be extra mindful until it dies down, Arch.”

“Indeed we should, sir.”

Sergeant Archie Carstairs had been off on the ATV for the last two hours. There had been yet another radio report of suspicious submarine activity offshore near the little harbor town of Portree Bay. Rumors of such stuff abounded lately, mostly due to the Swedes’ discovery of a submarine in one of their own harbors. Nothing came of it, eventually, but it was one of Archie’s jobs to keep a weather eye to sea nevertheless.

“Archie, Laddie here has something he wants Alexei to see down by the river. Have you got time now, before your noon rounds?”

Archie adjusted the sling of the HK MP5 machine gun he carried every moment he was awake. It was the standard weapon of all SO14 Royalty Protection officers and its 4.6mm rounds could penetrate body armor. He had used it to good effect many times in the line of duty and found it satisfactory.

“Indeed I do, sir,” Archie Carstairs said.

“Well, then, Laddie, I suppose you boys are off on a wild adventure, then!” Walker said, returning to his book. He’d started reading the old tome as a way to entertain Alexei. But he’d gotten so engrossed in the tale of chivalry, derring-do, and bravery that he couldn’t wait to return to those splendid days of yore.

The happy threesome, meanwhile, made their way toward the river through the cold damp wood. It was slow going, slogging through the wet leaves piling up against the base of old trees like snowdrifts, trees whose tangled roots could send you sprawling if you didn’t mind your step. Laddie led the way, with Alexei and Archie tagging along a step or two behind him.

“How old are you, now, Alexei?” the venerable old gamekeeper asked.

“Six!” Alexei said proudly.

“Is that right? Well, isn’t that funny? Do you know that when my son Colin, who lives over to Portree Bay, said to me, when he was six years old… why, he, he said he was exactly your age!”

Alexei smiled, just to be nice to his new friend, but he wasn’t sure that the joke was very funny.

Archie, however, bringing up the rear, laughed loudly.

Out of sight of the boy, Carstairs kept his weapon at the ready beneath his poncho. Something about that worrisome chat on the BBC last night had tugged at him all morning. Made him extravigilant, aware of every sight and sound in the woods.

Finally, they came to a bend in the river where a huge black alder tree stood on the edge of the bank. It’s spreading branches and purplish-tinged leaves reached out over the river, hiding the swift flow of currents in the water below.

“Here we are,” Laddie said.

“Is this where you fish, Laddie?” Sergeant Carstairs asked, looking at the swirling currents near shore.

“Mebbe I do, mebbe I don’t. Fishing holes are secret in the great Scottish outdoors, Sergeant. As me son young Colin is oft to remind, ‘In this corner of Scotland, ye have to remember there’s a brown trout in every other puddle you stumble upon.’”

Archie sputtered with laughter. “He’s serious! He’s bloody serious! A trout in every puddle!”

“Is this really the Lost River?” the boy said, looking around for any particular secrets he might spy. “I don’t see any secrets, Mr. McPhee.”

“That’s because you have to look for secrets,” Laddie said. “We’ve got to go down this bank here. Careful! Mind your steps, boy; it’s muddy and slippery. Don’t let him fall in, Sergeant.”

“I’ve got him,” Archie said, hoisting the child up in one arm as he made his way down.

“Getting warmer!” Laddie said.

“Where is it, Laddie?” the boy said, peering through the low-hanging branches of the black alder.

“Ah, good question! Hold on. Let’s pull this big branch back and — wait — there she is!”

It was a rowboat. And not just any old rowboat either. A brand-new one. She was bright fire-engine red. With two hand-made oars lying on her thwart seat, tied together with a red ribbon bow.

“Oh my!” Alexei said, his eyes wide and his mouth bowing up into a big O. “Oh my goodness…”

Laddie said, “I ain’t much of a wooden boat-builder, but rowboats I can do to a fare-thee-well. She’s a bona fide beaut, isn’t she? So who wants to go for a ride? I’ll teach the new owner how to row. What do you think, Alexei?”

“Can I, Archie? Can I go row my new boat with Laddie?”

“I suppose you can,” Sergeant Carstairs said with a smile. “I don’t see why not. Every boy ought to know how to row a boat. Mind that current, though, especially out in the middle of the river.”

Archie watched them until they glided out of sight around the wide bend. It had begun to rain again, not heavy, but hard enough for him to seek shelter up atop the bank, beneath the spreading branches of the black alder. He sat down with his back up against the trunk of the tree, facing the river so he could monitor the comings and goings of the little red rowboat. He heard the splash of oars and Alexei’s laughter nearby, glad Laddie wasn’t letting them drift too far downriver.

The sergeant had no idea how long he’d been sitting there when he heard something move above his head. He looked up, expecting to see a squirrel leaping from branch to branch. It wasn’t a squirrel at all that he saw, but a heavy black boot. It was dangling down through the dense leaves. He immediately understood that whoever’s foot filled that shoe had been hiding right above his head all this time.

Archie moved extremely slowly. He slid his right index finger inside the trigger guard of the MP5. Then he raised the muzzle so the weapon was pointing directly at the bottom of the boot. Then he slowly got to his knees without a sound on the carpet of wet leaves… and then to his feet.

The boot was now about five feet above his head.

“I’ve got a gun,” he said, looking up into the tree.

No reply.

“If you don’t do exactly as I say, I will blow your right foot off. Believe me, I will do it.”

He lifted the muzzle and fired a short burst into the air. The noise was deafening in the silence of the forest.

“No! Don’t shoot,” a hidden voice said suddenly.

Archie gripped the gun more tightly. He recognized that Slavic accent.

The Russians are coming.

“Throw your gun to the ground. Now. And any other weapons. You’ve got five seconds before you lose that foot.”

A stubby machine gun bounced once off a branch before it fell to the ground right at Archie’s feet. A second later, a serrated assault knife. He kicked both away into the leaves and said, “Come down now. Slowly.”

There was a rustle of wet leaves above and then a young blond sailor dropped to the ground, his face a mask of fear as he got up off his knees.

“Submarine?” Archie said, already knowing the answer.

He nodded. The boy was barely eighteen, if that. A scared, sleepless Russian kid who’d spent the night being whipped to and fro at the top of a tree in a violent rainstorm.

“Speak English?”

“Little.”

“On the ground. Facedown in the leaves. Hands behind your back.”

The sailor complied. Archie started to ask another question, but his gaze had strayed to the horizon on the far side of the river. There was no time to question the prisoner: how many, where they were, what kind of arms. No. Right now he had to get the boy back to the relative safety of the house. Time to get Alexei away from the river and get away fast. Who knew how long they had before this fellow’s comrades, Russian commandos, would mount an attack on Castle Drum?

Archie placed his boot squarely in the middle of the young man’s back, pressed it down to keep him from moving, and called out to Laddie and Alexei. A moment later he saw them hove into view. He smiled at the child and then gave Laddie a warning glance.

The set of Archie’s jaw and the dark look in his eyes told Laddie all was not well ashore. He quickly ran the boat up onto the muddy bank and handed Alexei up to the waiting arms of his bodyguard.

“Visitors,” Archie whispered to the old man, pointing at the submariner on the ground. “Let’s go home!”

“Where’d you find him?” Laddie said; he and Alexei were staring at the stranger with great surprise.

“Found him in that tree,” Archie said.

“Who is he?” Alexei said, watching the blond-headed boy get slowly to his feet, brushing the soggy leaves off his peacoat jacket.

“A neighbor,” Archie said. “He got sick swimming across the river. Caught a cold. He’s coming home with us until he feels better.”

“Are you sick?” Alexei said, looking at the shivering fellow. “Is it your tummy?”

“Measles,” Laddie said. “Best keep away from him.”

“He’s contagious?”

“Something like that.”

Archie picked up the sailor’s gun and assault knife. Then he leaned in close to Laddie’s ear and asked him to take the Russian’s machine gun. It was loaded, on full auto, he told him. Walk five steps ahead with the prisoner a few steps in front of him, he said. If the Russian made a run for it, shoot him in the legs. They needed the boy alive for interrogation once they were safe. Archie and Alexei would be right behind them.

As they made their way back through the wood, Archie realized that perhaps he knew all he needed to know at the moment. Their young prisoner was just a Boy Scout sent out on a recon. But there were a lot more Russians out there somewhere. They were coming for Alexei. And these men would not even remotely resemble Boy Scouts. They had little time to prepare for this stunning change of events, and he spurred them to pick up the pace.

The men who would come were, in all likelihood, a vicious special forces command sent by the KGB with but one mission. To capture or murder the terrified little boy who now held his hand so tightly.

A happy child who had just, little more than an hour ago, made his way through these very woods with pure joy in his heart, so eager was he to learn the secret of the lost river.