Patriot

CHAPTER 78

Stoke paid for his newspapers, coffee, and Danish. Then he whirled around, banged out through the swinging screen doors of the Cuban Coffee Queen on Margaret Street in Key West, ran flat out two blocks east, and jumped into his black raspberry GTO convertible. The sound of that monster engine exploding and blatting into life reverberated through the sleepy, shady streets of old Key West on a quiet Sunday morning.

Normally, it took him twenty minutes to get from his favorite morning joe spot in town out to the navy docks. On this particular morning, he did it in twelve. What he had in his hands was something the boss would find extremely interesting.

It was 6:15 A.M. EST when Stokely made it back aboard Blackhawke. It was already hot as hell and his carefully pressed Cuban guayabara was sticking to him like a second skin, albeit one of the white persuasion.

He found Hawke in the war room, all alone, carefully studying satellite videos of some new Russian military training facility in Siberia. It was where they were all headed next, and the boss was deep into his brass tacks mode. “God’s in his heaven but the Devil’s in the details” kind of thing he had going on. Man was definitely in the zone.

“Morning, boss,” Stoke said, pushing through the green baize doors.

“Stoke,” Hawke muttered, lost in thought, rewinding a scene and staring at it again.

“You gotta see this!” Stoke said.

“See what?”

“This. Just hit the streets.”

“What is it, Stoke?” he said, finally lifting his head.

“Have a look, boss, hot off the presses.”

Stoke handed him a copy of that morning’s New York Times. A bold black headline dominated most of the front page above the fold:

Hawke stared at it for a long moment, put his feet up onto the table, stuck a cigarette in the corner of his mouth, and lit it. He exhaled a long, long plume of blue smoke and said: “Well, I’ll be damned. Didn’t waste any time, did he?”

“That’s all you got to say?”

“What else is there to say?”

“Boss! Don’t you see what they’re saying? They’re blaming us for starting World War Three! You and me! Oh, man, we’re going to go down in the history books as the nuclear trigger! The two outlaws who started the last World War…”

“No, Putin is blaming us for starting World War Three.”

“You saying there’s a difference, boss?”

“Well, technically, no. It is the New York Times, after all. The Daily Worker. Putin could blame us for inventing wine coolers and they’d run with it.”

“This doesn’t bother you? Even a little? Seriously?”

“Nope. May I remind you that just last week, Russia tried to blow up Miami? Putin takes out American cities, we then take out his ability to do that. Period. He has zero interest in going nuclear right now. He’s just taking it to the next level. Just as he’s been planning to do all along. Expand his borders and nobody gives a good hot damn. He knew I’d rise to the bait. Ever notice how he kept putting that bloody explosive of his in my way? First, he demos it on a sunken freighter in France, then we find it on that Russian spy ship leaving Cuba, and then used by proxy terrorists in Miami. I’m surprised he hasn’t already had a case of that crap delivered here to the docks as a bon voyage gift.”

“Wait, you’re saying that Feuerwasser stuff is phony?”

“I am. He fooled the hell out of me. Hell, out of all of us. But I just got the results back from independent testing at both the CIA and Department of Defense forensic labs. It’s just plain old vodka.”

“Vodka?”

“Yeah. One hundred percent cheap German rotgut. He’s shipped hundreds of thousands of cases throughout the world. Hoping to use them as a bargaining threat against London and Washington when push, at long last, comes to shove. Leave me and my armored divisions alone or I’ll blow up Edinburgh… or Atlanta. Don’t be surprised if you hear him threaten us with exploding vodka in the next twenty-four hours. At the same time, he was going after my son. Attempts to kill him in London, Washington, and, just yesterday, my hunting lodge up in Scotland. Trying to keep me off balance.”

“What? Scotland?”

“Yeah. Pelham just called me via radio phone from Castle Drum, our old family lodge up on the Isle of Skye. KGB landed twenty-one commandos off a submarine up there and made a run at Castle Drum and grabbing Alexei. Those Russian thugs are dead now, thanks to Inspector Walker and Sergeant Archie Carstairs. Not to mention Pelham and Laddie McPhee. The bastards did murder Laddie’s son Colin, however, and they’ll pay for that, too.”

“Alexei, he’s all right?”

“Absolutely. A bit young to be defending castles right after his sixth birthday, but apparently he was well up to the challenge with his trusty .22 rifle. Runs in the family, I suppose. You didn’t bring me another of those aromatic Cuban coffees by any chance, did you? Is that a ‘no’?”

“Um… I got an extra Danish? So, excuse me, what did they use to level that power plant?”

“Some hybrid method of imploding C-4 that eliminates any trace of itself. Something like that, I think. Ask Harry, he knows.”

“Yeah, but what about that freighter you saw in France? What about that—”

Hawke’s mind was already back in Siberia.

Stoke just smiled and headed for the door. Man never failed to amaze him. Never.

Hawke was sound asleep in his cabin. He’d left instructions for his steward to wake him at dawn. His plane was wheels up at six, soaring across the pond for their rendezvous with destiny.

What was that noise? Oh. His phone. He rolled over and picked up.

“This better be good,” he said.

“It’s not. It’s Brick, Alex. Wake up. All hell and half of heaven has broken loose up here in the nation’s capital.”

“Talk.”

“The White House went batshit when the morning papers hit the streets. I take it you’ve seen the Times? They’re demanding that you get here today if not sooner and explain yourself. They just called me. And Admiral Moore. And probably your boss in London by now. The Big Cheese is looking for you, pal, Sir David wants to know where the hell you are.”

“What’d you tell him?”

“That you were tired and taking a sick day.”

“True. But, really, what did you say?”

“That I didn’t know but I’d try to find out.”

“And then what?”

“And then it’s up to you. Where are you?”

“Key West. Doing a little fishing. Lots of mackerel around the docks.”

“Can you please tell me what you’re up to, Alex? I won’t breathe a word, I promise. Just in case I have to send somebody out to look for you.”

“Well, let’s see. How about if you call your Deep Throat at the Washington Post. Tell him you’ve got a great above-the-fold header for next Sunday’s paper—‘Hawke’s Invasion of Russia!’”

The Red Arrow chugged into the tiny station. Tvas was deserted in the predawn hours. It was cold as billy-be-damned here in the Siberian wilderness, a howling blizzard. Gator and the Raiders had enlisted the help of two burly porters to help them get all their gear off the baggage car and onto the icy platform.

Hawke stood, stamping his boots to keep his circulation going and gazing at the growing mound of combat materiel. “One logistics detail, I’m sure you’re aware of, Constable. That would be getting to the—”

“Already arranged, dear boy. Chap in the village I put on Scotland Yard’s payroll last time out. Blacksmith named Orlov. Should be here in a tick. Charming fellow, utterly charming.”

“What’s this Orlov got in mind?”

“Three large sleds. Six strong horses. And mounds of blankets, buckets of caviar, and oceans of vodka for the cross-country run.” Hawke wasn’t listening.

“I’m looking forward to meeting this Uncle Joe.”

“Prepare to be amazed.”

“That close to the real thing?”

“Bastard son, or genetically engineered replica. It’s positively astounding, Alex.”

“What’s his relationship with the American? The colonel who blows civilian aircraft out of the sky.”

“Stormy, to say the least. When Halter and I first saw him, Uncle Joe was reading Colonel Beauregard the riot act about something and — look! — here’s my man Orlov with our sleighs. If we press on, we can be there before first light.”

And then Congreve was bounding off through the snow in his bear coat, not quite as streamlined as he’d once been, but calling out for Stokely to get the men moving, for heaven’s sake. Hawke smiled, listening to him harangue the team loading the dog sleds with gear. For a man pushing sixty, and a bit on the plumpish side, his energy and zest for life was amazing. Indefatigable, cheery, just the kind of fellow any man might want for a dear friend. And, standing next to you in a gunfight.

Now, for better or worse, these two old friends were waltzing right into the bloody thick of it once more.