by Ted Bell
The idea was for Alex to get out of Washington. First he would fly up to Boston’s Logan. There, he would meet Ambrose, Stokely, and Sutherland in the first-class lounge when their BA flight from Heathrow landed. The four of them would then make the short hop over to the island of Nantucket. Alex had decided to position Blackhawke there for her summer mooring.
Originally, it had been part of his honeymoon plans.
But now the three men could use her as a base of operations, cruising up along the northeast coastline, dipping in and out of interesting ports. Alex could spend the days working out the kinks in the yacht’s fitness room, swimming in the ocean, running on the beach (running on soft sand always got him in shape faster than anything else) and reducing his current alcohol intake by at least half. If he could cut it entirely, fine, but Alex believed a couple of glasses of red wine didn’t hurt. Helped him sleep, actually, until the nightmares kicked in.
In the evening, they could all gather in the ship’s library and sort through the facts of Vicky’s case. They could continue the conversation over an early supper and still have Alex in bed by nine each night.
That was the plan anyway.
“We’re beginning our final descent into Logan, sir,” his captain, Charley Flynn, said over the intercom. “I’ll have you on the ground in ten minutes.”
“All buckled in, young Pelham?” Alex asked the aged fellow seated just across the aisle. Pelham Grenville, upon learning of Alex’s impending voyage, had insisted on tagging along. He said he’d been caring for Alex since the boy had been in diapers and he wasn’t about to stop now. What the old family retainer didn’t say was that he felt Alex needed looking after more than ever. Vicky’s murder had taken a terrible toll.
An hour later, they were all on Nantucket Island, aboard Blackhawke. Because of the yacht’s enormous size, she was anchored outside the entrance to Nantucket Harbor. The harbor could not safely accommodate her gleaming black, two hundred forty foot–long hull. Unwittingly, Hawke had provided the island with a new tourist attraction. Every few hours, the Steamship Authority’s large ferries would arrive from Hyannis and Wood’s Hole, loaded to the gunwales with day-trippers. Everyone crowded the upper deck, staring in wonder at the huge yacht now anchored just opposite the harbor mouth.
She was bigger than most ferries.
Having stowed their gear in their respective staterooms, showered and changed, the four friends had all reconvened in the ship’s paneled library. By the time they assembled, Congreve had already turned Blackhawke’s beautiful library into a veritable War Room.
Ambrose had erected four large wooden easels, two on either side of the fireplace. Each easel held a large pad of blank white paper. Three were blank anyway. Ambrose was now standing before the fourth creating a handwritten list of every one of Hawke’s known enemies with a fat black Magic Marker. It was a long list, Alex saw, dismayed but not surprised, as Congreve kept adding names. At this rate he was going to fill up all four pads.
“I say, Constable,” Alex said, “Your little list there is certainly warming the cockles of my heart. When you’ve completed this impressive catalogue of ‘Fiends and Villains Who Want Hawke Dead,’ perhaps we could do one consisting of ‘Friends & Acquaintances Who Find Him Rather Chummy.’ Just for fun, right, Sniper?”
“Damnifiknow! Hellificare!” the parrot Sniper squawked, somewhat in agreement.
Hawke had cared for the large Black Hyacinth macaw now perched on his shoulder since childhood. Brazilian macaws can live to the ripe old age of 110 years, but Sniper was a vibrant 75. Her plumage, despite her “black” appellation, was still a glossy ultramarine blue. An old Hawke family tradition, allegedly begun by his notorious ancestor, the pirate Blackhawke himself, was to use trained parrots as protection. Any unseen threat, and Sniper would instantly squawk out a warning. She also had a salty vocabulary, courtesy of Hawke’s grandfather.
“Friends? Delighted to,” Congreve said, scribbling away furiously, his back still turned towards them. “That certainly shouldn’t take long,” he added, earning a chuckle from Stokely and Sutherland.
Alex smiled. It was amazing how many enemies one could acquire during one brief decade in the service of two rather obvious notions like freedom and democracy.
There were individuals, corporations, and even a section of entire nations on Congreve’s burgeoning Enemies Register. Some, Alex found hardly surprising. Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, and Kashmir. Okay. But, Canada? Liechtenstein? Sweden? He’d have to ask Congreve about that lot later. At any rate, the idea was to vet out every name on the list and eliminate as many as possible. Those who remained would comprise a new list.
Suspects.
“Very comprehensive list, Constable,” Hawke said. “My compliments to the author.”
“Thank you, but that would be you, dear boy.”
“May I add one?” asked Hawke.
“Certainly.”
“Cuba.”
“Hmm. Cuba.”
“Yes. I left a lot of ruffled feathers down there on my most recent visit. A bloodless coup d’état that turned a bit bloody.”
“Anybody who was anybody in that rebel army was dead by the time we left,” Stokely said. “Still, we might have missed a couple.”
“Indeed, Alex,” Congreve said, adding the name Cuba. “Stupid of me not to think of it.”
“Not at all,” Hawke said. “Stoke’s right. We killed most of the terrorist bastards when we took out that bloody rat’s nest at Telaraña. Still, a precious few could have escaped. Chaps hoping I’ve celebrated my last birthday.”
“Motive?” Congreve said, asking his favorite question.
“We can safely rule out love or lucre,” Hawke said. “That leaves loathing and, of course, lust.”
“Yeah. Maybe somebody down there had himself a little crush on Vicky?” Stoke asked, and a silence fell over the room. “You know, when the rebels held her captive?”
“A crime of passion?” Sutherland asked. “A spurned lover?”
“Well,” Ambrose said after a few more long moments, “I can see by the expressions on your faces you’ve all had enough excitement for one evening, gentlemen.” He capped the marker. “We shall attack the thing with vigor on the morrow.”
“Yes, Constable,” Hawke said, rising from his leather armchair. “This little exercise has been most uplifting. At any moment I may burst into song. Do you never tire of all this bloody spadework, Ambrose, beavering away morning, noon, and night?”
“On the contrary,” Congreve said. “You remember, to be sure, what Holmes said to Watson in the very first chapter of The Sign of Four?”
“Sorry,” Hawke replied, “Seems to have slipped my mind at the moment. Mind you, keen, alert, and up on my toes as I am, I’ve not yet got round to memorizing the complete works of Conan Doyle.”
He was rewarded with a wan smile from Congreve.
“ ‘The pleasure of finding a field for my peculiar powers is my highest reward,’ ” Congreve said, relighting his pipe for the umpteenth time, a rather self-satisfied little smile on his lips.
“Ah,” Alex said smiling. “My highest reward at this moment would be a medium rare center-cut filet mignon and a single glass of good Napa Valley claret.”
“Excellent idea,” Ambrose said, expelling a puff of blue-grey smoke. “I do hope no one minds. Since we’ll be steaming out of this lovely harbor soon, I’ve booked reservations ashore at a delightful restaurant I discovered during my wanderings about town. Dinner will be at seven sharp. Shall we all tidy up a bit and meet up on deck at the stern? Fantail Lounge at six? Quick cocktail and then a ten- or fifteen-minute stroll to the restaurant. Jackets and ties would be appropriate, I should think.”
Alex had to smile. He loved it when Ambrose took charge of things. He so delighted in doing it and it was amusing to watch the world-famous detective in the role of the mother hen, shepherding the little brood about, clucking about this and that.
Hawke found Nantucket town itself to be completely charming. Sitting under the stars on Blackhawke’s uppermost deck during the drinks hour, he had been delighted with the harbor and the picturesque town beyond, especially the many white church spires rising into the deepening indigo of the evening sky.
He imagined all those late eighteenth-century churches filled to bursting every Sunday morning; women and children praying for the great whale fleets to return safely, bearing husbands, fathers, sons, and brothers back from perilous voyages to the South Pacific. Voyages sometimes lasted four or even five years.
Lovely eighteenth- and nineteenth-century architecture lined every street and Alex was pleased to see that, somehow, the island fathers had managed to keep the horrors of modern architecture completely at bay. Real candles were burning in the windows of many houses and you could sense lush rose gardens blooming behind the picket fences and sharply tailored hedgerows. Some streets in the town were gaslit and paved with heavy cobblestones. Stones, Congreve told him, that had once been the ballast in the holds of the first ships bringing settlers across the Atlantic.
“I rather like this island, Ambrose,” Hawke remarked, turning up the collar of his yellow slicker as they headed towards the center of town. “Although I seem to like all islands. Something to do with being born on one, I suppose.”
A fine spring rain was falling. The brick-paved street glistened with soft yellow light from many windows; hazily lit doorways peeked out here and there from behind thick bowers of white roses. Alex and Ambrose had fallen behind their companions, having lingered to admire en route the forthright simplicity of a particular house or a garden trellis.
“Yes,” Congreve said, inhaling the sweet damp air, “It’s quite lovely in a haunting way, isn’t it? Too much money here now, I’m afraid, but not enough to drive the ghosts away.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning the past is stronger than the present. Here on this island, at least. You see that rather imposing building over there? The Greek Revival temple?”
“I was just admiring it. The public library, isn’t it?”
“Indeed. The Athenaeum. I paid them a visit this afternoon. Fascinating. Full of beautiful whaling ship models and scrimshaw and such.”
“No books?”
“Of course, books. Melville, you may remember, was a whaler himself. He visited Nantucket with his father-in-law, an itinerant minister. Whilst here, he met with Captain George Pollard of the Essex. The tale of the great white whale is based on the true story of the whaler Essex. Rammed by a massive leviathan and went down with all hands save a few. Survivors resorted to cannibalism after a month or so drifting on the open seas; drove them all quite mad.”
Congreve expelled a billowing trail of smoke and caught his friend’s glance, saw his sad eyes return for an instant to the pleats of previous smiles. But Alex looked away, saying nothing. The two had paused on the steps of a lovely church to admire one of the grander captain’s houses across the way.
“Listen,” Hawke said, peering into the darkened doorway. Inside the candle-lit chapel, a choir was practicing a lovely song of prayer for ancient mariners—
Eternal Father, strong to save,
Whose arm does bind the restless wave,
Who bidst the mighty ocean deep,
Its own appointed limits keep,
O, hear us when we cry to thee,
For those in peril on the Sea…
“Ghosts,” Hawke said, gazing up at the widow’s walk atop the captain’s house, the words of the choir floating out into the drizzly churchyard. “You’re quite right about this place, old thing. Ghosts and angels behind every door.”
They turned into Federal Street and arrived at a restaurant that took its name from its address, 21 Federal. It was on the ground floor of an elegant white clapboard building built in the late eighteenth century. Sutherland and Stokely were waiting just inside, chatting with the amiable host, who introduced himself as Chick Walsh. Once the four men were all seated round a deep red leather banquette just off the bar, Alex looked around approvingly. Dark paneling, brass fixtures, lovely period marine art on the walls. Ambrose had chosen well.
The waiter brought two cocktails, a Diet Coke for Stokely, and a glass of red wine for Alex.
“To the bride,” Hawke said quietly, raising his glass and, one by one, looking each one of them in the eye.
“To the bride,” they all answered in unison.
There followed a period of silence, not at all uncomfortable. Reflective rather, each man alone with his thoughts and memories of Victoria Sweet.
Ambrose was the first one to break the silence.
“I wonder, Alex,” he said, “If you’d be so kind as to fill us all in on this apparently very nasty matter at the U.S. State Department.”
“Ah, yes,” Alex said, relief on his face. “Conch’s crisis du jour. Ratcheted up from ‘apparently very nasty’ to simply ‘very nasty’, I’m afraid. State’s DSS fellows have concluded that the death in Venice was an assassination.”
“DSS?” Stokely asked. “New one on me. I thought I knew all those spooks.”
“Don’t get a lot of publicity, Stoke. State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service. Responsible for protecting American diplomats and their families at embassies and consulates around the world.”
“Rather tall order lately, I’d say,” said Sutherland.
The waiter arrived with their food, and all conversation ceased until he left the table.
Congreve asked, “Counterespionage, are they, these DSS boys?”
“Some are,” Alex said, “But their primary mission is to act as America’s cops overseas. Brilliant track record. It was DSS who finally nabbed Ramzi Yousef, lovely chap responsible for the first Trade Towers bombing back in 1993. Friend of mine, a fellow named Tex Patterson, heads up some 1200 agents. Tex calls them the best-kept secret in American law enforcement, and he’d like to keep it that way. He lets Langley or the Bureau take all the bows.”
“This poor chap in Venice,” Ambrose mused. “Their new ambassador. Never did hear a satisfactory explanation of that one.”
“Most people never will,” Alex said, “Ambassador Simon Stanfield was tracked and killed by a miniature smart bomb.”
“Good Lord. You can’t be serious,” Congreve scoffed.
“Sounds preposterous, I agree. But that’s what happened. DSS discovered a tiny encrypted dot, a microchip transmitter planted in Stanfield’s billfold. Still broadcasting the GPS coordinates of the dead man’s precise location to a satellite.”
“A personal smart bomb?” Stokely asked. “Man, what the hell is that all about?”
“Divers found fragments of it in the muck at the bottom of the canal. Reconstructing them, it appears to have been a small titanium missile, perhaps twelve inches long. A tiny warhead at the nose, packed with just enough plastic explosive to blow a man to pieces upon impact.”
“Astounding,” Congreve said, after taking a forkful of his duck. “And what about this second chap in Riyadh? McGuire.”
“Even more bizarre,” Hawke continued. “Butch McGuire, U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, keeled over at a table in his favorite restaurant in Riyadh, whilst having dinner with his wife. Looked like natural causes, Patterson said, except the man was in perfect health.”
Congreve sat back against the cushions, his interior wheels spinning soundlessly but obviously. He turned his deceptively innocent blue eyes towards Hawke.
“Another splash of wine, Alex? I see they have a good La Tour on the wine list. Excellent vintage.”
“Thanks, no,” he said, proud of his new regimen, and then he told them all about the strange demise of Butch McGuire.
“So that’s it,” he concluded a few moments later. “Patterson said that when they opened Butch up on the autopsy table, the entire thoracic and gastrointestinal organs were basically fried.”
“Fried?” Stoke asked, taking a big bite of his steak. “What you mean fried?”
>
“Cooked,” Hawke said. “Well done. Charred.”
“Good Lord,” Congreve said. “How on earth did—”
“He swallowed something,” Hawke said. “Small enough to go down with food unnoticed. Then, inside the stomach, a microburst of electricity. Either self-detonating or triggered from a remote location.”
“Ratchet up the terror level at every American embassy,” Ross said, shaking his head. “That’s the plan.”
“This is bad, Alex,” Ambrose said. “Two in two weeks? It’s just the beginning.”
Alex nodded. “I agree. Question, Constable. Do you think Vicky was actually first? Or, rather, a botched attempt on me? I have very close ties to the U.S. State Department’s counterterrorist operations. If this is some kind a plot to paralyze America’s worldwide diplomatic mission, I wouldn’t be a bad place to start.”
“Not beyond the range of possibilities, Alex. But a separate, personal, and unrelated attack on you is also quite possible, given the chart we just created.”
“A target under either scenario, then,” Hawke said. “Off the top of your head, Constable. These diplomatic assassinations. Initial reaction? Thoughts?”
“Virulent psychopath with a deep-seated hatred for America. Her ambassadors at any rate. Sadist. Unlimited scientific and economic resources. Enjoys eccentric means to kill.”
“Could be just some nutcase genius with a grudge,” Stoke said. “Like that crazy Harvard fruitcake.”
“Which one?” Congreve asked.
“Unabomber. Kept sending ever more powerful mail bombs to people on his environmental shitlist. Too bad he didn’t get a ‘return-to-sender’ package and forget he had—”
“Mr. Alexander Hawke?” a waiter said.
“I’m Alex Hawke.”
“Sorry to disturb you, Mr. Hawke. A gentleman on the phone who’d like to speak with you, sir. Extremely urgent.”
“Certainly. What’s this gentleman’s name?”