Assassin ah-2

by Ted Bell

  Hawke, listening intently to the latest intel from the DSS team as they walked, had already shown Patterson far more than most visitors ever got to see. He’d seen things inconceivable on anything less than one of the U.S. Navy’s own Spruance class destroyers. Blackhawke featured a balanced combat systems suite with towed array and active sonars, medium-range surface-to-air missile systems mounted inside the ship’s hull on both the port and starboard sides, and two long-range 7.6mm guns, also concealed, mounted both fore and aft. This integrated combat system centered on the Aegis weapon system, now up and running again, and the SPY-1 multi-function, phased array radar. All located on the very lowest deck in what was known as the War Room.

  “Hell, Hawkeye,” Patterson said, looking around the massive bridge deck, “This ain’t no yacht. It’s a goddamn battleship disguised as a yacht.”

  Alex smiled. “I wouldn’t go quite that far, Tex,” he said, “light destroyer, perhaps, but not battleship.”

  Tommy Quick now approached the two men quietly talking at the bow. He stopped a respectful distance away and caught Alex’s eye by saluting.

  “Morning, Skipper,” Quick said, “Sorry to disturb you.”

  “Not at all, Sarge,” Alex replied. “Mr. Patterson and I are just standing up here trying to figure out how to save the goddamn world.”

  “Yes, sir,” Quick said. “Call for you, Skipper. Mr. Congreve down in the War Room. He says it’s important. Some kinda press conference being televised in about five minutes.”

  Hawke said, “Tell him we’re on our way.”

  “Christ, what time is it?” Patterson asked. “Alex, I clean forgot about this.”

  “Exactly six-fifty-five Eastern, Chief.”

  “Which makes it almost noon in Paris,” Jack Patterson said, as he and Alex entered an elevator. “Unfortunately, I think I know exactly what this is about, Alex. Our ambassador in Paris has gone completely off the doggone rails.”

  “After what happened up in Dark Harbor, I should be surprised if all of your ambassadors weren’t all a little shaky, Tex.”

  “Yeah, you bet.”

  They rode down six decks in silence, emerged and turned left into a long corridor lit with red domed lights every four feet or so. Hawke paused at a massive steel door and punched a seven-digit pass code into a small black box mounted on the wall. A cover in the center of the door slid back, and behind it was a fingerprint identification pad. Hawke pressed his thumb to it and the thick door slid silently into the bulkhead, revealing the War Room.

  It was surprisingly small, packed with computer screens, radar screens, and TV monitors. Two young crewmen wearing earphones sat before a bewildering array of switches and controls, monitoring the integrated search, track, and weapons systems. The information displayed above them was an electronic visualization of the world out to some one hundred miles or more from the ship. The blue lighting inside the War Room was designed to enhance the video displays. At the far end of a conference table, a seated figure was wreathed in smoke.

  “Some setup, Hawkeye,” Tex said, whistling softly.

  “Thanks. We like it.”

  “Who the heck is that in the velvet jacket?”

  “That? That would be Chief Constable Ambrose Congreve, WMD.”

  “WMD?”

  “Weapon of Mass Deduction.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Miami

  HALF AN HOUR LATER, STOKE WAS SHIVERING IN THE FRONT seat, busily pulling all the small gold studs out of his shirtfront. The pleated shirt with the gold doodads down the front had to go. A man doesn’t feel so damn resplendent when he is all wet and cold and shit, soaked to the bone.

  They had made a run for the car the same moment as the furious storm finally unloaded over Miami Beach. Stoke and Ross raced out of the hotel and made a mad dash down the drive, looking for Preacher’s Lincoln. Torrential rain and wind lashed them, and the near-hurricane-force winds of the tropical squall were strong enough to rock the cars parked along the drive. Even though Trevor was flashing the high beams, man, you couldn’t see a goddamn thing.

  “What’d I tell you ’bout the tropics, Ross?” Stoke asked as they jumped inside the Town Car and pulled the doors shut, straining against heavy winds.

  “I can’t remember,” Ross said, jumping in the rear.

  “Three little words is all I got to say,” Stoke said, fumbling with the AC controls. “Humidity, humidity, humidity.”

  “Call this humidity?” Ross said.

  “Wet, ain’t it? What the hell else would you call it?”

  Preacher’s cell phone started playing the William Tell Overture. Have to talk to him ’bout that. So nineties.

  “Yes?” Trevor said, flipping it open. “Okay. Good.”

  “What?” Stokely said.

  “She’s coming out now, Cholo says.”

  “Move up, Preacher,” Ross said. “What you waiting for?”

  The headlights were practically useless it was raining so hard, but Trevor managed to negotiate the curving drive without sideswiping any limos. Preacher edged forward, trying to get his nose under the covered entrance.

  “Okay, let’s wait here,” Ross said.

  They could see Fancha standing at the valet desk. She was flanked by two double extra large Cubanos in tuxedos. One look at them, Stokely knew they were all carrying. Suddenly, a midnight blue Bentley Azure convertible raced up out of the rain and screeched to a halt at the curb. The passenger side door swung open and some hombre in a white guayabera jumped out and helped the two tuxedos hustle the singer into the back seat.

  The tires chirped as the big Bentley swept away from the curb and disappeared into the rain.

  “Move it,” Stoke said to Trevor.

  The Bentley’s large and distinctive red taillights made tailing it a good deal easier in the blinding rainstorm. It hooked a left onto Collins Avenue, heading south, the storm-whipped breakers of the Atlantic and Hotel Row on their left. Trevor did as he was told, always at least one or two cars between the Lincoln and the Bentley, keeping the Bentley in sight.

  “Where are they headed, Trevor?” Ross asked after they’d passed a number of intersections.

  “All you can do is go west ’cross Biscayne Bay to downtown on the MacArthur Causeway.”

  Which is exactly what the big Bentley did, turn right on 5th and head across the causeway connecting South Beach to the mainland. Five minutes later, at the intersection of Brickell Avenue, in the heart of downtown Miami, the car took another left, heading south on South Miami Avenue.

  “He’s headed for Coconut Grove,” Trevor said, excited, accelerating.

  “Easy. Easy. You get any closer, he’s going to make us, Preacher,” Stoke said, “Man looks like he slowing down, fixing to turn in somewhere.”

  Trevor hit the brakes seconds before the Bentley’s taillights flashed red and the car swerved into a wide drive, coming to a stop at a massive, ornate set of iron gates.

  “This not making no sense, mon. No sense a’tall.”

  “Don’t stop, Trevor, don’t slow down, keep going,” Ross said from the backseat. “It’s a residence, is it?”

  “Was a residence built by some millionaire back in de twenties,” Trevor said. “Now, de house got to be de biggest tourist attraction in South Florida. Called Vizcaya. A beautiful museum, mon! Sitting on a huge piece of land sticking right out into de bay. Tell you one thing for sure. It’s not open this time of night.”

  “Hang a right here, and turn around,” Stokely said, craning his head around to keep the Bentley in sight. “Let’s go back and see what the hell he’s up to.”

  Trevor backtracked to Vizcaya, slowed, turned right into the drive and pulled to a stop before the gate. The Azure had disappeared inside. On the right was a three-story stucco guardhouse, and a huge man wearing a black poncho came out into the downpour. He sloshed through the puddles at the front of the car and rapped his knuckles on Trevor’s window. Hard rain was beating down on the man’s clean
-shaven head but it didn’t seem to bother him much. Trevor cracked his window down about a foot and looked up at the guy.

  “What can I do for you, bud?” the guy asked Trevor. Stoke leaned across Trevor’s chest and favored the big bald guy with one of his biggest smiles.

  “How you doing tonight? We just want to drive in and take a look around, that’s all.”

  “Sorry. It ain’t open,” the guy said, heavy New York bad-ass accent. One look at the guy and two words popped into Stoke’s brain. Mobbed up. Yeah, this was one seriously mobbed-up individual.

  “Funny, we just saw somebody go in there,” Stoke said. “It’s a tourist attraction, right? A museum? Open to the public, is what I’m saying.”

  “You got a hearing problem, asshole? I said it ain’t open.”

  “You want to watch who you call an asshole, asshole,” Stoke said, still smiling.

  “Listen close, asshole. This is private property. A private residence.”

  “You work for the man, right? You got any ID? Rap sheet, maybe? All them prison tats on your wrists? Look to me like some jive-ass con fresh out of the joint. Guy who’s done more time than a clock, you know what I’m sayin’?”

  “You wanna fuck with me?”

  “Maybe later. I swear I know this jailbird, Preacher. I think maybe I even sent him up once. Aggravated stupidity. Hey! This is the Vizcaya Museum, isn’t that right, hard case?”

  “Right. But it ain’t no museum no more. Guy who owns it now shoots trespassers and apologizes later. You’re trespassing. Now, you two get your black asses out of here or I’m going to fuck you up.”

  “Oh. Oh, I see. It’s a racial thing. Hey, there’s another guy in the back. He white. Can he go in?”

  “Fuck are you, wiseguy, or somethin’?”

  “Stokely Jones, NYPD,” Stoke said, flashing his old shield and forgetting to add the “retired” part as he sometimes did in situations of stress.

  “Yeah? Is that right? A plainclothes cop, huh? Tailing the boss’s Bentley looks like. Maybe you better come in after all,” the guy said, pulling a double-barreled sawed-off shotgun out from under his poncho and pressing the muzzle against Trevor’s temple. To his credit, the Preacher didn’t even flinch.

  The big black gates swung inward.

  “Bada-boom, bada-bing!” Stoke said, getting right up in the guy’s grill, trying not to smile too much when he said it.

  The guy, pissed, pulled the shotgun away from Trevor’s head. Stoke saw Preacher’s lips moving, guessed he was praying.

  Stoke looked past Preacher and smiled at the mob guy. “Now, you listnin’ to reason, see? I knew you come around eventually.”

  “Fuck you,” the guy said.

  “Your place or mine?” Stoke said.

  He was showing him a lot of pearly whites as Trevor accelerated the big Lincoln away and up the curving drive. Stokely swung his massive arm over the back of the seat and looked at Ross, seeing a big smile on his face.

  “What you smiling at?”

  “You, mate,” Ross said. “Just you, Stoke.”

  “Shit,” Stoke said. “A guy like that? Kind of guy can’t make it as a real person, so he trying to make it as a character.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Nantucket Island

  AMBROSE CONGREVE WAS SITTING WITH SLIPPERED FEET upon the table. Still in his pajamas, the man was also wearing, for some reason, a quilted black velvet smoking jacket with a scarlet spotted handkerchief in the breast pocket. He was smoking his pipe and looking up at a large television monitor hung from the ceiling. A graphic on the screen read:

  FOX BREAKING NEWS!

  “Top of the morning, Ambrose,” Hawke said cheerfully. “You’re up awfully early. Something good on the telly?”

  Congreve turned and smiled at the newcomers through a haze of blue smoke. “I don’t normally watch the television at this hour, as you know, Alex. I don’t normally watch anything at this bloody hour except the angels of my dreams. But your dear friend Conch called from Washington at the hellish hour of six and got me out of my very warm bed. Apparently, something alarming is afoot with your ambassador in Paris, Mr. Patterson.”

  “Grab a seat, Tex,” Hawke said, “And pay him no mind. He’s always grouchy until his midday eye-opener.” Congreve shot Hawke a narrow look out of the corner of his eye and then returned his attention to the monitor.

  “This could be mighty damn interesting, Alex,” Patterson said, as everyone took a chair.

  “What does he—”

  “Here it is,” Patterson said.

  Fox TV cut from a tight shot of their reporter to a wide shot of the ambassador and his two children out in the embassy gardens. He was bent over, whispering something to the two blond boys, putting his mouth to each of their ears. Then he stood upright, smiled broadly and approached the podium.

  “Bonjour et bienvenue,” he began.

  The camera zoomed in slowly on the ambassador’s face as he spoke, catching the blazing patriotism and the power of his conviction in his clear blue eyes.

  “Freedom and fear are at war,” he began. Ten minutes later, having finished his speech, the ambassador began fielding questions from the press.

  “Christ almighty, Duke, what the hell are you thinking?” Patterson said to the screen, slamming his open hand down on the table when the speech ended.

  “I admire his stand, actually,” Hawke said, gazing thoughtfully at the ambassador’s face. “He’s right, you know.”

  “Hell with right,” Patterson said angrily. “This ain’t the time for who’s right or who’s wrong. My team is charged with protecting the lives of these people! Now, you got this guy telling his colleagues around the world that—holy hell—now what?”

  Everyone in the War Room stared up in horror at the images now unfolding on the monitor. The American ambassador writhing on the ground, white smoke pouring from his shoes. The shocked, disbelieving faces of his two young boys, desperately trying to rush to their father’s aid, but held back by the security agents trying to shield them from the sight of horrendous flames igniting at his feet.

  “White phosphorus,” Tex Patterson said, “Christ! Somebody got to his shoes and—”

  Ambrose saw the anguished look on Alex’s face, riveted by the vision of two little boys watching their father die before their eyes. “Turn it off!” Ambrose said, getting to his feet. “Turn the bloody thing off!”

  Someone hit the remote and the screen went dark.

  The men gathered around the table were silent. Everyone knew Hawke had witnessed the torture-slaying of his father and mother on a cruise to the Bahamas.

  “Tex,” Alex said, lifting his head and turning his burning gaze towards the DSS man. “You got a real fight on your hands. A carefully orchestrated jihad. And, it’s personal. The Dog is killing your guys one at a time. And he likes to fight dirty.”

  “You know what the worst part is, Hawkeye? We don’t know how to fight dirty anymore.”

  “Oh, there still may be a few of us left around,” Alex said.

  “Suggestion?” said Congreve. “Unless anyone has more pressing engagements, no one should leave this ship until we reach a very clear understanding of two things. How to run down this wretched Dog. And how to take him out. Mr. Patterson?”

  Tex leaned back in his chair, an unlit cigarette dangling from his sun-chapped lips.

  “Yeah. Let me start at the beginning of this thing. We had a case. DSS had a case, I mean. A serial killer in London in the mid-nineties. Most of his victims were young, attractive women. Shop girls. Prostitutes. My team only got involved when he murdered a State Department employee. Girl he’d picked up in a pub in Soho.”

  “What was her name?” Congreve asked.

  “Alice Kearns. Low-level staffer. African Affairs section at our embassy in Grosvenor Square.”

  “She was his last victim?”

  “Correct. Late Spring, 1998. May.”

  “American, I assume.”

&nb
sp; “As a matter of fact, yes. The only American victim. Why would you assume that?”

  Congreve stroked his mustache, ignoring the question. “So the man you suspected of orchestrating the murders in Maine, fingered by the young deputy before he died, he was the suspect in these London serial murders as well?”

  “Yes.”

  “I see. And how did this ‘Dog,’ as you call him, come by his unfortunate moniker?”

  “His laugh,” Patterson said.

  “I don’t follow.”

  “Videotapes were found in his penthouse on Park Lane after he disappeared. In each tape, the murderer is seen wearing a black hooded kaftan. Very careful never to show his face. But, by God, you can hear his laugh. Cackling. Howling. Shrieking. Just like a wild dog.”

  “The Dog wore a kaftan,” Alex said. “Arabic.”

  “Definitely,” Patterson replied. “We were getting very close. He was a well-known business figure in London, but somehow we managed to keep our suspicions out of the press, the whole story. He had no idea we were onto him. No one did.”

  “Name?” Hawke asked.

  “Snay bin Wazir,” Patterson said. “Had an Emirate passport, but he’d been around. Africa. Indonesia—”

  “The Pasha! The Pasha of Knightsbridge. Brick Kelly and I had a lovely evening with him one night at the Connaught. Very well dressed chap. Polished. He wanted to join Nell’s.”

  “Yes. That was late December, just a few days before we decided to move. On New Year’s Eve, 1999, a team of our boys went in with SAS commandos. Roped down from choppers to the terrace of his penthouse on Park Lane. One small problem: the guy was just gone. Appeared to have been forcibly abducted. He and his wife, Yasmin. There were signs of a struggle in the apartment. But, a lot of incriminating evidence left scattered about. Photographs of the victims. Tapes. Relics. Murder souvenirs.”

  “Did anyone at the time think your serial killer might have been politically motivated, Chief Patterson?” Congreve asked.

  “No. Why?”

  “Just thinking. Alice Kearns was the last to die before bin Wazir disappeared. She was also the only American to die. She worked for the State Department. African Affairs, I believe you said. It occurs to me that Miss Kearns may well have been the beginning of your current troubles. Was she tortured? Mutilated?”