Warlord: An Alex Hawke Novel

by Ted Bell

  “Just enough to say hello in the lift. Brilliant mind, diligent, and highly regarded. Heir apparent to Sir David, so goes the gossip,” Hawke said, and Charles nodded as if he knew that to be true.

  “Ah, there’s Monty now,” Charles said, throwing open the wide double windows and leaning out into the sunshine to wave to his unseen friend below. “Alex, Ambrose, do come say hello to my dear friend, won’t you?”

  Hawke and Congreve rose and went to the window, standing to either side of the Prince of Wales. Below, on the gravel pathway, was a tall, good-looking man with a wheelbarrow full of plant cuttings. He had to be close to seventy, but he looked to be in his late fifties.

  “Monty, please say hello to Alex Hawke and Ambrose Congreve, won’t you? They’ve just arrived.”

  “Hullo up there!” Thorne called with a brilliant white smile, doffing his hat. “Welcome to Highgrove, gentlemen.” He set down his heavy barrow and strode over so that he was standing just beneath the Library window, rubbing his rough, dirty hands together before placing them on his hips. He wore pleated vanilla trousers and a soaked-through white linen shirt, open at the neck. Removing a white bandanna he wore tied around his neck, he mopped his brow.

  “You’ve been busy, I see, Monty,” Charles said, smiling down at him. “Good work.”

  “Well, those privet hedges round the dahlia beds in the Sundial Garden needed a good trimming so I thought I’d start there.”

  “Dahlias?” Congreve exclaimed, like a man jolted by five thousand volts via live wire. “What species is Your Royal Highness growing?”

  “Hybrids, mostly. Are you familiar with ‘Aurora’s Kiss’?”

  “Indeed I am, sir! Why just last Spring at Chelsea I was…”

  While Charles, Ambrose, and Thorne standing below chatted happily about gardening, a subject about which Hawke had zero interest, he took the opportunity to study Thorne, who was smiling up into the sun at the three men in the window.

  Alex was naturally curious about the fellow who might one day well become his superior at MI6. Although he had, on more than one occasion, overheard Sir David Trulove refer to Monty as “that Thorne in my side,” Hawke often wondered what barbs C might utter about him when he was out of earshot.

  Thorne was a tall, well-built man, broad shouldered but with a trim waist. His cheeks were sharp planes beneath the eyes. One eye was covered with a black silk eye-patch. The patch, combined with the easy, flashing grin, gave Montague Thorne a rakish, almost piratical air. The actor Errol Flynn came to mind.

  His clear, dark honey-toned skin was that of an outdoorsman, rich with a deep, healthy tan. He still had thick black hair, brushed straight back, going to salt and pepper at the temples and close cropped at the sides like a Prussian general. A long aquiline nose and thin lips gave him a somewhat predatory appearance. Hawke decided he liked the fellow on the spot, but why?

  The easy smile, the lack of self-consciousness, the twinkle in the one dark brown eye. Both communicated bemusement with the follies of this world, but without the merest trace of self-satisfaction.

  Hawke leaned out the window and called down, “Nice to finally meet the legendary Mr. Thorne.”

  “The honor is all mine, sir,” Thorne said, sweeping the sweat-stained white plantation hat from his head and executing a deep bow. “The famous ‘Warlord.’ What a very great pleasure, indeed.”

  “Warlord?” Hawke said, baffled.

  Thorne laughed. “No offense, Alex. It’s what the wags in my section call you. The Warlord.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t get the joke.”

  Thorne grinned and said, “Why, you’re the ‘lord,’ Alex, the lord who’s ‘always off to war.’” He put his hands on his waist and threw his head back, laughter bubbling up from deep inside. Quite a jolly fellow, Hawke thought, for all his good looks and polished sophistication.

  Smiling, Hawke said, “Ah, I see. I’ll have to remember that title when I have new business cards engraved.”

  “Well, I’d best get cleaned up,” Thorne said, “or I shall miss all the fireworks.” He grabbed the wooden handles of his wheelbarrow and disappeared around a corner of the main house.

  ONCE THE THREE MEN RETURNED to their seats, Charles picked up where he’d left off. “I mentioned the new director of domestic intelligence at MI5, Sahira Karim. Now at the crime scene. She is someone whom, I must say, I don’t know anything about. Do either of you know her?”

  “She’s brilliant,” Congreve said. “And apparently quite extraordinarily beautiful. Grew up in the slums of Delhi, family emigrated to England, took a first at Oxford in Far Eastern studies, and went on to take postgraduate degrees in physics and nuclear engineering. She was soon recruited by MI5, for obvious reasons.”

  “How much does this team know about the situation, Your Highness?” Hawke asked, changing the subject.

  “Only that there appears to be a serious threat to the Royal Family, indeed, the Monarchy itself. They know I’ve asked for your help, Alex, and that of Chief Inspector Congreve. There’s one thing I want to make perfectly clear from the outset. You are both working directly for the Crown. I don’t want your investigations impeded in any way by Secret Service or HM government red tape. Is that understood?”

  He looked at both of them, waiting for an answer.

  “Completely, Your Majesty,” Hawke said for both. He found himself in a difficult position. C would have his head for this if he found out. But Prince Charles would have Trulove’s head if MI6 sacked Hawke.

  “Any preliminary thoughts as to motive, Your Highness?” Congreve asked.

  “Alex and I have discussed this at some length. It was either an IRA publicity stunt, the commonly accepted theory. Or this is a personal vendetta against my entire family. One that began over thirty years ago. The motive is revenge. The first to die was my godfather, dear Uncle Dickie, murdered as you know at his summer home near Sligo, Ireland. Here, please have a look at these.”

  He passed Hawke a slim red leather portfolio. It bore the heraldic badge of the Prince of Wales, three feathers emerging from a coronet bearing the motto “Ich Dien.” German, Hawke knew, for “I serve.”

  Hawke carefully examined the death threats, then passed the folio to Congreve without comment.

  “Ambrose, Prince Charles has already made me aware of these items. I’d like your unbiased reaction first if you don’t mind.”

  Congreve examined the items and returned the portfolio to the Prince.

  “Your Highness, you should know that I, personally, was part of the Yard’s team investigating your godfather, Lord Mountbatten’s, murder. The IRA claimed responsibility in a written statement just hours after the assassination. Two men were charged, but only one, McMahon as I remember, was found guilty and went to prison. Now, he’s a free man. Your Highness, may I ask where you found the first handwritten note?”

  “Yes. It fell from the pages of a book I was leafing through quite by accident. A book formerly in the library at Lord Mountbatten’s castle in Mullaghmore. Uncle Dickie obviously received the threat and thought so little of it, he absentmindedly stuck it in the leaves of a book he was reading at the time and forgot all about it. Never even told his four-man security team, in all likelihood.”

  “And this recent threat against you and your two sons?” Ambrose continued. “‘Pawn takes kings?’ Where was that note found?”

  “Here. I found it here at Highgrove. In this very room, believe it or not.”

  “Good Lord,” Congreve said, astounded.

  Hawke asked, “Where, precisely, did Your Highness find it?”

  “Taped to the chessboard in that game table over by the window. It revolves, you see, chessboard on one side, checkerboard on the reverse. The boys and I still play checkers occasionally. The last time my wife and I sat down to play after supper, I flipped the board to chess—and there it was, taped to the board.”

  “The ‘Pawn’ leaves his calling card taped to a chessboard,” Hawke mused to no on
e in particular.

  Congreve said, “So the note was left by someone with direct access to this house. To this very room, in fact.”

  “That would appear to be the case, Chief Inspector. Troublesome, is it not?”

  “Far beyond troublesome, Your Highness,” Congreve said solemnly. “I assume your Special Branch detectives have interviewed every member of the household staff? Gardeners, farmers, gillies as well?”

  “Of course. Nothing. They’re all vetted to a fare-thee-well, naturally, or they would not be in service here.”

  “Sent by someone who sees himself as a pawn,” Hawke said to no one in particular.

  Charles stood and went over to the far window, gazing down into his garden, hands clasped behind his back, lost in thought.

  Hawke leaned over and whispered to Congreve.

  “Play your cards right and there might be a knighthood in this for you, Constable.”

  Ambrose, who registered exactly the kind of shocked, horrified expression Hawke had been hoping for, whispered a fierce retaliation.

  “Your lack of propriety knows no bounds, Alex. You ought to be ashamed. Really.”

  “I’m simply saying, my dear Ambrose, that if you have charm, by all means ooze it.”

  EIGHT

  MIAMI, PRESENT DAY

  HEATHER, YOU ALL RIGHT, BABY GIRL?” she heard her husband say.

  Tom was down the hall in his den watching the Saturday afternoon edition of Live at Five Metro Miami news. Heather was amazed her husband had even heard her cry of surprise over the surround-sound TV he had going. Some big news event had happened earlier, she wasn’t sure what, but he’d been riveted to the big Samsung TV wall monitor since right after lunch.

  News-glued, she called the chronic twenty-four-hour bad-news-cycle phenomenon gripping the country. Many Americans suffered from it: Nancy Grace saying, “It’s been twenty-two months since little Tracey Childers went missing from a trailer park here in Ocala, Florida. Do local police have new information? We’ll be back in a minute.”

  That sound bite said it all.

  And it wasn’t healthy, Heather told anyone at the office who’d listen. A steady diet of bad news was bad for your soul. And probably your heart.

  “Honey, you okay?” her hubby called out.

  “No, not really all that okay, Tom,” she shouted from the kitchen, and heard the TV muted a moment later.

  “What? What is it, sweetie?” he called from the door of his sanctuary. “Don’t tell me it’s—you know. The Big One. Time to hit the ground running? Honey?”

  “My water just broke so I’d say, yep, time to go, all right.”

  She heard his heavy linebacker footsteps pounding down the hallway toward the kitchen.

  “Omigod, honey, we gotta get a move on! Where’s our prepacked emergency bag? I know I put it somewhere. Bedroom closet? Yes! Wait, I’ll run upstairs to the bedroom and—”

  She’d known it would be exactly like this. No matter how many dry runs they’d made, even putting a clock on the exact time it took from their front door at 2509 Bayshore Boulevard in Coconut Grove to the Emergency entrance at Jackson Memorial, eighteen minutes. On one of the dry runs, Tom had videotaped the whole thing as if it were the real deal. Who’s gonna know? he asked her.

  And no matter how many times they’d discussed in endless detail exactly what would happen when it was time to go to the hospital, she’d known Tom would forget that they’d placed the packed suitcase in the front hall closet so they could grab it as they went out the door.

  Tom and Heather Hendrickson were having their first baby. So she wasn’t surprised her husband was a mess approaching a meltdown. She felt amazingly calm, considering. Tom, who was a CPA, a senior vice president with a big Miami accounting firm, was used to having everything under control. Numbers you could control. Nature was something else altogether. Different kettle of fish. What was the old line? If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.

  Yeah, well, God was having a hissy fit, probably in hysterics right now. She was two weeks early. They’d just finished assembling the crib late last night. Hadn’t even painted the nursery yet. Her baby shower was tonight! She whipped out her cell, speed-dialed her sister in Homestead, told her to call everybody and cancel.

  “Not up there, honey,” her husband said, his voice tinged with panic as he came rushing headlong down the stairs. “Damn it to hell, I was sure we put it—”

  “Tom. Listen. It’s the red Samsonite in the front hall closet. I’m going upstairs now to change. Why don’t you get the bag, take it out to the car, back out of the driveway, and wait with the motor running at the end of the walk. Good idea?”

  “Brilliant! You go change. I’ll get the bag, I’ll be out there in the car, engine running. Hurry up, okay?” He looked at his watch. “We’re already six and a half minutes behind schedule.”

  “TOM, PLEASE SLOW DOWN. IT’S not going to help if we get stopped for speeding.”

  He was doing eighty, heading north on I-95, weaving in and out of the light weekend traffic. Tom had his head craned over the top of the steering wheel, looking for an exit sign that said South Dixie Highway.

  He said, “Yeah. You’re right. That would be a disaster.”

  “Cops deliver babies in cars all the time, honey. It wouldn’t be a disaster.”

  “Have the baby in the car? Are you out of your mind? Good Lord, Heather, let’s get real here.”

  “Sweetie, I’m not even that dilated, so would you please try to calm down. Just concentrate on your driving.”

  “Okay. You’re right. Okay, here we go. South Dixie to LeJeune Road. We’re almost there.”

  “So what was so fascinating on the news?”

  “You don’t know?”

  “How could I? I was in the kitchen making casseroles for my lonely bachelor boy all afternoon. You know, for the freezer. So what happened? Wait. I know. The Dolphins are going to play a team they actually have a chance of beating tomorrow. Right?”

  “Honey, no, this is serious stuff. You know that maximum security prison out in the Everglades? They call it the ‘Glades.’ Anyway, seven prisoners escaped this morning. Killed two guards, wounded three more getting out. There’s a statewide manhunt going on right now.”

  “Which way were they headed?”

  “No one knows. They disappeared into the sugarcane fields. They’ve got dogs out, helicopters, the whole deal, and not a trace. The chief of the Belle Glade PD thinks there was an accomplice waiting in a car on one of the dirt roads the cane trucks use to get from the sugar factories to the train depot. It’s like a giant maze out there. No wonder they couldn’t catch ’em.”

  “They’ll catch them, Tom. Don’t worry.”

  “How do you know?”

  “They always catch them. I can’t remember a single time where prisoners escaped somewhere and they didn’t eventually get caught.”

  “Right. The ones you hear about. The ones that get away the media don’t talk about. Oh, no. These were bad actors, too. At least two of the guys were previously held at Gitmo, before some genius in Washington decided to let them go. Goddamn terrorists on the loose. That’s all we need. I’ll tell you one thing, I’m glad we’re not flying anywhere for a while.”

  “Why?”

  “Why? Because that damn shoe bomber was one of the escapees. That Brit who tried to blow up an American Airlines flight from Paris with a bomb in his shoe. Remember him?”

  “Richard Reid was not held at the Glades, Tom. He’s currently in a Supermax Detention Facility in Colorado. I’m a federal prosecutor, remember? I know these things.”

  “Yeah, well, they mentioned him anyway. Terrorists recruiting other terrorists in prison. Jails as terror training camps. Great, huh? Country going to hell in a handbasket. Next thing you know they’ll be calling in a Predator air strike on the Miami jailhouse to take out al Qaeda warlords. Here’s LeJeune, honey. Two minutes. Hold on.”

  “I’m already holding on. You hol
d on.”

  OBSTETRICS IS ON THE SEVENTH floor of Jackson Memorial. Heather was amazed when Tom, who had barely survived three months of Lamaze classes with her, announced upon arrival at the hospital that he would not be going into the delivery room after all. He had made such a big deal about the moment, about being there to help with her breathing, to videotape the climax of the film he already had in the can, as he said, that she was mildly surprised.

  But Tom was Tom and sweet, sweet Tom was terrified of the sight of blood and so she gave him a pass. Given his current state of agitation, she was probably better off without him were she brutally frank with herself. He was in no condition to offer comfort or reassurance, much less be a breathing coach to anyone right now.

  So he was probably better off out there pacing back and forth or thumbing through old GQs and Sports Illustrateds with all the other expectant dads in the ob-gyn waiting room. One could only imagine the karma in that room right now. Wide-eyed panic masked by cheerful male camaraderie. Boy or girl? Who cares, buddy, long as he’s got ten fingers and ten toes!

  The other good news was she was two weeks early, which might mean a short labor, at least that’s what her mom back in Cincinnati had told her anyway, and that was certainly what she was hoping when the contractions started coming hard and fast and suddenly they were wheeling her crazily down the long antiseptically green-tiled corridor toward the delivery room. And then, boom, blasting right through two big swinging doors like a drunken cowpoke.

  The gurney seemed to be careening from side to side but maybe that was only the IV Valium drip kicking in or something, because, aside from the really, really bad cramps she was feeling, it was okay, so far, this childbirth thing. But it was incredibly bright in here, like stepping out from behind the curtain onto a blinding stage with every spotlight in the house in your eyes, but that was part of the deal, right?