Phantom ah-7

by Ted Bell

  The screens flickered, but remained black.

  “Please be patient a few seconds. While we wait I will remind you gentlemen that you were all supposed to arrive yesterday morning and be sleeping aboard Blackhawke last night, no?”

  Hawke said, “Yes, but I was informed by your staff that the air-conditioning was not working and that none of the French bed linens nor any of the silver or china had arrived. Held up in Customs at the airport. So I elected to check into the Palace.”

  “I certainly understand. We’re working with Customs officials now, Lord Hawke. We intend to remedy this unfortunate situation shortly. I assure you, you will all be sleeping aboard this evening. It will be-how do you say-shipshape.”

  Suddenly a loud, keening alarm sounded on the speakers. On the screens, a wavering blue-white orb appeared, moving closer at about eight knots.

  “Hell is that?” Stoke said.

  “You will see momentarily, when it makes a sharp turn to port,” Badari said. “Now-you see it-the profile?”

  “I see it, but what the hell is it?”

  “A two-man submarine. European-built, four tons, called a Comsub. Look, here come two more, one to either side. That alarm you heard was the ship’s underwater sonar array registering three intruders breaching our half-mile security perimeter.”

  Hawke and his two men stared at the three oncoming wafers of light, eerie in the blackness of the sea.

  The lead sub turned hard left. You could make out its rounded shape, a long torpedo-like cigar, with a raised and windowed cockpit. But suspended underneath it hung another object, also torpedo shaped. The flanking subs turned to port as well, continued for a few hundred yards, and then all three turned to starboard, now heading directly toward the cameras.

  “Torpedoes?” Hawke said quietly. The tense atmosphere on the bridge was suddenly palpable.

  “Yes, sir. Joint Direct Attack Munition, or JDAMs, antiship weapons.”

  Hawke watched, mesmerized.

  “Watch carefully,” Abdullah said. “Now, they launch the JDAMs!”

  All three were launched simultaneously, streaking forward toward Hawke’s yacht. They instantly separated, one appearing to head for the bow, one for the stern, and one directly amidships.

  “Holy shit,” Brock said. “What the-”

  At the bottom of the screen, three smaller torpedoes could be seen streaking toward the incoming JDAMs.

  “Our ATT system in action,” Abdullah said, “Anti-torpedo torpedoes. Only seven inches in diameter and one-oh-five inches long but they pack an enormous punch and their acoustic sensors cannot be evaded by electronic countermeasures. The ATT’s microprocessors rapidly calculate all acoustic information and make timely maneuvers to intercept the incoming threat.”

  A second later, three huge underwater explosions roughly a quarter of a mile from Blackhawke. The three two-man subs instantly turned tail to run, their propellers churning furiously.

  Now, three more torpedoes could be seen streaking after the fleeing subs.

  “Those are offensive weapons,” Badie said, “called VLTs, or very lightweight torpedoes. They are all that is necessary in this case. We also have ship-killer JDAMs in the Blackhawke arsenal.”

  Three more explosions, less violent, but just as deadly. There was nothing left of the three submarines or their crews that was distinguishable in the water.

  “My God,” Hawke said. He knew about the vessel’s armament and defense systems, but he’d no idea they’d be tested before he even took her to sea.

  “They were meant for you, sir. That is my belief. Whoever staged this attack was aware of your plans and believed you would be sleeping aboard the vessel last night and not at the hotel.”

  Hawke looked at Stoke and Brock, the two men in a state of semishock. After the havoc they’d wreaked in Moscow, another attack in such short order was disturbing to say the least.

  Hawke smiled and said, “Well, they keep setting them up and we keep knocking them down. I guess all we can do is be the last ones standing who get tired of this goddamn game.”

  “You think that was the Russians?” Brock said.

  “Who else, Harry?”

  “Maybe that fucking phantom machine? Whatever the hell it is. This superintelligent cyberwar Singularity machine you’ve all been talking about.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. I think this attack was a bit prosaic for technology that advanced.”

  “Shall we continue the tour, sir?” the Turk asked Hawke. He was proud of the video. And he didn’t feel he’d gotten the appreciation that was his due.

  “No, we shall weigh anchor and spread sail. Every bloody yard she carries. Right now. Inform the captain that I want to be under way immediately, if not sooner. Is that understood?”

  “Yes, sir, but-”

  “No buts. I said now.”

  “We’re going sailing,” Stoke said.

  “You’re damn right we are,” Hawke said, his cold blue eyes ablaze with anger and grim determination.

  Thirty-six

  London

  Alex Hawke smiled as he hung up the dressing room telephone and went back to his packing. He and Sir David Trulove had just concluded that a strong warning had been delivered to the Tsarists. Hawke’s crack Red Banner counterterrorist team in Moscow-Ian Concasseur, Stokely Jones, and Harry Brock-had successfully conveyed an unmistakable message. And now C was going to provide Hawke’s son with heavily armed security round the clock. Hawke and Congreve were leaving for California today to question Dr. Waldo Cohen’s widow about her late husband’s suicide.

  Three MI6 plainclothes security officers had already arrived at Hawke’s large house on Belgrave Square. Two were to be posted near the main street entrance, the third inside the home, posted on the fourth floor near the boy and his recuperating guardian, Nell Spooner.

  But neither Hawke nor Trulove had any illusions that the young son of Alex Hawke was safely out of danger. Nor was Hawke himself exactly out of the woods. Still, Alex was comforted by the notion that, at minimum, he’d bought himself some time. He intended to find a way to ensure Alexei’s safety himself.

  Hawke threw his shaving kit, matching silver hairbrushes, and a couple of P. G. Wodehouse novels into the open leather seabag on the table. He’d read all the Jeeves and Wooster novels many times, but never tired of them. They were the only things that could make him laugh when he least felt like it.

  “M’lord,” Pelham said, floating into his dressing room, “you don’t intend to wear that jacket on this sojourn, I’m sure.”

  “This jacket? Yes. Why, is something the matter with it?”

  “A number of things. The color, of course, is ghastly. A poisonous shade of blue. But the real difficulty lies in the fact that it glimmers.”

  “Glimmers?”

  “The fabric. It’s shiny, sir. No more need be said.”

  “Pelham, I’m going to California. Everything glimmers in California. I assure you this jacket will go entirely unnoticed.”

  “If you say so, sir. In point of fact, I came upstairs to raise another matter.”

  “Yes? Go on,” Hawke said, peering at his jacket in the mirror. It was a bit flash, to tell the truth. He shed it and slipped into a thin black cashmere blazer over grey flannel trousers. He looked at Pelham, who nodded his approval.

  “You were saying?” Hawke said.

  “All this new household staff you’ve hired, m’lord. Underfoot, nosy, and frightful gossips.”

  “Pelham, you should consider yourself fortunate. You now have a cook, parlormaid, chauffeur, laundress, and butler to lord it over.”

  “With respect, I am the butler.”

  “The word doesn’t begin to do you justice. During all those years when it was just the two of us. But now we have a child in the house, Pelham. And his bedridden nanny. And his bedridden nanny’s private nurse. You simply cannot keep up with all that, dear fellow. It wouldn’t be fair of me to let you try. Besides, you’re king of the castle now, lo
rd of the manor while I’m away.”

  Pelham uttered the smothered “ahem” he always used to express irritation.

  “It is not my intention to ‘lord it,’ as you put it, over anyone, dear boy. You have never once ‘lorded it’ over me. If I must accept this unfortunate situation, I shall most certainly follow your sterling example.”

  “Very kind. That’s settled then. Now. As to ties-how about this one?”

  “They don’t favor neckwear over there, sir.”

  “Really? How on earth would you know that?”

  “The telly, sir. Have you not perhaps seen a program called Real Housewives of L.A.?”

  H awke was meeting Congreve at his private hangar at Gatwick in one hour. His airplane was wheels-up half an hour after that. If he was going to be on time, he needed to get cracking. He looked at his watch. Alexei was taking his nap, but Hawke needed to say good-bye. This would be only the second time they’d been apart since their Siberian train journey together. It was so recent, and yet it felt like they’d always been together.

  The two of them, against the world.

  He cracked the door to the nursery and peeked inside. Alexei had crawled out of his bed and was on the floor playing with his fleet of wooden boats. The very same ones Alex had used to re-create the great sea battles of the Royal Navy when he was a child. He’d held on to them all these years, not because he’d expected to have a son one day, but because he had so desperately hoped he would.

  “Daddy! Look! A boat!”

  Hawke crossed the room and sat on the carpet next to Alexei.

  “Yes. Your grandfather was on a boat like that during the war. A destroyer. Slightly larger version, of course.”

  “Daddy, is Spooner going to die? Because the bad horse ran over her?”

  “Of course not. She’s going to be good as new. She just needs a week or so in her bed and then-”

  “I don’t like her nurse.”

  “Really? Why not?”

  “She smells funny.”

  “But she’s very nice. And she likes you awfully much. She told me so herself. She said you were the best little boy in all the world.”

  “I like her.”

  “Come give Daddy a hug. I have to go away for a few days.”

  “Away?”

  “Yes. To another place. Remember when Daddy went to France and Russia? Like that.”

  “Not home?”

  “Don’t cry, come give me a kiss good-bye. I’ll be back before you know it. All right?”

  Alexei, his eyes brimming with tears, hugged his father as hard as he could.

  “I love you, Daddy. More than anything in the whole wide world.” Hawke could feel his son’s hot tears wet upon his cheek.

  “And I love you more than the whole wide world, too. Be a good boy while I’m gone. Spooner’s going to read you a story in her room every night. Say your prayers and go straight to bed when Pelham tells you to, okay?”

  “I like Pelham.”

  “He took such good care of me when I was your age. I like him, too. More than most people, in fact.”

  Hawke picked his son up in his arms and kissed each cheek.

  “Good-bye, Alexei. I’ll miss you.”

  “Bye, Daddy.”

  “M ay I come in?” Hawke asked at Nell Spooner’s door. She was propped against her pillows, reading a book he had given her called Amsterdam, a novel by Hawke’s favorite living English author, Ian McEwan.

  “You were right,” she said, putting the book down. “It’s truly wonderful. He writes like an angel.”

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Much better today, thank you very much. Are you headed to the airport?”

  “I am. I just wanted to say good-bye.”

  “Then come sit on the bed, hold my hand, and say it properly.”

  Hawke sat, taking her hand.

  “Nell, I am so sorry. So very sorry this happened. I swear to you, I will never let it happen again.”

  “Well, that’s very sweet. But you have to understand this is what I do. I protect people. Or try to, anyway. And sometimes I get hurt. This is not the first time, or the worst time, and it will probably not be the last. Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself.”

  “And my son. You saved his life, Nell. Twice. And mine, too, probably. I don’t think I could live without him now. I don’t know how I lived without him before.”

  She smiled and squeezed his hand.

  “He’s a little you,” she said.

  “Or I’m just a big him,” Hawke said, and she smiled.

  “You know, Alex, when I first accepted this assignment, it was just a job. But, now, I feel, I don’t know, like it’s so much more than that. How to say it? It’s not my job to be protective of him anymore. I feel protective of him. Does that make any sense?”

  “It does. I tried to thank you, in the hospital, for what you did. Your incredible courage. I don’t think I did a very good job. But I do thank you, Nell, for saving him. For saving both of us.”

  “You’re very welcome, sir. Now, you’d better go. You’ve got a plane to catch.”

  “There’s an MI6 officer in the house, just arrived this morning. He’s in a small room at the head of the stairs. His name is John Mills. I’ve asked him to stop by and introduce himself. See if there’s anything you need or want.”

  “What I want is a curry with you in that little restaurant in Mayfair. When I’m back on my feet. Nurse says it won’t be long now.”

  “First night I’m back. Date?”

  “Date.”

  Hawke leaned forward and kissed her forehead.

  “See you in a few days, Nell.”

  “Be safe, Alex.”

  “You, too,” Hawke said, and rose from her bed and walked to the door and pulled it closed behind him.

  He paused outside her door for a moment and smiled. For the first time since age seven, when his parents had been murdered, he had a very real sense of family under his own roof.

  So much for the heart as hard as flint, he thought.

  Thirty-seven

  Palo Alto, California

  Heavy fog rolled in from the Pacific, shrouding the little two-lane road that wound upward through dense redwood forests. They’d followed Highway 101 south from the San Francisco Airport FBO for about half an hour, then taken the exit for Redwood City. Ambrose had called Mrs. Waldo Cohen from the FBO reception. Mrs. Cohen had given them instructions on how to find her house. Wouldn’t be easy, she’d said, but if they got lost, just call her.

  Hawke had hired a car from Hertz, a sleek black Mustang convertible with a massive protrusion on the bonnet. Their meager luggage barely fit into the boot, but Hawke loved the car on sight nonetheless. Ambrose, who owned a vintage Morgan, had turned his nose up at it, and there’d been a bit of a tiff at the Hertz counter.

  “Really, Alex. How about a nice Cadillac, or a Lincoln?” Congreve asked, sensibly enough.

  “This is California, Ambrose. Surf City. Ventura Highway. Hotel California. I’m not pulling up to the Hotel California in a bloody Cadillac, I’m sorry.”

  The two men had talked about the seemingly related series of attacks long into the night, across the Atlantic, and then high above the vast America. Neither had gotten much sleep despite the fact that the Gulfstream’s cabin had two beds made up. The subject was fascinating. Sophisticated weapons of war, seized by some unknown cyberwar phantasm, and turned catastrophically against their owners.

  Congreve was even more convinced these were not random events. Someone, some evil genius perhaps, had created powerful technology far beyond the known realm of modern science. And, he added, the attacks bore all the earmarks of the invasion of the Iranian nuclear facility by a cyberweapon that destroyed its target in complete secrecy and then vanished without a trace. “Everyone suspects Israel, of course,” he said, “but there’s absolutely no way to prove it.”

  “Yes,” Hawke agreed. “Just like the Nevskiy, Air Force One, Fo
rt Greely, and Israel’s robotic stealth fighter. No one has a clue how to even begin looking for the culprit. This is just the beginning of a wholly new kind of war. And I, for one, don’t like it.”

  T hey caught glimpses of the nickel-colored San Francisco Bay on their left as the road, called the Skyline, snaked along the tops of the mountains. The trees were magnificent, great dark monuments, climbing skyward and disappearing into the grey fog. There was a light, misty rain, and it was almost dark as night. Hawke had the wipers on now, and the headlamps as well, even though it was an hour or so until sunset.

  “I like this place,” Congreve said, leaning his head back against the headrest, peering out his rain-streaked window. “These foggy woods. This winding road. The dripping trees. I feel like I’m in an old Humphrey Bogart movie.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Hard to say, really. The road, the weather, the black trees. It all feels very ‘film noir’ to me. Like some gumshoe in a black 1934 Ford coupe is following us, tailing us, desperate to learn the location of the hideout where we stash all our ill-gotten lucre.”

  Congreve cleared his throat and slipped into his very credible Edward G. Robinson impersonation. “We’re on the lam, see? Yeah, that’s right, on the lam. And that gumshoe’s right on our tail.”

  “Ambrose, what are you on about? Gumshoe?”

  “What they call a guy with a private-dick license.”

  “This private dick of yours?” Hawke asked. “The one who’s on our tail?”

  “Yeah, what about him? I’ll get him, the dirty rat.”

  “If he’s so private, how will you know if he’s got a gun in his pocket, or he’s just glad to see you?”

  Hawke smiled, keeping his eyes on the dark, rain-slick road ahead. In addition to his lifelong idol, Sherlock Holmes, Congreve adored the old black-and-white mystery films of the ’30s and ’40s. Hawke was accustomed to the quixotic reveries of his companion. Once launched, he was unstoppable.