by Ted Bell
Hawke told Stoke something one time they were diving down here in the Keys. Hawke said it was interesting how many decades it took professional wreckers to figure out that the big Spanish galleons, loaded to the gunwales with gold and silver, would not be found in deep water. They would most likely be in shallow water, like you had right here.
The galleons headed back to Spain would have been here in the South Atlantic during the hurricane season, Hawke said. That was June to October. And, if you looked at any map of the trade routes, and saw the storm tracks, many of those galleons obviously have been blown here into the Florida reef line. Some would be lost in open sea, sure. But many of them would fetch up in shallow water before they ran aground. Then, huge rollers would lift them up and split their keels on the reefs. Voilà, they’d spill all their booty on the bottom down there.
Stoke heard a little crackle in his headphones.
“Ponce de Leon called these islands ‘Las Tortugas’ because they looked liked turtle shells on the far horizon,” Mick said. “The ‘dry’ part came later when he found out the hard way there was no fresh water to be had down there. Still isn’t, so bring that bottle of Fiji along with you.”
“Ponce de Leon, huh? Is that right?” Stokely asked the pilot. Stoke was up front in the cockpit, in the right hand seat of the seaplane.
“Yep.”
“Huh. All that time I was down here, I never knew that.”
He’d liked the guy, Mick, right away. Mick was a high time bush pilot from Queensland, Australia, who’d spent most of his career up in Alaska, flying wildcatters around. Mick seemed to understand that this flight was of an extremely sensitive nature. That the missing plane might be a matter of national security, Mick said, and this is a quote, ‘You’d have to be a fairdinkum wanker or a drongo to fly in here at night below the radar, mate.’
Stoke liked him on sight. And he’d asked just the right amount of questions when Stoke had first reached him on his mible.
“You spend much time down here in the Keys, Mick?” Stoke asked him now.
“I did. I was in and out of Key West Naval some back in the day. A few years after your lot, I guess. Did some spec ops training with the SEAL blokes just down the road. Pissingly hot, even for an old sandgroper like me. Heat and Skeet we called it, Mr. Jones. Tough outfit, your SEALs are. I was impressed.”
Mick had a crinkly smile, and, like that guy in the Crocodile Dundee movies, he always had a grin stuck in his voice. Cheery. That kind of guy.
“Take a gander down there, Stoke,” Mick said in the headphones. “That must be your mate’s boat coming up now.”
A moment later, Stoke saw an old fishing boat below, moored at the island’s disintegrating coal station. The thirty-foot boat, which had been painted blue some time early in the last century, was bobbing up and down, tied to the old wharf. A skinny white-haired guy stood on the bow, waving his floppy straw hat at the approaching seaplane.
Little was left of the island’s broken, rusted-out black wharf. It was standing in turquoise water on the west side of the fortress island. This was where all the southbound steamers used to refuel before heading across the straits to Cuba and points further south. The battleship Maine had made her last pit stop here, before she was mysteriously sunk in Havana harbor.
Some people thought it was a Spanish torpedo that sank the Maine, and some thought it was Cuban terrorists. Whatever it was, America went to war with Spain over the sinking and kicked Spain the hell out of Cuba for good. You’d think Fidel would owe us one, right? You’d be wrong. Fidel was someone Stoke happened to know personally. He never talked about it, but he’d actually been awarded the Cuban Medal of Honor by Castro himself. Yeah, he had that medal in a drawer somewhere, but that was another story.
The old blue fishing boat had to belong to the guy Sharkey had arranged for them to meet. Fort Jefferson was a very out of the way place. Nobody ever came out here unless they were very curious about old island fortresses abandoned after the Civil War.
Stoke had forgotten how massive the thing was. How thick those solid brick walls were, heavy black cannons sticking out all over the place. All they did now, sell a few postcards to touristas who ventured out from Key West after a few too many Cuba Libres at Sloppy Joes booze emporium. Might come a day when America could use a fort down here, Stoke was thinking. In the event of a Gulf War in our own backyard.
Harry Brock believed, as did Stoke, that this neck of the Caribbean was shaping up fast as a place where the shooting could start. Hell, that’s why Stoke was poking around down here, wasn’t it? Latin America was blowing up in our faces. Stokely hoped to hell Sharkey had found something useful down here. He didn’t have a whole lot of time to dick around.
Stoke turned around in his seat and smiled at his sole employee. His trusty gut was talking to him, it was saying maybe Luis was actually on to something worthwhile. Besides, he was starting to feel more comfortable with Luis lately. Yeah, maybe Sharkey was a little hyper. Nervous type. But Stoke’s instincts about the wiry Cubano were trending positive.
“Hey, Shark-bait! This guy we’re meeting at the Fort. How come he’s got the same name as you?”
“His name is not Sharkey.”
“No. It’s ‘Luis’I’m talking about. Your real name.”
“Si, Luis! He’s my father. Luis Gonzales-Gonzales Senior.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that? Now I don’t have to worry about trusting the fate of the free world to this old guy. He’s still fishing, huh, your daddy?”
“Yeah. A lot of these elders here in the Keys, they came down from Miami soon after the Mariel in ’81. They were fishermen back in Cuba. A lot of them took one look at Miami and then came down here to the Keys, man. Cheap housing. Lots of fish round here on the flats back then.”
“The old man and the sea, huh? That his boat?”
“El Bandito, she’s called. That old man going to fish her till he dies, man. He’s a good spy, man, keeps his eyes open. Once you said I was officially in the program, on the case, whatever, I asked him to do it. He’s got a tiny stilt house on a little spit of land in the Marquesas. He can see everything from there. He’s out on the water all day and most of the night. The other fishermen, they are happy to help out. Stick together pretty much and they all hate Fidel as much as I do.”
“You guys buckled up? We’re going for a swim,” Mick said. He’d been circling the landing area, looking for any floating debris before he set the Blue Goose down. Now that he was on final, he’d reduced his airspeed to about ten knots above stall speed, nose up, with maximum flaps extended. Air was getting choppy.
“Is it always this rough?” Sharkey asked.
“Clear air turbulence,” Stoke said. “Relax.”
“Man, what if we crash? Look at all the sharks down there. Those are bull sharks, man.”
Stoke craned around in his seat and looked down.
“I thought you said you were a fisherman. This is an outgoing tide. Sharks don’t feed at this hour. Sharks only feed on an incoming tide. Everybody knows that.”
“Yeah? Tell that to the one bit my damn arm off.”
9
LONDON
A ssume you only live once, Mr. Hawke,” Alex said to Ambrose Congreve. Hawke leaned back in his chair and smiled at his old friend. He liked the phrase and had been looking forward to sharing it with the celebrated detective. Congreve was fond of quoting Conan Doyle and, for once, Hawke thought he’d lob in one of his own zingers.
“Muhammad Top actually said that to you?”
Hawke downed the balance of his rum. “I was under duress. I may have embellished it.”
Congreve returned his pipe to his cherubic bow of a mouth, skepticism plain on his face.
“It’s the bloody truth,” Hawke said.
“Torture is stressful, I suppose,” Congreve said airily.
“Ah, well. It only hurts when you scream,” Hawke said, a brief smile flitting across his face.
“Ouch
,” Congreve said, with a grimace only half-mocking.
Hawke nodded, leisurely recrossing his long legs, draped in soft gray flannel, at the knee. Linking his hands behind his curly black head, he leaned back against the indented leather of the deep club chair.
Alex Hawke looked remarkably fit and relaxed, Congreve observed, given what rough sledding he’d endured in months past. Ambrose, like most, had given Hawke up for dead. Reports had reached London, casting a pall over some quadrants of society and the City. It was widely reported that Lord Hawke’s expedition into the Amazon had met with disaster when his yawl, Pura Vida, had been attacked by Indians and sunk with all hands.
Two months earlier, Ambrose had seen the sole survivor’s stretcher being carried off the Royal Navy air transport flight after it arrived at Lakenheath from Rio de Janeiro. It was raining buckets that night, and all assembled had gathered inside an open hangar door, watching Hawke’s gurney unloaded and hurried by a team of navy medics across the glistening tarmac. An ambulance was waiting inside the hangar.
A weary and deathly pale Hawke had attempted a cheery greeting, saluting the few naval chaps present. His brave front could do nothing to hide the terrible shape he was in. In addition to a very worried looking “C,” Sir David Trulove, new chief of SIS, there was a small group from both 85 Vauxhall Cross and Whitehall present, and one got the feeling they’d all come expecting to pay last respects to the corpse.
Congreve, like everyone present, had been horrified at Hawke’s utterly wasted appearance. After a brief, private moment with C, who bent to whisper something in his ear as he was being loaded into a waiting ambulance, Hawke was whisked off to Lister Hospital in Chelsea. There, he was diagnosed as suffering from severe malnutrition, malaria, septic infection from a snakebite, and God knows what else. He’d been in hospital for two months. He’d made a remarkable recovery, and had only been released from hospital three days ago.
ALEX HAWKE and former Chief Inspector Ambrose Congreve of Scotland Yard had just completed a lengthy luncheon at Black’s. Hawke’s club was on upper St. James’ Street, an ancient bastion for gentlemen of property. The two friends had met in the bar at one o’clock to hoist a glass or two. One, in honor of Hawke’s hospital release, another celebrating Congreve’s semi-engagement to the beauteous and very wealthy Lady Diana Mars.
Congreve’s splendid news, delivered just that morning, had taken Hawke completely by surprise. Congreve, getting married? He, like everyone else, had Congreve down for a lifelong bachelor.
“Semi-engaged?” Hawke asked, not sure what that meant.
“Hmm. I haven’t exactly asked her. I haven’t proposed. But we do have an understanding.”
“To understanding!” Hawke said, raising his G&T.
Any witness to Congreve’s behavior in Diana’s presence over the last year should have known what was in the offing. Smitten was gross understatement. Love was oversimplification. The man was besotted with Diana Mars. They’d been seen out and about London so frequently, and in such close proximity, many people assumed they’d been married or at least involved for decades.
Ambrose had recently whisked Diana off to the Isle of Skye for a week of sightseeing. They’d also managed to visit the odd distillery, this being preparatory research for a new book the famous criminalist was in the midst of writing.
His book would not be some tawdry tell-all about the Scotland Yard detective’s famous exploits amongst the criminal classes; in actual fact, it was projected as a slim volume to be titled Inspector Congreve’s Single Malt Cookbook. Congreve envisioned the thing as a gentleman’s companion, something that would be right at home on the shelf below one’s first editions of H.R. Haggard or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Now, they’d abandoned the bar for Black’s cavernous smoking lounge. Their faces hidden in the shadows of two large leather wing chairs, the two men spoke of serious matters like love. A tall window, spattered with rain, rose above them and the dingy light filtering down from above was watery and gray. It was a perfectly miserable London afternoon in late November.
Ambrose was freshly aglow, a man in love; his companion Hawke was happy simply to be alive.
“Congratulations, Ambrose. I am extremely happy for you both.” Hawke raised his glass of Gosling’s rum.
“Cheers,” Congreve said, clinking it.
“One thing you must never forget. I may have said this before, but it bears repeating. Great marriages are made in heaven; but so, too, are thunder and lightning.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Ambrose said, smiling. “I say, you don’t think I’m being impetuous, do you? I’ve known her less than two years after all.”
“Not at all. I think it’s high time you settled down. And Diana will be a brilliant match for you. You two will be very happy. I wonder, Constable, how do you envision the thing?”
“Well, I am mad about her and—”
“No, no. The marriage. How do you see it? If she says ‘yes,’I mean.”
“I suppose I haven’t really thought that much about it. A comfortable marriage, I’d say. Sturdy.”
“Good word, sturdy.”
“Yes. I imagine our marriage will be a sturdy little barque upon which to ride out the tumult. You know, the tides that sweep us along, and all that sort of thing.”
“Quite poetic for a flatfoot. Have you set a date yet?”
“Good Lord, no! As I say, I haven’t even officially asked her yet. Although I suppose I’ll get round to it one day.”
“Well, you—”
A somber porter in cutaway and striped trousers appeared out of nowhere and interrupted whatever it was that Hawke had on his mind. He leaned down toward Hawke in what Congreve imagined to be a conspiratorial fashion.
He whispered, “Sorry to disturb your lordship, but there’s a gentleman would like to have a word, sir.”
“Is he downstairs?”
“No, sir. He’d like you to give him a call, sir.”
“Who is it?”
“He said please give you this, sir.”
Hawke took the small envelope from the silver tray and extracted a stiff cream-colored card. He glanced briefly at it, with a silent nod to Congreve as he got to his feet. His expression had changed so quickly, it was as if someone had tapped him with a wand. His eyes, a second ago alight with warmth and humor, had instantly turned ice blue.
“Sorry, Constable, I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse me. I might be a considerable while. Perhaps I’ll ring you in the morning. Something’s come up, you see, and—”
“Don’t give it a thought, dear boy, I’ll just see myself out. Most enjoyable afternoon.”
Hawke turned back to the porter.
“I’ll use a private booth, please,” Hawke said and quickly strode off into the smoky shadows, porter in tow. Something caught Congreve’s eye and he turned to see the accidentally dropped card falling to the faded Persian carpet as Hawke disappeared from the room.
Congreve gazed at the spattered window for a moment, following the descent of a single raindrop, then rose and tossed off the balance of his whisky. He stared at the card face down on the floor for some long seconds. He and Alex were lifelong friends and they had few, if any, secrets between them. He bent and picked the thing up, pausing for a moment to give his conscience some operating room, and then opened the folded message.
On it was the single letter, C, written in green ink.
C was the name given to every chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service, sometimes known as MI-6, since 1909. This was, as Ambrose well knew, because the Service’s original founder, Sir Mansfield Cumming, had a habit of scrawling a big green C on every SIS document he signed.
Ambrose Congreve certainly knew the implications of a summons from C. He sighed, audibly, and sank down into the soft womb of the nearest chair, still holding the card twixt thumb and forefinger. It was once more time, it seemed, to don the cloak and unsheathe the dagger. Knowing Hawke as he did, his happy fantasies of marriage an
d a quiet dog-and-stick life of a country scribe would most probably be put on hold.
Yes. Perhaps delayed indefinitely if, as he imagined, Hawke was soon to journey back into the heart of darkness.
“So it begins,” the Scotland Yard man said, the merest trace of an anticipatory smile crossing his lips.
10
WEST TEXAS
T he big red, white, and blue painted trailer rig was parked on the shoulder at the crest of the hill. Just sitting there. Big red baseball bat on the sides and rear doors. The words Yankee Slugger in blue letters circling the bat. Homer Prudhomme slowed the cruiser, approaching the sixteen-wheeler from the rear. Franklin looked over at him. He was still a little wet behind the ears but he was coming along pretty good for a rookie.
“Okay, we got him,” the sheriff said. “Tuck in there behind him, son. Keep your brights on. He’s not likely to bolt on you again. Some hophead with a sense of humor most likely. Pay attention to what you’re doing, however. These road warriors can get overexcited.”
“Yessir.”
“Go on now, git.”
“Sheriff?” June said on the radio. Homer had opened the door but he still had one hand clenched around the steering wheel.
“Hold the phone a second, June—Homer, go have a word with that gentleman. Inform him we don’t speed here in Mesa County. Anything over a hundred entitles you to free bed and breakfast. Write him up and we’ll take him on in.”
Prudhomme climbed out from behind the wheel and disappeared into the dust cloud still rising around the trailer. Had his hand on his right hip. Franklin had to smile. He might not be a lawman yet, but he had the walk, by God, down.