by Ted Bell
Ambrose Congreve was lucky on two counts. Despite multiple gunshot wounds, he was still alive when the EMS personnel rolled him into the ER. And, having survived that ordeal, he was soon removed from Intensive Care to a private room on a private floor. The room became available after its occupant, a society matron with a liver condition, expired. And after Jock Barker, a member of the hospital’s board, had let it be known that he was to be notified immediately should such a room become available.
The English detective was ensconced, still in critical condition, on the top floor of the old original building. His view, though he could not see it, was a good one. His two windows had eastern exposure, overlooking potato fields blooming with snow-white mansions and aqua swimming pools. Beyond lay the blue Atlantic, sparkling in the midday sun.
Ambrose lay propped up in his bed, his face pale, asleep under the blissful wand of sedation. A woman sat in a comfortable chair by his bed, reading. She had suffered a gunshot wound as well. However, hers was not severe. The flesh wound to her shoulder had been dressed and she had been discharged just two hours after she and Ambrose had arrived some time after eight the previous evening.
Lady Diana Mars was reading poetry to Ambrose, even though she was well aware that he was drifting in and out of consciousness. His breathing sounded more regular when she read aloud to him, and the nurses all agreed that the poetry was beneficial. At the moment, she was reading a favorite poem in a loud, clear voice:
“I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty—”
“That’s lovely,” the man entering the sunny room said. He took off his grey fedora. “Please, don’t let me stop you.”
She put the slim volume down across her knees and slowly looked up. The man was not tall, but ruggedly handsome, dark hair, silver at the temples and built like a footballer. “I’m sorry. Who are you?”
“I’m Detective Captain John Mariucci,” he said, offering his hand. “New York Police Department.”
“Diana Mars,” she said, shaking it. “Won’t you sit down? Now I know who you are. I’m sure Ambrose would appreciate your coming.”
“Yeah, well, we’re buddies, you know. Pretty tight. He’s asleep, huh?”
“Hmm.”
“Hey, you know what I’d really like?”
“Please tell me.”
“If you’d finish that poem.”
“I’d be happy to, Captain. Ambrose keeps asking for it when he’s awake. Sit.”
He pulled up the second chair and sat. “That would be nice, hear how it turns out.”
She continued,
“Nor law nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.”
Diana Mars closed the book and smiled at the policeman.
“I’ll tell you something,” Mariucci said, wiping some speck from the corner of his eye, “I don’t know anything about poetry, but that’s a hell of a poem. Who wrote that?”
“William Butler Yeats. An Irishman.”
“Figures he’d be Irish, right? Fucking micks can write like angels—I’m sorry—excuse the language. I’m just a little emotional right now, you know what I’m saying?”
“Don’t worry about it, Captain. I’ve heard worse.”
“What’s it called, that poem?”
“‘An Irish Airman Foresees His Death.’”
“He knows he’s going to die but he’s okay with it. Man oh man.”
“Yes.”
“Doctor says it looks pretty good. The prognosis.”
“Pretty good.”
“He’ll probably pull through, I mean. If they can keep him stable long enough to operate. They’re moving him to New York Hospital. He’ll undergo surgery there. Remove the bullet from his spine.”
“That’s what they said this morning.”
“Awful. Just goddamn awful.”
“He’s alive. He saved my life.”
“Yes, he did. I read your statement, Lady Mars. You got a good look at the assailant. She was actually known to you, is that correct?”
“Yes. Bianca Moon is her name. She’s apparently been in league with my former butler, a murderer named Simon Oakshott, for some time now. According to Ambrose, probably on her payroll. He killed a man named Henry Bulling, Ambrose’s cousin. I think he was there last night, too, at the Barkers’ party. He’d cut off all his hair. Changed the color. He was wearing heavy black glasses. Disguised himself as a waiter. Unfortunately, I’d had more than a bit of champagne. Wasn’t really paying too much attention to anything and I—didn’t recognize him in time to—to prevent—to stop…”
“No need to go through all that now, ma’am. The Southampton detective got it all in your statement last night. I, uh, I just came here to see Ambrose. I brought him this. Maybe you could give it to him when he wakes up?”
“What is it?”
“It’s a get-well card. My granddaughter made it for him.”
“Very kind, Captain. I’m sure he’ll appreciate it.”
“Hey! What are you going to do, right?” He laughed, but he had something in his eye again. He got up and went to the window.
“Do you think you’ll catch her?”
“Absolutely. I got two men sitting not twenty feet away from her right now. Interpol.”
“Seriously?”
“She’s on a British Airways flight to Hong Kong. Took off two hours ago from JFK. We found Oakshott washed up on the beach with a bullet in his brain. Disposable. We’re going to watch her for a few days. See where she goes, who she meets.”
“This woman, Moon. She’s somehow connected to the case you and Ambrose were investigating. That awful business out at Coney Island.”
“Very definitely connected, Lady Mars.”
“Call me Diana. Please.”
Mariucci sat back down. He leaned forward, placing his hands on his knees, and said, “She’s Chinese secret police, Diana. She was in this country to kill the two remaining witnesses in this old homicide Ambrose was working on. Ambrose screwed up her plans. She was looking for revenge, maybe.”
“He told me about the confession. At the Ferris wheel.”
“Yeah. Weird case. We’re about to charge the president of France with murder.”
“A delicate political situation.”
“Yeah. With an indelicate solution.”
“What do you mean, Captain?”
“Well. The Chinese put this guy Bonaparte in power. They’d like him to stay there. He’s promised them a million barrels a day of oil from Oman. And that’s just for starters. We’ve got other plans for him. I want to introduce him to Old Sparky.”
“Sorry?”
“That’s the electric chair, as we call it.”
“Ah,” she said.
“You didn’t see the news this morning?”
“No.”
“French troops are preparing to come ashore in Oman. They claim the sultan of Oman invited them. Put down some kind of insurrection. It’s total bullshit. But the Chinese are backing them up.”
“What’s going to happen?”
“That’s the big one. The United States and Britain are giving the French forty-eight hours to withdraw their troops. The French refuse.”
“Now what?”
“China needs the oil. She’s ready to go to war over this.”
“Good heavens.”
“Hullo?”
Ambrose’s voice was so weak he barely made himself heard. His eyelids were fluttering and he was trying in vain to lift his head from the pillow.
“Darling,” Diana said, taking his hand, “Look who’s come to see you.”
“Alex? Alex Hawke?” Congreve said, struggling to sit up.
“Lay back, dear. It’s all right. It’s not Alex. It’s Captain Mariucci come to see you! Isn’t that nice?”
Ambrose’s voice was ragged. “I had—had a dream. An awful dream. Something…bad happened. Something terrible happened to Alex. The most horrible thing! I—I must help—help him…”
Diana rang for the nurse.
“I’ll give him your granddaughter’s card, Captain. Thanks so much for coming.”
Mariucci put on his hat and went to the door.
“Take good care of him, Diana.”
“Perhaps that’s exactly why I met him, Captain.”
Chapter Fifty-four
Masara Island, Oman
THE DUNGEON WAS A FOUL, EVIL-SMELLING PLACE. THE nether regions of Fort Mahoud appeared to have escaped any attempt at modernization. No electricity, certainly. The minimal light was provided by large guttering candles in wrought-iron brackets every few feet. Below in the darkness, a beating of tiny wings: bats. Small gutters on either side of the stone stairway ran with what could only be raw sewage.
Hawke and Stokely descended the worn steps side by side behind the major. Six heavily armed French mercenaries wearing kepis clumped heavily down the steps behind the three men.
“Sorry about the stinking mess down here,” the major said. “We left this part pretty much as we found it.” He spoke with a kindly solicitude that was both pleasant and infuriating.
“Captain Jones and I were just admiring it,” Hawke said, unable to stop himself. “The Chinese enjoy a well-deserved reputation for their unique ways with hygiene.”
Ignoring the sarcasm, Major Tang said, “Fate has finally brought you and me together, Lord Hawke. Your timing is quite good. The sultan is preparing to address the Omani people. It occurs to me that you and Captain Jones should also address the citizens of your respective countries. Seeing one’s countryman on his knees begging for his life has enormous propaganda value, as I’m sure you know. The sultan’s temporary quarters are just at the end of this passageway. Mind your step.”
“Can we step on the rats?” Stoke said.
The Chinese major stopped in midstride and whipped around to confront his two prisoners, one hand on his holstered sidearm.
“It is I who shall make the waves, gentlemen. We’ll see soon enough if you can walk on them,” he said.
“Full of piss and vinegar, ain’t he?” Stoke said to Hawke. “Mostly piss.”
Two well-armed Chinese People’s Liberation Army officers stood on either side of the heavy oak door. They stiffened in salute as soon as Tang was visible in the guttering light. The major checked and returned the salute. One of the guards unbolted the door and pulled it wide. Hawke was surprised at the sudden gust of cool sea air that greeted him as they stepped inside. It wasn’t a cell at all, but a large hangarlike space hollowed out of rock and open to the sea.
Major Tang was having a quiet word with one of the uniformed French Foreign Legion officers and a group of casually dressed civilians standing just inside the door. They were all speaking French in low tones, arguing about something. Hawke edged nearer the wide arched opening to the sky. He could see a glint of moonlight on the water far below. He estimated they were perhaps a hundred feet above the sea.
The sky was dark with no hint of dawn. The cave’s interior glistened in the light of torches, the iron sconces and a heavy chandelier providing the illumination. The barrel of the ceiling disappeared into darkness above and the candles cast long, medieval shadows on the stone walls and floor.
A long, narrow-gauge rail track led from where Hawke stood all the way to the lip of the cave mouth. Hawke could see it now, could imagine what this odd space had been. A large gun, massive, had once been in place here, standing guard over the southern approach to the Strait of Hormuz. Judging from the size of the heavy iron tracks, this space could well have been the emplacement originally built to accommodate the Nazi V-3 Supergun.
Hawke had seen plans for just such a mammoth gun in the British Imperial War Museum. A British agent in a bombed-out munitions factory had discovered the plans in late 1945 and turned them over to MI5. The V stood for “Vengeance.” The barrel was reported to have been over three feet wide and more than one hundred yards long. Such a weapon, updated, could easily fire a nuclear-tipped projectile many hundreds of miles. Rumor had it that Saddam had been trying to replicate the V-3 just before the first Gulf War, building a massive gun called “Baby Babylon.”
The 512-foot-long gun had been installed at Jabal Hamrayn, a mountain ninety miles north of Baghdad. It was capable of firing a six-hundred-kilogram projectile to a range of one thousand kilometers. The allied forces conquering Iraq had never found it.
Hawke had a sudden flash. The massive O-rings that the Star of Shanghai had been loading that night at Cannes. He remembered glancing inside one, thinking nothing of it. But the thing had been rifled. Each ring was to be a section of the five-hundred-foot-long barrel. The Star would have been stopping at Oman on her trip to Shanghai. To deliver the missing Babylon Supergun for the Chinese to install here on Masara Island. With that gun emplaced in this location, they could do what military men had longed to do for centuries: exert total control over the Strait of Hormuz.
It made sense. Perhaps the Chinese garrisoned here at Fort Mahoud were planning on taking up where Hitler and Saddam had left off.
There were further surprises.
To Hawke’s left, a man was seated at a plain wooden desk. His head and shoulders were completely hidden under a canvas hood spotted with ominous dark stains. The sultan, Hawke thought, surely. On the stone floor in front of the desk, kneeling, hands bound behind his back, another hooded man. Sitting casually on the edge of the desk and smoking a cigarette was the one familiar face in the room. The handsome mustachioed face grinned up at Hawke from out of the black cowl that covered his head.
It was Harry Brock’s old chum from Muscat, Ahmed Badur, favored architect of sultans and beloved friend of princes, the great provider himself.
“Your sense of loyalty is remarkable, Ahmed,” Hawke said. “Frankly, I’m relieved.”
Ahmed smiled. “You thought the traitor might be Brock?”
“I did.”
“You should have known better, m’lord. Oh, we tried to buy him, believe me. But old Harry is just what he appears to be. A good soldier. And so brave. Look at him now. Awaiting his fate without so much as a whimper.”
Ahmed kicked the kneeling Harry viciously in the ribs. The strength of the blow was sufficient to lift the man from the floor. Stokely made a move toward the desk, saw Hawke’s look, and stopped in midstride.
“You do that to my friend again and you’re dead,” Hawke said to Ahmed, his eyes as cold as his voice.
Ahmed laughed, showing his white teeth. “What do you care? He’s already dead. So are you, my esteemed friend.”
“Ah, Ahmed!” Major Tang said, striding across the room, “I see you’ve renewed your acquaintance with your former shipmates. Lord Hawke, I’m sure Mr. Badur would appreciate being treated in accordance with his new rank of general. General Badur is a newly minted officer in the Omani Liberation Army. In his forthcoming television address, the sultan will name him interim president of the new government. Now, I think the camera crew is ready, if you are, gentlemen?”
“Camera crew?” Stoke said, as the French civilians in jeans and T-shirts approached, equipment in hand. “What the hell you people doing here?”
A grinning Ahmed hopped off the desk and withdrew a long, curved sword from the folds of his hooded black djellaba cloak. He said, “A new reality show.”
“Riveting,” Hawke said, edging c
loser to the sultan.
“Isn’t it? It’s called ‘Invitation to a Beheading,’” Ahmed said, flashing the sword before Hawke’s eyes, taunting him, disappointed when he got no reaction from the cold eyes at all. He spun and whipped the hood off the man on the floor. It was indeed Harry Brock. Ahmed placed the blade of the sword gently across Harry’s bare neck. A thin line of blood appeared.
“Just do it,” Harry Brock said, his voice devoid of any discernible emotion. Ahmed raised the blade.
“This ain’t happening, Ahmed,” Stoke said, lunging for the traitor and stopping his arm as it came down. The sword clattered on the stone floor. Instantly, four heavyset Arab guards grabbed Stoke from behind and wrestled him facedown to the ground. Stoke managed to fling two away, but one of them pinned his legs and the other had his left forearm jammed up between his shoulder blades. The guy seemed to think he had Stoke in a tough spot.
Stoke craned his head around and smiled at the snarling gorilla on his back.
“Rock me, baby, rock me like my back ain’t got no bone,” Stokely said.
Then, with his right hand, Stoke casually got the man by the throat and dug his fingers into the larynx. The guard’s face was turning blue. Ahmed stuck the tip of his scimitar an inch into Stokely’s shoulder joint.
“You cut my arm off,” Stoke said softly, “I swear I’ll beat you to death with it.”
“Stoke,” Hawke said. “Relax. Let him go. Let’s be gentlemen about this.”
“I’ll let him go soon as they let Brock go…”
Ahmed lifted Harry Brock to his feet and said, “All right, then. You gentlemen are all going straight to Paradise as soon as we have completed filming your heartfelt pleas for mercy. A casual observer will think you ran into some very nasty terrorists on your way to rescue the sultan.”
Stoke got to his feet, glaring at the traitor. “Hey, Ahmed. You familiar with that old American expression, ‘Go fuck yourself’?”