by Ted Bell
“The military is practically being dismantled, Alex. The borders to the south are nonexistent, flooded with immigrants and spiced up with not a few terrorists. China is ascendant, Russia is on a real estate acquisition binge, the Middle East is aflame, and the Americans are setting free the worst of the worst al-Qaeda commanders from Guantanamo. I don’t get it.”
Hawke looked away, lost in thought. Then he sat forward and gazed directly at Congreve.
“You’re quite right, you know. Putin’s brazen invasions of his neighbors? Crimea and Ukraine being just the beginning? Troops massing at the Estonian border? Threatening Poland and the Czech Republic?”
“And zero response from Washington,” Congreve said, nodding his head. “Nobody’s got a hand on the tiller if you ask me.”
“Other factors as well. Look, even my friend Brick Kelly at CIA can’t bring himself to admit this. But if you don’t think this is all about politics, you’re not thinking straight. The president’s poll numbers are in the tank and the elections are coming up. He can’t seem to do anything right. Putin’s walking all over him. According to Brick, Rosow believes that if you and I can solve this high-profile murder in a timely fashion, Putin will owe him one. Thus, saving his ass.”
“A big solid, as the Americans say. Born of desperation, I’d say.”
“Yes. But how the game is played, at least from President Rosow’s perspective. Putin and POTUS will then host a show on the world stage that will make both of them look good, I imagine.”
“Incredible game, politics.”
“And we’re just scratching the surface here. God knows what is really going on.”
“So we go to Monte Carlo and nab the perp, hand him over to your pal Volodya, the newly self-elected tsar of Russia, and then what?”
Hawke took a swig of his rum and considered the question.
“Well, I’m just guessing here, of course. I’m a novice at duplicity on this level. But were it me, I would mass Russian troops and tanks on the bridge that joins Russia to tiny Estonia. Threaten imminent invasion over some trumped-up Estonian miscue or other. Maybe have my dupes fire on Russian troops. Set a deadline of twenty-four hours.”
“Then what?”
“Then the American president calls an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council. He flies to New York, goes before the council, and gives Putin a very public tongue-thrashing over his recent violations of international law. Says this American president has had just about enough of it. Draws a line in the sand. That the U.S. and its NATO allies are prepared to send troops, tanks, and warships to help tiny Estonia to defend its sacred sovereignty.”
“Gives Putin a deadline?”
“Exactly. Short and sweet. Make it tight.”
“The whole world holds its breath? Edge of their seats?”
“Right again. The two of them go off the grid somewhere and meet in secret. Let’s say, Malta. No word leaks. The press is going wild. For forty-eight hours, say. Then what?”
“Let me guess. Putin and Rosow emerge into the sunlight. They call a joint press conference somewhere, Zurich maybe, or Reykjavik, and announce that the world has gotten too dangerous for the two superpowers to push each other to the brink. Putin announces he is unilaterally pulling all his troops and weapons back from the Estonian border.”
“Correct.”
“Rosow salutes the Russian president,” Hawke said.
“Exactly. They embrace for the cameras,” Congreve said.
“Yes,” Hawke smiled. “And then?”
“And then?”
“They kiss.”
“On the lips?”
“Maybe.”
“I look forward to our meeting with your Russian friend, the Great Dictator. But something tells me this dead KGB officer is nothing more than his idea of a honey trap,” Ambrose replied. “Putin is no fool. I’m sure he has a wild card up his sleeve, Alex.”
Hawke paused a moment and said, “Yes. I suppose we simply have to play the cards we’ve been dealt and see who leaves the table a winner.”
The chief inspector expelled a long stream of blue smoke and said, “Hmm.”
CHAPTER 20
London
Few things in life are more viscerally terrifying than a child’s screams in the middle of the night. Royalty Protection officer Nell Spooner sat bolt upright in bed, her heart threatening to explode and shatter her rib cage . . . instantly, another scream echoed down the long hall, this fresh cry wavering long and low before rising into a high-pitched and piercing wail of terror . . .
Alexei.
She switched on the lights, threw back the covers, and leaped from the bed, grabbing her service revolver from the nightstand and her bed jacket from the bedpost. The night was heavy with thunderstorms, electricity crackling inside the dark clouds hovering above London Town. Hawke’s grand old mansion on Belgrave Square was cold and dead quiet, save for the quaking rumble of thunder.
Nell and her young charge were alone in the house. Her employer, Lord Alexander Hawke, was enjoying a brief rest at his cottage in Bermuda. This was a much-needed respite and recuperation stemming from his last mission to China and North Korea. Had he been home, he would have been racing up the wide staircase from the floor below, hurrying to his son’s bedside . . . but he wasn’t.
She ran.
She reached the nursery door, opened it, and flicked on the lights. Her eyes scanned the room in an instant, her pistol before her, gripped in both hands, looking for an intruder no matter how unlikely that was. There were two Scotland Yard officers positioned down on the street watching the house day and night, seven days a week. A third sat reading by the rear entrance.
Since the horrific events surrounding a coup in Moscow a few years earlier, one in which Alexei’s father had played a major role, there had been at least three serious attempts on the boy’s life. All courtesy of an extreme right-wing faction, retired agents of the KGB—seeking vengeance.
Sometimes, when MI6 picked up Russian intel or Internet chatter that warranted it, there were also two police snipers in position on the roof of the hotel across the street. As well as a heavily armed sentry standing duty just inside the front entrance to the house.
Alex Hawke’s little boy had long had a price on his head. It was Lord Hawke’s sacred mission to remove that threat once and for all—and Nell had little doubt that one day he would do just that.
But, until then—they would all be vigilant.
The five-year-old boy was sitting up in bed, his face pale, his full head of hair, usually gleaming and black as a raven’s wing, now plastered to his forehead, drenched in sweat. His blue eyes were wide, staring blankly toward the window to the left of his bed.
Nell sat on the bed and put her arm around his quaking shoulders. Night terrors at this age were fairly common but she’d no recollection of her younger siblings experiencing anything this extreme. She began whispering soft, soothing words, but Alexei’s eyes never left that window and whatever he’d seen there that she couldn’t see.
“Who’s there, Alexei? Who do you see?”
Finally, he lifted his little head up and stared at her with wide eyes.
“The little boy,” he said quietly. “The one in Hyde Park.”
“The same one?”
“Yes.”
“Your special friend, then. The secret friend. The one who looks just like you.”
“Nell, I told you. His name is Tony.”
“Did Tony come to the window and talk to you tonight?”
“Y-y-yes. A little.” The boy took a long breath, glanced over at the window, shuddered, and squeezed the blanket to his chest.
“What did he say? What did Tony say to you?”
“He was crying . . . he was crying so hard, Nell . . .”
“Poor little fellow. Why was he crying?”
“Because the bad man was being mean to him.”
“Being mean? How was he being mean?”
“He took away all the
sticks.”
“Sticks? What kind of sticks?”
“The sticks he gives us.”
“A bad man who gives you sticks? Who is he?”
“The Snow King. You know, from the park. We don’t know his real name.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever met the Snow King. Where does he live?”
“In the secret wood where we go.”
“Oh. One of those. There are all sorts of meanies in the woods, aren’t there, Alexei?”
“Not as mean as this one though.”
“How is he mean?”
“He pinches us. On our cheeks, mostly. Sometimes on the arm. He does it when you or one of the other policemen are not looking. Then he smiles and says something funny in his secret language. His hands are so cold, Nellie.”
“That is mean, pinching your cheeks. But where does he get the sticks?”
“They’re inside his ice cream, silly.”
“Ice cream?”
“The Snow King’s ice cream. You know, the one I like. The Snowsicle. We always get that one, remember? Every Saturday after cricket practice.”
“Oh, I see. You mean the ice cream vendor. The funny little man who wears a crown. So he calls himself the Snow King, does he?”
“Yes. But he’s not funny, Nell. He’s terrible.”
“And you keep the ice cream sticks? I didn’t know that. After you’ve finished the ice cream? Where do you put them?”
“In my pocket. I save them and later I hide them.”
“Can you tell me where?”
“In the box under my bed. Wanna see them, Nell? I have so many now. They’re magic, you know.”
“Magic, are they? I’d like to see them very much indeed.”
Alexei slid from beneath the covers and got down on his hands and knees as if to pray beside his bed. He bent down and peered underneath, using both hands to search for something. “It’s gone, Nell, my box,” he said. “He must have taken it. The King came and stole it.”
“No, no. It has to be there. Here, I’ll help you look.”
Nell got down on the floor with him and flicked on the flashlight in her iPhone.
“Okay, scootch over a bit and let Nell have a closer look under there . . . I do see something . . .”
Her fingertips brushed against something solid.
“Here we go . . .”
She got a grip on it and slid it from beneath the bed. It was an old Cuban cigar box that Alexei’s father had given him years ago. A picture of a voluptuous Latin woman and the words Hav-a-Tampa on the lid. Last time she’d peeked inside it had been full of various pebbles and stones, marbles, dried flowers, old crayons, and bird feathers . . . but now, apparently it was used for other purposes. The lid was taped shut and she pulled it open. Alexei had scrawled something on the outside of the lid: MAGICK STIX.
Inside, thin balsa wood sticks. A dozen or more of them.
“See?” Alexei said. “I told you.”
“You saved all these?”
“Every one.”
“Why?”
“The King tells us to.”
“He’s not a real king, you know. He’s just fancies himself this Snow King. But he’s just a silly old soul, don’t you think?”
“Well, maybe. He does look silly, doesn’t he?”
Nell ran her fingers through his curly black hair. “Why, yes, he does! He’s just as round as a big balloon. With a tiny little head and tiny little feet. And scruffy black hair growing out of his ears, too!”
“And his nose! That’s him. I’ve been telling you, Nell, he looks like a giant mouse!”
“He is a bit creepy, I’ll give you that much.”
“He’s bad, Nell. And when he smiles, it’s so scary because his teeth are all black.”
“Why does he tell you to save the sticks, Alexei?”
“Because he says they’re good for us. All little boys. Like vegetables, he says.”
She looked at him very carefully. The dark circles around his eyes from lack of sleep. The sheen of perspiration on his pink cheeks and forehead, the lank shock hair, his thin little arms, pale as alabaster.
“Like vegetables? How? How are the sticks good for you?”
“The Snow King says that if I pretend to sleep, and wait until all the lights are out, and then when everyone has gone to bed, and I put a magic stick in my mouth and keep it there all night . . .”
“Why? Why does he tell you to do that?”
“Because if I do, I will grow up to be a real king. He says the sticks are filled with magic sugar that can turn little boys into anything they dream of being.”
Nell put one of the sticks under her nose. No discernible scent. Nothing but a wet, woody scent, thank God.
“Does he say what else the magic will do?”
“Yes. The magic will make sure I have sweet dreams, every night. Instead of the bad dreams. But sometimes it doesn’t work. Like tonight. I put the stick in my mouth and sucked on it forever. But he says one day, when I go to sleep, I’ll have nothing but sweet dreams forever and ever.”
“Forever? He said that?”
“He promised.”
“We’ll talk about him some more in the morning, sweetheart. Are you feeling okay now, kiddo?”
“Yes, Nell. I’m okay.”
“You don’t feel sick?”
“No, just sleepy.”
“Want to sleep in Nell’s room?”
“No, thank you.”
“Call me if you wake up again.”
“Okay.”
She flicked off his bedside light, and the flickering shadows of cowboys and Indians projected by the lampshade stopped chasing each other across the nursery walls. When she was sure that Alexei was snoring softly and fast asleep, she placed her hand gently on his forehead. No fever. She pulled his favorite blanket up under his chin and tiptoed from the room. She’d left his soft yellow night-light on in case he awoke again in a panic while she was upstairs getting dressed.
Two minutes later, dressed for the foul weather, she hurried down the main staircase to Alexei’s room. She gathered up the sleeping child into her arms. Then she retrieved the cigar box, and hurried down to the front door.
She unbolted the heavy door and dashed through the rain into the street. She was wearing rubbers on her feet and heavy rubber gloves she’d found beneath the sink in Pelham’s butler’s pantry. Then she made her way carefully down the rain-splashed steps and into Belgrave Road.
There was no traffic at this hour and she proceeded across the street.
Two Scotland Yard men in long dark raincoats stepped out of the shadows. They approached her as she crossed the street. After a whispered agreement, the three of them quickly walked a few yards on to the shelter of a large awning covering the entrance to a small maisonette sandwiched between two Belgravia mansions. “Please don’t wake him,” Nell said.
“Sergeant Spooner,” the taller of the two plainclothes police officers said, doffing his hat, “I’m Detective Harrison. Now, please tell us what you’ve got there. Something about a possible poisoning?”
She’d immediately rung them up on her mobile, told them about her conversation with her young charge and her fears about the contents of the cigar box. She handed it to the detective and removed the rubber gardening gloves.
“I have no idea, to be honest,” Nell said, “but I am concerned that the contents of this box may be toxic . . . or worse. Whichever of you two gentlemen is going to carry it back to the crime lab at the Yard, well, you should definitely be wearing those gloves.”
“Yes, ma’am. We called ahead. The lads in the lab know we’re coming.”
“Good. This box is full of thin balsa sticks. Have them all run under a dosimeter. Every possible test for poison, toxicity, radiation, run the gamut, no stone unturned. Then call me immediately with the results. If the news is bad, I may well have a very sick child in need of emergency medical attention.”
At that very moment an unmarked black R
over sedan slid alongside the curb and waited silently, the man behind the wheel a hulking black silhouette. Nell recognized the car immediately. It was an unmarked Metropolitan Police armed response vehicle, and somehow it was immediately reassuring.
“Please tell that officer to pop the boot and stow the box back there. No reason for anyone to be any more exposed than they have to be. Also, please order a medical response vehicle to proceed here immediately and wait pending further instructions. The child’s not vomiting, thank God, but he has had a fever and other symptoms that are deeply concerning. We may need to get him to a hospital in a hurry.”
“We’re on it,” the tall officer said. “May I suggest that one of us remain with you and the child? Perhaps on duty inside the residence?”
“Perfect. Thanks for being here for us on this wretched night, gentlemen. Oh, and Detective?”
“Yes?”
“Do you believe in the power of prayer?”
“The wife does. Me? Not really, I don’t suppose.”
“You both do now,” she said, holding the little box tightly in her arms as she dashed back across the street.
CHAPTER 21
The bedside telephone jangled.
Nell snapped awake, realizing she must have put her head down on the pillow next to Alexei. He was still sound asleep and snoring softly. She felt his forehead. No fever. She must have dozed off. She reached over and lifted the receiver to her ear.
“Nell Spooner.”
“Detective Harrison here, Sergeant. The lab came back with a positive hit on the sticks and—”
A dagger to the frontal lobe.
“Hold on, a positive hit?”
“I’m afraid so. Of the dozen sticks tested, ten tested negative. But two sticks showed minute traces of radioactive polonium-210. And the dosage is extremely low, almost undetectable.”
“Are you at the lab now, Detective?” Nell got to her feet, slipping back into her rain shoes and raincoat, cradling the phone with her shoulder. She hadn’t bothered to undress, knowing she might well be going out again. She looked out the window into the street. The Met’s medical response vehicle was idling at the curb, smoke curling from the exhaust. She could have Alexei at hospital in less than five minutes. “Are you still there?”