by Ted Bell
“Like a . . . I don’t even know what.”
“Turn your damn light on, maybe?” Stoke asked, he and Brock moving toward Saunders.
Fat flicked his LED assault light on, and all three men looked down in amazement.
“It’s like a tiny city,” Fat said, bending down to peer at the table, wolf whistling his amazement. “See what I mean?
It was a large model of a city, Stoke saw now. Incredibly detailed and realistic.
He flicked a switch he’d seen on the side of the heavy table. The whole damn town suddenly lit up. Streetlights, window lights in hotels, apartments, skyscrapers. Lights on the bridges and ships in the port, even on the interstate cloverleafs. Even traffic lights sequencing through red, yellow, and green. Any kid would go nuts over this. But what the hell was it doing on a Soviet spy ship leaving Havana and headed home?
Perfectly detailed, Stoke saw, bending down to look more closely at the thing, perfect in every way, right down to the cracks in the sidewalk. Right down to the doorknobs. And then he noticed something else.
THE MIST HAD DIMINISHED. MAYBE the now opened aft hold door behind them had sucked out a lot of the cold foggy air. But, whatever the reason, Stoke could now see similar tables stretching away to the bulkhead at the aft end of the room. Cities large and small, but all with something in common he couldn’t put his finger on. Not yet, anyway.
And there was yet another steel door back there.
“Fat, do a recon on the rest of these tables. Light ’em up. See what you see. Use your GoPro camera and record everything. Look for patterns. My bet is they are all American cities, but I may be wrong. See that large door aft? Mr. Brock and I are going back there and see what’s behind it. C’mon, Harry.”
They made their way through the maze of cities and stopped before twin doors of very solid-looking steel.
“Locked,” Harry said.
“How do you know? You haven’t tried it yet.”
“You want to bet money, Harry? I recognize a locked door when I see one.”
“I bet you do. With your background and all.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Stoke said.
“Nothing. I was talking to your boy Sharkey about you a while back. At the Versailles Restaurant in Little Havana.”
“What about?”
“Your checkered past, that’s all.”
Stoke looked at him.
“Is that right? You must have found that very interesting, you with your checkered present. What did he tell you?”
“Oh, I dunno. Just that he saw one of your files one day in the office. It said you had a criminal record.”
“He said that? Sharkey? My one and only employee?”
“Uh-huh. He did indeed.”
Stoke looked at Brock and smiled.
“Of course I had a criminal record, you idiot. I was a criminal!”
“Well, there you go.”
“Tell me. What kind of a criminal worth a shit doesn’t have a record of his greatest hits to show for it?”
“Don’t get defensive, Stoke.”
“I’m not defensive. I’m laughing at you. Open the door, Harry. Now.”
Harry grabbed one of the two handles and pulled.
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“It’s locked.”
“No shit, Sherlock,” Stoke said. He laughed and stepped forward toward the door, brushing Brock aside with the back of his hand, a hand about the size of a Smithfield ham.
“Nothing a little Semtex can’t fix,” Stoke said, packing the puttylike explosive into the seam between the doors. “You might want to step your skinny white law-abiding ass back a few feet.”
He stuck a fuse in the explosives, lit it, and moved away.
The Semtex blew, loud as hell in the closed space, and when the smoke cleared, the right-hand door was hanging from one hinge, revealing what looked like a large storeroom beyond.
“Can you imagine what kind of a criminal I could have been if I’d had Semtex, Harry? Back in the day?”
But Harry was already through the opened door.
“What the hell?” Harry said. He was staring at the stacks of cardboard liquor boxes lined against the wall. Some boxes had been opened, some were scattered empty around the storeroom.
Each box was filled with bottles, Stoke saw, reaching down to pull one out.
It was vodka. And not Russian vodka, which would have made at least a scintilla of sense. No, hell no, it was German vodka, according to the label. A Russian boat delivering German vodka to a spy listening post? No. No sense at damn all.
“Looks like vodka,” Harry said, holding a bottle aloft and shaking it.
“Because it is vodka,” Stoke said, taking the bottle away from him. “Now why in hell would these Russkies be carrying German booze back home from Cuba?”
“Maybe they delivered most of it to the Cubans, and stowed some of it for the trip home.”
“Delivering vodka to Cuba, Harry? Really? That doesn’t make any sense. Cubans don’t even drink vodka. They drink Cuba libres, right, they drink sugar cane rum. And, besides that, it’s not even Russian vodka. Look at this label. It says ‘Made in Germany.’ German vodka? Who ever heard of that?”
“Feuerwasser,” Brock said, reading the name on the bottle. “What’s that mean in German? You did a tour there.”
“I dunno,” Stoke said. “But I’m sure as hell going to ask Gator. Grab a couple more bottles and let’s get out of here.”
“Roger that.”
“And don’t say ‘Roger that.’ How many times do I have to tell you?”
“It’s navy. Why not?”
“It’s a cliché now, Harry. Tom Clancy ruined that phrase for everybody.”
“So what do they say instead of ‘Roger that,’ then?”
Stoke started to say something but stormed out of the storeroom, muttering something unprintable under his breath. Harry, Harry, Harry.
He was anxious to get off this barge and back to the mother ship. Any of this crap he’d found in the bottom of the ship make any sense? Not to him anyway.
CHAPTER 47
The Chinese Borderlands
The campfire was still burning in the dark heart of the forest. Night had fallen swiftly beneath the canopy of tall timber where they’d pitched camp. Above the treetops, the moon blazed in a blue-black bowl of Siberian skies studded with sharp white stars. After sunset, the temperature had dropped to near freezing, and the sounds of the dense forest were amplified by the cold. The colonel threw another log on the fire, shuddered, and suddenly went very still.
Then he bent down and picked up his automatic weapon.
“Tolstoy,” Beauregard said, “you hear that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What the hell was that?”
“Wolves.”
“Wolves? They got wolves in this forest?”
“They do.”
“Well, the hell with them. Let’s eat our supper. You’re hungry, aren’t you?”
“I guess I am, sure.”
In the waning hours of sunlight, the colonel and Corporal Tolstoy had pitched a two-man tent over a soft cushion of pine needles, then cleared a spot for a fire to keep them warm and cook their supper. They talked little, both men exhausted from the rough passage overland to the Chinese borderlands. Both men, alone with their thoughts, ate the meal of spit-roasted chicken and cornmeal porridge in silence.
After the feast, the older man sat back, wiping the grease from his lips and jamming a cigarette in the corner of his mouth. Lighting it, he leaned back against the trunk of a mammoth evergreen and watched the sparks from the fire rise on a column of smoke and hot air. They rose high, only to disappear in the dark tangle of branches high above.
“Tolstoy,” the colonel said, sitting up and tossing a chicken bone into the fire. “You hear what I’m hearing?”
“Yes.”
“That’s howling, I believe. I don’t like wolves howling nearby.”
“Now, why is that, do you suppose?”
“Fear, sir. Too many Hollywood films, maybe. The sudden leap from the shadows, the snarl, the tearing rip of those razor-sharp teeth. I don’t know. But that fear is a human survival instinct.”
“You trying to scare the old colonel, roughrider? Telling ghost stories around the campfire?”
“I sometimes wish they were ghost stories, Colonel.”
“Meaning?”
“I grew up in Eastern Siberia, sir. Wolf attacks on remote settlements were not infrequent. Mine was attacked one night.”
“How many of them?”
“Maybe two hundred, someone said. No one could believe the size of that pack. Maybe it was a number of packs that had joined forces for some reason, or just decided to work together for their own good. Maybe it was just the ominous light of a full moon overhead. Like tonight.”
“Is that common? Packs hooking up like that? Attacking a village.”
“Well, normally, as I said, they’ll kill horses or dogs, or babies if they find one unattended. You have to understand, sir. These are animals that can crush a human skull and snap thighbones like sticks. Got a bite twice as strong as a German shepherd and that’s no lie. But nothing had happened like what happened that night. Nothing. It was like a horror movie only worse. Women and children were screaming so loud you could barely hear the wolves.”
“But wolves like to stay away from humans normally, right? You’re saying these Siberian wolves seem to have lost their fear and . . .”
“They’re not afraid of us anymore. No, sir.”
“The wolves in this forest. They scare you?”
“Not yet.”
“How many you figure are out there?”
“A pack, maybe.”
“But it could be larger?”
“Cooperation among some wolf packs is very common. Usually, packs are small. A nuclear family with waifs and strays of some ten to twenty animals.”
“You seem to know an awful lot about wolves for a young soldier, Tolstoy.”
“Yes, sir, I do. Most of my village was wiped out. Torn to shreds. I’m the only one in my own family to survive. I dove into a well. The wolves knew I was down there at the bottom, a big she-wolf in particular. I could see her in the moonlight, up above at the mouth of the well, looking down at me, snarling and gnashing her teeth. Very frustrated, I’m happy to say. They can hear your heartbeat from six meters away, you know. Uncannily powerful hearing. They even judge the moment when the prey is most petrified—that’s the moment they go in for the kill.”
“Jesus.”
“Oh, God, sir—watch out!”
Beauregard saw it happen in slow motion. The black shadows, maybe twenty, maybe more, leaping from the darkness into the light . . . circling cautiously around the perimeter of light thrown by the fire, their heads lowered, their teeth gleaming white in the firelight.
They drew closer.
The old man tried desperately to slow his heartbeat, knowing wolves can hear fear. He cradled his weapon, his finger inside the trigger guard applying gentle pressure.
“Tolstoy,” he said softly. “Where’s your weapon?”
“Inside the tent.”
“Shit. We’re going to need two weapons at least . . .”
“Yes, sir, we will.”
“I need to do something, okay? These bastards have picked up our fear scent . . . Think you can make it across to the jeep? To the .50 cal.?”
“Maybe, sir.”
“I won’t order you to try.”
“It’s our only chance, Colonel. I’m fucking petrified and they know it. Look at them!”
“Wait, I’ll try to distract—”
But Tolstoy was already on his feet and running for the jeep at the edge of the clearing. He got maybe twenty yards. In the blur of a second he went down, buried beneath four or five of the frenzied beasts, the boy’s screams silenced as the wolves ripped him apart in chunks . . . a frenzy of blood and snapping bones.
“Leave him alone, goddamn you!” the colonel cried, leaping to his feet. He had his weapon on full auto and he cut loose on the animals attacking the young soldier. Because of the intensity of his focus he didn’t see the rest of the pack. Didn’t see the wolves slinking around and coming up on his blind side until it was almost too late.
“Oh, no you don’t,” he said to them, whirling around and eyeing the jeep’s .50 cal. on the far side of the clearing. Wolves were advancing right toward him. He was now the sole focus of their attention and he knew he couldn’t possibly kill them all.
On they came. Their eyes were fiery red in the firelight, their bloody teeth gleaming white with loopy saliva hanging from the jawbones. Coming for him from both sides of the campfire now, more of them than before it seemed, their heads low to the ground now. Waiting for an opening. Beauregard whipped his head around and looked behind him, seeking an escape route. Nothing but dense columns of tree trunks forming a wall behind the tent.
Nowhere to retreat, you have to advance, his military mind yelled at him.
He squeezed the trigger and started spraying lead at the startled beasts as he ran straight ahead into the fire.
“You’ve got me surrounded, you poor bastards!” he cried out to the encircling wolves, flames licking at his boots.
He ran right through the burning embers, straight for the jeep. In the clear at last, two of them snapped at his trousers, but he already had one foot planted inside the vehicle. He grabbed the swivel-mounted fifty and started spraying at everything that moved. He killed and killed, and still they came. More wolves emerged into the clearing, new arrivals attracted by the noise and the smell of blood and the fear. They leaped up at him and he dropped them in midair with quick bursts of concentrated fire.
And still they came.
Worried that his ammo was running out, he grabbed his sidearm and started firing with that, too . . .
And just that quickly, it was over.
Dark humps and blood-soaked piles of dead wolves lay everywhere he looked around the campfire. He climbed down from the jeep and surveyed the scene. The ones who’d survived now slunk off back into the forest. Would they rally the troops and mount another attack?
He looked at his watch.
Another two hours till daylight. Colonel Beauregard lit a cigarette, smiled grimly in the darkness, and reloaded his weapon. In the morning he’d bury Tolstoy. Then he’d crank up the jeep and cross the border into China. Captain Koczak would meet him at the rendezvous coordinates and they’d begin deploying the Vulcan weapons system.
Meanwhile, he’d developed a taste for wolf blood. He heard some movement two or three hundred yards away. He jammed a cigarette between his lips and lit up, smoking furiously to get the nicotine rush.
“Bring it, you bastards,” he said softly. “Bring it.”
CHAPTER 48
Miami
It was a day that would long be remembered as the calm before the storm.
“You sure you didn’t forget to pack anything, boss?” Stoke said, peeking his head inside the door to Hawke’s guest room.
“Just my heart,” Hawke said, turning to smile at his old friend.
“Your heart?”
“A joke, Stoke. Just trying to say thanks for taking on boarders at such a tough time for Alexei. Fancha has been an absolute mother to him. Precisely what he needed, what we both needed. So, thank you, is all I’m trying to say. Thank you, Stoke, for everything you’ve done for us.”
Stoke smiled. “You’re welcome anytime, you know that. And, by the way, you picked a good time to check out, I’m telling you that, man.”
“Really? Why’s that?”
“Power just went out in the house. Not just this property, either. Apparently the whole damn neighborhood is without power.”
“What happened?”
“Some kind of explosion is all I know. Very faint, but I heard it boom. Couple of transformer
s, I guess.”
“Yeah, that would do it, all right. How long will the system be down?”
“Couple of hours maybe. Maybe longer. They’re not really saying much on the emergency radio, which is a little weird.”
“Bureaucracy, Stoke. Withholding information from the public makes petty bureaucrats feel like big shots.”
“You got that right, brother.”
After a lengthy visit, Hawke had no desire to wear out his welcome. And, besides, Hawke’s yacht, the enormous Blackhawke, had arrived the night before and was now safely berthed at the Port of Miami, made fast to American soil once more.
After this was all over, Alex and his young son would take an extended world cruise, visiting random ports of call so no enemy could detect a pattern. He was going to look for the safest, most inaccessible location on the planet to stake his flag. Perhaps Switzerland. At some point, Hawke would return to his country home in England. But he had chosen to wait until final security arrangements were completed by crews from MI6 and Scotland Yard at Hawkesmoor.
On board Blackhawke was a fair-haired young Scotland Yard detective inspector named Tristan Walker, a highly respected officer of the Royalty Protection Branch, SO14.
Effective immediately, Detective Inspector Walker would assume the duties long held by Alexei’s beloved and sadly missed Nell Spooner. I will never forget her, Papa, not ever! he would say every night, following his evening prayers. Hawke, who seldom showed emotion and tended to keep his deepest feelings within himself, would hug his child and say a small prayer for them now that this woman he had come to love was gone.
“YOU WANT THE TOP DOWN, ALEXEI?” Stoke asked. “Drop the boot or whatever it is you say over in England?”
“Can we, Daddy?” the boy asked his father, craning his neck around. Alex had climbed into the backseat of the beautifully restored 1965 Pontiac GTO so his son could sit up front with his hero.
“Lower away, Captain Jones!” Hawke shouted as they wound their way along the curving drive through the green jungle of lawn to the road. Casa Que Canta was located on a small island off Key Biscayne called “Low Key.” It was hidden, just the way Stoke liked it. He lowered the top, and salt air flooded the interior and sunshine beamed benevolently down.