by Ted Bell
Hawke’s heart broke then, and he quickly turned away, the words of farewell in his throat straining with sadness. The conductor was sounding the final whistle, the last call. He tossed his old leather satchel and Peter’s sword aboard and then grabbed the rung and climbed up to the bottom step. He determined to remain there, and to do so as long as he could see the two of them.
“Good-bye, my darling,” Anastasia said. “Take our love with you and keep it safe.”
The train began to move, slowly at first, and Anastasia began moving with it, walking alongside at the same speed as the train, clutching her baby, seemingly unable to let Hawke go, let him fall away from her sight. He hung there on the lower steps, one hand clenched on the cold steel grip, as the train gathered speed.
She was running now, dangerously fast, trying hard to keep up and he feared she would fall, trip in the mushy snow, the baby in her arms and—
“Whatever happens,” she called out to him through her tears, “I’ll love you just as I do now until I die.”
He started to warn her, but suddenly she was reaching out to him. Reaching out with both arms, running beside the train and at the very last possible moment she did it.
She handed Alexei up to him.
He gathered the child in with his one free arm and brought him quickly to the safety of his chest, staring down at her with disbelief.
“Anastasia, what—what are you—”
She cried out, straining to be heard above the gathering speed of the train, “He’s yours, my darling. He’s all I have to give.”
Hawke, his eyes blurred with hot tears, had a last impression of that beautiful haunted face, the tortured eyes, the drawn mouth. He held his son tightly and watched Anastasia for as long as he could, standing there all alone on the deserted platform, a small solitary figure waving good-bye to the two of them forever.
Seven
The Red Arrow
Babies cry. So do new fathers. Alexander Hawke sat on the deep, plush carpeted floor of the luxurious ivory and gilt two-room train compartment, rocking his child in his arms. Both of them were weeping copiously. One did so loudly, at times violently, screaming red-faced, demanding his mother. The other did so silently, his own red eyes periodically welling and spilling a potent mixture of indissoluble happiness and sadness.
Some time after leaving the station, they could still be found sitting there when the luxury train’s concierge peeked in the door and said, “I beg your pardon. Tickets and papers, please?”
Hawke looked up from the floor and smiled at the woman.
“My own ticket is inside the pocket of that black leather jacket hanging over the armchair. This young fellow here doesn’t have one, I’m afraid.”
“How old is he?”
“Three. Today’s his birthday.”
“A free ride for him, then, on his birthday,” she said kindly, removing the ticket envelope from Hawke’s jacket and inspecting the contents.
Hawke put his lips beside his son’s ear and whispered.
“See, Alexei? You were right! Three really is ‘free.’ Magic. You’ve always got to be on the lookout for it.”
The concierge was a woman of ample proportions in a tailored dark green uniform with red piping at the wrists and lapels. Her thick blond hair was gathered at the back of her head into what used to be called a “french twist.” She was quite pretty, spoke perfect English, and Hawke instinctively liked and trusted her. A mother, he was sure, for the boy brought those instincts instantly to the surface of her features.
“You are Mr. Alexander Hawke, traveling on business to St. Petersburg? Correct?”
“Yes.”
“And this gentleman?”
“This young gentleman is Alexei.”
“Last name?”
Hawke stared up at her for a moment, then down at Alexei, briefly startled by such a profoundly unexpected question, and then said, “Hawke. His name is Alexei Hawke.”
“Your son, then. Well. He looks just like you. Look at those eyes.”
“Yes, he is,” Hawke said, slightly dazed. “Yes, he is indeed my son.” Hearing himself utter those words, Hawke was filled with a flood of warmth and joy that was nearly overwhelming.
“Well, Mr. Hawke, you should give your son some milk. At least water. All those tears have dehydrated him.”
“I have none of either to give, I’m afraid.”
“No milk?”
“You see, Alexei was—is—well, the thing is, he decided to join me at the last moment. He’s somewhat—spontaneous. Rambunctious boy. Never know what he’ll do next.”
She reached down with open arms. “May I take him a moment? You’re not holding him at all properly. And he’s very tired. I think he’ll be more comfortable tucked into the berth in the second room. I’ll bring him a cup of warm milk. It will help him sleep. Does he have any toys?”
“Toys? Oh. Only this sad little teddy bear I found in the pocket of his coat.” Hawke held it up, a poor ragged thing the color of oatmeal.
“Lucky for him I keep a healthy supply of wooden soldiers and horses for just such emergencies.”
“That would be very kind. I wonder about . . . feeding him. I’m not sure when he last ate, I’m afraid. And I’m not really sure what he—”
“Well, I’ll bring hot porridge, too. He looks very hungry. The first seating in the first-class dining car is at five this evening. Shall I book a table for two?”
“Yes, thank you. That would be lovely. I’m sorry, I don’t believe I caught your name?”
“Luciana.”
“Italian?”
“My mother. My father is from Kiev.”
“I appreciate your help, Luciana. I’m rather—rather a new father.”
She laughed. “Really? Why, Mr. Hawke, I should never have guessed.”
A few hours later, Alex found himself sitting side by side with Alexei in the extravagantly decorated dining car. It was all gleaming ivory cream walls, curving up to form the ceiling, and furniture, every square inch trimmed in gold leaf, with upholstery of deepest claret red. The decor was exactly like his first-class compartments. The whole train was done up in this scheme, he imagined. The table linen was snow white, and the silver, though not sterling, was quite elegant, emblazoned with Russian double-headed eagles.
Alexei, grasping his much-loved teddy bear, sat on his velvet-covered, raised baby chair. Save for his rapidly shifting eyes, he was perfectly still, his eyes wandering up and down the long rows of tables inhabited by strange people from this new world he’d never known existed; then he was turning briefly to the window and the blur of some dizzying world turned red and purple in the sunset. And then, he stared unblinking at this new man in his life. Absorbing, Alex could sense, absolutely everything.
A fastidiously moustachioed waiter was suddenly hovering above the candlelit table, bowing and smiling solicitously at Hawke.
“Monsieur?” he said, preposterously, in French.
Alexei suddenly looked up at the waiter and said in a loud voice, “Watch out! I’m the birthday boy!”
“Ah, mais oui,” he replied bowing his head slightly. “Bon anniversaire.”
“Good evening,” Hawke said, looking up from his menu. “I’ll have a glass of Krug Grande Cuvee and the cold borscht to start. And the rack of lamb, please. Rare. And decant a bottle of the 1959 Petrus if you’d be so kind.”
“Very well, monsieur. And for the young gentleman?”
“Bananas? I have no idea. Do you have any suggestions?”
“Well, I—I mean it’s difficult to—c’est très difficile—”
Hawke said, “Quite right. Difficult. Mashed potatoes? Of course. Alexei, do you like mashed potatoes? Everyone does.”
“No potatoes! No!”
“Peas?”
“No peas! No! No!”
�
��Carrots, then?”
“No carrots!”
“Perhaps the saute foie gras, monsieur?” the waiter said, inexplicably.
Hawke returned the ornate menu and said, “Everything. He’ll have one of everything on the menu.”
“Everything, monsieur? But surely you don’t mean—”
“Yes, yes. Just bring us one of everything on the menu. Let him lead us through the jungle. We’ll soon find out precisely what he likes and doesn’t like. It’s the only way we’ll get to the bottom of this, don’t you agree?”
The waiter shrugged his shoulders in that very French way and said, “Mais ouis, monsieur. Mais certainement. Le rôti d’agneau pour monsieur. One of everything on the menu for the young gentleman. Merci beaucoup.” He bowed and disappeared toward the rear of the car, shaking his head and probably murmuring ooh-la-la or oomph, or something of that ilk.
Ten minutes later, a platoon of waiters in wine-red livery appeared, streaming down the aisle to arrive at Hawke’s table, all bearing large silver platters filled with every possible kind of food. This of course caused a great deal of amusement among the other diners, all of them turning in their seats and peering at the little boy, his uncomfortable father, and the enormous amount of food they had ordered.
What Alexei liked to eat was immediately apparent. Hawke was busily preparing a large plate with a small sampling of all the dishes when Alexei made his decision. Ignoring Hawke’s offering entirely, Alexei stood in his high chair and reached for the ornate silver salver with a central crystal bowl containing a healthy dollop of Beluga caviar, surrounded by mounds of small warm buttered pancakes called blinis.
Grabbing a fistful of blinis, he stuffed them into his mouth, polishing them all off in little more than a minute.
Then he scooped up a small handful of caviar, tried it, gurgled with delight, and messily downed the remainder. “More! More!” he cried.
So. Caviar. The apple had not fallen far from the tree.
Hawke called to the waiter who had all the extraneous food removed and quickly summoned another waiter bearing more caviar and pancakes. It was at that moment that Hawke saw the two heavyset men who had climbed aboard the train at Tvas, the two men in the long black overcoats, enter the dining car at the far end.
They made their way toward Hawke and took an empty table on the opposite side of the car about three tables away. Neither man made eye contact with Alex, but he knew that meant nothing. Once they were seated and had ordered a bottle of vodka, the one facing Hawke looked up, caught his eye, and smiled. Hawke, sipping a small flute of Krug champagne, raised his glass and smiled back. He also signaled for his check.
As he was signing it, he noticed one of the men approach, clearly headed his way. The man stopped at their table, smiled at Hawke, and said in heavily accented English, “I am just admiring your handsome boy. Is he your son?”
“No. I am his bodyguard,” Hawke said in a low voice. “You’ll excuse us. We’re leaving.”
As Hawke gathered his son into his arms, the man leaned across the table and reached out to ruffle Alexei’s hair. His jacket fell open. The assassin had a Vostok Margolin .22LR pistol with a built-in silencer holstered under his arm. The standard concealed weapon of the KGB officer. Hawke shot his right hand out and grasped the man’s thick wrist in midair before he could touch a hair on Alexei’s head. He then leaned forward and whispered fiercely into the man’s ear.
“I said I’m his bodyguard. That includes his hair. Understand me?”
Hawke applied increasingly severe pressure to the base of the man’s thumb until he grimaced in pain and nodded his head. The Russian rose to his full height, rubbed his wrist vigorously, smiled down at Hawke, and said, “It’s a long trip, you know, here to St. Petersburg. I’m sure we shall all meet again.” Then he turned on his heel and returned to his table.
Hawke rose with Alexei in his arms and quickly but somewhat discreetly left the dining car. He needed to return the child safely to their locked compartment. Given the presence of two KGB assassins aboard the Red Arrow, it promised to be a very long night. Two killers on a train. Like an Agatha Christie novel, except you already knew who the true villains were.
But who was the intended victim?
Surely there were many inside Russia, the so-called Tsarists, who wanted Hawke dead.
But both Anastasia and Kuragin had said there was a price on Alexei’s head. People in power who didn’t like the idea of a tsar’s descendant waiting in the wings to take the throne at some future moment.
It hit him like a lightning strike to the heart.
These two thugs weren’t aboard the Red Arrow to kill him.
They meant to murder the heir to the crown. The child of the Tsarina.
They meant to kill his son.
Eight
Hawke sat in the darkened compartment, smoking incessantly to stay alert. He’d bought a few packs of Sobranie Black Russians in the rail station at St. Petersburg. Despite the black wrapper with its fancy gold tip, they were foul, but effective. The rhythmic click-clack on the tracks threatened to hypnotize him, and he fought it with nicotine. He was seated on one of the small, upholstered chairs in the center of the compartment’s sitting room.
In the adjoining room, mercifully, Alexei was sleeping peacefully on the lower berth, his teddy bear clutched tightly. Hawke had rocked him to sleep and kissed his warm cheek before tucking him in. He’d then propped a sturdy wooden chair against the bedroom door to the train’s corridor, feeling only slightly more secure. He’d left the sliding door between their two rooms open and could hear the reassuring sound of his son snoring softly. It was a sound like no other he’d ever heard.
The only light in Hawke’s tiny room came from a dim violet-blue nightlight, a spiritlike apparition near the floor that gave the small sitting room a rather eerie, stage-set feeling. Like a bad horror film, Hawke thought, some kind of Hammer Films vampire movie.
In his right hand, Hawke held his SIG .45 pistol, a hollow-point round already in the chamber. He’d positioned his chair to one side and in the shadows, so as to be out of the line of fire of someone forcefully entering the room. But he would have a clear shot at anyone coming through that door without an invitation.
He would shoot to kill if, indeed, circumstances warranted it.
For a man expecting a pair of KGB or criminal thugs to burst through his door with guns blazing, Alex Hawke was surprisingly relaxed. He was not the type of man who could be prodded into deciding what he might or might not do under any possible circumstances. And this was certainly not due to bravery, or coolness, or any especially sublime confidence in his own physical prowess or power. It was a powerful instinct to go with his gut and it hadn’t failed him yet.
And, he was, as one of his superior officers in the Royal Navy had said, “Simply good at war.”
From time to time he’d rise and stretch, the long hours of sitting starting to wear on him. He looked at the large face of his black Royal Navy dive watch, the luminous numbers clearly legible. It was nearly two o’clock in the morning. He’d been in (or, rather, on) this bloody chair for six full hours.
He could feel himself losing his edge.
Inaction is the enemy of action, he reminded himself. It was time to move.
He rose from the chair and went to check on his son, understanding for the very first time the expression “sleeping like a baby.” He then went to his travel bag and pulled out a loose-fitting black turtlenecked jumper, pulling it over his head. The black trousers he was already wearing would suit his purposes nicely in the darkness of the train’s corridors. He checked his weapon once more and slapped the mag back into the gun.
Slipping the pistol into the nylon holster in the small of his back, he reached up to the shelf and grasped Peter the Great’s battle sword, the gift from Kuragin. The red leather scabbard had a loop that he ran his be
lt through, the ivory-handled sword now hanging down his right side. His black gabardine greatcoat was swaying on the door hook. He shouldered himself into it and saw in the mirror that only the razor-edged tip of the sword was visible beneath the hem.
If you’re going to a gunfight, best to bring a gun and a knife, even a sword if there’s one handy.
He listened a long moment to Alexei’s soft breathing, then he stepped out into the corridor. He turned and pulled the door closed, locked it from the outside, tried it twice, and turned to his left, headed toward the front of the train.
Before he moved to the rear, he wanted to clear any cars up ahead. At the end of the narrow passageway the door was locked, and Hawke could see his first-class carriage was located just behind the locomotive. He saw the door to the concierge’s compartment, slightly ajar.
For a moment, he considered waking her to ask her to keep an eye out for anyone entering this car. About to rap, he withdrew his hand. Bad things might happen aboard this train tonight, and he wanted no suspicion to fall on him.
He began to move toward the rear of the train.
He’d caught a glimpse of the passenger manifest while the concierge was off making sure all the first-class passengers had what they needed before turning in. Quickly scanning it, he’d identified his foes. The two men who’d joined the train at Tvas were sharing a single compartment in the last second-class sleeping car, just before the club car at the train’s rear. Compartment number 211.
The Red Arrow, racing through the night under a star-spangled black sky, was eleven cars long. Upon reaching the tenth and final sleeping car, he withdrew his pistol and made his way down the darkened corridor until he reached the door marked 211. He tried the knob and found it locked. Pulling a small utility knife and pick from his pocket and inserting it into the lock, he heard a click and slowly pushed the door open.
Empty.
Neither bed had been slept in. There was a half-empty bottle of Imperial vodka on the small table beneath the window and two glasses that appeared to have come from the lavatory. He looked up to the luggage racks above the berths, not surprised to find them empty. These men traveled with only the bare necessities: two guns and a bottle or two of cheap vodka.