by Ted Bell
“I wonder if you might help us,” Congreve said. “We’re in a bit of a fog here, you see. We’re looking for number 37 Whitehall Road. Can you possibly steer us in that direction?”
“Why, number 37 is right here,” she said, smiling. “You standing right in front of it! See? Here’s the gate!” With a great laugh, she pulled back a massive portion of green shrubbery and revealed an ancient arch covered in white bougainvillea. “Mr. Stubbs, he live in dere. Always has.”
“Most kind of you, madam,” Congreve said, tipping his hat once more. “You’ve been most helpful. I wish you a pleasant morning.”
Ambrose and Ross pressed through the thick foliage and emerged into a lovely, well-tended garden. At the end of a short pathway stood a small pink house with blue shutters. There was an ancient white-haired man sitting on the covered porch in a rocking chair. A sleeping dog of no recognizable breed was at his feet.
“Scotland Yard!” the old fellow shouted as they made their way up his walkway. “Always get your man! Even if you do it half an hour late! Ha!”
He laughed and rose a bit unsteadily from his chair.
“I believe it’s the Mounties who always get their man,” Congreve said, climbing the steps and shaking the frail brown hand of Stubbs Witherspoon. The man had extended his left hand. Congreve saw that the right sleeve of his simple linen shirt hung empty from his shoulder. Somehow, the poor fellow had lost his right arm.
“My apologies for the lateness of our arrival. I’m afraid we were unable to locate your gate. May I present Inspector Sutherland, also of Special Branch at New Scotland Yard.”
“You’re a hard man to find, Mr. Witherspoon,” Ross said, shaking hands. “Sorry we’re late.”
“Well,” Witherspoon said, “you know, I thought about that after we hung up the phone. And then I thought, good Lord, if Scotland Yard can’t find me, no one can!” He laughed again, almost doubling over. “Why don’t we just step inside?” Witherspoon asked. “I’ve made some iced lemonade and the fans in there keep it nice and breezy.”
They followed Witherspoon inside and he disappeared through a swinging door, presumably leading to the kitchen. The shuttered living room windows were all thrown open and yellow hibiscus branches were drooping inside at every window. You could hear the trills of songbirds in the trees outside as well as the yellow canary in the cage standing in the corner. Witherspoon returned from the kitchen carrying a large frosted pitcher.
“Let’s all take a seat,” the old man said, pouring lemonade. “This is my rocking chair. I like to rock.”
“Well,” Congreve said, “we’re honored to meet you, Mr. Witherspoon. As I said last evening on the telephone, Inspector Sutherland and I are looking into a very old murder case. An unsolved double homicide that took place here in the islands back in the 1970s.”
“Yes. Lord and Lady Hawke,” Stubbs said. “Brutally murdered aboard their yacht Seahawke. Well, that was a bad one, I’ll tell you. One of the worst I ever saw. I just joined the force at that time, no big cases under my belt. Until that one.”
“Can you tell us about it, Mr. Witherspoon?”
“Better than that. I’ve got the entire Hawke file right over there in my desk. I dug it out last evening after your call. Sip your lemonade, I’ll get it, I’ll get it. Soon come.”
“I like to rock,” Ross whispered under his breath, and Congreve broke into a big grin.
Witherspoon returned with a large cardboard box held tightly to his chest with his left hand. He sat down and looked at his two guests.
“Before I show you the file’s contents, may I tell you gentlemen something? I may have still been wet behind the ears on that case, but what I did know was the name of the man responsible for the murders aboard the yacht Seahawke.”
“You know his name?” Congreve said.
26
“Hey.”
“Good morning, Doc.”
“What time is it?”
“I think a little after seven—wait, don’t get up. You’re supposed to stay in bed until the doctor comes.”
“Oh. That’s right. I’m in the hospital.”
“Good. You haven’t lost your remarkable powers of perception.”
“Oh. God. I’ve got a terrible headache.”
“I should imagine you do, darling.”
“Did I have a lot to drink last night?”
“You were working your way through two rather large vodka martinis.”
“That’s all? Wow, what a hangover. It feels like I really got bombed.”
“Bombed?”
“Why aren’t you laughing? You don’t get it?”
“Feeling sluggish. Slow on the uptake.”
“You look awful. Have you been sitting there in that chair all night? Doesn’t look very comfy.”
“Me? No, no. I raced home straightaway after you were admitted to the hospital. There I cracked a bottle of champers, soaked in a long hot bath, shaved, and jumped right back into this bloody tuxedo.”
“That’s funny, too.”
“Really? Why is that funny, too?”
“Because you’re always saying ‘bloody this’ and ‘bloody that.’ ”
“And?”
“And this time, your tuxedo really is bloody. Get it? Ouch, that hurts.”
“Stop laughing. You’ll kill yourself.”
“I feel fine. Can I get out of here?”
“The doctor’s coming by at eight when he does his rounds. I think he’ll let you make a run for it if you can convince him you’re feeling well enough to walk.”
“What are my chances for escape?”
“Fairly good, I should say. You’ve suffered a mild concussion. Under those lovely bandages, you’ve got a number of stitches on the top of your head. Assorted contusions, scrapes, and scratches. Otherwise, fine fettle.”
“How about you? Are you in fine fettle?”
“I got a fork through the hand. That’s about it.”
“Next time you invite me to dinner, let’s order in Chinese.”
“Brilliant idea. Chopsticks being a lot less dangerous than salad forks. Are you hungry? Your breakfast is on the tray in front of you.”
“I can’t even look at food. What’s this little box thingy?”
“The nurse put it on the tray with your cereal. You were clutching it in your hand when they wheeled you into the Georgetown University emergency room.”
“What is it?”
“It appears to be a small black velvet box.”
“What’s in it?”
“Perhaps you should open it. I gave it to you last night, before we were so rudely interrupted.”
“I’m terrified of men bearing small black velvet boxes.”
“Go ahead and open it, Doc. It’s something I want you to have.”
“Oh, Alex.”
“Yes?”
“Alex, it’s lovely.”
“It’s quite an old locket, actually. It, well, it belonged to my mother.”
“It’s the most beautiful thing anyone’s ever given me.”
“You can open it up, too. There are little heart-shaped pictures inside.”
“Oh, look! It’s—”
“Hard to see, I know. On the left side of the heart is my mother and me. On the right, that’s me and Scoundrel. He was a fine old dog.”
“How old are you in the pictures, Alex?”
“Not more than five or six, I shouldn’t think. Those were taken in England. On the beach below my grandfather’s house on Greybeard Island. It was summer. Just before a bad storm. See the waves breaking?”
“Alex, I don’t know what to say. It’s—”
There was a knocking at the door then, just as Alex was bending over the hospital bed to kiss Victoria.
Stoke was standing in the doorway with a huge bouquet of yellow roses.
“Man, I can’t leave y’all alone for twenty minutes y’all don’t manage to get y’allselves all blown to shit and back.”
“Hi, Stoke,” Vicky said. “Those are beautiful. Thank you.”
“Mornin’, boss,” Stoke said, handing the flowers to Vicky. “Be glad you alive, my brother. You front page news.”
“Oh, God, just what I need,” Hawke said, giving Vicky a kiss on her bandaged forehead and taking the Post from Stokely.
What he did not need at the moment was publicity. He started skimming the long article.
“It was a bomb, all right, boss,” Stoke said. “Plastic. C-4. Joint was so full of dignitaries it’s hard to say who it was intended for.”
“Anybody killed?” Hawke asked.
“Lots hurt. Just one killed. An employee. Some cat who’d only been a waiter there for about seventy years. Five hospitalized including you, Vicky. Your name is in there, too, boss. Says you were treated and released.”
“Any group claiming responsibility?” asked Hawke.
“Nope, nobody. Hell, half of Washington was in that joint last night. Target could have been anybody. The police think it was PLO, Hezbollah, or the Mujahideen, though. Least that’s what my D.C. boys are sayin’ privately.”
“Not a particularly bright idea on the part of our Arab friends, blowing up a Washington restaurant in the middle of peace talks,” Hawke said.
“Well,” Stoke said, “no actual fingers are pointed yet. Naturally, FBI, CIA, NSA, all them initials are in there now, poking around. But I hear the focus is on the PLO.”
“Why the PLO?”
“Remember that Israeli commander who bombed the shit out of Arafat’s West Bank headquarters last month? Boy had himself a reservation at eight o’clock. Bomb exploded at eight-thirty right beside his table.”
“Was he hurt?” Alex asked.
“Lucky for him, he hadn’t showed up.”
“Alex?” Vicky said softly from her hospital bed.
“Yes?”
“Do you remember that urgent phone call for me?”
“Of course, Vicky.”
“When Herbert showed me which of the telephone booths to take it in—”
“Yes? Go on.”
“Well, I’m sure this doesn’t mean anything. But when I sat down to take the call, I felt something with my foot. There was a black briefcase. It was on the floor, tucked under the little shelf where the phone sits.”
“And?”
“When there was no one on the line, other than the breathing, I mean, I hung up. I picked up the briefcase figuring someone had forgotten it.”
“What did you do with it, Vicky?” Alex asked, looking at her intently now.
“I handed it to Herbert on the way back to our table. A couple of minutes before—”
Alex and Stokely stared at her.
“Oh my God,” she said.
“Don’t jump to any conclusions, darling. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence. We don’t know anything about that briefcase. Now, eat your breakfast. You’re getting up and out of here. Stoke, could I speak to you out in the hall for a second?”
“You think it was for Vicky?” Stoke said as soon as they were out in the hallway, out of earshot. “Don’t make no sense at all.”
“It could have been for anybody.”
“Yeah. Could be political, could be mob stuff, type of clientele they got.”
“The doctor said Vicky could be released this morning if she’s feeling all right. I want to get her out of here.”
“Say the word. What are we doing?”
“I’m going back into the room to calm Vicky down. I want you to get my pilots on your mobile and tell them to light the candle on the G-IV, we’re getting out of town.”
“Pilots know where they supposed to be flying to?”
“Nassau. Tell them to have my seaplane meet me at the Atlantis Marina. The doctors told me last night that Vicky was going to need a couple of weeks’ rest. And she owes herself some holiday time anyway. No better place to do that than a few weeks in the Caribbean aboard Blackhawke.”
“How else can I help out, boss?”
“We’ll figure that out when we get down there.”
“We? You mean I’m goin’?”
Hawke nodded. “Yes. Please help Vicky get checked out of here. Then you go to her house and help her get a few of her things together. Maybe she could rest for a couple of hours. Then pick her up and meet me at the plane. Say three hours, max.”
“Got it, boss. What you up to on this fine morning?”
“I’ve invited the secretary of state for an early breakfast at the new house. I’ve barely seen it myself.”
“I better call Pelham and tell him to turn the perimeter alarms off. I showed him how to do it, but you know how he is. Boy is definitely not a techno-geek.”
“Pelham is the definition of old school, all right. I’ve got to go, I’m late already. I hope the secretary isn’t bringing those damn spooks with her.”
Stoke decided it probably wouldn’t be chivalrous to call his boss on that one. Best let that one pass.
“That bomb that got that waiter, boss?”
“Yes?”
“Decapitated his ass.”
“Did they print his name?”
“Yeah. Cat named Herbert Carrington.”
“Bloody hell,” Hawke said, and walked back down the hallway toward Vicky’s hospital room.
“The man that died last night,” Hawke said, crossing to her bed and taking her hand. “It was your friend. Herbert Carrington. I’m so sorry.”
“Herbert?”
Vicky looked up at him with tears in her eyes.
“It was his birthday,” she said. “Ninety-two years old and still going strong.”
27
The Russian chopper plunged from the Caribbean heavens, falling, sideslipping, and twisting all at the same time. The instrument panel was a blurred nightmare of wildly spinning needles. The terrain warning alarm was howling. The screaming tail rotor blade was about to go. Without that blade, the chopper was lost.
They were moments from entering the “crescent of death,” namely, the failure of forward velocity and total loss of control of the helicopter. Lose your tail rotor and the chopper begins to rotate.
Because of gyroscopic action, it begins to swing like a pendulum. Your chances of crashing vertically, coming down on your skids, are reduced dramatically. Which is bad because, as Manso well knew, you might actually survive a vertical crash. But if any part of its main rotor blade touches solid ground, the chopper would just do a flaming cartwheel into the jungle.
All these thoughts went through Manso’s head. In seconds it would be beyond man’s, or machine’s, ability to recover. They were plunging down through two thousand feet, with maybe a minute to live.
Castro’s hold on the control stick was unshakable. For an ailing man in his late seventies, his grip was iron.
Manso had no choice.
He pulled the slim stiletto from the sheath attached to his right leg. He showed the Maximum Leader the blade, giving him just enough time to register what was about to happen to him and release the control stick.
“Let it go!” Manso shouted. “Now!”
“I don’t negotiate with traitors!” Castro shouted back, thick white spittle forming at the corners of his mouth. “Fuck you!”
When Castro did not remove his hand, Manso jammed the blade down into his muscular thigh with all the force he could muster. Blood spurted from Castro’s wound, spraying the instrument cluster and the leader’s fatigues. It wasn’t mortal. Manso had deliberately avoided the femoral artery. Still, sticking a blade in a man’s leg down to the bone takes a lot of the fuck-you out of him.
Castro howled in pain, releasing his hold on the control stick. He looked down at his bloody leg in shocked disbelief. Manso yanked the knife out of the leader’s thigh and threw it clattering to the cockpit floor between his foot pedals.
He then grabbed the blood-covered control and hauled back on it, twisting hard left. The chopper kept plunging for a few desperate seconds as Manso worked the controls, curs
ing and praying at the same time. There was now a big green mountain in his immediate future. With seconds to live, he wrestled the beast, twisting, tugging, pumping. His only chance was to drop the helicopter as rapidly as possible. And hope to come down vertically.
Suddenly, he felt it responding and stabilizing. He had it under control. Still breathing hard, he banked and started climbing, with the mountain still looming massively before him. Too late? His skids were brushing the treetops as Manso held back on the stick, holding his breath, his heart exploding in his chest. He was waiting for the shuddering crunch of the undercarriage hitting solid wood, which would bring him crashing into the face of the mountain.
It didn’t happen.
He gained a few hundred feet of breathing room, banked hard right, and found himself in clear air. He took a peek at Castro. The man was obviously in shock. He was losing a fair amount of blood and had gone a deathly shade of gray. His eyes were cloudy, out of focus.
“Comandante, I will radio for emergency medical to stand by for our landing. Press your finger into the wound. Hold on. We should be on the ground at Telaraña in ten minutes.”
He got on the radio and made the request.
“Everything okay up there, Colonel?” the tense voice in his earphones said.
“Sí! Viva Cuba!” Manso responded.
Castro was silent and remained so for the short balance of the flight. Ever the survivor, he’d wrapped his own belt around his thigh and cinched it tight, staunching the bleeding.
The sun was dipping below the western horizon when Manso flared up and prepared to land. A large concrete structure, only recently completed, stood astride a wide river, flowing out to the sea. Now the giant structure was bathed in pure white light. Manso had not seen it since its completion and the mere sight of it gave him enormous satisfaction.
To a spy plane or satellite it could be anything. A convention hall, a movie theater. Better yet, a ballet theater. The Borzoi ballet. This huge building would house the world’s largest and deadliest submarine.
An encircled red H, newly painted on the broad, flat roof of the building marked the helicopter landing pad. As Manso hovered over it, he could see a squadron of heavily armed men forming up into a solid perimeter around the pad.