Hawke

by Ted Bell

  Howell, who was on the JFK’s bridge monitoring the takeoffs and landing of nine separate squadrons flying sorties over Cuba, picked it up, knowing who it was.

  “Find it yet, Joe?” Howell said.

  “Do you know somebody named Alex Hawke?”

  “Hell yes, I know him. British billionaire. Ex-Royal Navy. Works for us a lot. Tracked down the boomer the Cubans bought, and definitely on the good-guy side.”

  “In that case, I’ve got some bad news, George. The bio-weapon is no longer here at Gitmo. It’s aboard Big John.”

  “What did you say?”

  “Hawke has a rescued hostage aboard his vessel who says the bomb’s inside a teddy bear given to an officer’s child by somebody named Gomez.”

  “Gomez? Sounds familiar—wasn’t he that guy in your minefield couple of days ago?”

  “Yeah, same guy. Three weeks ago, the same dickhead gave my daughter Cindy a big white bear for her fourth birthday. It’s gotta be the one, George!”

  “Jesus Christ, Joe!”

  “Yeah. Cindy takes that goddamn bear everywhere. She’s got it with her now. That bear is somewhere aboard your flagship, partner.”

  “How much time have we got, Joe?”

  “According to the official Cuban deadline, you’ve got twenty-nine minutes and sixteen seconds. George, goddammit, go find my little girl.”

  “God almighty. Okay, I’m on it.”

  Admiral Howell hung up and turned to the JFK’s CO, Captain Thomas Mooney. “Sound general quarters, Captain. We’ve got a Level Five biological threat somewhere onboard this ship. Came aboard with the evacuees at Gitmo. I’ve got CDC memos stating that it’s probably a highly lethal new bacteria strain, weapons grade, with a delivery system capable of wiping out everyone at Gitmo.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “That bomb is somewhere on this ship. It is hidden inside a toy bear belonging to Gitmo CO Joe Nettles’s daughter. I want that goddamn thing found and neutralized. We have less than half an hour.”

  Within five minutes, Captain Mooney’s most trusted aide, Lieutenant Arie L. Kopelman, was sent directly to the converted wardroom where, among others, the Gitmo commander’s wife and daughter were housed. He went to C deck, found their room, and opened the door. The sound of snoring filled the room. Everyone was still fast asleep. He looked at his watch. Twenty-two minutes.

  Shouldn’t be a problem.

  He entered the darkened cabin, a wardroom where some twenty-five to thirty women and children were currently berthed and, since he had no description of who he was looking for, simply rapped his fist on the bulkhead.

  “Mrs. Nettles?” Kopelman said. “Mrs. Joseph Nettles? Would you and your daughter please step out into the companionway? Sorry to disturb you.”

  “They’re not here,” a woman’s sleepy voice said. “They were moved yesterday. We were too crowded.”

  “Where were they moved?” Kopelman asked, trying not to let the rising panic in his voice show.

  “I think one deck down. Wardroom D-7?”

  “Thank you,” Kopelman said, and sprinted for the closest stairwell. He took the steps three at a time and burst into the long companionway of D deck. D-7 would be to the left, toward the bow, he thought. Had to be.

  It was. He swung open a door marked D-7 and rapped his knuckles hard on the bulkhead.

  “I’m looking for Mrs. Joseph Nettles and her daughter,” he said loudly. “Are they in this room?”

  “Oh,” he heard a woman’s voice say. “Yes, we are.”

  He saw her now, a silhouette sitting up against the far bulkhead. He heard her say, “What on earth do you want?”

  “Would you please step out into the companionway? Both of you? It’s very important.”

  Kopelman watched the sweeping second hand on his watch. Less than nineteen minutes now, until the ka-boom or whatever it was. In just over a minute, Mrs. Nettles and her four-year-old daughter were standing in front of him, blinking and rubbing sleep from their eyes. Both were wearing nightgowns and robes. It had taken seconds of precious time to find and put on robes.

  “I’m Lieutenant Kopelman. This is your daughter Cindy?”

  “Yes. How can we help you, Lieutenant?” Ginny Nettles said, wrapping her robe tightly around her.

  “I’m looking, actually, for Cindy’s bear,” Kopelman said, not caring how foolish he sounded. “I’ll explain later. But if you don’t mind, ma’am, could you please just step back inside, pick the bear up very carefully, and bring it out here to me?”

  “Her teddy bear? Is this a joke?”

  “No joke, Mrs. Nettles. Believe me.”

  “Well, I would if I could but I can’t. Her bear’s not in there, Lieutenant,” Ginny Nettles said, giving the young officer a look both quizzical and ominous. “Sorry.”

  “Not in there?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “This is extremely important, Mrs. Nettles. Where, uh, exactly is the bear as we speak?”

  “Excuse me, Lieutenant ... Kopelman, is it?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “What time is it, Lieutenant?”

  “Oh-five-forty-five, ma’am. Fifteen minutes before six A.M., ma’am.”

  “You know, it’s funny. I’ve been a Navy wife for over thirty years. And I have never, ever encountered anything remotely as ridiculous as this. And that, by God, Lieutenant, is truly saying something!”

  “Ma’am, I totally appreciate that. But it is desperately important that I retrieve that bear. Do you understand? I said ‘desperately’ I can’t say any more.”

  “What’s wrong, Lieutenant?” Mrs. Nettles said, her mood turning from annoyance to concern to fear in less than a second.

  “We, I mean Admiral Howell needs that bear now,” Kopelman said, looking into her eyes. “That bear is ... contaminated. Do you understand what I’m saying, Mrs. Nettles? Right now!”

  “Sweetheart, why don’t you tell the nice man where your bear went?” Mrs. Nettles said, bending down to look in her daughter’s face.

  “Oh!” Cindy said, as if suddenly remembering, “Teddy went up in an air-o-plane!”

  “An airplane?” Kopelman asked, his nerves now twanging from the back of his neck down along each arm, all the way to his fingers. He looked at his watch for the third time in as many minutes.

  Thirteen minutes.

  “That’s right, Lieutenant, what my daughter says is true. We ran into Cindy’s Uncle Chuck, my husband’s younger brother, who is a wing leader of the Black Aces.”

  “Are you saying that Captain Nettles has the bear, ma’am?” Kopelman asked. Perfect little beads of nervous perspiration had popped out all around his hairline.

  “Yes, I think so,” Ginny Nettles said, wringing her hands together, worried about where this was going.

  “He took the bear on his mission?”

  “Yes, he said his squadron was going on a raid somewhere last night and that his niece’s bear might bring the Black Aces good luck.”

  Mrs. Nettles was about to say something else, but the young lieutenant had already sprinted halfway down the companionway and into a stairwell.

  “Sir!” Kopelman said, bursting onto the bridge deck.

  “What have you got, Lieutenant?” Admiral Howell said, studying his face. “Tell me it’s good news, son. We’ve got about ten minutes till all hell breaks loose.”

  “I spoke with Mrs. Nettles and her daughter. The bear is with Captain Charles Nettles, sir. He took it along on his mission.”

  “He’s got the fucking bear in his cockpit?”

  “I believe he does, yes, sir.”

  “Are you dead certain about this, son?”

  “Aye, aye, sir, as certain as I can be.”

  Howell punched a button on the bridge console.

  “This is Admiral Howell speaking. Where the fuck is Captain Charles Nettles?”

  “Captain Nettles is on final, sir, about ten seconds from touchdown,” the airboss said.

&nbs
p; “Christ! Wave him off, goddammit, wave him off!”

  Howell walked outside onto the port bridge-wing and looked astern. He could see all the Black Aces were home, save one. Captain Nettles’s F-14 Tomcat was just off Big John’s stern, flared up, seconds from landing.

  The orange jackets were out there, the FSO trying to wave off the fighter. It was too late.

  “Lieutenant,” Howell said, his voice dead calm. “Would you just go on down to Captain Nettles’s cabin and just make sure he didn’t leave that goddamn bear there? Is that a good idea?”

  “Aye, aye, sir!” Kopelman said, and left the bridge-wing at a dead run.

  “He’s got his tailhook down, goddammit!” Howell screamed into the mike on the outside console.

  “It’s jammed, Admiral,” the airboss said over the speaker.

  “Drop the fucking wire! Have him go to full power! Now!”

  “Zulu Bravo Leader go to full power! Bolter! Bolter!” they heard the airboss shout.

  There was a howl of turbine whine as the F-14’s twin turbofan engines instantly spooled up, both afterburners spouting licks of red-orange and yellow flame as she roared past the bridge, accelerating.

  “Go ... go ... go!” the airboss said as the big fighter rolled and finally lifted off the end of the deck. It immediately dropped, dipped perilously close to the wavetops, then started a climb out.

  “Somebody want to tell me what the fuckin’ tarnation is going on around here?” said Captain Nettles over the speaker.

  “This is Admiral Howell, Captain. How you doin’, Chuck?”

  “Ah, roger that, pardon my French, Admiral.”

  “Captain, at the risk of sounding like a complete goddamn moron, let me ask you a question.”

  “Shoot, sir.”

  “Do you happen to have a white teddy bear in that aircraft, son?”

  “Uh ... well, as a matter of fact, I do, Admiral.”

  “You have no idea how happy that makes me, Captain.”

  “I’m sorry, Admiral, I’m afraid I don’t—”

  Lieutenant Kopelman appeared at that moment, completely winded, and said, “No bear in his quarters, sir. I turned it upside down!”

  “How much time we got left, Lieutenant?” the admiral asked, raising his binoculars to his eyes and tracking the jet fighter.

  Kopelman looked at his watch. “A minute, thirty-two seconds, sir!”

  “Good, good,” Howell said, then, into the mike, “Chuck, you’re going to need to deep-six that bear, son. Like, right now.”

  “Sorry, sir?”

  “The bear has a weapon in it, son, and it’s going to explode in about a minute. Maybe less. Okay? So just take her easy, level off, and reduce your airspeed immediately, you copy that?”

  “Copy” was the terse one-word answer.

  “Okay, you’re looking good, Zulu Bravo. I have you in visual contact. Now, I want you to jettison your canopy.”

  “Roger that.”

  The canopy blew off instantly, exposing the pilot and his radar intercept officer seated immediately aft of him to a hundred-knot-plus blast of air. Chuck Nettles felt a shuddering bump and the plane instantly started to yaw left and right.

  “I think the canopy clipped the starboard rudder, sir!”

  “Yes, it did, Chuck, I saw that. Took out a good-sized chunk. Big old piece. But you’ve got a more immediate problem. Can you reach that bear?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You’ve got exactly ten seconds to get that bear out of your plane, son.”

  Admiral Howell waited, tracking his binocs right with the streaking fighter, holding his breath as if that would keep his heart in place. A smile broke across his face.

  A small white object flew out of the cockpit, hit the Jetstream, and was blasted backwards and down.

  He stayed with the bear all the way, saw it hit the water. For a few endless moments, he thought the goddamn thing might float, but a smile broke across his face as he saw the bear slip beneath the waves.

  So much for your goddamn airborne spores, amigos.

  The density of the ocean had instantly neutered the Cubans’ weapon.

  There was a squawk over the speaker.

  “Uh, I’m having a little trouble keeping this bird flying straight,” Nettles said over the speaker. “Busted rudder and all. Anybody got any bright ideas?”

  “I’ve had all the good ideas I’m going to have this morning, Chuck. You just saved a lot of lives. I want to thank you for that. I’m going to turn you over to the airboss now. You just bring that big sucker on home, son. Bring her down safely. There’ll be a fifth of George Dickel with your name on it waiting in my wardroom.”

  “Copy that,” Captain Nettles said, trying desperately not to let the effect of the blown canopy, destroyed rudder, and the fact that he’d just flown an entire mission with a bomb between his knees show in his voice.

  “Bravo Zulu, you are a quarter mile out,” the airboss said. “Turn right to 060 degrees.”

  “I can’t do that, she’s not responding to rudder.”

  “Well, you’re going to have to land that bird with ailerons and elevators, Bravo Zulu, just like you did out at Coronado in flying school.”

  “I can’t remember back that far, sir.”

  “Bravo Zulu, you play a little golf, don’t you?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “Slice or hook?”

  “Slice a little.”

  “Know how you aim a teensy bit left to correct for that slice?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “You got a little slice in your current stance. I want you to shift your aim left, copy?”

  “Left.”

  “Easy, easy. Not that much, boy. A teensy. You want to draw it in down the left side of the fairway.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Call the ball, Bravo Zulu.”

  “I have the ball, sir.”

  “Come on home, then, Bravo Zulu. Come on home to Papa John.”

  59

  The third-story sitting room of the old house in Belgrave Square was lit only by a roaring fire. Pelting rain beat against the room’s tall, broad windows. The upper branches of the plane and elm trees outside, dancing violently in the howling wind, clawed and scratched at the glass.

  It was a cold, sleeting rain, but the roaring fire Pelham had laid in the great hearth warmed the room and kept the chill of late evening at bay.

  Savage filaments of lightning briefly illuminated the whole room, where two people sat side by side on an immense sofa before a crackling blaze. The lightning was followed immediately by an earth-splitting thunderclap powerful enough, it seemed, to shake a good portion of London to its ancient foundations. In the silence that followed, the woman rested her head on the man’s shoulder and spoke in a quiet, sleepy voice.

  “My daddy used to say that all the great romances are made in heaven. But so are thunder and lightning.”

  Alex Hawke laughed softly, and brushed back a wing of auburn hair, bronzed by the firelight, from her pale forehead. Her eyes were closed, and her long dark lashes lay upon her cheeks, fluttering only when either of them spoke.

  “Amazing chap, your father,” Hawke whispered. “Everything he says seems to have quotation marks at either end.”

  “A lot of them are unprintable,” Vicky said, yawning deeply, and pressing closer. “He has a few enormously politically incorrect opinions and he’s an ornery old cuss when you cross him.”

  “What did he have to say when you rang him up this afternoon?”

  “Not much. Sounded very shaky. It’s going to take him a while to get over all those roller-coaster emotions. I promised I’d come right away to look after him. I’m so sorry. I know you were counting on me to—”

  “Shh. I understand. You sound tired, Doc.”

  “I am, a little. We must have walked the width and breadth of every park in London. It was lovely. My dream of a foggy day in London Town.”

  “We missed one. Regent�
��s Park,” Alex said, stroking her hair. “I wanted to show you Queen Mary’s rose garden. Why are we “whispering?”

  “I don’t know. You started it. When one person starts, the other just does it automatically. Funny. Do you want some more tea?”

  “What I’d love is a small brandy. Curious. I haven’t seen Pelham lurking about in the last hour or two.”

  “I saw him sitting in the pantry just after dinner. Sniper was perched on his shoulder, chattering away, while Pelham was doing needlepoint. Very fancy if you ask me, Lord Fauntleroy. What is it?”

  “I’m embarrassed to tell you. It’s to be a birthday present. For me, in fact. A waistcoat with the family crest. I’ve tried to convince him to quit before he goes blind, but he feigns deafness whenever I do.”

  At that very moment, there was the creak of an ancient door, and the omniscient Pelham Grenville entered the room bearing a large silver tray, which he placed upon the ottoman before the fire.

  “Begging your pardon, m’lord. That last flash and clap made me think a splash of brandy might be welcomed.”

  “The man is a mind reader, I tell you,” Hawke said, reaching for the heavy crystal decanter. “Thank you kindly, young Pelham.”

  Hawke noticed that, in addition to the decanter and small thistle-shaped crystal glasses, there was a most peculiar box on the tray. It was triangular and made of yellowed ivory, with a hawk carved of onyx embedded in the center of the lid.

  “I’ve never seen that box before, Pelham,” Alex said. “Quite beautiful.”

  “Yes,” Pelham said. “It was a gift to your great-grandfather from David Lloyd-George himself. Something to do with a political triad long lost to the mists of history.”

  “Too small for cigars,” Alex observed.

  “Indeed,” Pelham said. “Do you mind if I sit a moment?”

  “You may sit as long as you wish, of course. Here, let me pour you a brandy,” Alex said, and he did so.

  Pelham pulled up a leather winged-back chair and sat down with a small sigh. He sipped at his brandy, then picked up the box and turned it over in his hands. He focused his clear blue eyes on Hawke.

  “Your lordship, I’ve been in service for nigh on seventy years. And for the last thirty years, I’ve been waiting for this exact moment,” the old fellow finally said. Then he downed the brandy in one swallow and held out his glass to Hawke for a refill. This done, he sat back against the cushion and looked about the room. The firelight was licking every corner of the huge space, even reaching up into the ceiling moldings high above them.