Tsar (26 page)

“Red Banner to the rescue,” Harry said cheerfully as they slowed, approaching the dock.

“Our first operation, and it damn well better be successful,” Hawke said, slinging the SAW automatic weapon over his shoulder. “I can’t imagine what those two were thinking, going ashore in the middle of the night.”

“Looking for action, Alex. They don’t see much anymore.”

“I suppose that’s about right, Harry.”

In truth, he was far more worried about the two missing men than he’d let Diana see. Ambrose was a seasoned police officer. He’d risen from street copper through the ranks at the Yard and seen plenty of rough sledding in doing so. Sir David, on the other hand, was an old blue-water sailor. No one doubted his courage or intelligence, but he’d been piloting a desk for the last decade or so. Neither was a young man anymore, and Ambrose was still battling a crippling leg injury.

From what little he knew of the Disciples, they were a sketchy lot at best. Marijuana merchants being paid to keep an eye on him for some unknown reason.

At worst, they were a ragtag army of stoned killers.

There was no one in sight either on the shore or on the dock. Hawke disengaged the throttle and let the dinghy ghost up to the end of the old wooden pier. He looked closely at the island, his eyes roaming the dark fringe of vegetation reaching down to the white sandy beach. There was a village there, completely overgrown. It looked deserted, but a sniper could easily be waiting behind one of those vine-choked windows. He seemed to recall that this island had been home to a downrange NASA tracking station during the great manned-space-flight era.

He heard Harry slamming a mag into his SAW and looked up. They were three feet from the rotting wooden dock. There was a ladder descending into the water, and Brock tied the painter to it. The ladder looked barely strong enough to support their weight.

“You first, Harry,” Hawke said quietly. “Don’t forget to step up from the middle seat getting off. Balance.”

“Jesus, you think I don’t know that?”

“Just go, Harry.”

Hawke checked his weapon one last time and followed him up the ladder a few moments later. The first thing he saw was Harry Brock, halfway down the dock already, crouched over the body of a man who appeared to be very dead.

Hawke sprinted toward Harry and heard a froth of angry splashing coming from the water beneath the boards.

“Dead?” Hawke asked, kneeling beside Brock.

“Yeah. Look at the water, Alex,” Harry said.

Hawke did. It was a mess of sharks in a frenzy.

“Look at this,” Brock said, pulling back the dead man’s trouser cuff. “One of these toothy bastards came right up out of the water and took off his whole goddamn foot.”

T
he thrashing sharks were in a feeding frenzy, all that fresh blood in the water, flowing from the mutilated, nearly ex-sanguinated body above. The dead man was facedown, but Hawke already had a pretty good idea who it was. He knew that white launch well enough.

“Turn him over, Harry.”

Harry got his hands under the corpse and gently rolled it onto its back. The body was almost completely bled out, and the grey face had been partly shot away, but Hawke recognized him instantly.

“His name is Hoodoo. That’s his launch back there.”

“Old pal of yours?”

“He works for a Russian here on Bermuda named Korsakov. Somehow, Korsakov’s tied to this Jamaican lot. Let’s go.”

They quickly moved toward the deserted village of low concrete buildings, weapons at the ready, fanning out and looking for any hint of movement behind the black and empty windows. They’d decided to proceed with hand signals alone, and Harry now signaled Hawke that he’d enter the village first, clearing it with his SAW if necessary. Hawke indicated that he understood. Harry would clear; he would follow.

It wasn’t necessary to clear. They proceeded into the island’s jungle interior unopposed. It was tough going with the guns out front, their muzzles catching on the thick vines and undergrowth, but Hawke figured this was the way Congreve and Trulove must have traveled. The jungle gave way to a kind of path here, overgrown but clearly still well used as a route to and from the dock. Judging from the crumbling cement structures they’d seen, Hawke knew this was what was left of the old NASA tracking station, the buildings abandoned years ago. But these were pumping stations, maintenance sheds, and other secondary structures. The main building had to be somewhere deeper in the interior.

Brock went down on one knee, and his hand shot up, palm flat. Hawke froze, taking a knee as well, his SAW pulled tight into his shoulder. He could hear low voices ahead. The sweet smell of
ganja
hung in the still night air. After a few moments, he and Harry both pulled out the assault knives strapped just above their ankles and started moving again toward the sound of the voices.

There was a clearing and a small ravine ahead, deep and wide enough to have a wooden suspension bridge strung across it. There were two men guarding the entrance to the bridge, although
guarding
may have been too strong a word. They sat on the ground, cross-legged, on either side of the narrow bridge opening, with what looked to be automatic weapons across their laps. They were passing a thickly rolled spliff back and forth between them, joking about something in hushed tones.

Hawke came up behind Harry and whispered into his ear, “I’ve got left, you take right. Go.”

In an instant, moving swiftly and silently, they were on the two guards, wrestling them quickly to the ground. Hawke immediately went for his man’s throat, drawing his razor-sharp blade from right to left, feeling the sudden warm gush as the man’s jugular was sliced open. Harry’s man suffered a similar fate. They left them there and crossed the wildly swaying rope bridge at a run, automatic weapons at the ready.

Moving through dark jungle on the ravine’s opposite side, they felt the path start to climb. The vegetation was thinning out, there was starlight, and Hawke was sure they were nearing the Disciples’ compound. It would only make sense that the primary tracking station would be situated on the island’s highest ground.

“Lights,” Harry whispered, and they came to a stop, crouching side by side at the edge of wide clearing, still hidden within the heavy foliage. “Up there on the hill.”

A decrepit two-story concrete structure, almost completely hidden by heavy looping vines and overgrown banana trees, sat on the hillside. The windows were curtained, but pale light shone from within those on the upper floor. At the front, an arched entrance with the door ajar, light spilling out. On the roof, the rusted-out antennas and radar dishes of a bygone era, a space race the good guys won.

This building had once been used to monitor the trajectories of giant Atlas rockets roaring overhead just three minutes after they’d departed the launch pad at Cape Canaveral. How the mighty had fallen. Now this decaying ruin was the headquarters of old King Coale, and a not so merry old soul was he. At least, that’s what Hawke would bet.

“Guy by the door,” Harry whispered as they crouched in the bush. “Armed.”

“Yeah.”

“My gut,” Harry said, “Ambrose and Trulove are inside that building.”

“My gut, too, Harry. Sit tight. We’ve got to do this right the first time, or they could get hurt.”

“Assuming they’re still alive.”

“We wouldn’t be here if we didn’t assume that.”

Hawke felt an old twinge of irritation. Sometimes Harry talked too much. There was a negative cast to his personality that Hawke did not admire. Still, he was a good man in a fight, hard as hell to kill, and Hawke was glad he had him along tonight.

The man by the door was slouched in a chair, smoking a cigarette. A rifle dangled loosely from one hand. Hawke saw something familiar: the long dreadlocks hanging about the shoulders, the Selassie sweatshirt, and the heavy gold chains draped around the neck. And even in the low light, the gleam of gold at his mouth.

“I know this guy,” Hawke said, studying the figure through a small monocular hung around his neck.

“Who is he?”

“Calls himself the Prince of Darkness. Name is Desmond Coale. He’s the son of the man who’s been invading my privacy, Samuel Coale. Coale’s inside that building.”

“Head shot,” Harry said matter-of-factly. He’d affixed the silencer to his SAW and was putting his eye to the night-vision scope preparatory to putting a single round through Desmond’s left ear.

“No,” Hawke said, pulling the barrel down. “We’ll use Desmond to get to the father. We’ll split up, circle around through the woods to either side of the building, come at him from behind. On the count of thirty, make some kind of noise over on your side of the building, get him to come to you. I’ll do the rest. Thirty seconds. On my mark. Ready, Harry?”

“Born ready.”

“Remember, we want this character alive, Harry. Go.”

They separated, Harry going left, Hawke right, each man moving quickly and silently through the dense vegetation that surrounded the old NASA building. Hawke saw movement behind the curtains in an upstairs window. Someone pulled the curtain aside and peered out into the darkness for a few moments, then disappeared. There was music, loud reggae, and some raucous laughter coming from that upstairs room. Hawke recognized the song playing. Jimmy Cliff’s “The Harder They Come.”

Hawke ran quickly from the cover of the woods to the side of the crumbling concrete building. He paused briefly, looking at his dive watch. In five seconds, Harry would somehow distract Desmond. He moved to the front of the building and peered around the corner. Desmond was still in his chair, head down, reading his newspaper in the yellow light of the doorway.

A second later, a muddy old soccer ball bounced from behind the other side of the building. It rolled to a stop maybe fifteen feet from young Coale’s feet. He looked over at it, threw his paper to the ground, got up, and went over to see what the hell was going on.

“Who’s dat fuckin’ wit me?” he said loudly, still holding the rifle loosely at his side. Getting no reply, he went forward to pick up the ball.

That’s when Hawke made his move. He was around the corner and up behind Desmond before the Rastaman had taken three steps toward the ball. As Desmond stood, Hawke snatched a great handful of thick, matted dreadlocks, yanked the man’s head straight back, and lay the flat side of his serrated assault blade against his throat, just under the bobbing Adam’s apple.

“Dat’s me fuckin’ wit you, Prince,” Hawke whispered into the man’s ear.

“Who?”

“My name is Hawke, remember me? My colleague and I have come here to kill you. Or collect our friends. Your call. Nod if you understand your two choices, Desmond.”

The Jamaican made a strangled sound in his throat and said, “Dat’s not me, mon. I ain’t de Prince, mon, dat’s Desmond, he’s my bra’. My brother inside de house. I am called Clifford.”

“You look a whole lot like Desmond to me.”

“We
twins
, mon, I swear it’s de troo’t.”

Hawke sensed it was. It was tough to lie convincingly with a knife at your throat.

“Say one word, Clifford, you make any sound at all, and you’re dead. Understand me?”

Clifford managed to nod yes without slicing his own throat open. His brother had already told him this Hawke was a man to be taken seriously.

“Okay, Clifford, relax. We’re all going inside now.”

Hawke looked over his shoulder and saw Harry moving toward the open entrance with his weapon at the ready.

“Is your father inside? Upstairs?” Hawke whispered in Clifford’s ear. “Nod, yes or no.”

Getting a yes, Hawke said, “I believe the old man has company. Two Englishmen. Yes?”

He got another yes nod.

“Excellent. Let’s go see how they’re doing. You’d better start praying that no harm has come to them. You understand me?”

He turned the man around and marched him to the entrance, the two of them going inside the front door just behind Harry Brock.

They walked into a big square room filled with sofas and a blank large-screen TV on one wall. The room was empty except for the trash swept into the corners. So, apparently, was the smaller room beyond, which was dominated by a large snooker table, the felt long gone, probably used for meetings and dining. A naked bulb, dimly lit, dangled above the table. To the right, an open staircase led to the second floor.

“Where is everybody, Clifford? Whisper.”

“Dey mostly off island, it bein’ Saturday night. Drinkin’ wit de Skanktown ho’s at de Skibo Grill, mos’ likely.”

“Where’s your father?”

“He upsteers. Wit de prisoners. Wit my bra’. Dey havin’ a party up dere.”

“Let’s crash that party, shall we?”

They quickly mounted the stairs, Harry first with his SAW at the ready. There was a long hallway, hot, damp, and funky, leading to the rear of the building. The music was louder now, and also the sound of laughter was coming from the room Hawke had seen from the woods. The sweet stench of marijuana was almost overpowering. The heat inside the concrete building was intense, even hours after sundown.

“Okay,” Hawke said. “Harry, you’re through the door first, go in low, and show your weapon to get everyone’s attention. I’ll be right behind you with the Prince’s lookalike. Got it?”

“Got it, boss,” Harry said, smiling. He loved this stuff, lived for it. It was all over his face.

The peeling wooden hallway door was closed. From behind it came a confused roaring, laughter, and a breaking of glass. Hawke stood behind Harry, with Clifford still immobilized by his blade, and watched Harry’s right foot strike the door halfway up, blowing it inward. Harry went in low and racked the slide on the SAW, letting everybody get a good peek down the barrel, not a sight recommended for the faint-hearted. The ragged men were stunned but remained sitting in rows of chairs three deep that formed a ring in the center of the floor.

Hawke followed Harry inside, took it all in at a glance. The temperature inside the unpainted concrete-block room had to be more than a hundred degrees Fahrenheit. The smells of copious sweat, coppery blood, and spilt rum hit him like a wall. There was a rooster trapped in the center of the circle, and the men seated all around were taking great delight in hurling empty rum bottles at the bird, the cock screeching and flapping about. The bird was bloodied, had been hit a few times, and the concrete floor was covered with smeared blood and broken glass. A pile of feathery corpses lay at the feet of one of the participants.

The men’s golden smiles froze on their dark faces, and the effect was startling. Some of them still held half-empty rum bottles poised above their heads, but they lowered them as they saw the grim expression on Hawke’s face. And the second semiautomatic weapon he held in his left hand.

Hawke pushed Clifford inside in front of him and let everybody get a good look at him. Harry began patting down the party boys, looking for weapons.

“Anybody armed, Harry?” Hawke asked. “Aside from the rum bottles, I mean?”

“Clean so far,” Harry said, moving around the circle, carefully checking each man for weapons.

“Which one of you hearty sportsmen is King Coale?” Hawke asked, although he’d already guessed Samuel Coale was the one in the flowing purple dashiki and the snow-white dreads that reached to his waist. He had a wide leather belt around his corpulent belly and an ugly machete dangling in a sheath. Behind him, on the wall, a huge Ethiopian flag and an old poster of Emperor Haile Selassie, fist raised, the Lion of Judah himself, reluctant father of the Rasta movement.

Old King Coale rose from his tatty throne, the only upholstered armchair of the lot. He kicked a few rooster corpses out of his way and took a step forward.

“Yahweh is Lord, and I am his king,” he said, Rasta-style. “You come looking for your friends, Lord Hawke?”

“I have. Where are they?”

King Coale inclined his head left toward a closed door on the far wall.