Warriors (26 page)

She looked up at him, her eyes brimming with fresh tears, and saw that his own beautiful blue eyes were spilling over.

“I do love you, Nell. You know that.”

“I know you do, Alex. Believe me, I know love when I see it. But I never really felt that we were forever. I hoped that we were, prayed that we were, but I never felt that—”

“You don’t have to say it, Nell. I know what’s in your heart. We both know the problem is mine, not yours. It’s my inability to let go of Alexei’s mother that’s killing us. And even though she refused to leave Russia and come home with my son and me . . . I can’t seem to . . . I can’t let go of—”

He buried his face in his hands, his shoulders heaving with sorrow.

“Alex, please don’t. We’ve been through this all a thousand times. It doesn’t change. And that’s the problem between us. We both knew this moment might come, even if we kept lying to ourselves that it wouldn’t.”

He looked up, getting himself under control.

“Yes, yes, I suppose you’re right. Tell me, dear Nell. Tell me where are you going, darling? Back to London?”

“No. To America. Washington. I’ve been offered a position with the British ambassador there. You know him. Sir Richard Champion. He thinks the world of you. All his staff does. I had a hard time convincing them that you would be all right and—”

He managed a smile. “I’ll be all right. We . . . will be all right.”

“God, I hope so. Otherwise I could never forgive myself for—”

“Is there someone else? You don’t have to tell me.”

“Yes, Alex, there is. A man I went with in college at St. Andrews. He works for MI6 now, but he’s posted as a second secretary at the British embassy.”

“What’s his name?”

“Fielding. Fielding Lawrence. We’ve been corresponding these last six months. I saw him again when I went on holiday in Madeira some months ago. On the last night, he asked me to marry him and come to America. I refused, but he wouldn’t give up. He wants to have children, Alex. So do I. And he does love me.”

“He’s very lucky, darling.”

“Is he, Alex?”

“You are the most wonderful woman. The smartest, bravest, most beautiful woman, Nell. When I think of all you’ve done for Alexei . . . for us . . . We simply could not have survived, literally, without you.”

Nell dabbed at her eyes once more, and he could see her willing herself to go on.

“I—I took the liberty of trying to find someone for Alexei. Only if you wish it, of course. I’m not leaving until you’ve found someone you trust for Alexei. I can’t. Her name is Sabrina, Sabrina Churchill. Distant relation. She works for Royal Protection, Scotland Yard. She’s lovely, Alex. One of the very best the Yard has at what she does. You’ve actually met her. She worked for the Prince of Wales a few years ago, back when the two boys were in their early twenties and frankly a handful.”

“A trial by fire. I’d say she’s been tested.” Hawke smiled.

“Yes. You can talk to Prince Charles about her. She’s fairly young, not quite thirty, a little younger than me, but she has a sterling reputation and has earned the respect and trust of the Royal Family over the years . . . what do you think?”

“I’d like to meet her, Nell. Introduce her to Alexei. And I appreciate your doing that for us. Finding her, I mean.”

Nell looked away.

“Oh, Alex. Oh my God, it’s all just so very sad, isn’t it?”

“Sad doesn’t begin to cover it, Nell.”

“Look. I want you to know something. If ever there comes a time, a time when you think you need me, or Alexei needs me, I will be there for you both. Always. I mean it.”

“I’ll always remember.”

“I will, too.”

Hawke looked away, gathering himself, and said, “I think one of us should tell Alexei soon, don’t you? He must know something’s not right . . .”

“I can do it.”

“No. His father should do it.”

“I suppose that’s right. I’ll go down to the house then . . . unless . . . Would you rather I do it, Alex? Shall I tell him? Would that be easier for you?”

“It should come from me, I think.”

“I pray God he’ll be all right.”

“Yes. He’ll be all right.”

She rose, squeezed his hand one last time, and turned away.

After she’d disappeared down the hill and into the woods, he watched Alexei and his sled for a long, long time before he got up to take his hand and lead him home.

A bleakness swept over him then, not wholly unexpected. A bitter, sick feeling in his gut, the knowledge that he was losing yet another person he cared deeply for. He had always pretended to himself that he didn’t love Nell as much as he’d loved Anastasia; it was a cheap, even dishonest way of keeping a certain distance. He’d reassured himself that his heart was already fully booked, that the woman he truly loved most was his son’s mother. Anastasia. Married to another man, but still as in love with him as he was with her. So what the hell was he supposed to do?

He’d tell his son about Nell tonight, when he was tucked safely into his bed.

And then he’d pour himself a good stiff Irish whiskey and sit before the fire, think about Nell and his own shortcomings as a man and, perhaps, what a fool he’d been to let her go.

When he was sufficiently anesthetized, he’d go to bed.

He had a tough day ahead of him come Monday. He was having lunch with C, the ornery old salt.

“Nell,” he whispered as he finally fell asleep that night, “Nell . . . don’t go . . .”

C
H A P T E R
  3 3

A
lex Hawke could count on one hand the number of times he’d been summoned to Sir David Trulove’s home, Quarterdeck, for lunch. Sir David Trulove, traditionally known within the MI6 spy mecca as C, was not a particularly social animal. He would join Hawke for lunch, cards, certainly drinks, or the occasional supper at Alex’s club in town, Black’s, but only occasionally. Those brief and spotty encounters were the extent of the two men’s relationship outside the confines of Six’s headquarters at Vauxhall on the South Bank of the Thames.

Sir David, a crusty former admiral in the Royal Navy, was one of the great heroes of the Falklands War. Beneath that rough exterior lay, as Hawke liked to say, an even rougher interior. C was in fact a hard man but a fair one, as salty as they come, and there was a lot of real but steadfastly unacknowledged affection between the two men.

Hawke was not operating under any illusions. Especially any faint notion that there was to be anything social about this occasion. Something was up.

Odds were it had to be something fairly serious, too. If the old man wasn’t comfortable discussing it within the soundproof confines of his sanctum santorum, namely his triple-secure office at MI6 HQ, then it had to be serious all right, deadly serious. Perhaps the old man had finally run down the bastards behind the attack on his friend McCloskey’s funeral at Arlington. That would be welcome news. The Americans seemed besieged in the Pacific, and it wasn’t at all a healthy state of affairs.

Ah well, things had been a bit slow at home ever since Hawke had returned from the hospital after the South China Sea business. He’d spent weeks at both RAF HQ in London and, in Washington, at the Pentagon in top-secret meetings. He was endlessly debriefed about his China experiences. The SAM that had brought him down, the new Chinese carrier itself, the F-35C Lightning the Chinese had duplicated and somehow surpassed. And, of course, the huge black, bat-winged stealth drone he found hiding in the carrier deck hangar, now believed to be a prototype of the one destroyed over Arlington.

HE DECIDED NOT TO WORRY
about his upcoming meeting, whatever it was about, and just enjoy the ride. He relished the deep rumble of the finely tuned Jaguar racing engine as he geared down for a tight right-hander. The view of countryside over the swooping British racing green bonnet of the vintage C-type race car gave the whole world a better aspect.

Hawke noticed something immediately upon arrival. At the guarded entrance to Quarterdeck, it was obvious that security on the heavily wooded estate had been dramatically enhanced. Once he’d been waved through, he noticed that not a few operatives in mufti were visible, and surely many more in full camo who were not. Hardly surprising, Hawke thought, considering recent events.

One month earlier, in the wee hours of a Sunday morning, four intruders wearing ceramic-bead bomb vests inside their anoraks had managed to gain access to the property. Three had been shot dead after scaling a wall by two very alert members of household security dressed as scrub brush on the perimeter.

When killed, the fourth was crouching with a serrated knife on a small balcony outside Sir David’s second-story bedroom. Britain’s head of Secret Intelligence lay sleeping not fifteen feet away.

That man, the leader, was later determined to be a highly sought Chinese Te-Wu (secret police) assassin named Ku Lin. The leader of a UK-based terrorist cell, Ku Lin had been linked to the Chinese intelligence agency in the past. And involved in the assault on the British ambassador just prior to the brutal murder of the American ambassador Christopher Stevenson and three other Americans at the U.S. embassy in Tokyo.

THE DRIVE WOUND UPWARD AND
so to a clearing where the classic Georgian house stood in its glory, foursquare to the wind. Rumbling to a stop under the porte cochere, Hawke switched off the snarling engine and saw Sir David standing by the opened front door.

“So. I invite Lord Alex Hawke for lunch and I get Sir Stirling Moss, do I?” Trulove said as Hawke bounded up the broad steps to the formal entrance, snatching the vintage racing goggles off his head. The car had only the tiny twin racing windscreens, and eye protection was necessary at speed.

“Sir Stirling doesn’t get trapped behind a broken-down removals lorry for twenty minutes like I just did. Sorry I’m late.”

“Well. Come inside and have a drink before lunch. This way, please.”

C had a roaring fire going in his book-lined library. Through the tall ice-frosted windows a thin watery sun was trying to make its way through the clouds. A white-jacketed Royal Navy steward was decanting a bottle of claret at the drinks table. When he saw the two men enter, he finished his task and discreetly disappeared without a sound.

“Do you want wine or rum?” C said, or rather barked. “Do sit down.”

Hawke sat in the deep leather chair, crossed his long legs, and smiled at the boss’s lifelong habit of making even the slightest suggestion sound like an order from on high.

“Rum, please. Neat. Gosling’s Black Seal if you have it.”

“Of course we have it. You’re the only one in this corner of England who drinks the damn stuff and there’s always some left over from the last soiree.” He handed Hawke a glass. He took his own whiskey to the chair opposite and collapsed into it.

“
Slange var
,” Trulove said, raising his glass and sipping. It was the Gaelic toast meaning “Get it to the hole!”

“Cheers. You really should try the damn stuff, sir. You might enjoy it.”

“You like it, Alex, that’s what matters, I suppose. How are you? How’s the bum leg? Still using the swagger stick, I see. Holding up all right?”

“As well as can be expected I suppose. Still a bit stiff. Oh. And Nell Spooner has flown the coop, I’m sad to say.”

“Yes, yes. Know all about it. Dumped you for one of our very own Six lads at the British embassy in Washington. A step up for her, in my opinion. And he’ll make an honest woman of her, I daresay. We all knew you had no intention of marrying the dear girl.”

Hawke stiffened. He didn’t at all like his personal life being scrutinized in this way and was very tempted to say so. He had to bite his tongue to remain silent.

“Sorry,” C said, sensing his offense. “I was trying to be jovial. No bloody good at it, I suppose. Your private life is none of my affair. But only to a certain extent. The fact is, Alex, I’m seriously concerned for little Alexei’s safety.”

“As am I, sir.” Hawke said, sipping his rum. “But Nell’s promised to find someone to step in for her. A woman named Sabrina Churchill has been mentioned. Formerly Royal Protection at the Yard. Quite a formidable woman, from what I’ve heard.”

“Never heard of her. But I’ll have her vetted immediately. Meanwhile, what’s the security status at Hawkesmoor? The grounds, et cetera.”

“The perimeter is as impenetrable as can be done. The usual motion, audio, and heat sensors all over the grounds. More than a few of the groundspeople, gardeners, and maintenance staff are security. If there’s a way inside all that, I don’t know what it is. And it will remain that way until I have a new bodyguard.”

“Still. If someone wants to get at him, they can and will. As you well know.”

“I do. I worry about it all the time.”

“You let me know if you need anything more during this transition period, won’t you? Until Miss Churchill arrives?”

“Thank you, sir.”

“No need to thank me, Alex. We’re all family here. Are we not?”

“Well, if you put it that way, sir, yes, I suppose we are.”

“Lunch?”

“Sounds delightful.”

C
H A P T E R
  3 4

O
peration Lightstorm,” C said. He replaced his soupspoon, sat back, and got his pipe going. “Heard of it?”

“No, sir. Can’t say that I have.”

“Good. I still have a precious few secrets from you.”

“Need-to-know is not what it used to be.”

“Hmm. You will remember that some years ago, back in 2009, actually, a brilliant American scientist and inventor vanished. Puff of smoke. The whole family, gone. Urban myth was he had gotten rather tired of the game and moved his whole family to Borneo. A genius protection plan, some wag said at the time.”

“William Chase?”

“That’s his name, yes.”

“I do recall that. Chase. The fellow who founded Lightstorm Advanced Weapons Systems. America’s preeminent twenty-first-century genius. My understanding is that he is gravely ill, sir. Although he hasn’t been seen in public in years, he’s apparently on life support holed up in one of his grand estates in the western United States. Utah, I believe, or the Front Range of the Rockies.”