Warriors (33 page)

Here was oak paneling and hideous Victorian sconces on all four walls, the balance presenting an inappropriate, tortured, Gothic decor despite Watanabe’s best attempts at style. Congreve found a switch plate and flipped all three brass toggles. Nothing. The electricity had surely been turned off by the police, as well as the gas. He turned his attention to the hearth, to a smattering of half-burned pages in the grate and—

There was something else in the air.

He put his murder bag on the floor beside his feet, closed his eyes, and inhaled deeply once more.

Yes.

A scent now came to him, one most startling to his highly developed and attuned olfactory systems.

A very faint trace of very expensive perfume. How very odd, indeed, but there it was. A female visitor? One sophisticated and of sufficient means to afford . . . yes, he had it now . . . Les Parfums de Saint Laurent? A memorably musky scent. Diana had dabbed it on her wrist for him a month or so ago at Harrods. Not the one perfume he adored, the Chanel No. 5, but something unfamiliar called . . . Shalimar. A portrait of the wearer gradually formed in his mind. She was a somewhat younger, rather than older, woman, a fashionable young thirties perhaps. And well heeled to boot.

He tried to imagine just such a woman traveling out to the back of beyond to visit an elderly, brooding loner like Watanabe-san. A man for whom books and Brahms were life’s sole companions. He couldn’t do it. He’d be more than surprised if Watanabe had ever had a visitor out here in all those decades. He’d had a woman look in once or twice a week to make sure he was still breathing and had something in the larder to eat, but—

A noise.

A slight scraping sound from the floor above.

And then the squeak of a door hinge.

C
H A P T E R
  4 5

H
awke heard a soft rapping at his library door.

He almost missed it. Having returned to his country home again on that same Saturday night after the lunch meeting at Black’s, he’d just concluded a troubling conversation with Lady Mars. She was deeply worried about Ambrose, off on some wild-goose chase again, driving that damnable car on icy roads . . .

“He’s an old hand, Diana, you know that,” Hawke tried to reassure her.

“Too old, in my view, to be chasing around the countryside in weather like this.”

“It’s what he does, dear. It’s what he does. He’ll be all right. After all these years, he knows how to take care of himself, I assure you.”

“If anything ever happened to that man, Alex, I just don’t think I could . . . you know . . .”

“I do know.”

He’d calmed her as best he could before he rung off. Then put his head back on his chair and closed his eyes. Times like this, knowing a battle was coming, that an enemy masthead would soon peek over the horizon, he forced himself to take time to gather himself. It was said he was good at war. Maybe it was because he was so inordinately fond of peace.

He listened to the sounds of the great house. The low crackle of the dying embers. The ticktock of the bracket clock on the shelf. The wind . . .

A massive horse chestnut stood sentinel outside, beyond the tall windows; her barren winter branches, blowing in the winds off the hills, scratched and scraped against his windows.

“Going back to China,” he whispered to himself, subconsciously rubbing his wounded leg. A place where he was extremely unpopular. Had been for years.

Ah, well.

He looked at his watch and yawned. Nearly ten o’clock. He’d been hard at it since noon, plowing through the boxes of CIA intelligence briefings and Lightstorm dossiers that had begun arriving daily from C.
Must have lost track of the time,
he said to himself, stifling another lengthy yawn. Another knock, more insistent.

“Yes?”

Who could it be? It wasn’t Pelham’s familiar knock, so . . .

The door opened a crack.

“So sorry to disturb you, sir.”

“Not at all, Miss Churchill. Please come in. I’m just catching up on my reading. Nothing that can’t wait, I assure you. Come in, do come in.”

He closed one of the bright red MI6 “Eyes Only” DPRK folders he’d been studying, placed it on the table beside his chair, covering it carelessly with the as-yet-unread
Financial Times
. He couldn’t wait to return to the dossiers. He’d always known things were godawful inside North Korea under Kim Jong-il. He’d had no inkling till now just how bad they had become under his son, Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un. It was an inhuman and almost incomprehensible situation. Intolerable, if you overlooked the depressing fact that the entire world tolerated it.

And now, according to this dossier, the North Koreans had nuclear-tipped intercontinental missiles capable of—

“Ah, there you are,” he said.

Sabrina came into the room, commented on the abysmal weather, paused before the lovely crackling fire, and finally found his eyes.

“Good evening, sir,” she said quietly, hands clasped behind her back, peering up from beneath long lashes. What was the word? Demure.

“Good evening, Sabrina. Alexei asleep yet?”

“Yes, sir. We read
Wind in the Willows
until eight. Fast asleep now. Such a lovely little boy. So very sweet.”

Hawke smiled.

Sabrina Churchill was a very pretty girl. A bit on the pleasing side of plump, as Congreve would say, and he could well imagine why legions of men would be wildly attracted to her. She had lovely skin, a creamy English rose complexion, and an abundance of honey blond hair. And her face was lovely, too. Pretty china blue eyes, upturned nose, dewy red lips . . . an ample bosom . . . Yes. A gracious, lovely young woman indeed.

And tough as hell in a pinch, apparently, according to Nell Spooner. Never afraid to put her life on the line in the course of duty.

Hawke, watching her enter his favorite room, decided it was all going to work out for the best. He had been bereft, heartbroken, really, at Nell’s decision to leave him. He understood it and could not lay a hint of blame at her doorstep. But, apart from his romantic feelings, he had thought she was irreplaceable, and so far Miss Churchill had proven him wrong.

Still, he sometimes wondered what must be going through her mind.

Did she know about his passionate relationship with her predecessor? Of course she did. The two career women were very close friends, had shared a small bedsit at the Lygon Arms in the historic Cotswolds town of Broadway once upon a time. The pub life for young people back then was thriving; perhaps it still was. Surely they’d shared everything, every intimate secret, over a pint or two on a Saturday night, including, no doubt, the nitty-gritty details of his relationship with Nell.

One thing was obvious in Sabrina’s eyes. Love and life had perhaps treated her somewhat harshly. Sadly, she seemed to have been searching in vain for love or some approximation of it for a very long time. And had never found it. Her unfulfilled needs and desires were well managed and she kept all well hidden beneath her exterior. Camouflage. But not quite enough of it.

He’d heard a good deal about her torturous love life from Nell in the days before she’d left for Washington, a new man, and a new life. Not by way of gossip; Nell was never that. But by way of relevant information. Ms. Churchill was, after all, inheriting a very sensitive and demanding position. Somewhat high profile, you might say.

Here was a precocious young charge, a boy whose life had already been seriously threatened three times. All attempts had been foiled, of course, one by Hawke on a Siberian railway and the other two by Nell herself in the Florida Everglades and in London’s Hyde Park two short years ago.

So. The story of Sabrina Churchill. Perhaps not an entirely happy tale, he was sorry to say. But it was none of his affair. She was here to protect his son from harm, and her credentials in that department were impeccable. At the Yard, she’d been responsible for the well-being of two headstrong young men belonging to the Royals and she’d done a magnificent job of it.

So here she was, a young woman with both Charles’s and Andrew’s blessing, as well as the Yard’s, now in the employ of Lord Alexander Hawke.

She placed her fist before her mouth and coughed to gain his attention. He’d apparently been staring into the fire, rather rudely lost in thought, for quite some time, it appeared.

“Oh. Sorry,” he said. “Mind was elsewhere.”

“I understand you wished to see me, sir? Pelham mentioned something this evening. I hope this is not an inconvenient time, m’lord.”

“Not at all. Please, do sit down. Yes, right there is fine, just fine. Bit drafty in here tonight, closer to the hearth the better. Good, good.”

She settled into the wing-backed chair beside the crackling fire and smoothed her dress.
Prim, too,
he thought.

“Thank you, sir.”

“How are you finding it here, Sabrina?”

“Wonderful, your lordship. Delightful. Alexei is the dearest child imaginable. I can see why Nell was so heartbroken. To leave you. Leave him, I mean. Of course.”

“Yes.”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“No. Of course you didn’t. Tell me, Sabrina. How are your rooms? Finding everything to your liking? Pelham and I had them freshened up a bit for you. Bit of paint and putty, and all that.”

“Yes, sir. Very nice, indeed. The view of the south gardens and the hills is sublime. Pelham has fresh flowers placed there in my room every day.”

“Good. Very good.”

“Lovely man, Pelham. So kind. And generous to a fault . . .”

She’d apparently run out of dialogue.

“Well, then. We haven’t really spoken much since your arrival. I just wanted to tell you that I think you’re doing a fine job, Sabrina. I was of course a bit worried about my child when Nell announced her resignation. But you’ve stepped right in and picked up the reins where she left off. Alexei seems very comfortable with you. Happy, in fact.”

“Thank you, sir. I thought . . . I thought . . .”

“Thought what, Sabrina?”

“I was afraid that you were . . . that you weren’t pleased. With my job performance. That I’d disappointed you.”

“Not at all, Sabrina. On the contrary, I’m very pleased with how you’ve accommodated yourself to our rather odd situation. We are, truth be told, a bit eccentric around here. We dance not only to a different drummer, but to an entirely different orchestra. Always have, I’m afraid.”

She sat forward in the chair, awash with relief.

“Oh. Good. I’m so glad you’re pleased, sir. Thank you very, very much.”

“Sabrina, listen. The real reason I asked to see you was not to shower you with well-deserved praise. It is because I will be going away shortly. I have to leave England for a few weeks. Business, you know. I wanted to make sure everything was all right before I left. Both for your comfort and my own peace of mind.”

“I appreciate that, sir.”

“I’m leaving first thing Monday. It occurred to me that you haven’t taken a day, much less an hour, off since you arrived. I’m well aware how exhausting caring for an energetic four-year-old boy can be. I think you should take a day or two off this coming weekend before my trip. And I do think you could use a break from all of us. No?”

“Well, m’lord, I don’t know what to say. I—”

“Sabrina, please. Go into town. Have some fun. Perhaps go over to Broadway for a couple of days. That charming inn there, the Lygon Arms. Do whatever you’d like. A minivacation. How does that sound?”

“Are you sure that would be all right?”

“Of course. It’s my idea.”

“Well, I suppose I will have to arrange for another Royal Protection officer to cover me in my absence.”

“That won’t be necessary. I’ll be here with him.”

“I’m afraid it’s a very strict policy, your lordship. Besides, my dearest friend, Lauren Powell, is one of the Royal Protection officers they usually send out to cover. Lauren is a delight, sir. But all business. An extraordinarily capable woman.”

“Even better.”

“Well, then. Thank you. I should be delighted to take you up on your very kind offer, sir.”

“Good. It’s settled, then.”

“I do appreciate your kindness.”

“Not at all, Sabrina.”

She stood and straightened her dress.

“Good night, sir.”

“Good night, Sabrina. Sleep well.”

After Sabrina had gone, Hawke picked up his China and North Korea files and cracked them open. He read two or three paragraphs about the atrocities perpetrated on these poor people by a corrupt, immoral government and couldn’t decide who was worse. The North Koreans for their appalling abuse of human rights. Or the Chinese for looking the other way just to keep this bloody buffer zone on their border.

There was a disc in a paper slip chase marked “NK Propaganda Film, 60 secs.”

He popped it in. He found himself watching the most bizarre snippet of film imaginable. A North Korean man falls asleep to dream of an NK missile being launched. His face remains superimposed as the missile circles the globe, finally descending through the clouds toward a city that looks like New York. An American flag shields the city but the missile pierces it and explodes, turning the city to fire and ash. The man smiles in his sleep and turns over. All this to the music of Michael Jackson’s “We Are the World.”

Insanity.

He made a note to show the damn thing to C. These people were not only murderous thugs, bellicose and getting worse . . . he was now convinced that they were utterly and completely insane. For the first time, he was absolutely convinced the rest of the world was dealing with a nuclear power with zero sense of right and wrong, without even a scintilla of respect for human life. How long, he wondered, would civilized societies continue to put up with this?

He sighed. He was sick of reading about brutal torture, starvation, and summary executions. But he was damn well going to find out if there were any Americans imprisoned there and, if so, get them the hell out. And, by God, he’d make sure these lunatics knew his name before this was all over. Knew it, and would never forget it.