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  Warlord

  Series: Alex Hawke [6]

  Published: 2011

  Rating: ★★★★

  Tags: Fiction, Suspense, Thrillers, Fiction - Espionage, Mystery And Suspense Fiction, Thriller, Espionage, Crime, American Mystery Suspense Fiction, Intelligence officers, Attempted assassination, Great Britain, Hawke; Alex (Fictitious character), Royal houses

  Fictionttt Suspensettt Thrillersttt Fiction - Espionagettt Mystery And Suspense Fictionttt Thrillerttt Espionagettt Crimettt American Mystery Suspense Fictionttt Intelligence officersttt Attempted assassinationttt Great Britainttt Hawke; Alex (Fictitious character)ttt Royal housesttt

  * * *

  SUMMARY:

  Counterspy Alexander Hawke races to stop a madman hell-bent on murdering the British royal family in this latest spellbinding action thriller in Ted Bell’s New York Times bestselling series. Alex Hawke has all but given up on life. The British-American MI6 counterterrorism operative lost the woman he loved almost a year ago and has sought refuge at the bottom of a rum bottle ever since. But late one night at his home on Bermuda, he receives a wake-up call . . . literally. His Royal Highness Prince Charles, an old friend, desperately needs his help. The prince has discovered a not-so-subtle threat directed toward the British royal family. What’s more, the evidence reveals an ominous connection to Charles’s god-father, Lord Mountbatten—the beloved family patriarch assassinated by an ingeniously designed bomb thirty years before. A shadowy figure from the past has the British crown in his sights, and has proven once before that his warnings are not to be taken lightly. Several clues point to IRA involvement, but the authorities have little to go on and answers are scarce. This is just the call to duty Hawke needs to get back into action—if the madman doesn’t strike first. Alex Hawke, one of the most dashing and compelling action heroes in all of thriller fiction, faces his most formidable challenge yet in Warlord, a gripping, white-knuckled adventure told with verve and swashbuckling panache by a master of the art.

  Warlord

  Ted Bell

  For Page Lee, who makes it magic

  An eye for an eye only makes the whole world blind.

  MAHATMA GANDHI

  Contents

  Epigraph

  One

  ALEX HAWKE HELD THE BATTERED GOLD Dunhill to the tip...

  Two

  AT TWO THIRTY THAT SAME FRIDAY afternoon, late for his...

  Three

  HAD TO BE THE MIDDLE of the night, but Hawke...

  Four

  PERHAPS THERE WAS A HAPPIER MAN in all of England...

  Five

  YOU DON'T REALLY MEAN TO SAY, Alex, that we are...

  Six

  DR. SAHIRA KARIM LOOKED AT HER WATCH. Nearly eight o'clock on...

  Seven

  HIGHGROVE HOUSE, THE HOME PRINCE CHARLES acquired in 1980, had...

  Eight

  HEATHER, YOU ALL RIGHT, BABY GIRL?" she heard her husband...

  Nine

  SERIOUSLY, HARRY, WHAT IN HELL DOES Langley brass think they're...

  Ten

  I'M SERIOUS, HARRY," STOKE SAID, GETTING back to the topic...

  Eleven

  THE BAD HUNCH MADE STOKELY JONES scan the beach area...

  Twelve

  STOKE SOMEHOW SQUIRMED HIS MASSIVE BULK out from under Harry...

  Thirteen

  TWO SPECIAL BRANCH DETECTIVES WERE STATIONED on either side of...

  Fourteen

  LORD MALMSEY NARROWED HIS EYES. Threats had risen dramatically in...

  Fifteen

  THERE WERE FEW THINGS IN LIFE Alex Hawke treasured more...

  Sixteen

  LOVELY SPOT, MR. SMITH," FAITH MCGUIRE allowed, rolling onto her side...

  Seventeen

  LORD LOUIS MOUNTBATTEN STOOD on the glistening tarmac in the...

  Eighteen

  FIVE INVISIBLE MEN SAT AROUND the battered kitchen table staring...

  Nineteen

  THE MONTHS PASSED QUICKLY. NOT SURPRISING, Smith thought, what with...

  Twenty

  THERE WAS A DEEP LIVE BAIT well in Shadow V's...

  Twenty-One

  CHANDRA FELT AN ALMOST OVERWHELMING URGE to trigger her automatic...

  Twenty-Two

  STOKELY JONES DOWNSHIFTED, GRABBING third, accelerating up and over the...

  Twenty-Three

  FLASHY BLONDE WITH A HUGE RACK was gunning for him,...

  Twenty-Four

  ALEX HAWKE AND AMBROSE CONGREVE HAD flown Hawke's plane across...

  Twenty-Five

  THE NAME OF THE ISLAND, THOMAS McMahon, if you please."

  Twenty-Six

  I REALLY THINK I AM GOING to be sick, Alex,"...

  Twenty-Seven

  NO SUDDEN MOVEMENT," ALEX SAID to his friend Congreve, barely...

  Twenty-Eight

  THE QUEUE WAS TRUDGING FORWARD at last. Smith pulled his...

  Twenty-Nine

  JOHN BULLINGTON DRUMMOND WAS KNOWN throughout England, Scotland, and Wales...

  Thirty

  SO SHE'S GIVING THE FAT GUY a BJ while he's...

  Thirty-One

  HARRY PLOPPED DOWN IN THE CHAIR, settled in, and stared...

  Thirty-Two

  DRIVE EXACTLY 39.7 MILES DUE WEST of Palm Beach, Florida,...

  Thirty-Three

  C'S OFFICE ON THE TOP FLOOR of MI6 Headquarters, an...

  Thirty-Four

  SIR DAVID SAID, "I BELIEVE ALEX Hawke has a question."

  Thirty-Five

  SMITH SAT STOCK-STILL IN THE SEMI-GLOOM, transfixed by the flickering...

  Thirty-Six

  SMITH HAD ONLY THIS MORNING TAKEN the tiny bedroom on...

  Thirty-Seven

  IN THE GREY DUSK OF A LATE summer evening, three...

  Thirty-Eight

  GOOD AFTERNOON, SERGEANT. I'm Detective Michelle Garcia, Palm Beach PD."

  Thirty-Nine

  STOKE'S FIRST FEW DAYS IN THE SLAM passed pretty much...

  Forty

  THE MUSLIM GENTLEMEN'S READING SOCIETY MET at the far end...

  Forty-One

  COMMANDER HAWKE HIMSELF," the commanding officer of the British Army...

  Forty-Two

  STAND BY, ZULU, YANKEE GOES GREEN in twenty seconds," Lieutenant...

  Forty-Three

  DAYBREAK. THE VENERABLE THAMES BARGE PUDGE, narrow of beam but...

  Forty-Four

  IT WAS THE VERY FIRST DAY of school and nobody...

  Forty-Five

  THE RED CRESCENT SOCIETY AMBULANCE rolled up Islamabad's Peshawar Road,...

  Forty-Six

  UNDER A TATTERED TENT PITCHED beneath a vast black dome...

  Forty-Seven

  HAWKE AND SAHIRA, DELAYED BY TRAFFIC, arrived at the nurses'...

  Forty-Eight

  STOKELY JONES TOLD HARRY BROCK HE needed a damn break...

  Forty-Nine

  THEY HAULED HIM ABOARD AND STRETCHED him out on the...

  Fifty

  BRIXDEN HOUSE, ANCESTRAL HOME to Lady Diana Mars, and countless...

  Fifty-One

  THE MAMMOTH C-130 HERCULES TRANSPORT TOUCHED down at 3:15 in...

  Fifty-Two

  ABDUL DAKKON SAID, "THERE IS a VIP section on one...

  Fifty-Three

  THE TEAM STRUCK THAT VERY NIGHT, two hours before dawn.

  Fifty-Four

  MUHAMMAD IMRAN SPED AWAY from the hospital in the Red...

  Fifty-Five

  HAWKE HOVERED OVER THE SEVERELY wounded Pakistani Army officer in...

  Fifty-Six

  THE RAT PATROL RODE OUT at dawn; the desert air...

  Fifty-Seven

  HAWKE, ABDUL DAKKON, AND A NUMBER of solemn-faced Pakistani militia...

  Fifty-Eight

 
THEY CLIMBED HIGHER INTO THE MOUNTAINS. Fewer men, fewer horses,...

  Fifty-Nine

  THE SMILE DIDN'T LAST LONG. After an hour of climbing,...

  Sixty

  A LONE MAN WALKED THROUGH THE DEEP and dusky Scottish...

  Sixty-One

  ALL THIRTY OF THE YOUNG HOMEGROWN U.K. terrorists gathered around...

  Sixty-Two

  THINGS WERE GOING HELLWARD FAST. Descending the curving stone steps...

  Sixty-Three

  HE TRIED TO GO BACK TO SLEEP, but it was...

  Sixty-Four

  THE GOOD NEWS, STOKE THOUGHT, WAS they'd gotten very lucky...

  Sixty-Five

  THE JUMPMASTER SHOUTED, "GET READY!" and Stoke, like everyone else,...

  Epilogue

  IT WAS ON A NASTY NOVEMBER evening some months after...

  About the Author

  Other Books by Ted Bell

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  BERMUDA, PRESENT DAY

  ALEX HAWKE HELD THE BATTERED GOLD Dunhill to the tip of his cigarette. First of the day always best, he thought absently, inhaling, padding barefoot across the polished mahogany floor. Expelling a long, thin plume of blue smoke, he sat down, collapsing against the sun-bleached cushions of the upholstered planter's chair.

  Pelham, his friend and valet of many years, had all the glass doors of the semi-circular living room at Teakettle Cottage flung open to the terrace. Had Alex Hawke bothered to notice the view, he would have found the riot of purple bougainvillea climbing over the low limestone wall, and, below and beyond that wall, the turquoise sea, ruffled with whitecaps, typically lovely for this time of year in Bermuda.

  But he seldom noticed such things anymore.

  He'd tried all the usual antidotes for sorrow. Endless walks on endless beaches, the headlong expedition deep into drink, seeking refuge at the bottom of a rum bottle. He'd tried everything, that is, except women. Ambrose Congreve, the retired head of Scotland Yard and Hawke's oldest friend, had unsuccessfully tried no end of schemes to lift Alex's spirits. The latest being women.

  "Women?" Alex had said, regretting a dinner party Ambrose and, his fiancee, Diana, were throwing in honor of Diana's beautiful young niece, a recent divorcee from London. "That part is over for me, Ambrose," Hawke said. "My heart's in the grave."

  His life had become a sort of floating dream, as most lives are when the mainspring's left out.

  His house was a long-abandoned sugar mill, with a crooked chimney on the domed roof that looked like the spout on a teakettle. The whitewashed stone mill house stood against a green havoc of banana trees overlooking the Atlantic. You could hear the waves crashing against jagged rocks some thirty feet below. Familiar Bermuda seabirds were darting about overhead, click-clicking petrels, swooping long-tails and cormorants and frigate birds.

  Hawke inhaled deeply, holding the smoke inside his lungs for as long as he could. God, he loved cigarettes. And why not? He rued all those years he'd wasted abstaining from tobacco. That first bite of nicotine afforded life an intense immediacy he seldom felt these days; the whole grey world suddenly awash in colors fresh as wet paint.

  Cancer sticks. Yeah, well, nobody lives forever, he said to himself, taking another drag and lazily stretching his long legs.

  Alex Hawke, even knee-deep in malaise, was a striking figure of a man. He was tall, well over six feet. He had a full head of thick black hair and a fine, high brow. His nose was long and straight above a sensuous mouth with hints of suppressed cruelty lurking at the edge of every flashing grin. But it was his ice-blue eyes people remembered, eyes that could suddenly widen and send a searing flash across an entire room.

  "Up bright and early this morning, m'lord," Pelham Grenville, Hawke's snowy-haired octogenarian butler, said, toddling in from the terrace. He had obviously been out hacking away in the banana groves for he was cradling a fresh-cut bushel of ripe bananas in his arms as he headed for the kitchen.

  "Bright and early?" Hawke said, taking a puff and letting his gaze fall on Pelham, irritated despite himself at the man's obvious sarcasm. "What time is it, anyway, you old possum?" He'd stopped wearing his wristwatch long ago. Watches and clocks were an anachronism, he'd informed his friend Ambrose, when Congreve had chided him for his habitual tardiness. The criticism fell on deaf ears. Nine times out of ten, what's the bloody point of knowing the time, anyway? It's not like you're going to miss something worthwhile.

  He'd come to a conclusion: Nothing ever happens.

  Pelham said, "Just going on twelve noon, sir."

  Hawke jammed the cigarette into the corner of his mouth and raised his arms above his head, yawning loudly and deeply.

  "Ah. The crack of noon. Nothing makes a man feel more in the pink than to be up and about when the blazing sun is fully risen in the azure sky. Wouldn't you agree, young Pelham?"

  "Indeed, sir," the old fellow said, turning his face away so Hawke couldn't see the pained look in his eyes. Pelham Grenville, like his father and grandfather before him, had been in service to the Hawke family all his life. He had practically raised young Alex after the tragic murder of his parents at the hands of drug pirates in the Caribbean when the boy was but seven.

  "Besides," Hawke said, "I've a doctor's appointment on for this afternoon. There's a treat. Get the eagerly anticipated results of my recent physical. One's health is almost a good enough reason to get out of bed, I suppose. Wouldn't you agree?"

  "What time is your appointment, sir?"

  "Two o'clock or thereabouts," he said, waving his cigarette in an airily vague manner.

  "Your friend former Chief Inspector Congreve will be taking you to the hospital, one hopes."

  "Congreve? No, no, don't be ridiculous, Pelham. No need to bother Ambrose. I don't need a Scotland Yard escort. I'm perfectly capable of getting over to King Edward's and back under my own steam. I'll take my motorcycle."

  Pelham winced. It had been raining early that morning. The roads were still slippery. The antique Norton motorcycle had become a sore subject between them. His lordship had been arrested at least three times for speeding, somehow charming his way out of being charged with driving under the influence on each occasion.

  Pelham said, "I'd be glad to take you round in the Jolly, sir. There's more rain in the forecast. The Jolly might be preferable to a motorcycle jaunt on those slick roads."

  "The Jolly? You must be mad."

  The bright yellow Jolly was a tiny Fiat 600, no doors, sporting a striped and fringed canvas roof. It was the "circus car" once well beloved by Lord Hawke. It no longer seemed to suit his ever-shifting moods.

  "Pelham, please, do try not to be such a fusty old nanny. That motorcycle of mine is one of the very few things I enjoy anymore. I damned well will take my motorcycle and that's the end of it."

  "Indeed, sir," Pelham said, turning away. Fusty old nanny, indeed! He was wholly unaccustomed to insult, and, although he knew Hawke never really meant to offend, such comments still stung.

  "Do you know what I'd especially like on a splendid morning like this?"

  "No, sir," Pelham said, not at all sure he wanted to find out. At one time it might have ranged from a simple pitcher of Bombay Sapphire martinis to flying in a chorus line of Las Vegas showgirls for the weekend. One hardly knew what to make of things any longer. But a grey pall of sadness and despair had settled over Teakettle Cottage, and Pelham was not at all sure how much more of it he could withstand.

  "A nice, frosty daiquiri, Pelham. Made with those lovely bananas. Gave me the idea, just seeing that splendid bushel of yours, fresh cut from the grove."

  "I intended to bake banana bread, sir."

  "Well, you've got more than enough there for both, I should think. Throw a couple in the blender will you, and whip up something frothy to get my juices flowing. The old 'eye-opener,' as your famous literary relative's character Bertram Wooster used to say. By the way, what time did I get home last night? Any idea a
t all?"

  "None, sir."

  "He strikes again, does he not?"

  "Who strikes, sir?"

  "The Midnight Kamikaze. Isn't that what you called me the other night? Misplaced my key so I climbed in through the kitchen window as I recall."

  "Such colorful phraseology is well beyond the limits of my verbal palette, sir, but perhaps if the shoe fits."

  Pelham ducked behind the monkey-wood bar and started making the daiquiri. His lordship, much heartened, smiled at the all-too-familiar whir of the antique Waring blender. Tempted as he was, Pelham knew better than to try to fudge on the silver jigger of Gosling's rum. His lordship would notice, then fall into one of his black moods, thinking everyone, even Pelham, was out to deprive or deceive him in some fashion.

  The "black dog," Hawke's euphemism for his periodic bouts of depression, was back, and the once cheerful little bungalow was now the snarling canine's fiercely guarded turf.

  Mistrust and paranoia had been the common threads running through Hawke's existence ever since he'd returned to Bermuda from the tragic events in Russia and Stockholm. It had been over a year ago now. Pelham shook his head sadly, switching off the blender. There was nothing he could do for the poor man. Nothing anyone could do, really. Not anymore. And many had tried.

  To Pelham's chagrin, Ambrose Congreve, a man who had practically raised Hawke from boyhood, had had no end of heart-to-heart "talks" with his lordship about his self-destructive behavior, all to little or no avail. Congreve's fiancee, Lady Mars, had even taken him to see some kind of "nerve specialist" a few times in Hamilton, but there'd been some kind of a dreadful row at the office and they'd never returned to the doctor.

  Hawke said, "Must have been out quite late, then. I suppose I had a marvelous time. I always do. I've an absolute gift for jollity, it seems. Always have had."

  He laughed, but it was a hollow laugh and mercifully short-lived.

  "Yes, sir. Shall I make luncheon? If your medical appointment is for two, you should leave here by half one, latest. So you won't be rushed."

  "Yes, I suppose I should eat something, shouldn't I? I can't seem to recall if I ate anything yesterday or not."

  "What would you like, sir?"

  "I don't really care, to be honest. Whatever's in the fridge that hasn't turned black should do nicely. I think I'll take that marvelous daiquiri down to the beach. Get a bit of sun. I'm looking dreadfully pale these days, wouldn't you agree? A mere ghost of my former self."