Spy ah-4 Page 23

  Heavy purple cumulus clouds had been stacking up along the southern horizon all morning. The predicted blow building up to the south all morning. It was now right on schedule, roaring up out of the Florida Straits, and Alex Hawke turned his collar up as he left the shelter of the gangway and made his way across decks freshly varnished with rain.

  Hawke entered an elevator and rode up three decks. Stepping out and into the driving rain, he then made his way forward to the bridge. The broad teak decks were slick with rain. Pausing out on the bridge wing, he checked his watch before pushing inside. It was just past noon. He was scheduled to arrive at the Truman Complex, where Conch’s conference was being held, at three. He had lunch with Ambrose Congreve and Stokely Jones at noon, but he needed to stop by the bridge and have a chat with his captain.

  A new boat was scheduled to arrive in Key West this very evening. A sleek Italian powerboat that he’d been having modified for a very special mission. He and Brownlow, her new skipper, needed to go over the ship’s roster. They would hand-pick a crew to man her. Fifteen of Blackhawke’s best would be sailing south with them.

  Hawke pushed inside the bridge and saw Brownlow and the captain deep in conversation. Good timing. His pulse quickened. He was getting close. No matter what the Americans thought after hearing his remarks, Hawke was determined to sail deep into the heart of the Amazon.

  He was going to return to the crossroads of evil. He was going to find and kill the mad giant standing at the doorway to hell.

  And God help the bloody fool who got in his way.

  36

  T he American Secretary of State, Consuelo de los Reyes, sat back from her temporary wooden desk. She brushed a stray wing of thick brown hair from her high forehead and noticed that her hands, for some reason, were trembling slightly. In an hour or so, she had to give her opening remarks in the auditorium three floors below. But that wasn’t the problem.

  She knew precisely what she had to say. She had no need of notes, teleprompters, or cue cards. In Washington, in Senate hearings, and in other capitals of the world she was justly admired as a brilliant extemporaneous speaker; but now she found herself reading her opening remarks for the tenth time, trying to focus. Trying to keep her mind busy. Trying to stop thinking about him.

  This was ridiculous. She should be enjoying herself. She was out of Washington for a few days, thank God. Fewer meetings, fewer phone calls, and no mini-crises blowing up in her face at all hours of the day and night. She was in Key West, for heaven’s sake. Her favorite place on earth!

  She had chosen Key West as the site of her Latin American security conference for any number of good reasons. The Naval Air Field was strategically and conveniently located for regional State Department, CIA, DEA, and other police and government personnel even now flying in from all over both North and South America. Key West Naval Station was a fairly easy location to secure. Navy fighter squadrons had been patrolling the airspace overhead all week and the perimeter of the old naval base and Truman Complex had been swept and secured for the last ten days.

  The news media had arrived, of course, but there was little to be done about that. To be honest, she suspected President McAtee of deliberately leaking a few details about this conference. The president desperately needed good news. The White House needed to be seen as doing something about the growing restiveness along the Mexican border, and in the entire southern hemisphere.

  The mainstream media were calling the whole thing a publicity sham. Saying that Key West was an easy terrorist target, the worst possible location for an American security confab. Predicting terror attacks on the island had become a nightly news item. NSA had assured her they’d picked up no terrorist Internet chatter about her impending conference. That was a comfort, she supposed.

  Another, more subliminal, reason she had chosen Key West, Conch thought, was the notion of coming home. She cherished any time at all here, however brief.

  Her family had been one of the oldest sugar families in Cuba. De los Reyes plantations had dotted that beautiful island for centuries. But her father had been a very wise man. He had seen Castro coming, even when he was considered a mosquito, fighting his sporadic guerilla actions up in the mountains. Gustavo de los Reyes had moved everyone to Florida the day before Fidel rolled into Havana. So Conch had been born and raised right here on the tiny Island Republic of Key West, in a yellow Victorian house just across the way from Truman’s Little White House.

  She’d grown up fishing the flats with her brothers. In her teens, she’d become an accomplished bone-fishing guide in these waters. By the time she left for Harvard and a doctorate in political science, she could spot the wily Mr. Bone sliding across the shallows at sixty yards. At twenty, Conch was legendary among the grizzled old charter skippers down at the docks. She still was, she thought, smiling, it was just a different kind of legend.

  She was never happier than when she managed to escape down to the Keys, especially when she had a few days to disappear at Conch Shell. This was her small bungalow hidden away on a small bay north of here at Islamorada. Beer, Buffett, and the slippery Mr. Bone. Of course, it was always more fun when he was there. But that was not in the cards right now and so she’d best not think of it.

  She sighed and sat back in her chair. She was grateful for these few hours to herself before two days of nonstop sessions got under way.

  Save the two Marine guards stationed outside her door, she was alone in her makeshift office. Her temporary quarters occupied a corner suite of offices on the top floor of the old Marine Hospital. Built in the mid-nineteenth century, it was a sturdy brick building, recently whitewashed, with a tin roof and freshly painted plantation shutters. It was also surrounded on all sides by tall palms whose fronds whipped and clawed her windowpanes in the stiff wet wind.

  She looked up from the blurry words she’d written on a sheet of notepaper, her eyes refusing to focus. Her view, beyond the rain-streaked windows, was of stormy skies to the west. She overlooked the choppy Sub Basin and the remains of Fort Zachary Taylor guarding the entrance to Key West. To her right, she could just see her old Victorian homestead, Harry Truman’s Little White House, the Truman Annex, and the myriad red rooftops nestled under the swaying palms and lowering purple skies above the old town.

  If she raised herself up an inch or two off her chair, and looked straight out her windows, however, as she did now, all she could see in the foreground was that damned black yacht.

  ALEX HAWKE WAS ABOARD that sky-blotting boat. Some time, surely within the next half hour, the man was going to disembark. Then he would walk ever so briskly across the Yard. He would make his way to the former Marine Hospital and present his credentials to the Marine sentries and DSS guards stationed at the main entrance security post. He would pass through the X-ray and metal detectors, making breezy chat with the guards.

  Would he find a phone downstairs and call up to her office? Or would he go straight to the auditorium to practice his remarks? The meeting would begin in one hour’s time. Knowing Hawke, he’d get right down to business. He was dead serious about his topic and when he focused on something, it was all consuming. She knew that firsthand.

  She also knew that, were she to get up right now and post herself at the window, she might catch him striding across the coquina walkway. He’d be oblivious to the foul weather. She’d never seen him wearing a raincoat, or any kind of topcoat. What was the line he’d used the day they got caught in a downpour at Mt. Vernon? Rain’s only bad if you’re made of sugar. That was Hawke, all right. All man, all the time, rain or shine.

  She looked at her watch and collapsed back into her chair. The truth was, at any minute, Alex Hawke could blow through that door like a force of nature. She wouldn’t put it past him. Much bowing and scraping, of course. He knew she was royally pissed off and with good reason. The facts of the matter were not obscure. The man had been an absolute shit, and they both knew it.

  But.

  But, but, but.

&nbs
p; Every damned button on his Royal Navy uniform would be gleaming. His curly black hair would be damp with rain. He would be thinner than usual, she guessed, after what had happened to him in the jungle. Tall and thin and deeply tanned. And, then he would say something beguiling or charming or both.

  Bastard.

  Oh, he would stand there, smiling, and then he would aim those blue eyes at her, looking down at her upturned face as though he were about to snatch her up and…

  He was going to walk right through that door and she had no idea how to handle it. Hell, he’d be here any minute now, she was sure of it. What in God’s name was she to do? She could smile, offer her hand, and ask about his voyage down from Miami. Pathetic. No. She would say how delighted she was that he could find time to be here. That she and her senior advisors had all read the insightful report of his time in the Amazon and were sure he’d find a receptive and enthusiastic audience when he spoke and—

  Damn it!

  She sat back and closed her eyes. She willed her breathing to slow, tried to stop an oncoming tide of images that came rolling in anyway. They broke upon her mind one after another, like waves upon a windswept beach.

  TWO YEARS AGO, she and Alex Hawke had spent a blissful week down in these islands, fishing and bathing in the warm sea at Conch Shell. The spinning hands of days unwound quickly, whirling into golden afternoons that dissolved into blood-red sunsets and finished with a sparkle of stars over their sleepy heads. They went about naked and found themselves making love whenever and wherever the notion struck them. She had given her heart to Alex Hawke then, thinking that, finally, she was not misplacing it.

  But time and Alex Hawke had a way of breaking that heart, no matter how fiercely she tried to protect it.

  Shut the damn blinds, Conch.

  Suddenly, she rose from her chair and marched across the scrubbed wooden floor to the west-facing windows. There were four of them, tall casement windows, each with its own set of Venetian blinds. She grabbed each set of cords, yanked each of them to one side or the other until she finally got all four of the damn things to bang down on the windowsills. The office was plunged into deeper gloom.

  She turned her back on the windows and stared for a moment with her arms crossed under her breasts, staring at the bad painting of a leaping sailfish that hung on the wall behind her desk. A grinning man with a bent rod stood on the heaving decks of the sport-fishing boat reeling in his trophy.

  Hooked, goddamnit.

  Ah, well, that’s better, she thought, looking at the shuttered windows and feeling her pulse slacken. No more distractions. Now, she could go back to her desk and get some work done. Who was he, anyway, to ’cause such a hellish fuss around here? There was vitally important work at hand. The next few days would be critical to State’s rapidly evolving foreign policy in Mexico and the southern hemisphere.

  She sat down at the desk and considered her opening.

  As she’d reminded President McAtee just before leaving Washington, the battlegrounds of the war on terror were constantly shifting. In her view, they were rapidly shifting to the south. Just look at the Mexican border. Cuba. Why, Chávez and the Venezuelan government had only recently—

  “Conch?”

  She took a breath. Here we go.

  She looked up. Commander Alexander Hawke was standing in her doorway, leaning inside the frame and smiling at her.

  He raised his hand in mock salute and said, “Reporting for duty, sir!”

  She pushed back from her desk and stood, smoothing the pleats of her navy skirt. Finally she met his eyes.

  “Oh, Alex. Come on in, please. No one told me you were here.”

  He looked toward the shuttered blinds. “Conch, my bloody boat is right out—”

  “On your way up to my office, I mean. No one told me.”

  “Ah. Sorry about that. I guess I gave them the slip.”

  “That’s reassuring.”

  “Hmm.”

  He stepped inside the door, fingering the scrambled eggs on the white Royal Navy commander’s hat in his hand. She was relieved to see he was a bit nervous, too. She moved to him, trying to avoid those eyes, looking at his epaulets, his buttons, his hands, anything. Without any conscious effort she was taking his hand and remembering how warm his skin felt next to hers in bed.

  He said, “I didn’t give you much advance warning, did I? Sorry, my dear girl. I should have rung you, shouldn’t I? I just thought I’d pop up here and surprise you. You know, say hello before the conference got started properly. Under way. I do apologize for inviting myself to your conference, by the way. But you should know it was hardly my idea.”

  “Really? That’s a comfort. God knows I’d hate to think you actually wanted to be here. So. How are you, Alex? It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Last time I heard from you, you were headed off into the jungle.”

  “I did write. Many times.”

  “You did.”

  “You never responded.”

  “I’ve been busy. There’s a war on. Any number of them in fact.”

  “Look. It has been too long a while, Conch. I know that. That’s why I jumped at the chance to come to Key West.” If Hawke was aware of his inconsistency, he did his best to conceal it.

  “Well—” she began, and then paused, for she thought she’d heard someone tapping lightly at the door.

  “Oh, terribly sorry!” a young woman’s voice said. The door hadn’t fully closed and now it was opened about six inches. Yes, there was someone there, pushing the door open.

  She turned away from him to see who it was. It was a tall and very beautiful young blonde with silky tresses falling softly to her shoulders. She carried a thin maroon leather satchel tucked tightly beneath one arm. Visible on the briefcase were the tiny letters AH embossed in gold. Her carefully tailored navy blue suit could not disguise a lush, spectacular figure. Somehow she’d made it through the rain with her makeup and wavy coif perfectly intact.

  “Awfully sorry,” the young woman said, stepping inside, deftly managing to both look at Hawke but speak to her. “Alex, you forgot this. I thought you might need it in the meeting. I’ve included the newly edited section on Brazilian economy which went missing earlier.”

  “How kind of you,” Hawke said, quickly taking the satchel. “Won’t you say hello to our hostess, the secretary of state?”

  Conch extended her hand to the girl and said, “Consuelo de los Reyes. So nice to meet you. And you are?”

  “Guinness, Gwendolyn Guinness,” the pretty girl said, smiling effusively but offering nothing more by way of information than to add that she was called Pippa.

  Conch smiled back at her, but both smiles soon faded in the growing silence.

  “Pippa,” Conch said.

  “She’s my aide,” Hawke finally said, the pathetic word sounding as if it had been strangled up from the depths of his damnable soul.

  No one seemed to have any idea what to say next.

  Then Conch broke the spell.

  “You call him Alex?” Conch said.

  37

  MADRE DE DIOS, BRAZIL

  T he robot tank tore through the jungle like a wounded animal. It was all Harry could do just to hold on. Low-hanging creeper vines whipped at his face and shoulders. He was on the vehicle’s right rear, one hand on the grab-rail, one leg wrapped around one of the tank’s aft-facing machine guns. Caparina was up front on the left. She was bouncing around, looking back at him, plainly terrified. Hassan was holding on to the right front grab-rail with both hands. Every time the speeding tank hit a deep rut, or strayed from the narrow jungle pathway, the three of them were sure they’d be flung off.

  The pint-sized Troll was doing about thirty miles an hour. Because of overhanging vegetation on either side, the passengers felt like they were doing a hundred or more. Dangling creepers constantly lashed their uplifted faces. You had to constantly duck and bob to keep a vine from lassoing you around the neck.

  Now they splashed through a shallow
brown river and disturbed a number of sleeping caimans. The South American alligators were not happy at the noisy intrusion and everyone aboard struggled to keep their flailing feet away from the snapping jaws.

  Harry was glad of their speed and the fact that submersion in the river had not stalled the engine. The amphibious vehicle slowed, but kept moving forward, throwing off a bow wave of white water on either side. Soon enough they were dry and plunging back into the deep green stuff.

  The lens remained pointed straight ahead. The human controller, wherever he was located, only wanted to keep the thing on the path. Harry sensed the robot was returning to home base. Speed increased and you got the feeling of riding a bucking bronco with a bad case of stable fever.

  A half-hour later, it was tough on the bones. Harry was beginning to think the tank didn’t know where the hell it was going. They were still deep in the jungle but the path was angling upward and had been doing so for some time now. He figured they must have climbed about a thousand feet in the last twenty minutes or so. The air was slightly cooler and very damp at this elevation.

  Suddenly, the damn thing slowed to a crawl. The trail had become muddy and deeply rutted.

  They were going so slowly Harry was able to get up onto his knees and take a look at the road ahead.

  “Big ravine up ahead,” Saladin Hassan called back. “More of a deep gorge.”

  “I see that,” Harry yelled. “Are we going to stop, or get off, or what?”

  “I don’t think I see any bridge!” Caparina cried. The chasm was looming and she looked like she might jump off. “Do we stay on, Harry?”

  It was clearly poop or get off the pot time, Harry saw. The ravine was wide and deep. Hundreds of yards across. Mist was rising out of it so there was probably a river at the bottom. Yeah, he could hear it thundering down there. Rapids.

  “Bridge directly ahead!” Saladin shouted. “I’m not sure it will take our weight!”