Tsar: A Thriller (Alex Hawke) Page 8

  Three of Noboru’s crewmen had been killed instantly. Three others who had been wounded had fallen into the water and were taken captive aboard the Russian patrol boat. Later, the Russians claimed the illegal Japanese trawler had rammed their patrol boat and refused to stop despite repeated orders to do so. The Russian ambassador to Japan had taken this case to Tokyo, and there had been a very public trial. Protesters from Greenpeace had hounded the captain mercilessly every day outside the courthouse.

  Noboru was lucky just to avoid the loss of his commercial license and even jail.

  “Sir!” the radioman shouted above the noise of the wind. “We have an emergency distress beacon. Repeating SOS signal. Very close by, sir.”

  Noboru stepped away from the helm and held out his hand for his binoculars.

  “How close is the EPIRB?”

  “Half a mile off our starboard bow, sir. You may be able to see him shortly.”

  The captain stood at the rain-streaked windows and scanned the horizon as much as the shifting waves allowed. The emergency position-indicating radio beacon used a five-watt radio transmitter and GPS to indicate the precise location of a mariner in distress. It was odd, Noboru thought, that he’d heard no radio messages of a vessel in distress prior to the EPIRB broadcast. Whatever boat this raft had come from, she’d gone down in an awful hurry.

  A minute later, he saw the life raft sliding down the face of a huge wave. It looked like a small red mushroom bobbing on the storm-tossed sea. By its size, he judged it to be an emergency offshore raft, two-man. Self-righting, with the bright red canopy top providing high visibility and protection from hypothermia. Probably from a small yacht and not a commercial vessel. That might account for the lack of a radio distress call prior to abandoning ship.

  Yachtsmen tended to panic in an emergency.

  “All back one-third,” the captain said.

  The big trawler, already under just enough power to give her steerage in the huge waves, slowed even further as the crew made preparations to take the raft aboard.

  THE TWO RUSSIANS sealed inside the enclosed circular life raft were ready to rip each other’s throat out. If they hadn’t both been so violently seasick, it’s possible they might have succeeded. The waves were tossing them around inside like a pair of dice in a cup. It was impossible to remain in any one place for more than a split second.

  The stench of commingled vomit was contributing mightily to their extreme irritation with each other. Because of the sloshing puke, it was even harder to keep from sliding around inside, slamming into each other every time the raft crested a wave and started screaming down the other side.

  “What is this fucking storm?” Paddy Strelnikov shouted at his companion. “I didn’t volunteer for any fucking typhoon duty!”

  “Look, you think I did?” Leonid Kapitsa said. He was ex-merchant marine, a burly Russian émigré, maybe forty. He was probably KGB, secret police, just off the fucking boat, as far as Paddy was concerned. All muscle, no brain. Just the kind of guy you want with you when your life is coming to a speedy conclusion. The guy’s English was pathetic, so they were screaming at each other in Russian. In the old KGB days, field agents were trained in languages. Not anymore, obviously.

  “It was flat calm when they launched us. Why didn’t they tell us it was going to get this rough?” Paddy shouted hoarsely.

  “The storm came up fast. I don’t know. Maybe they didn’t know about it, either.”

  “My ass. These big yachts have weather radar and shit. They know what’s going on. They knew we would—”

  “They said we’d be floating out here for no more than an hour before the beacon got us picked up. It’s been three hours now. And they didn’t say anything about Hurricane Katrina showing up.”

  “You were supposed to turn on that EPIRB thing as soon as the yacht was out of sight.”

  “Yeah, well, I was too busy puking my guts out to remember.”

  “Look, you’re the merchant marine guy. You’re not supposed to get sick. You’re supposed to know what you’re doing out here. That’s the only reason I agreed to have you along.”

  “Wait—I hear something. You hear that?”

  Paddy did. Japanese voices, shouting somewhere above them, muffled but very close. The wind was still howling, but suddenly the raft wasn’t bucking and yawing around so much anymore. It felt as if they were being lifted straight up out of the sea. Yeah, he could hear the gears grinding on a winch somewhere.

  “Finally,” Paddy said. He tried to wipe his face clean but only smeared stuff in his eyes and made it worse.

  “I’m going to be sick again,” Kapitsa said, and suddenly was.

  “Ah, fuck,” Paddy said, trying to steer clear of the latest volley of projectile vomit to head his way.

  IT WAS WARM and dry in the captain’s cabin just aft of the bridge. Paddy and Kapitsa sat on the only two chairs, wrapped in wool blankets and drinking steaming-hot green tea. At Paddy’s feet was a waterproof sea bag he’d had in the raft, a yellow duffel that contained some equipment and his personal items. Kapitsa had a bag, too, slightly larger.

  Now that he’d had a hot shower, Paddy’s teeth had stopped chattering, and he felt halfway human again. The Japanese sailors had given them crew clothes, denims and T-shirts and wool sweaters that almost fit. The Japanese captain, who spoke pretty good English, sat at his desk. He had some papers he was filling out and was asking a lot of questions. Since it would never matter what he said, Paddy was having fun with the guy, making stuff up, whatever popped into his brain.

  “You are Russian?” the captain asked.

  “He is,” Paddy said, indicating Kapitsa and sipping his hot tea. “I’m a Russian-American. Third generation.”

  “Your name?”

  “First name? Beef. B like in boy, e-e-f,” Paddy said, carefully enunciating each letter, dead serious.

  “What city you from in America, Mr. Beef?” the guy said, writing that down and then holding his pencil ready.

  “Me? Orlando,” Paddy said, saying the first town that popped into his head. “You know, Mickey Mouse? Goofy?”

  The captain smiled and nodded, getting it all on paper.

  “You know why Mickey got so pissed at Minnie, right?”

  “Mickey pissed at Minnie? the captain said, writing it down.

  “Yeah. He said she was fuckin’ goofy.”

  “Ah, yes,” the skipper said, looking now at Leo. “And what about him?”

  “Him? Forget about him. He’s from frickin’ Siberia. Just put Siberia, that’ll be good enough. Every Russian postman knows where it is.”

  “Last names?”

  “Stalin and Lenin.”

  “You joking?”

  “No, no. Those are two very common names in Russia.”

  “What happened to your boat? We did not hear a distress call.”

  “Yeah, well, it happened pretty fast.”

  “You were only two aboard?”

  “Nah. There were some other guys. They didn’t get off in time. Tragic.”

  “So. No other survivors?”

  “Nope. Just us.”

  “What was name of your vessel?”

  “Lady Marmalade.”

  “How you spell that?” He was actually writing all this shit down. Guy didn’t have a fricking clue.

  “L-A-D-Y M-A-R-M-A-L-A-D-E.”

  “How big?”

  “Maybe a hundred feet. Maybe two hundred. Hard to say. I’m not into boats. And Orlando’s not a real yachty town, you know what I’m saying, Captain? Middle of the state, only a couple of dipshit lakes in the orange groves.”

  “What happened to yacht? Fire? Explosion?”

  “Beats the shit out of me. I think we just got knocked over by a big-ass wave. She rolled upside down and didn’t come back up for air.”

  “You very lucky to get off.”

  “You think so? You weren’t inside that frickin’ life raft, Cap.”

  “Okay. You get some sleep
now, Mr. Beef. I will radio news of your rescue to my company.”

  “That won’t be necessary, Cap,” Paddy said, pulling the little snub-nose out from under his blanket. “We don’t want to be rescued quite yet.”

  “What you—what you want?” the captain said, his eyes suddenly gone saucer wide.

  At Paddy’s nod, Leo Kapitsa got out of his chair and went over to lock the captain’s cabin door. Then he went around behind the captain, standing behind his chair. He placed both hands on the captain’s head, cupping his temples. Then he began to apply pressure, gentle at first, the increasing it in tiny increments, just enough to make the pain excruciatingly unbearable.

  “What do we want?” Paddy said. “We want to take care of business and go home, that’s what we want. But first we want you to get on the horn and order a lifeboat lowered.”

  “Lifeboat?”

  “Here’s the deal, Skipper. Your boss Tommy Kurasawa fucked with the wrong Russians back there in the Kuril Islands. Could you stand up for me a second? Help him up, Leo. Gently, gently.”

  Kapitsa lifted the captain straight up out of his chair by the head. The guy looked as if he was going to have kittens.

  “We brought you a little something,” Paddy said. “Take a look.”

  Paddy had unzipped the sea bag and taken out a large metal disc about four inches thick and twelve inches across. It was a dull grey color and had a digital display panel blinking red on one side. Paddy stood up, took the disc over, and placed it on the seat of the captain’s chair. Thing was heavier than it looked. Must have weighed twenty-five pounds, including five pounds of the explosive sky-blue putty known to terror cognoscenti as Hexagon.

  “Sit him back down,” Paddy said, and Leo let go of the guy’s head, letting him drop two feet onto the top of the disc. Paddy pointed the gun at the captain’s nose and spoke softly.

  “Pick up that phone to the bridge and order the lifeboat ready, Cap. We’re going to be running along now.”

  “You leave ship on lifeboat?”

  “Exactly,” Paddy said, reaching between the captain’s trembling legs to key a code into the disc’s arming mechanism. “Here’s the thing. This object you’re now sitting on? Now that I’ve enabled the system, it’s extremely pressure-sensitive. That’s why Mr. Lenin has his hand on top of your head. You lift your ass up even a fraction of an inch off the pressure plate? Boom. There’s enough explosive packed inside that thing to break this boat in half. So you want to be very, very careful, okay?”

  “Bomb?”

  “Bomb, exactly. It’s set to go off at some point in the very near future. But it’ll go off sooner if you raise your ass. Got that? Okay. Pick up the phone. Call the bridge and tell them about preparing the lifeboat. Mr. Lenin-san here is an expert seaman, so you don’t have to worry about us getting away safely, okay?”

  “Can’t get up?” Noboru said. “Leave chair?”

  “Wouldn’t advise it. Absolutely not.”

  “What I do?”

  “If you’re a good boy and don’t move, after we’re safely away from your boat, I’ll turn the bomb off with this remote thingy. Then you can get up. Otherwise…well, I can’t vouch for your personal safety.”

  The captain, whose natural skin color was a greyish yellow, had gone more over to the grey side.

  “Pick up the phone and call the bridge,” Paddy said, “and don’t try anything funny. I speak perfect Japanese.” He gave him a quick burst, asking the captain in Japanese where he kept the good sake locked up.

  While Paddy and the captain were talking, Leo had gotten two Russian submachine guns out of his bag. The subguns were Bizon 2s. The Bizon was new, designed by Mikhail Kalashnikov’s son, Victor. Pretty straightforward weapon with a folding stock, standard black AK-74M pistol grip, and, at the muzzle, a small conical flash suppressor with teardrop ports. The magazine, aluminum, held sixty-four rounds.

  Leo hefted the gun. Short and light, it was only twenty-six inches long. He looked at the subgun’s selector switch and moved it to what he called the “group therapy” position. Full auto. He didn’t anticipate much excitement with the Japanese fishermen up on deck, but you never knew. He put the weapon on the captain’s desk, pulled the portable sat phone from his bag, and handed it to Paddy.

  When the guy on board the Russian megayacht Belarus answered his call, Paddy told him they had pretty much wrapped things up here and were ready to leave the Kishin Maru. They would be boarding the lifeboat within the next five minutes. He would call again once they were at sea, but Kapitsa had advised that they’d be able to arrive at their prearranged GPS coordinates for a pickup in one hour.

  “Sit tight, Cap,” Paddy said to the captain as he went toward the door followed by the big Russian.

  “Head,” the captain said in a strangled voice. He was clutching the arms of his chair, his knuckles showing white with the strain.

  “Head?” Paddy said. “Fuck’s wrong with his head?”

  “He means the bathroom,” Leo told him, going out into the companionway with his Bizon submachine gun out in front of him. “He’s gotta go.”

  “Bad idea, Cap. Seriously bad idea. I’d try and hold it if I were you, think about something else.”

  Paddy took one last look at the captain sitting there on the pressure-sensitive plate bomb and then went out and pulled the door closed behind him.

  Nice touch, he thought to himself, the pressure-plate idea. He’d have to remember to send corporate an appreciative note about that.

  10

  BERMUDA

  Hawke entered the book-lined library and saw C sitting quietly by the fireside. The room was an octagonal tower, bookcases on all sides rising two stories tall, with a clerestory window at the top. Sir David Trulove had a small volume of poetry lying open in his lap and had removed his gold-rimmed glasses. He was pinching the bridge of his nose and seemed lost in thought. A wine-red-shaded table lamp cast him in shadow.

  The former admiral, one of nature’s immutable forces, was a great hero of the Falklands War. Tonight he seemed subdued. It was out of character and gave Hawke pause.

  “Good evening, sir,” Hawke said, as mildly as possible. “Nice surprise, finding you here on Bermuda.”

  “Ah. The reclusive Lord Hawke,” Sir David Trulove said, closing the book and looking up at him with an unreadable expression. He placed the slender volume on an end table beside the telephone and got to his feet, extending his hand. The older man was a good inch taller than Hawke, exceedingly fit, with a full head of white hair, furious white eyebrows, and a long hawklike nose. Noble was the word that came to mind.

  Tonight, in perfectly cut evening clothes, with his lined sailor’s face and clear blue eyes, hard as marbles, he looked like some Hollywood movie director’s vision of a very elegant English spy. He was elegant, all right, but with a backbone of forged Sheffield steel.

  “Do you read Yeats at all, Alex?” Trulove said, glancing down at the splayed book on the table.

  “No, sir. Most poetry eludes me, sorry to say.”

  “You really shouldn’t give up on it. I can’t abide much poetry myself, but Yeats is sublime. The only truly heroic poet we have, I suppose. Well. Surprised to see me here, are you?”

  “A bit. Mind if we sit?”

  “Not at all. Would you be comfortable sitting over there?”

  Alex nodded and took the other fireside chair. The old worn leather felt good, and he collapsed into its embrace. He was conscious of C’s unwavering eyes and stared back at the older man. Neither looked away. It was a game they played, one that, so far, neither had lost.

  “Having a splash of whiskey myself. Join me?” C said, his eyes drifting past the decanters on the sideboard and up toward the shelves of books rising to the octagonal skylight above. A narrow railed parapet ran around the room at the second-story level, looking hardly substantial enough to support a bird, much less a human being with a stack of books in his hands.

  “No, thank you, sir.” />
  “Alex, I hate to disturb what is no doubt a pleasant interlude in your life. God knows, after your last assignment, you’ve certainly earned your respite. But I’m afraid we must speak about a situation that may require your involvement.”

  He looked at Hawke, making him wait a beat. Both men knew perfectly well the precise three-word phrase forthcoming from the lips of the head of British Intelligence. He did not disappoint.

  “Something’s come up.”

  “Ah.” Hawke tried not to betray the pulse-quickening feeling that always accompanied hearing those three magic words from his superior.

  “Are you fully recovered from your maladies? Jungle fevers gone? No recurrence?” His hard eyes regarded Hawke attentively. Hawke had very nearly died of an assortment of tropical diseases, including malaria, in the Amazon recently. There were some in C’s inner circle at the old firm who believed Hawke might never fully recover.

  “Clean bill, sir. Never felt better, to be honest.”

  “Good. I’ve made an appointment for you tomorrow morning with a friend of mine here on Bermuda. At St. Brendan’s Hospital.

  Chap named Nigel Prestwick. Internist. Quite a good man. Used to be my personal physician in London before he came out.”

  “I’d be happy to see him, sir,” Hawke said, trying to hide his irritation. He’d yet to meet the doctor who knew his body better than he did, but it was obvious C was taking no chances. Hawke was secretly pleased. This level of concern boded well for an interesting assignment.

  “I very much doubt that. Your feelings about physicians are no secret. Nonetheless, your appointment is at nine sharp. No food or drink after midnight. After your physical, I’d like you to meet me out at the old Naval Dockyards. You’ll find a car and driver waiting outside the hospital. I’m looking at some real estate out there, and I would value your opinion.”

  “Real estate, sir?”

  “Yes. Let’s skip the chase and cut to the denouement, shall we?” C said, leaning forward and putting his hands on his knees.