Tsar (12 page)

“Fascinating.”

“How about you, Doc? What do you do?”

“Aeronautical engineering. That’s my baby up there.”

Both of them watched as huge dangling cables were thrown down from the front and sides of the hovering airship and made fast to the mooring mast. Floating there in the clouds, with the searchlights playing on it, Paddy thought it was the most beautiful man-made thing he’d ever seen.

“No kidding! Wow! You worked on that?”

“
Vortex 1
is its name. I designed it. With a great deal of technical help from our chairman, of course. It was entirely his vision. His original concept. I was lucky enough to be able to execute it for him.”

“No offense, but how come you’re not up there on the platform with all the other big shots meeting him?”

Now the little fellow really was pissed off. “Officially, I’m supposed to be, of course. It’s just that I’ve lost my wife in the crowd. She went to the ladies’ powder room twenty minutes ago, and I haven’t seen her since. She’d kill me if I went up there without her.”

Paddy winked and said, “I know what you mean. Women, huh? I could write a book myself. Hey, let me ask you, Doc, what is that big hole in the front of the airship for? It’s wild-looking.”

“It’s called a plenum,” Shumayev said. “It draws in atmospheric air through a spiral-vortex-generating cone, hence the name of the ship. The air is then accelerated through a BDP Tesla bladeless disc air pump system. This accelerated and pressurized air is then forced out through a central ring of slits located along the side of the craft. You follow?”

“Sort of.”

“Think of a fish’s gills.”

“Gotcha. So, what makes it go?”

“All that pressurized, oxygenated, and velocitized air flowing in through the plenum forms vortices along the outside hull of the airship. This reduces friction and creates a slip effect as the craft travels through the air. So, the craft is first pulled into a frontal vacuum, into the vortex, as it were, and additionally squeezed through the air, compliments of the greater pressure exerted by the expelled air traveling aft along the hull of the craft. That’s pretty much it.”

“How do you steer it?”

“See those outboard pods with the blinking red lights? They’re fitted with smaller electric-drive BDP propulsion systems. We mounted them at different locations around the hull to provide a high degree of directional control and afford vectored thrust stability in any weather conditions.”

“Wow.”

“In a word, yes. Wow. That mast tower up there was originally intended to be a dock for mooring airships back in the 1930s. However, after several futile attempts at mooring a zeppelin in the strong winds present up here at 1250 feet of altitude, the idea was scrapped. So, Mr. Strelnikov, you and I have the honor of witnessing a very historic moment.”

“How many passengers will it carry?”

“Exactly one hundred. Just like the late Concorde aircraft. But our passengers will travel in a great deal more comfort and style, I promise you.”

“How fast?”

“A bit slower than the Concorde,” the little guy said with a smile. “She’s capable of 150 miles per hour. Considerably faster than the new
Queen Mary 2
, I might add, if one’s crossing the Atlantic as she’s just done.”

“I think I just found your wife,” Paddy said, grabbing the little guy’s elbow. A huge red-haired woman in a black sequined gown was plowing through the crowd and headed straight toward them, murder in her eyes. “Thanks for the info, Doc. I’ll be seeing you around.”

“No!” Shumayev whispered, “Please don’t go. Just stay with me for a few minutes, all right? Until she calms down?”

You had to feel sorry for a guy who needed a bodyguard around his wife. He said, “Yeah, okay. But it’s going to cost you, Dr. Shumayev.”

“Anything. What can I do?”

“When all the excitement dies down, I’d like a guided tour of that thing. The
Vortex 1
. Could you arrange that?”

“Consider it my privilege, Mr. Strelnikov,” he said as the lady arrived.

Mrs. Shumayev was one unhappy camper. She was opening her wide, red-painted mouth to let her hubby have it when the little guy interrupted.

“Dearest, this is my colleague, Mr. Strelnikov. I was just about to invite him to join us aboard
TSAR
for the demonstration flight out to Long Island tomorrow morning.”

“Say what?” Paddy said.

“Where the hell have you been?” the irate woman said in Russian. “I step into the powder room for two seconds, and—”

Paddy Strelnikov gave her his best smile and said, “It’s my fault, Madame Shumayev. I’m with security. I thought there was a threat situation here, and I removed your husband until we got it cleared up. So—hold on a sec.” Paddy spoke into the sleeve of his jacket and cupped one ear, listening intently to a nonexistent earbud. “What’s that? All clear? Good.” He smiled. “All clear now, Doctor. It’s safe for you and your wife to go up to the platform now.”

“Thank you, Mr. Strelnikov,” Shumayev said. “Your concern for our safety is deeply appreciated.”

“TCB,” Paddy said, and headed back to the bar for another cocktail. “TCB.”

“L
ovely day for it, Cap,” Hawke’s driver said, looking back at his passenger with a huge white smile. He was a handsome young Bermudian police cadet officer named Stubbs Wooten. Attached to the British consul’s office in Hamilton, Wooten had been assigned by C to fetch Hawke from St. Brendan’s Hospital.

Now they were driving west out along the South Road in the direction of Somerset Village. They had passed the venerable resort at Elbow Beach and the lovely old Coral Beach Club, and were en route to what Bermudians called the West End. There, at the very tip of the island, stood the Royal Naval Dockyard.

Having risen early and endured the physical ordered by his superior, Hawke was now scheduled to meet C at the Dockyard at eleven o’clock. He had half an hour, which Stubbs assured him was plenty of time.

The ocean, periodically visible on their left, was brilliant blue, and only a few white clouds drifted in over the island from the west. Their route took them past the Southampton Princess Hotel, a huge pink palace sitting atop a hill overlooking the Atlantic. Just beyond, Hawke could see the soaring white tower of the Gibb’s Hill Lighthouse, built of cast iron in 1846 and providing comfort to seafarers ever since.

But Hawke wasn’t interested in sightseeing at the moment. He was far more interested in the noisy black motorcycle some hundred yards behind him. He thought he was being followed.

“I wonder, Stubbs,” Hawke said, craning around once more to look over his shoulder at a lone motorcyclist. “Did you see that chap on the bike back there in the parking lot at St. Brendan’s Hospital?”

Stubbs studied the fellow in his rearview mirror.

“No, sir. But I did notice he’s been following us quite a while. A Jamaican, I think. Rasta gang member, possibly. You think something’s wrong, sir?”

“I think he was parked up in the trees by the emergency entrance. I’m fairly sure I saw him when I came out to meet you.”

“Possible, sir. You want me to lose him?”

“When is the next turning off this road, Stubbs?”

“We got Tribe Road Number Three coming up on the right. ’Bout half a mile now.”

“Good. Turn into it, and stop the car. Let’s see what this fellow does.”

“You got it, Cap,” Stubbs said, clearly enjoying this bit of drama. He loved his job, the important people visiting his island whom he got to meet, but it was seldom exciting.

Stubbs didn’t signal his turn or even slow much, just suddenly braked and jerked his wheel hard right. The little sedan threatened to go up on two wheels as it negotiated the hard turn. As soon as they were safely around, Stubbs stood on the brakes and skidded to a stop on the side of the road.

As the dust settled around the car, Hawke kicked open his rear door and said, “Wait here, Stubbs. I’ll see what he wants.”

“Are you armed, sir?” Stubbs asked.

“Yes, why?”

“Because some of these Rastafarian gentlemen will be armed, sir. Watch out for him. He most likely has a knife. Maybe a gun.”

The cyclist, caught short by Stubbs’s sudden maneuver, almost lost it. But he stayed upright and managed the turn without a spill. He braked to a stop, eyes on the man standing in the road, hands in his pockets, smiling at him. Without a word, the biker splayed his long legs out on either side of the bike and stared insolently at the tall white man now coming across the road toward him.

“Morning,” Hawke said, looking around as if taking in the beautiful day. The biker was dressed like a typical Bermudian tough. Jeans, motorcycle boots, and an oversized jersey with Emperor Haile Selassie’s image plastered on the front. Masses of gold chains around his neck. Chunky gold watch that looked real enough.

He was young, maybe twenty-five, Hawke thought, and had the build of a serious prize fighter. One who still worked out with the bag or in the ring on a regular basis. His nose was as flat as his face. Massive upper-body strength, lean with well-developed arms, quads, and lats, and riding a very expensive Triumph motorcycle. He was either dealing drugs or working for someone who paid him large sums to do the odd, violent favor.

“I said good morning,” Hawke repeated, taking another step toward the bike.

The kid didn’t reply, just leaned back on his seat and slowly removed his helmet, shaking his head as he did so. Dreadlocks suddenly exploded from under the black helmet and fell to his shoulders. He smiled for the first time, revealing a mouth full of golden teeth.

“You got a bad driver, mon. I serious. Him very dangerous.”

“What’s your name?”

“My name? Desmond. Don’t try to lose me like that again, mon. It won’t work. I stick to you like glue on glue.”

“Now, why on earth would you want to do that, Desmond?” Hawke asked, his right hand gripping Desmond’s handlebar and wrenching the front wheel hard left so that the bike was immobilized.

“Hands off de bike, mon!”

“Who’s paying you to follow me?”

“I just out for a ride, mon. It’s a beautiful mawnin’, like you say. Why you get so all excited? Having a little fun, dat’s all, huh? And take de hand off my bike before you lose it.”

“Lose it?”

Desmond lifted the jersey so Hawke could see the cane knife stuck in a scabbard on his wide leather belt. A sawed-off machete, razor-sharp on both sides.

“Desmond, listen carefully. I want you to turn this bike around and go back to wherever you came from. Tell whomever you’re working for that following me is a very bad idea. I’m a very private person. I’m here for a quiet holiday. Someone spoils my vacation, they will wish they hadn’t. All right? We understand each other?”

Desmond spat in the dirt and looked up at Hawke with his reddened eyes blazing. He was seriously baked on marijuana, Hawke realized. But the thug didn’t say anything, just showed his gold teeth once more and reached for the knife.

The Jamaican was vaguely aware of blurred movement. Hawke had seized Desmond’s wrist in a compromising position before his fingers ever reached the knife handle.

“I will break it, Desmond, I promise,” Hawke said. “Right now, I’m applying pressure directly to the scaphoid, the small carpal bone at the base of the thumb. It’s the one easiest to break, also with the most painful result.”

“Shit, mon, you ain’t going to break it.”

“No? Who paid you to follow me?”

“Fuck you, mon.”

“Your place or mine?”

The kid spat, barely missing Hawke’s left foot.

“Last chance?”

Desmond glared, wincing at the pain, saying nothing.

“No more joy rides for a while, Desmond,” Hawke said, smiling at the man as he deftly snapped his wrist, eliciting a howl of pain.

Hawke’s hand blurred again, moving for the ignition switch atop the fuel tank. In an instant, Hawke had plucked the key from the ignition and flung it out into the scrub brush on the hill beside the road.

“What you—aw, fuck, mon, now I going to have to—”

“Desmond, you’re no good at this. Surveillance is a highly sophisticated art form. Go back to dealing
ganja.
Street dealers have a much longer life expectancy than people stupid enough to get involved with me.”

Hawke turned his back on him and crossed the dusty road. He climbed back into his car, and Stubbs turned it around and headed back to the South Road. Desmond remained on his bike, too proud to let Hawke see him searching for his keys.

“You see all those gold teeth, Cap?” Stubbs said, looking at Hawke in the rearview mirror, waiting to rejoin the flow of traffic on the South Road.

“Hard to miss.”

“Disciples of Judah. That’s their trademark, replace all their teeth with gold. A Rasta sect, immigrated from the Blue Mountains of Jamaica many years ago to work in the banana plantations. They went bad. Drugs, sir. Cocaine, marijuana, heroin, you name it, the Disciples deal it. The big boss is a man named Samuel Coale. Call him King Coale. He was extradited to the U.S. a few years ago under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Act. We heard he was back on island. That boy you just talking to?”

“Yes?”

“He say his name?”

“Desmond.”

“I thought that was him. He’s the favorite son. The son of King Coale. Calls himself the Prince of Darkness. You see his graffiti tags all over the place you visit Skanktown on St. David’s Island.”

“He’s a fighter, is he? Boxer?”

“How’d you know that?”

“Sometimes you can tell.”

“Yes. Fought under the name of Prince back in Jamaica. Fought his way to the top, won the Golden Gloves in the Caribbean, and then went to the Olympics on the Jamaican boxing team. He won the gold medal at Athens in 2004.”

“All downhill from there, it looks like.”

“Couldn’t handle the success, sir. The fame went to his young head, swole it up.”

“Where can I find his father, this King Coale?”

“Hard to say, Cap. These boys move around a lot. There’s a rumor they have an offshore compound out on Nonsuch Island down by St. David’s. Illegal because it’s a wildlife sanctuary. But that’s what I hear. Squatters’ rights.”

“How long to the Naval Dockyard?”

“We’ll be there in twenty minutes, sir.”

“Could you make that ten?”

“I’d be delighted to try, sir,” Wooten said, as he pulled a red flasher out of the glove box and stuck it on the dashboard.

Hawke sat back in his seat and gazed out the window, lost in thoughts that led straight to Anastasia Korsakova’s door. She had called him at some ungodly hour that morning. He’d stumbled half-asleep to the bar and reached blindly for the phone. He had a vague memory of agreeing to come to her house that afternoon at five. He felt peace slipping away from his grasp. What with C’s proposal and the appearance of the lovely Miss Korsakova, the halcyon days of idle bliss seemed to be waning.

“H
ALLOWED GROUND ON
your right, Cap,” Stubbs Wooten said, interrupting Hawke’s reverie ten minutes later.

They were approaching the Dockyard compound. The mostly empty early-nineteenth-century buildings and facilities had not seen use since the Cold War. They were still lovely, though. Especially the twin spires of the Dockyard Clocks in the distance.

During that era, the Cold War, the Royal Navy had conducted clandestine air and submarine surveillance operations to keep the Soviets from regarding the Atlantic as their ocean. At that time, Bermuda was a principal naval base in defending the United States from Soviet attack. The Royal Navy still maintained a minimal presence here. Although it was minor now, with C’s new operation, the old Dockyard might soon become more fully operational.

Hawke looked to his right and saw the hallowed ground. A lovely old cemetery nestled in a gently sloping valley between the growths of tall Australian pine trees on either hilltop.

“Royal Navy?” Hawke asked.

“Yes, sir. First consecrated in 1812 when the Dockyard was still being built. See that big stone spire, grass grown up all around? Many men from the British Army and Royal Navy buried there, mostly died of the yellow fever. But some of the newer headstones there are the final resting place for the seamen who died on their ships off Bermuda in actions against German pocket battleships and U-boats.”

“I had no idea,” Hawke said as they passed through the narrow entrance gates. They rode in silence as they passed the abandoned docks to their right and the Dockyard Clock spires on their left.

“See that building on the high hilltop over there? That’s where your meeting is, sir. The Commissioner’s Building. Will you be needing me to wait?”

“I’d very much appreciate that, Stubbs. I’ve an appointment later this afternoon out at St. George’s. If you could take me out there?”

“Pleasure’s all mine, sir.”

“Place called Powder Hill. Do you know it?”

Stubbs turned around in his seat. “That’s a private island, sir. You have to go by boat. Very tight security. Don’t let anyone near that place.”

“They’re expecting me.”

“Ah, well, you’re fine, then.”

Hawke smiled as the car came to a stop, popped the door open, and climbed out of the back. The structure itself was a lovely old three-story British Colonial building, somewhat the worse for wear, built on a hill overlooking the sea. It was just inside the fortress walls and surrounded on all sides by bastions with cannons still in place. A wide verandah graced the two topmost floors, with shuttered doors on all sides.

He could see Sir David waiting in the shade at the covered entrance. As Hawke got closer, he saw that C was wearing old white duck trousers with a Spanish flare, a striped Riviera sweater, straw shoes, and an ancient Mexican hat.

Hawke could hardly believe the vision the head of SIS presented. And there was a woman with him. Blonde and very good-looking, in a simple linen shift of lime green that did little to hide her spectacular figure. It was certainly Pippa Guinness, he thought, squinting in the sunlight, one of C’s closest aides at MI-6 in London. Although he could not have explained why, Hawke was both surprised and not surprised to see her. The bad-penny principle, he supposed.