Ted Bell - Hawke

“Bad as French!” Sniper screeched.

“Almost, Sniper old boy,” Hawke said. “I said ‘almost’ as bad, didn’t I, Brian?”

“Couldn’t agree more, sir,” Brian said, discreetly checking the automatic weapon strapped to his shoulder.

“Would you mind seeing these two infections safely back to Staniel Cay? Keep a gun on them.”

“Will do, sir. I think—”

“Hawke! Hawke!” Sniper shrieked.

Hawke spun around. Rasputin, with a murderously mad gleam in his smoldering eyes, was plunging toward him. He had an ugly serpentine-shaped dagger raised above his head and he began screaming like a crazed banshee.

Hawke came close to freezing. Knives, he’d learned long ago, tend to have that effect on most people. But he feinted left and moved right with blinding speed.

He had exactly one second to get an arm up and ward off the downward slashing dagger. He felt the burn as the blade sliced his forearm open and saw bright blood splashing upon the teak decks. Ignoring the pain, he sucked in a deep breath and in an instant he had Rasputin’s knife hand in his grasp and had planted one foot solidly on the deck. He pulled Rasputin forward and pivoted on his one planted heel at the same time.

The Russian pitched forward, grunting, losing his balance, and Hawke gathered himself, using Rasputin’s own forward momentum to lift the shrieking Russian off the deck. Still gripping the knife hand, he pivoted once more and released his grip, flinging the man bodily into the air, out and over the yacht’s waist-high gunwale rail.

With an inhuman wail, the man went pinwheeling into space, finally hitting the water some forty feet below with a great splash.

Hawke leaned against the bulkhead, calmly tying his pocket handkerchief around his blood-soaked forearm. “Cut me to the bone, the bloody bastard,” Hawke said.

“Shall I ring the ship’s surgeon, sir?” Brian asked, returning his weapon to its holster. Hawke had dispatched the Russian with such alacrity he hadn’t needed it.

“Not now. I’ve suffered worse in a nasty badminton match. Ambrose, please ask Mr. Golgolkin if his comrade down there can swim.”

Ambrose and Golgolkin had their backs to Hawke, both peering down over the side of the yacht. Someone flipped on a spotlight and trained it on the Russian. They could see him thrashing about in the water and the disturbance was attracting the attention of the sharks congregated at the bow.

“I say, did he survive the fall?” Hawke asked.

At the sight of the fins slicing through the water in his direction, the floundering Russian started screaming.

“Apparently, he did,” Hawke said, answering his own question. He stepped to the rail and glanced down. He was pleased to see all the dorsal fins, circling, closing.

“Brian, let the sharks get a little closer and then have someone open the closest starboard hatch and pull the little bugger in.”

“They’re pretty close right now, Skipper,” Drummond said. “Especially that big white-tip.”

“Not close enough,” Hawke replied. He turned to Congreve.

“Ambrose, perhaps someone could give Comrade Golgolkin here a towel or something to press against his wound. It’s nothing serious, unfortunately, just a scratch. And I suppose we can return this to him now.”

Hawke pulled the confiscated automatic pistol from his pocket, released the cartridge magazine, and tossed the clip overboard before handing the empty gun to Golgolkin.

“You’re quite welcome, I’m sure,” Hawke said, having heard no expression of thanks for his kindness.

The bearded Russian was speechless. Goggle-eyed, he was leaning over the varnished teak rail, watching the sharks circling ever closer around his hapless colleague.

“Will that be all, Skipper?” Brian asked.

“I think that’s quite enough excitement for one evening, don’t you? If our chief bosun is still sober when he returns to the boat, you might ask him to have my seaplane fueled and ready for me first thing. File a flight plan to Nassau, I want to be airborne by dawn’s early light.”

“Aye, sir.”

“After you’ve seen our guests safely ashore, you might call my pilots in Miami and tell them I want the Gulfstream to meet me in Nassau, tanks topped off and ready for wheels-up at noon. I’m taking her into Reagan Washington.”

“Aye, aye.”

“Aye, aye!” squawked Sniper.

“Ah, Sniper, my brave fellow. You deserve a treat. Brian, a lid of our best Beluga for old Sniper?”

“Done,” Brian said, smiling.

“Oh. And tell Miss Perkins down in the ship’s office to have Stokely pick me up in D.C., and book me a quiet table for two at the Georgetown Club at eight.”

“Done,” Brian said. “And your usual suite at the Hay-Adams overlooking the White House?”

“Not necessary, thanks. I spoke with Pelham. Apparently the new house is ready for occupants.”

Brian saluted and headed aft to make the arrangements.

Hawke noticed that the fat Russian, still looking down over the rail, appeared to have been eavesdropping on his conversation with young Drummond. Nosy, he decided, very nosy.

“Ambrose, do you have a second?” Hawke asked, and he and Congreve walked to the top of the steps leading down from the bridge deck, moving out of earshot of the Russian.

“Well done,” Congreve said softly. “He wants his money.”

“He’s bloody lucky he’s got his life,” Hawke said. “Tell that socialist disease that anyone who lines his pockets putting nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists takes his chances with me. He’s already used up one. And one is about all he gets. Bagged his bloody limit.”

“We’ll get them off the boat, Alex. But I would definitely increase the security on and around the yacht, starting tonight. Round the clock. These chaps are beyond unsavory.”

“I agree. I’ll have a word with Tommy Quick. Double the watch. This Telaraсa. I seem to have heard the name. Spanish, isn’t it? Something to do with spiders?”

“The spider’s web, actually.”

“I’ve always been petrified of spiders,” Hawke said, shuddering. “Strange, isn’t it? Ever since I was a boy. No idea why, of course. Spiders. Horrid little buggers.”

“Let’s have a nightcap up on deck, shall we?” Ambrose said. “And you can finish the gripping saga of that scourge of the Spanish Main, the blackguard Blackhawke.”

“Pirates’ lore. Most appropriate after a splendid evening of saber-rattling and plank-walking,” Hawke said. Motioning his friend up the stairs, he said, “After you, Constable.”

Once Hawke and Ambrose had made themselves comfortable up on deck, Hawke continued the story of his illustrious ancestor.

The old pirate, upon hearing that the king’s men were in the courtyard, now knew he was not to be spared the hangman’s noose. Collapsing back upon his tattered cot, he uttered one word, “Lost.”

The parson knelt on the cold stone beside him and put his hand out to the man. “Repent with me now, and make your final journey with peace in your soul. I beg of you to—”

“Innocent!” Blackhawke bellowed. “How does an innocent man repent? The king himself long encouraged piracy to fill his coffers. Now that damnable East India Company decides pirates are discouraging the mercantile trades, and suddenly our heads are on the block!”

“Alas, ’tis true.”

“My friends at court, my crew, one and all betray me to save their own skins! It’s these foul traitors must repent their treachery, not Captain Blackhawke!”

“Alas, ’tis true twice over,” the parson said. “Let us go now, and speak with the Lord.”

On their way to the courtyard, the parson took the hapless pirate into the prison chapel for one last chance at redemption. They sat for a moment in the gloom on a long hard pew facing a single coffin draped in black. As was tradition, the doomed prisoners had been forced to sit before the symbolic coffin, quite empty, for hours each day, supposedly doing their penance.