Ted Bell - Tsar

Hawke stood his ground as Korsakov clambered up onto the podium and headed straight for the lectern. The man was literally snarling, stringy loops of saliva flying from his open mouth as he crossed the wide stage. Hawke smiled and calmly continued, as if nothing were out of the ordinary.

“Under this self-proclaimed Tsar, the New Russia will become like the old Soviet Union. A cynical tyranny, a cruel and heartless state, no rule of law, trampling on basic rights and human dignity, expansionist by creed, and-oh, here’s our honoree now-I’d like you all to welcome-”

Korsakov reached out, ripped the microphone from the lectern, and flung it to the floor in a fury.

“I will kill you for this!” he said in a low growl, going for Hawke’s throat with his outstretched hands.

Hawke, still behind the lectern, thought a physical brawl at the Nobel podium would be a bit unseemly, so he pulled the small Walther PPK automatic from his shoulder holster and shoved the muzzle deep under the Tsar’s ribs, aiming straight for the heart.

“No, sire, I will kill you,” Hawke said in a low voice. “Here. Now. Or we can step outside and settle this matter like gentlemen. Which do you prefer, you murderous bastard?”

He now shoved the Walther up under the Tsar’s chin, grabbed him by the lapel, and yanked him closer. He was aware of security men edging toward the lectern.

“I will do it,” Hawke said. “Believe me.”

“He’s got a gun!” one of the Nobel officials shouted, and the members of the Nobel Committee still on the podium either dove off the stage into the crowd or raced up the staircase between the bewildered trumpeters.

The Tsar looked into Hawke’s icy blue eyes. The Russian was breathing heavily through flared nostrils, his pupils dilated, his nose only inches away from the hated Englishman’s. He spat full into Hawke’s face. Then he turned and leaped from the podium onto the royal table, sending china and crystal crashing to the stone floor.

“You will have cause to regret that, sir,” Hawke said to his retreating back. The man was storming the length of the tabletop, slashing flaming candelabras aside with his hands and kicking great urns and tureens of hot soup out of his path toward the main exit at the far end of the table.

Hawke holstered his Walther, pulled his white handkerchief from the breast pocket of his cutaway, and wiped the Tsar’s saliva from his face. Various security men seemed to be making their way toward him, so he simply dove into the hysterical crowd and resurfaced a hundred yards away, melting into a seething mass of identically dressed men heading for the exits.

There was utter panic and pandemonium in the hall.

He was afraid he’d quite ruined the entire evening.

But after all, some things just couldn’t be helped.

The Maybach roared out of the car park on two wheels as Hawke raced up to the Saab. Halter was sitting in the passenger seat with the engine running and the driver’s door open. Hawke jumped behind the wheel and fastened his safety belt. Engaging first gear, he slammed the accelerator to the floor, popped the clutch, and fishtailed out into the Avenue Hantverkargatan, taking a right turn just as the Maybach had done. He was hoping for a glimpse of taillights, but the Tsar’s big black automobile had already crossed the large bridge and disappeared.

“You did it!” Halter said. “You bloody well flushed him out!”

“Yeah.”

“Before or after his moment of glory?”

“I’d say what his moment lacked in glory was more than compensated for by drama.”

Halter smiled. “Good work.”

“Damn it,” Hawke said, slamming the wheel with his closed fist. “He’s going to be tough to catch, much less keep up with. A real automobile would have come in handy tonight.”

“Relax, Alex. I know where he’s going,” Halter said, holding onto the dashboard with one hand, cradling the Beta detonator in his lap with the other.

“You do?”

“Yes. I heard him shout at his driver as he was getting into the car. ‘Morto!’ That’s an island out in the Stockholm Archipelago. The Tsar has a summer house there, the only house on the island. It used to belong to King Carl XIV Johan. Built in 1818.”

“How the hell do you know that?”

“I’m a professor of history at Cambridge University.”

“Stefan, please tell me that he was alone when he came out.”

“No. His daughter Anastasia was with him.”

“Damn it! I told her to run!”

“You spoke with her?”

“No. I left a message on her mobile. Did she seem a willing passenger?”

“Hardly. She was screaming obscenities, trying to escape from her father, who was holding her by the wrist. Korsakov and his gorilla of a driver were trying to force her into the backseat. It looked as if she banged her head pretty badly on the roof. She slumped to the ground, and they stuffed her into the rear seat. The driver, by the way, had the Tsar’s Beta detonator manacled to his wrist. We’re good to go.”

Hawke, while relieved that Anastasia had obviously gotten his message, knew what Halter had to be thinking.

The doomsday clock was ticking, but they still had sufficient time to get away from the civilian population. They could do this as soon as they reached a stretch of deserted road beyond the outskirts of Stockholm. Blow the crazy bastard straight to hell with the Beta detonator up there in the Maybach’s front seat.

Because both men knew that in little more than one hour, the Tsar intended to murder at least a million innocent people with the push of a button on that machine. Sir David Trulove had informed Halter that Washington would retaliate immediately. At this very moment, there were twelve U.S. Navy Ohio-class submarines on high alert in the Baltic, the Barents Sea, and the North Pacific. Each sub was carrying twenty-two Trident II nuclear missiles bearing up to eight multiple warheads, up to 3.8 megatons apiece.

MI-6 had recently determined that Russia’s early-warning radar system was vulnerable. A single British or American nuclear missile detonated high in the atmosphere would blind all of the early-warning radars below, rendering them unable to monitor subsequent launches. Russia, seeing a launch, would then be faced with a terrible decision. Wait and see if a Trident missile explodes and blinds its radars, or launch a retaliatory strike immediately. Halter, like Sir David and the man in the White House, had no doubt which way Russia’s new leader would respond.

World War III.

Downshifting and sliding around a turn, Hawke felt as if his head were full of angry bees. What the hell was he going to do? His duty was clear, but his heart was a formidable foe. He loved that woman, deeply. She was carrying his child. He had to find a way to save her, even as he averted a world catastrophe by killing her father. He’d find a way. He had to.

“Bastard,” Hawke said, the horsepower-challenged rattletrap going airborne as he crested the bridge at full speed. The streets of Stockholm were patched with black ice, and unlike his adversary, he didn’t have four-wheel drive. Catching the Maybach was going to require some ingenuity.

“Which way to this Morto? I still don’t see the bloody Maybach. Are you sure he didn’t turn off on a side street somewhere here in the Gamla Stan?”

“There’s only one road to the sea, Alex. He’ll be on it, don’t worry.”

“As long as you say so, professor.”

Halter had turned the dim yellow map light on and held the Swedish map across his knees. Unlike Hawke, he didn’t seem to have any trouble reading it.

“We head due east on this road along the fjord. Route 222, called the Varmodoleden. We follow the mainland coast all the way out to the Baltic Sea. There are literally thousands of islands of various sizes east of here. Most of them with a few houses or villas. Eventually, we’ll come to this little town of Dalaro right on the Baltic proper. I see some dotted lines here. Looks as if there’s a ferry service from there out to Morto.”