Ted Bell - Tsar

Diana said, “Well, yes, Alex, it was just the three of us until about an hour ago. We’ve a surprise guest for dinner. Ambrose hasn’t told you?” She looked at her man again, and Congreve frowned.

“Sorry, dearest, hadn’t got round to it yet,” Ambrose said, expelling a fragrant cloud of Peterson’s Irish Blend.

“Coward,” Diana said to her beloved, taking Ambrose’s hand and squeezing it.

“Well, who is this mystery guest?” Hawke asked, looking at the two of them, who were looking at each other. “Don’t tell me the monarch heard I was coming and arrived unexpectedly on your doorstep.”

“No, no, not Her Majesty the Queen, I’m sorry to say. But someone equally formidable. Tell him, dear, don’t keep the poor boy hanging.”

Ambrose looked at Hawke like a brain surgeon steeling himself to deliver a less than ideal diagnosis.

“Sir David Trulove rang me up earlier today, Alex. He just arrived in Bermuda late last evening. I offered to put him up, but he’s staying with some dear old friends who live here on the island, Dick and Jeanne Pearman. They’ve a lovely place over in Paget called Callithea. They’ve put Sir David in their guest house, Bellini.”

“C is here? On Bermuda? Why?”

C was the chief of MI-6, the British Intelligence Service. As far as Hawke knew, his idea of an extended vacation was a leisurely stroll to the corner concessionaire for a pack of his favorite smokes, Morland’s, a blend of Turkish and Balkan tobaccos with three gold bands on the filter.

“Well, good question. He’s been out inspecting the Royal Navy Dockyards all day. Lord knows why. Nothing but curio shops and a few restaurants out there now. At any rate, he called here rather early this morning looking for you. Sounded as if you yourself might be in a spot of eau chaud with the old boy.”

“Eau chaud?”

“Sorry. Hot water.”

“Just because one can speak French doesn’t mean one should.”

Congreve sighed and gave Hawke a narrow look.

“At any rate, he feels you dropped off his radar without much warning. I told him of our dinner plans with you tonight, and it would have been rude not to include him.”

Hawke was astounded. “What on earth would he be doing in Bermuda, Ambrose? C, of all people. He doesn’t take holidays, as far as I know. He barely takes food and water.”

“You’ll have to ask him, I’m afraid,” Ambrose said, getting his pipe going again.

“Oh, come on, Constable. Spill it. You must have some inkling. What does your gut tell you?”

“My gut? I wouldn’t trust my subconscious if it were only just around the corner.”

Hawke had known Ambrose Congreve for far too long not to suspect he was holding something back. He could feel the beginnings of tension surging into his neck and shoulders, and the feeling was not altogether unpleasant. Of course, he could be leaping to conclusions. C, the chief of British Intelligence, might well take a few days’ island time. He worked like a dog, round the clock, but the head of MI-6 was certainly entitled to some vacation now and then.

But he would not be calling around looking for Alex Hawke if something spicy wasn’t up. Would he?

Diana squeezed Alex’s hand and moved away. Hawke watched her floating across the moonlit terrace toward the house and thought she’d never looked lovelier. Congreve was a lucky man.

“Dinner will be served in one hour. I’m off for the kitchen,” Diana said, smiling back at the two men, “Sir David’s just arrived, Alex. I put him in the library. He said he had to make a few urgent calls, but he wanted a word with you before dinner. I have a feeling you’re in for quite a session.”

“So much for peace,” Hawke said to Ambrose after Diana had left them alone. “That’s what I bloody came here for, isn’t it? A little peace?”

“Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum!”

“I’m sorry. What did you say, Constable?”

“‘Let he who desires peace prepare for war.’ Flavius Vegetius Renatus. Roman military strategist, fourth century.”

“Ah. I thought that might have been Flavius. Sounds like something the old bugger might say.”

Congreve was not amused.

“Vastly overrated, peace, I daresay,” Ambrose said, looking at his friend with narrowed eyes.

“Well, that’s a fairly bellicose comment, coming from one who fancies nothing so much as burrowing about in his garden amongst his bloody dahlias.”

“I have hidden depths, Alex. Even from you.”

Hawke took a long swig of his rum. “Ah, well, no matter. Easy come, easy go.”

“Another Dark and Stormy?”

Alex shook his head. “You know what this is all about, don’t you, Ambrose? Why C is here on the island?”

“Hmm,” Congreve said, and he meant it.

“Spill it.”

“Russians.”

“Russians?”

“Remember the hungry Russian bear, Alex? Remember the Cold War?”

“Vaguely. That was my father’s war, not mine.”

“Well, it’s back with a vengeance. Only this time around, it’s not cold. It’s hot as hell.”

The skipper of the Kishin Maru, a giant commercial fishing trawler sailing out of Shiogama, Japan, had been on the bridge for the duration of the sudden and appalling storm. The blow had appeared out of the clear blue, with nothing on radar or weather sat to indicate its approach or severity. Only a sharp drop of the mercury minutes before the storm hit had alerted the crew to what was in store for them.

The waves were mountainous, now thirty feet or more and building. Winds, now out of the northeast, were clocking at more than fifty knots. And the barometer was at 29.5 and still dropping.

The skipper’s trawler, normally in use as a pirate longliner, was now seining in the Gulf of Alaska for Alaskan pollock. Noboru knew he was inside the two hundred mile limit imposed by the Americans because of overexploitation, but at the moment that was the least of his problems. The sudden blow had caught him unawares and he was scrambling to secure his vessel.

Captain Noboru Sakashita’s trawler, owned by the giant Japanese fishing conglomerate Nippon Suisan, was accustomed to navigating dangerous waters. Indeed, it was company policy to push the edge of the envelope, as the Americans said.

Noboru’s company was run by a madman named Typhoon Tommy Kurasawa, a man who liked to live, and work, dangerously. He had one rule for his commercial skippers: Do whatever it takes to fill your holds. The ships in his fleet were all “pirates.” They carried no markings, to ensure that they could fish without restriction. These fishing pirates all flew “flags of convenience” to hide their owners’ identities. FOCs were sold by many countries with no questions asked.

Typhoon Tommy hated the Americans. But he loathed the Russians more. Russians shot first and asked questions later.

Just six months earlier, Noboru’s FOC trawler had been fired on by a Russian Border Coast Guard patrol vessel. The Japanese captain, under corporate orders, had been fishing the banks off Kaigarajima Island, part of the disputed Russian-controlled northern territories. It was there, in a place called the Kuril Islands, that the shooting took place.

When Noboru, under orders, had sailed outside the authorized area, the Russians had immediately fired flares in an attempt to get him to stop. He slowed his vessel, radioing Nippon headquarters for further instructions. Meanwhile, the Russians had launched dinghies loaded with armed men in an attempt to board him. That’s when he’d further ignored their orders and tried to escape. The border patrolmen in the small boats had opened up with machine-gun fire.