Ted Bell - Tsar

Harry was looking out his window as well.

“That’s Diana Mars’s yawl down there?” Harry asked, breaking his reverie.

“Yeah. Swagman. ”

“Wooded area at the south end of the island,” Harry Brock said. “And lights down there. No movement.”

“Do you see the dock? The white launch tied up there looks very familiar.”

“Everybody buckled in back there?” the pilot said over the intercom. “Touchdown in fifteen seconds.”

“Drop your cocks and grab your socks,” Harry Brock said, hands gripping the armrests of his seat. They were coming in extremely hot, just as Hawke had requested. It was going to be an interesting landing.

Just as the rubber hit the runway, brakes screeching loudly because of the scalding approach, Hawke, craning his head around, saw Diana’s bright orange flare arc into the black sky, ignite, and swing gently beneath its tiny parachute as it floated toward the beach. He knew exactly where to find her.

DIANA RAN INTO Hawke’s open arms as soon as she saw him approach over the sand dune. There were two other men with him, one dressed like Alex in some kind of black camouflage, the other in a dark suit and tie.

“Thank God you’ve come, Alex,” she said, clearly distraught. “I’m going out of my mind with worry.”

“Diana, it’s going to be all right. But we need to get moving. This is a friend of mine from Washington, Harry Brock. This other gentleman is my pilot, Captain Tanner Rose. Tanner’s going to see that you get safely home.”

“Home?”

“Yes. I want you to go there immediately. Captain Rose will stay with you. Don’t do anything or go anywhere until you hear from me. Don’t pick up the phone. Do you understand?”

“But, Alex, I want to-”

“There’s nothing more you can do, Diana, believe me. Now, Mr. Brock and I are going over to that island. We will return shortly with your fiancé and Sir David. I’m afraid we’ve got to shove off. Tanner, take my car and see that Lady Mars gets home safely, will you? It’s the little yellow Jolly in the lot, keys under the seat. Let’s go, Harry.”

Hawke opened the throttle, and the little inflatable got its rounded nose in the air and flew across the dark water. To the southeast, he could now see two larger islands silhouetted against a dim smattering of stars along the horizon. The one on the right, heavily fortified centuries ago, was called Castle Island. On the left was Nonsuch. He steered for the southern tip, where he’d seen the dock and the familiar white launch moored.

Presumably, Ambrose and Sir David had gone there, since Diana had last seen them headed in that direction.

It took them ten minutes. During that time, Hawke filled Brock in on what little he knew of the man called King Coale and his Rastafarian enclave on Nonsuch Island. The man was a big enough fish to have attracted the attention of the DEA and had done serious time in the U.S. prison system. Now he was back on Bermuda and had taken an unhealthy interest in Hawke’s comings and goings. Tonight, Hawke planned to find out why.

“Red Banner to the rescue,” Harry said cheerfully as they slowed, approaching the dock.

“Our first operation, and it damn well better be successful,” Hawke said, slinging the SAW automatic weapon over his shoulder. “I can’t imagine what those two were thinking, going ashore in the middle of the night.”

“Looking for action, Alex. They don’t see much anymore.”

“I suppose that’s about right, Harry.”

In truth, he was far more worried about the two missing men than he’d let Diana see. Ambrose was a seasoned police officer. He’d risen from street copper through the ranks at the Yard and seen plenty of rough sledding in doing so. Sir David, on the other hand, was an old blue-water sailor. No one doubted his courage or intelligence, but he’d been piloting a desk for the last decade or so. Neither was a young man anymore, and Ambrose was still battling a crippling leg injury.

From what little he knew of the Disciples, they were a sketchy lot at best. Marijuana merchants being paid to keep an eye on him for some unknown reason.

At worst, they were a ragtag army of stoned killers.

There was no one in sight either on the shore or on the dock. Hawke disengaged the throttle and let the dinghy ghost up to the end of the old wooden pier. He looked closely at the island, his eyes roaming the dark fringe of vegetation reaching down to the white sandy beach. There was a village there, completely overgrown. It looked deserted, but a sniper could easily be waiting behind one of those vine-choked windows. He seemed to recall that this island had been home to a downrange NASA tracking station during the great manned-space-flight era.

He heard Harry slamming a mag into his SAW and looked up. They were three feet from the rotting wooden dock. There was a ladder descending into the water, and Brock tied the painter to it. The ladder looked barely strong enough to support their weight.

“You first, Harry,” Hawke said quietly. “Don’t forget to step up from the middle seat getting off. Balance.”

“Jesus, you think I don’t know that?”

“Just go, Harry.”

Hawke checked his weapon one last time and followed him up the ladder a few moments later. The first thing he saw was Harry Brock, halfway down the dock already, crouched over the body of a man who appeared to be very dead.

Hawke sprinted toward Harry and heard a froth of angry splashing coming from the water beneath the boards.

“Dead?” Hawke asked, kneeling beside Brock.

“Yeah. Look at the water, Alex,” Harry said.

Hawke did. It was a mess of sharks in a frenzy.

“Look at this,” Brock said, pulling back the dead man’s trouser cuff. “One of these toothy bastards came right up out of the water and took off his whole goddamn foot.”

The thrashing sharks were in a feeding frenzy, all that fresh blood in the water, flowing from the mutilated, nearly ex-sanguinated body above. The dead man was facedown, but Hawke already had a pretty good idea who it was. He knew that white launch well enough.

“Turn him over, Harry.”

Harry got his hands under the corpse and gently rolled it onto its back. The body was almost completely bled out, and the grey face had been partly shot away, but Hawke recognized him instantly.

“His name is Hoodoo. That’s his launch back there.”

“Old pal of yours?”

“He works for a Russian here on Bermuda named Korsakov. Somehow, Korsakov’s tied to this Jamaican lot. Let’s go.”

They quickly moved toward the deserted village of low concrete buildings, weapons at the ready, fanning out and looking for any hint of movement behind the black and empty windows. They’d decided to proceed with hand signals alone, and Harry now signaled Hawke that he’d enter the village first, clearing it with his SAW if necessary. Hawke indicated that he understood. Harry would clear; he would follow.

It wasn’t necessary to clear. They proceeded into the island’s jungle interior unopposed. It was tough going with the guns out front, their muzzles catching on the thick vines and undergrowth, but Hawke figured this was the way Congreve and Trulove must have traveled. The jungle gave way to a kind of path here, overgrown but clearly still well used as a route to and from the dock. Judging from the crumbling cement structures they’d seen, Hawke knew this was what was left of the old NASA tracking station, the buildings abandoned years ago. But these were pumping stations, maintenance sheds, and other secondary structures. The main building had to be somewhere deeper in the interior.

Brock went down on one knee, and his hand shot up, palm flat. Hawke froze, taking a knee as well, his SAW pulled tight into his shoulder. He could hear low voices ahead. The sweet smell of ganja hung in the still night air. After a few moments, he and Harry both pulled out the assault knives strapped just above their ankles and started moving again toward the sound of the voices.