Ted Bell - Warlord

"You must be joking," Thorne said, incredulous.

"Astounding," Malmsey said.

"To say the very least," Hawke replied. "But let me assure you, sir, that I will run this fellow to ground and I will kill him before any harm befalls the Royal Family, or he kills me."

The room fell silent.

"And the second name, Alex? Scimitar?"

"Scimitar code name, obviously. We've no idea who he is at this point, but we will find out. That I can promise you, sir."

"Thank you all for coming," Malmsey said, his voice weary. "I'd say, despite the enormity of the challenges facing us, we're making good progress."

"But time is of the essence," Thorne said. "I'd like to put myself and all my resources at MI6 at your disposal, Lord Malmsey. Working together, in full cooperation, we just might crack this thing sooner rather than later."

"Your offer is both appreciated and accepted, Monty. Thank you."

"Good night, sir. Get well soon," Hawke said, getting to his feet.

Thorne and Sahira followed Hawke out into the corridor, leaving the director general of MI5 alone with his troubled thoughts. He'd always been on the hot seat. Somehow, he needed to find a way to get off.

Lord Malmsey's carefully ordered world seemed to be coming apart at the seams. Spinning out of control and there didn't seem to be a damn thing he could do about it. He reached over to his night table and buzzed the nurses' station. He told the duty nurse he wanted to see his doctor first on the morning rounds. He needed out of here, and he needed out now.

STOKELY JONES TOLD HARRY BROCK HE needed a damn break right this minute. Harry silently nodded yes, and the two of them went up on deck to talk things over. The little guy down in the owner's stateroom wasn't going anywhere. He was tied to the chair, his wrists tightly bound behind him with, ouch, dental floss, a trick Stoke had learned with VC captives back in the shit.

Right about now, little Yoda down there was praying for a one-way ticket to paradise. But Stoke had no intention of letting this murderous child-killing bastard keep his hot date with seventy-two virgins.

"Martyr, my ass," Stoke had told Yoda right off. "This is America, asshole. Unlike you, we don't kill noncombatants. You're going to spend what's left of your sorry life in a prison that makes Abu Ghraib and Gitmo look like Mr. Roger's Neighborhood."

Cool salt air smelling faintly of iodine stung Stoke's eyes when he stepped out on deck. After the stink of sweat and cigarette smoke in the small, airless cabin below, it felt good just to breathe again. How long had they been at it, he wondered, looking at his watch. Three damn hours.

He'd grown weary of interrogating an arrogant man who'd blown up a hospital full of doctors, nurses, and sick people; more recently he had caused the deaths of nearly two hundred innocent schoolchildren in a series of school bus bombings-and showed not a trace of remorse for any of it. A man whose only regret was that he'd been stopped before he could kill more kids. A man who'd prefer to die rather than betray his religion of death.

These effing people were certifiable, no doubt about it. They were making babies faster than anybody else on the whole planet, then teaching them how to hate. And kill anybody who disagreed with them.

Great, huh?

Future's so bright, I got to wear shades.

"Good cop, bad cop thing? Just ain't working, Harry," Stoke finally said, hands on the varnished teak railing. He willed himself to relax, eyes gazing out over the deeply rolling swells of the blue Atlantic, ruffled whitecaps marching away to the horizon. The boat they were on, Maiden Voyage, a weather-beaten and barnacle-encrusted sixty-foot Viking sport-fishing boat, was a blind CIA charter out of Cracker Boy Marine over at Grove Key marina.

Stoke had four lines out, two from the outriggers and two off the stern. They were slowly moving south at idle speed, the helm on autopilot. Fishermen. Nobody would bother them.

Earlier, Stoke had taken Maiden Voyage through Government Cut into the Atlantic and out to a preset GPS waypoint beyond U.S. territorial waters. He'd deliberately established his destination four miles outside the United States' twelve-nautical-mile limit, just to be on the safe side. He was now in international waters, a good place to have unpleasant conversations like the one they were having with the imam from the Glades prison.

The terror kingpin's real name was Azir al-Wazar. Probably Arabic for Wizard of Oz, Stoke thought, and started calling the guy "Ozzie" just to piss him off.

"Got a better idea?" Harry said, lighting up a fresh unfiltered Camel. He'd stubbed the last one out in the little guy's left ear. Harry being Harry as usual, he only smoked on certain very special social occasions. Like rendition.

"Yeah, I got one, Harry. Bad cop, bad cop."

"I like it."

"Ozzie won't like it."

"Screw Ozzie. He murders schoolchildren on school buses, remember that little tidbit? Three buses in three states in the last three weeks. How many of our kids does he get to kill before we can, you know, really torture the dickhead?"

"Really pisses me off waterboarding is no longer politically correct," Stoke said. "I miss it already."

"Hopeless nostalgia, man, wasted energy. Listen. I saw a pair of really rusty pliers at the bait station back there in the stern. We could pull his goddamn tongue out, right? Put a big fish hook in it first and then yank-"

"Then he couldn't talk at all, Harry."

"Good point."

"You need your tongue to talk."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever."

Stoke saw a baby dolphin suddenly surface about six feet away and then dive under the bow of boat, playing with them, surfacing on the other side before coming around again.

"I think I just got an idea," he said, smiling at Harry for the first time all afternoon.

"Spit it out. Look on your face, it's a really good one."

"Old navy tradition. Really old. Been around since the year 1560. But off the books for centuries so I doubt any of our more ladylike congressmen have passed any goddamn laws against it."

"Yeah? What is it?"

"Follow me," Stoke said heading aft for the stern cockpit where the big chrome fishing chair was and all the fishing gear was stowed. He did some quick mental calculations: the boat's beam; the draft. "C'mon, I'll show you how it works."

Harry flicked his smoke overboard, followed Stoke aft, and watched him opening hatch covers in the wide transom until he found the right one, a rope locker. He pulled out two big coils of thick white nylon line, each about thirty feet long, Harry guessed. Stoke quickly tied them together in a manner that suggested prior nautical experience.

Harry said, "Tie him up? With that? Whoa. But, yeah, very cool idea."

"Not tie him up, Harry."

"What then?"

"Go get his sorry ass. I'll show you right now."

Harry was back at the stern with Yoda in about five minutes. Boat was rocking pretty good in these big swells, and the Wizard was looking green about the gills. Shaky. Too bad they'd run out of Dramamine.

"Want to talk now, Ozzie?" Stoke asked him, leaning down until their noses were almost touching.

"How does one say 'go fuck yourself' in English?" he replied with his elfin smile. "Oh. I remember now. Go fuck yourself."

"Easy. Say it again, just one more time, and then try to say it without any teeth."

"There is no God but God," the imam smirked, and repeated his mantra for the hundredth time that day. His idea of name, rank, and serial number. This little dick was really getting on Stoke's nerves. He'd murdered, or caused to be murdered, nearly two hundred innocent American schoolchildren. And no one could legally lay a hand on him.