Ted Bell - Spy

He’d made a troublesome discovery the evening prior at the Con-naught Bar. Over drinks with an old colleague who was recently employed at Legoland, he had learned that the lovely Miss Guinness was the source of many of C’s misgivings regarding his Amazon reports. According to his chum, Barry Donohue, Pippa had provided C with her own assessment of the current threat level in the Amazon Triangle. Apparently, she found it significantly lower than Hawke’s own estimates. Told C Hawke was overstating his case.

Hawke wouldn’t have minded that necessarily, but then he’d learned that the young woman had never set foot in the Amazon Basin. Her summary conclusions, passed along to C, were handwritten in the annotated margins of Hawke’s own carefully prepared reports. According to Donohue, all of her conclusions were all based on the accounts of various low-ranking embassy staffers notorious for collecting dated and even erroneous intel in the comfort of their plush offices in Buenos Aires, Caracas, Santiago, and Montevideo. Going out into the field would rarely even occur to them.

It was precisely the reason C had sent Hawke up the river on his “expedition.”

None of this, however, seemed to have occurred to the lovely Miss G. Or, to be honest, C himself.

Hawke suffered no delusions about C’s assigning Pippa Guinness as his “aide” on this trip. The possibility that she was a bona fide field agent was remote. She was tagging along to keep an eye on him and report back to C on all and sundry that she saw and heard in Key West. HM Government had a big stake in Brazil. He was sure the Foreign Secretary had urged C to keep tabs on its erstwhile field agent whilst he was deep inside the American camp.

Miss Guinness was seated just aft of the forward bulkhead on the left. A flat-screen monitor mounted there showed a GPS map of the lower southeastern United States and displayed their current airspeed, estimated time of arrival, and the time and temperature at their destination. The temperature in Miami, Hawke had noted with satisfaction just before they took off from RAF Sedgwick, was a balmy seventy degrees Fahrenheit. The temperature in London had plummeted into the thirties.

After supper aboard, Hawke’s steward had offered to run a film, presenting Pippa Guinness a choice from the onboard DVD library. She’d chosen Bad Boys, a fairly recent Will Smith comedy shot in Miami. As it happened, the action comedy was one of Hawke’s favorites and he’d watched some of it himself before becoming embroiled in a two-inch thick LATAM file marked MOST SECRET. This he’d been given by C for his in-flight entertainment.

He plowed through his files, studying the charts and tables, mentally rehearsing his upcoming remarks at the Key West conference. It was not as dry as he’d feared. Whoever had prepared it knew their stuff. Having digested three-quarters of the file, he’d nevertheless fallen asleep. Having slept for a few hours, he then resumed studying the thing at first light before falling into Congreve’s sticky web of aces and deuces, kings and queens.

“Good morning, Miss Guinness,” Ambrose said heartily. “How did you sleep?”

“Most comfortably, thank you,” she said. “This certainly beats economy on Virgin Atlantic.”

“Indeed it does,” Ambrose said. “Hawke Air abounds in creature comforts. Would you like some tea, my dear? Coffee? We’re having breakfast on the ground, but I’m sure the galley could scrounge up a scone or two if you’re so inclined. Eggs and toast?”

“Tea would be lovely, thank you. I’ll just pop into the loo and freshen up if I have time.”

“You do. We’re landing in about half an hour.”

“Brilliant,” she said, climbing deftly out of her seat considering the length of her skirt. “How was your gin rummy game? Did you win, Chief Inspector?”

“Handily, my dear, thanks very much.”

After she’d disappeared from the cabin and closed the door to the head, Hawke, who’d been feigning sleep throughout this conversation, brought his seat upright and looked at Congreve.

“Handily?” Hawke asked. “Is that what you said to her, Constable?”

“Mmm.”

“Handily, my arse. Deal the bloody cards.”

29

PORT OF MIAMI

H alf an hour later, Hawke was on the ground. He stepped off the plane onto the tarmac at Opa-locka Airport. The small field handled general aviation overflow from Miami-Dade and was located just seven miles from Miami International. Hawke saw a dark blue Suburban with heavily tinted windows parked just outside the FBO building, about twenty yards away. The familiar figure of Sergeant Tom Quick was striding his way.

“Welcome to Miami, Skipper,” Quick said, extending his hand. The young blond American fellow, an ex-Army sniper, was Hawke’s chief of security and had been overseeing Blackhawke’s refit in Miami these last few months.

“It’s good to see you, sir,” Quick said, taking Hawke’s canvas travel case and slinging it over his shoulder.

“Good to be here,” Hawke said, and meant it. “Cheated death once again, Tommy,” he added, looking back at his gleaming midnight blue airplane. He was always happy to have it on the ground, passengers and airplane all in one piece.

Quick leaned forward and said softly, “A quick update, Skipper. I just got a call from Stokely Jones saying he was on his way to Port of Miami to meet you and wondering if you’d landed. He says he’s got someone he’d like you to meet. A Venezuelan he met down in the Keys. He arrived late last night from Key West where he and his new friend had been in the hospital.”

“Stokely was hurt? How much damage?”

“Nothing life-threatening, I don’t think, but they kept him overnight for observation. According to him, just a scratch. He was badly cut diving on a wreck day before yesterday. Lost a lot of blood. But he sounded upbeat as usual. He says you’ll find his new friend extremely interesting.”

“You have Stokely’s new mobile number here?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’ll call him from the car.”

Congreve had emerged from the plane and, ever the gentleman, was offering Miss Guinness a hand as she descended the few remaining steps to the ground.

“Mr. Congreve, great to see you again,” Tom said, going over to shake hands with Ambrose and relieve him of his carry-on luggage.

“Young Tom, I am delighted to see you as well,” Congreve said, giving Quick his bag. He looked around at the grassy palm-fringed field, stretching his arms skyward and rising up jauntily onto his toes. The man hated flying and was always thrilled to find himself returned to terra firma.

He turned to Quick and said, “Sergeant? May I present Miss Pippa Guinness? Miss Guinness, this strapping young lad is Thomas Quick, formerly of the United States Army and now the man primarily responsible for your security while you’re aboard Blackhawke.”

“Tommy Quick, Miss Guinness,” he said, shaking her hand. “Welcome to the tropics. I’ve got transportation waiting just over there. If everyone’s ready, the stowed luggage will be transferred from the plane while we clear Customs and Immigration. Then we’ll head over to the Port of Miami. We’ve got a piping hot breakfast waiting for you aboard ship.”

“Ship?” she said, eying Hawke. “He owns a ship too?”

“You’ll see,” Quick replied, relieving her of her carry-on luggage.

ABOARD HIS BELOVED Blackhawke at long last, Hawke excused himself shortly after breakfast and made his way forward alone. After an extended journey sealed at high altitude inside an aluminum tube, he was eager for fresh air and solitude. His boat was the only company he needed at present. He wanted to see all of her, feel her, smell her, run his fingers along her varnished rails and gleaming chrome fittings.