Hawke

“You mean ‘boomer,’ ” Tate said.

“No. I mean bomber. You call them boomers. In the Royal Navy, we call them bombers.”

“Whatever. And what did the Russkies say?” Tate asked.

“They said they had an Akula. 1995-vintage Typhoon. Fifty million, half up front, half on delivery. Six months to get the vessel seaworthy and assemble a trained crew. Then delivery to the specified location.”

“I’m wondering,” Weinberg said. “Did you get any sense at all for whom they might be working?”

“None,” Hawke said. “I got the feeling they were independent agents. Of course, I could be wrong. Obviously, there’s some kind of infrastructure behind them. What they do is a bit more complicated than selling used autos.”

“What happened next, Alex?” the secretary asked.

“I told them I really wasn’t interested in the Akula I. I really wanted a Borzoi. They denied any knowledge of such a craft. After a bit of unpleasantness, they admitted the possibility that such a submarine might be purchased. I invited them aboard Blackhawke to continue negotiations. You’re looking for a Borzoi, these are your guys, all right.”

There was a heavy silence in the room. The secretary of state looked at Weinberg and mouthed the word bingo.

“Blackhawke?” Tate asked.

“My yacht,” Hawke said.

“Of course,” the CIA man said. “Your yacht.”

“Quite. I invited them to join me for di

“Good strategy, Alex,” the secretary said. “Bait the hook immediately.”

“Thank you. I told them I wanted a guaranteed six-month delivery. I wanted to personally inspect the boat before any commissioning took place. And, finally, as the secretary and I discussed, I said that I wanted to speak directly to their last purchaser as a confirming reference.”

The two men and Consuelo de los Reyes leaned forward to hear what he had to say next.

“How did they respond?” the secretary asked.

“They refused to reveal any names, of course. But, after a little, how shall I put it, prodding, they reconsidered.”

“Tell me. What did you find out, Alex?” the secretary asked, lines of anxiety forming around her eyes.

“That payment for the last submarine Mr. Golgolkin sold was wire-transferred to Golgolkin’s numbered account in Switzerland—”

“When would that have been?” Weinberg asked.

“He claims about six months ago.”

“Shit,” Tate said. “It’s on its way.”

“Maybe,” Weinberg said. “Maybe not. Things happen to schedules. Anyway, please continue, Mr. Hawke. This is very good stuff indeed.”

“According to our boy, Golgolkin,” Alex continued, “the money was wired from a bank in Miami. The Sunstate Bank.”

“Were you able to get the account name?” Weinberg asked. He was leaning forward, excitement plain on his face.

“As a matter of fact, I was. The money was wired from an account in the name of Telaraсa.”

“Telaraсa,” the secretary said, standing and moving to the window. “Unbelievable!” She gazed out at the swirling snowfall. “Look out this window, Mr. Tate. See it? There goes your pan-Islamic jihad theory.”

Jeremy Tate frowned and sat back in his chair. It occurred to Hawke that he seemed almost disappointed to discover that the combined nations of Islam weren’t purchasing a weapon capable of killing millions.

“You’ve heard of this Telaraсa, I take it, Madame Secretary?” Weinberg said. “I have not.”

“Oh, yes,” she said. “You’re damn right I’ve heard of Telaraсa. A coterie of generals at the very top of Castro’s ladder. Three brothers, all dirty. Cocaine cowboys. I ordered our Cuban station to get all over them like white on rice, starting six months ago when we started getting sporadic tips of a possible coup. They take their name from a small island fortress they’ve been pouring tens of millions into. Telaraсa. It means ‘the spider’s web.’ ”

“Sounds like these guys wouldn’t be much of an improvement over the status quo, Madame Secretary,” Weinberg said.

“Remember the old Cold War expression about dealing with the Russians?” de los Reyes asked. “ ‘Two steps forward, three steps back’? Should Telaraсa successfully topple Castro, we would be looking at three steps backwards followed by three hundred steps backwards.”

“How’d you get all this stuff out of them?” Tate asked.

“Let’s say the Russians were encouraged to be forthcoming in our conversations,” Hawke said. “I didn’t hurt them, just scared them a bit. I might add that they didn’t take it very well.”

“What do you mean?” the secretary asked.

“I mean this little chap Bolkonski, a dead ringer for the mad monk, Rasputin, tried to kill me. Twice, actually.”

“Both unsuccessful attempts, obviously,” Tate said.

Alex looked at the man and held his eyes for a long moment before speaking. “This Telaraсa. Anyone you know personally, Conch?” Alex asked.

“Not personally, no,” the secretary replied. “It’s basically the mafia. The Cuban-version mafia at any rate. The personal narco-fiefdom of Cuba’s top generals. They’ve built a huge military installation on an island just off Manzanillo. Telaraсa is built on the site of one of the rebel general’s haciendas.”

“But of course you knew that,” Hawke said, smiling at Tate.

“All right, all right,” Conch said, quickly riding over the obvious animosity between Tate and Hawke. “Here’s what we’re going to do. I want immediate U-2 and Predator surveillance flights over the entire southwest coast of Cuba. I want a twenty-four-hour bird in the sky snapping pictures and gathering thermals of the Telaraсa complex.”

“No problem,” Weinberg said.

“How many guys do we have on the ground in Cuba, Jeremy?” she asked Tate.

“A ton in Havana,” Tate said. “Out in the sticks, nada.”

“Rectify that. Like, today. I want our people fucking crawling all over Oriente province.”

“Right. And I’ll get us on the president’s calendar immediately,” Tate said.

Conch looked at him until he literally squirmed.

“Unless, of course, you’d rather handle that one personally, Madame Secretary?” Tate said.

She ignored him. “Good job, Alex. The president will be delighted to get this off his ‘to do’ list.”

“This Borzoi, it’s that bad, huh?” Tate asked.

“Our worst nightmare. Borzoi is huge,” Weinberg said. “She carries forty warheads, twenty on each wing. All sharp angles and planes, so no round surfaces to bounce back radar or sonar. Coated stem to stern with a three-foot-thick coating of some new absorptive substances the Russians developed. Vastly superior to the old Anechoic rubbercoating.”

“What’s that do?” Tate asked.

“Well, it means she’s virtually invisible to sonar, radar, you name it. She’s also got what’s commonly called a ‘decoupling’ coating, which dramatically reduces the amount of sound she puts into the water. She was going to be the Soviets’ last-ditch effort in an Armageddon showdown with the U.S. Navy.”

“A desperate come-from-behind finish,” Tate said, rubbing his chin.

“And now this nightmare contraption is in the hands of some very unstable Cubans,” Conch said, getting to her feet and walking over to the window overlooking Lincoln’s memorial. “Sweet Jesus.”

Snow had become a hard sleeting rain beating against the window-panes of Dr. Victoria Sweet’s two-hundred-year-old brick townhouse. In her ground-floor office, a crackling fire kept the chill outside at bay. It was late afternoon, and the gray light was fading rapidly from the skies of the nation’s capital, especially the snowy, tree-lined streets of Georgetown.