Hawke

“It could have been for anybody.”

“Yeah. Could be political, could be mob stuff, type of clientele they got.”

“The doctor said Vicky could be released this morning if she’s feeling all right. I want to get her out of here.”

“Say the word. What are we doing?”

“I’m going back into the room to calm Vicky down. I want you to get my pilots on your mobile and tell them to light the candle on the G-IV, we’re getting out of town.”

“Pilots know where they supposed to be flying to?”

“Nassau. Tell them to have my seaplane meet me at the Atlantis Marina. The doctors told me last night that Vicky was going to need a couple of weeks’ rest. And she owes herself some holiday time anyway. No better place to do that than a few weeks in the Caribbean aboard Blackhawke.”

“How else can I help out, boss?”

“We’ll figure that out when we get down there.”

“We? You mean I’m goin’?”

Hawke nodded. “Yes. Please help Vicky get checked out of here. Then you go to her house and help her get a few of her things together. Maybe she could rest for a couple of hours. Then pick her up and meet me at the plane. Say three hours, max.”

“Got it, boss. What you up to on this fine morning?”

“I’ve invited the secretary of state for an early breakfast at the new house. I’ve barely seen it myself.”

“I better call Pelham and tell him to turn the perimeter alarms off. I showed him how to do it, but you know how he is. Boy is definitely not a techno-geek.”

“Pelham is the definition of old school, all right. I’ve got to go, I’m late already. I hope the secretary isn’t bringing those damn spooks with her.”

Stoke decided it probably wouldn’t be chivalrous to call his boss on that one. Best let that one pass.

“That bomb that got that waiter, boss?”

“Yes?”

“Decapitated his ass.”

“Did they print his name?”

“Yeah. Cat named Herbert Carrington.”

“Bloody hell,” Hawke said, and walked back down the hallway toward Vicky’s hospital room.

“The man that died last night,” Hawke said, crossing to her bed and taking her hand. “It was your friend. Herbert Carrington. I’m so sorry.”

“Herbert?”

Vicky looked up at him with tears in her eyes.

“It was his birthday,” she said. “Ninety-two years old and still going strong.”

27

The Russian chopper plunged from the Caribbean heavens, falling, sideslipping, and twisting all at the same time. The instrument panel was a blurred nightmare of wildly spi

They were moments from entering the “crescent of death,” namely, the failure of forward velocity and total loss of control of the helicopter. Lose your tail rotor and the chopper begins to rotate.

Because of gyroscopic action, it begins to swing like a pendulum. Your chances of crashing vertically, coming down on your skids, are reduced dramatically. Which is bad because, as Manso well knew, you might actually survive a vertical crash. But if any part of its main rotor blade touches solid ground, the chopper would just do a flaming cartwheel into the jungle.

All these thoughts went through Manso’s head. In seconds it would be beyond man’s, or machine’s, ability to recover. They were plunging down through two thousand feet, with maybe a minute to live.

Castro’s hold on the control stick was unshakable. For an ailing man in his late seventies, his grip was iron.

Manso had no choice.

He pulled the slim stiletto from the sheath attached to his right leg. He showed the Maximum Leader the blade, giving him just enough time to register what was about to happen to him and release the control stick.

“Let it go!” Manso shouted. “Now!”

“I don’t negotiate with traitors!” Castro shouted back, thick white spittle forming at the corners of his mouth. “Fuck you!”

When Castro did not remove his hand, Manso jammed the blade down into his muscular thigh with all the force he could muster. Blood spurted from Castro’s wound, spraying the instrument cluster and the leader’s fatigues. It wasn’t mortal. Manso had deliberately avoided the femoral artery. Still, sticking a blade in a man’s leg down to the bone takes a lot of the fuck-you out of him.

Castro howled in pain, releasing his hold on the control stick. He looked down at his bloody leg in shocked disbelief. Manso yanked the knife out of the leader’s thigh and threw it clattering to the cockpit floor between his foot pedals.

He then grabbed the blood-covered control and hauled back on it, twisting hard left. The chopper kept plunging for a few desperate seconds as Manso worked the controls, cursing and praying at the same time. There was now a big green mountain in his immediate future. With seconds to live, he wrestled the beast, twisting, tugging, pumping. His only chance was to drop the helicopter as rapidly as possible. And hope to come down vertically.

Suddenly, he felt it responding and stabilizing. He had it under control. Still breathing hard, he banked and started climbing, with the mountain still looming massively before him. Too late? His skids were brushing the treetops as Manso held back on the stick, holding his breath, his heart exploding in his chest. He was waiting for the shuddering crunch of the undercarriage hitting solid wood, which would bring him crashing into the face of the mountain.

It didn’t happen.

He gained a few hundred feet of breathing room, banked hard right, and found himself in clear air. He took a peek at Castro. The man was obviously in shock. He was losing a fair amount of blood and had gone a deathly shade of gray. His eyes were cloudy, out of focus.

“Comandante, I will radio for emergency medical to stand by for our landing. Press your finger into the wound. Hold on. We should be on the ground at Telaraсa in ten minutes.”

He got on the radio and made the request.

“Everything okay up there, Colonel?” the tense voice in his earphones said.

“Sн! Viva Cuba!” Manso responded.

Castro was silent and remained so for the short balance of the flight. Ever the survivor, he’d wrapped his own belt around his thigh and cinched it tight, staunching the bleeding.

The sun was dipping below the western horizon when Manso flared up and prepared to land. A large concrete structure, only recently completed, stood astride a wide river, flowing out to the sea. Now the giant structure was bathed in pure white light. Manso had not seen it since its completion and the mere sight of it gave him enormous satisfaction.

To a spy plane or satellite it could be anything. A convention hall, a movie theater. Better yet, a ballet theater. The Borzoi ballet. This huge building would house the world’s largest and deadliest submarine.

An encircled red H, newly painted on the broad, flat roof of the building marked the helicopter landing pad. As Manso hovered over it, he could see a squadron of heavily armed men forming up into a solid perimeter around the pad.

Manso turned to Castro.

“On behalf of our entire crew, let me be the first to welcome you to Telaraсa, Comandante,” Manso said when the skids were solidly down. “You will notice a few changes since your last visit.” The Maximum Leader grunted but said nothing. Two soldiers approached the helicopter at a run from either side as Manso shut down the engines. They pulled open the doors and the pilot and his passenger stepped out onto the brilliantly illuminated pad. Castro limped some twenty yards, head held high, glaring at the soldiers who ringed the chopper. No one around the perimeter said a word.

“Lower your weapons!” a defiant Fidel Castro shrieked at the soldiers. “I said lower your fucking weapons!”