Hawke

“Aye, Skipper.”

“How long until sunrise?” Hawke asked.

“A few hours.”

“All right,” Hawke said, getting to his feet. “At first light, I’m going back out to find Vicky. Ambrose, would you mind taking a little walk with me aft?”

“Not at all.”

Once the two men reached the stern they stood side by side at the rail staring at the glassy water stretching to the horizon. Hawke finally broke the silence.

“I saw something, Ambrose. On the wall at the club.”

“Yes?”

“I know it means something. I know I should understand it. But I can’t—I can’t see. Or I won’t see. Am I making a complete fool of myself?”

“No, Alex, you’re not.”

“Anyway, see if you can make something of it for me, will you?”

Alex pulled an old Polaroid snapshot, yellow with age, out of his pocket and handed it to his friend.

“I’ll be happy to see what I can come up with, Alex.”

“Thank you, Ambrose. You are the most wonderful friend a man could ever ask for, you know.”

He walked away without waiting for a reply.

40

Ambrose had awoken to the heartbreaking sound of Hawke’s little airplane coughing and sputtering to life. When the noise came to resemble a screaming banshee outside his window, he sat up in bed, yawning, and pulled aside the curtain of the small rectangular port. He watched the silver plane lift off the water and climb into the nighttime sky.

Ambrose was keenly, painfully aware that Alex must know his search for Vicky’s body was hopeless. He also knew that Alex would be up there all day, flying every square mile of ocean within and beyond the search area, praying to find this woman who had seemed to offer him, finally, peace and passion.

He rolled over and tried to go back to sleep.

It was useless.

He picked up the brier pipe from his nightstand and jammed it between his teeth. It was both a comfort and a stimulant to thought. He realized despite the tragic events of the day, he was still poking around the edges of the thing that had haunted him for thirty-odd years.

He had slept fitfully, tossing and turning in his bed, unable to erase an image that simply would not go away. The image he saw was black-and-white and compelling. A simple composition. A story. A very old, sad story.

There were three figures in the foreground. A snowstorm of confetti and silver streamers filled the air. The photo was blurred as if some reveler had jostled the photographer at the moment the shot was taken.

Happy New Year.

A beautiful blond woman in a white sarong, diamonds sparkling around her regal white neck. A brilliant tiara in her hair. The woman had a flute of champagne in her raised hand and was smiling. Her other arm was thrown carelessly around the shoulders of a very fat young man with a bald, bullet-shaped head. A heavy golden crucifix was suspended from the thick gold chain around his neck.

There was another man in the foreground of the image. Tall and strikingly handsome in a spotless white di

For him, at least, this was not a very happy New Year.

Why?

Because the woman has had too much bubbly? Been too friendly with the bald-headed chap, perhaps. Said something indiscreet.

Ambrose sat bolt upright. He took a deep breath and looked out his oval port window. Overprinting the rippling black water, he saw the lingering image still, and now he had it.

The beautiful woman in Alex’s blurry Polaroid was Alex Hawke’s mother. The man in the di

Three Cuban boys on a murderous rampage.

Alex Hawke had handed him a key to the puzzle he’d been trying to solve for over thirty years.

Ambrose picked up the phone and called Sutherland’s cabin, waking him from a dead sleep. He told Ross to meet him on the bridge deck in ten minutes. Then he called Stokely and delivered the same message. He got up, padding quickly across his small cabin. He opened the door to the tiny head and stood before the sink, gazing at his haggard reflection in the mirror.

He was busily brushing his teeth when the magnitude of what was happening struck him like a blow to the head. He was standing at the very brink of solving the insoluble. The mystery surrounding the events aboard the yacht Seahawke that had occurred over thirty years ago.

Dressed, he shoved his service revolver, a pre-war nickel-plated Webley-Scott, into the side pocket of his favorite tweed jacket and headed for the bridge.

Sutherland and Stokely were already there.

“We’re going ashore,” Ambrose said. “Ross, please ask Tom Quick to select four of his best crewmen and arm them with automatic weapons. Stokely, do you need a gun?”

“I am a gun,” Stoke said, dead serious.

“Good. We might well put your talents to use then. Have everyone meet at the launch as quickly as humanly possible.”

“What is it, Constable?” Sutherland asked.

“Our first stop will be a surprise visit to Mr. Amen Lillywhite. If we find out what we need to know, there will be a second surprise party, quite possibly a highly charged affair.”

“We’ll be ready at the launch in ten minutes,” Sutherland said, and picked up the ship’s phone to begin assembling his team of raiders. It took less than a minute.

“Ross, do you have the Streetsweeper aboard?”

“Certainly.”

“Bring it,” Ambrose said, and left the bridge.

The Streetsweeper was Ross’s invention. It was a pistol-gripped, sawed-off shotgun capable of firing fifteen twelve-bore cartridges in less than twenty seconds. He had used it with much success in some difficult operations. He would carry it in addition to the matching flat Wilkinson throwing knives strapped inside each forearm.

Half an hour later, the launch arrived at the Staniel Cay docks. The small raiding party was armed to the teeth. It was just past four in the morning, still dark, and the entire island seemed to be sleeping. They still had the cover of darkness on their side. After disembarking, Ambrose posted one man on the dock to cover their escape if necessary.