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Alex was dreaming.
Sound asleep in the top bunk of his tiny berth, he was dreaming of his old dog Scoundrel.
They’d taken a small picnic supper to the edge of the sea. Scoundrel was plunging again and again into the waves, retrieving the red rubber ball. But now some terrible black storm appeared to be howling in from the sea, sweeping the little red ball farther and farther from the shore.
Scoundrel was at the water’s edge, the waves lapping around his forepaws. He was mewling and barking, watching the red ball disappear over the horizon. The dog barked loudly, loud enough to wake Alex, who rolled over in his berth, clutching his pillow, mumbling something in his sleep.
He was so far down, he couldn’t, wouldn’t, come up.
Quiet, Scoundrel. Quiet.
But there really was a voice calling him to come and come quickly.
Someone really was grabbing him, a rough hand on his shoulder, calling his name loudly in his ear. Shaking him, telling him to wake up, wake up now, even though he knew it was still nighttime. He could hear the waves slapping against the hull of the ship, see the blue moonlight streaming through the porthole onto his bedcovers, and hear the faint sounds of activity up on deck.
“Rise and shine, Commander, wake up!” the steward was saying. “It’s 0600 hours, sir! You were meant to be airborne at this time! Sir!”
“What? What?” Alex said, sitting up. Scoundrel had been replaced by a sea of black dots, swimming before his eyes.
“0600, sir, you filed a flight plan for an 0600 hours departure. Flight ops has been calling, wondering where you are. We’re getting ready to receive four squadrons. They’d like to get you out first. And this fax came in for you, sir, middle of the night. We didn’t want to disturb you.” He handed Alex a sealed envelope.
“Tell flight ops I’m on my way,” Hawke said, and the aide slipped out into the brightly lit corridor.
He ripped open the envelope, pulled out the single piece of paper, and read it.
Alex,
Events here require your presence. Urgent. Please contact as soon as you receive this message.
Best,
Sutherland and Congreve
Alex shook his head and tried to clear it. He stuck the fax into his pocket. He’d radio Blackhawke soon as he was airborne. His hand went immediately to his throbbing forehead. He remembered instantly. He’d fallen prey to the demonic whiskey gods once more. They’d had their way with him and now he must pay. Coffee. That was it. Coffee.
He rang for a steward who, since this was Officers’ Country, appeared instantly.
“Yes, sir?” the boy said as Alex, yawning, opened the door, still trying to rub the sleep from his eyes.
“May I please have a pot of hot coffee?”
“Certainly,” the cherubic young ensign replied. “How would you like it, sir?”
“Black. No cream, no sugar.”
“Aye, aye, sir.” The steward nodded and was gone.
Bloody hell, he thought. What a night. There was the single malt before di
An old Royal Navy expression his grandfather had used popped into his brain. He seemed to recall repeating it countless times last evening, to the evident amusement of the Americans.
“The port stands by you, sir,” he’d said.
Which translated: “Don’t hog the bottle, mister, I’m thirsty.”
He had a dim memory of endless oceans of Black Bush whiskey and port wine, pounding against breakwaters he’d spent a hellish lifetime erecting in his mind. Elaborately constructed seawalls had been smashed to bits and ancient feelings had come pouring through. Along with them, he now remembered, came the long-buried memories.
God in Heaven, he thought, rolling his long legs over the side of the bunk and dropping to the floor. He’d had some kind of a breakthrough. The ghosts had come, yes, but it seemed he’d got the best of them.
The evening’s events were all slowly coming back. What else? Ah. Something about challenging that noxious prick Tate to a duel. But the cove never showed. Hardly surprising.
Alex had found a perch on the fantail and waited, watching the billowing clouds drift past the moon, feeling the slow soothing roll of the deck. Feeling everything inside him shift, rearrange, and shift again.
Then Balfour had appeared. An American fighter pilot who’d become one of his closest friends during the Gulf War. During the course of their recuperation in a Kuwait hospital, he and Balfour had formed a close friendship. Then Balfour had taken a turn for the worse, and one day he wasn’t there.
Sitting there on the Ke
God knows how long they sat there. He unleashed a flood of happy memories of his parents and those wondrous early years on Greybeard Island when the world was still a magical place. He spoke of Ambrose, and how his dear friend had tried to help him. And Vicky, of course, how he’d loved her and how he’d lost her.
Finally, exhausted, and miraculously unburdened, he stopped talking and just gazed at the stars, taking the peace and serenity they offered.
It was then that he realized he’d completely forgotten why he’d been sitting there on deck in the first place. Oh, yes, waiting for that insufferable man to come topside and have it out. He must have finally given up, said good night to David Balfour, and somehow made his way back down to his cabin. At least, that seemed to be the case, because it was morning and here he was!
Now, he straightened and touched his toes twenty times. Ouch. He dropped to the deck and did thirty very slow push-ups. His muscles were screaming, and his head was pounding. It had been a very long time since he’d experienced a hangover of this magnitude. Definitely Force Ten.
He stepped inside the tiny head and stood bracing himself, both hands on either side of the little stainless basin. He’d gotten himself bloody well drunk, he had. First time in recent memory. Not tipsy. Tanked. Snockered. He felt goddamn awful. He looked at his bleary, watery eyes in the mirror and was flabbergasted to see a faint smile there, lurking under the two-day beard he’d been meaning to shave off.
A real smile.
Actually, he didn’t feel as bloody awful as by rights he ought to feel. Eventually, the sorrow over Vicky’s loss would somehow be locked up in the strongbox of his heart. He’d locked up sorrow before, and, somehow, he would again. But this new feeling welling up inside had caught him entirely by surprise.
Strange, he thought, looking in the mirror again. He felt, what was the word? Light. He felt light. Exquisitely light.
No, a little better than that. Buoyant.
Alex knew himself well enough to know he was hardly the deep, introspective type. In his world, just as there was right and there was wrong, there were two distinct types of humanity. Those who float and those who dive deep. Alex, all his life, had happily tended to float. Diving was dangerous. And so this seeming sea change he sensed inside himself was all the more surprising and perplexing.
Shaving, he pondered the new experience of diving deep. What had happened? Vicky’s death had affected him profoundly. But that wasn’t the catalyst for these entirely new feelings.
No, it was seeing the face of the spider. That huge face up there on the screen in the wardroom; that’s what had triggered it. He’d been painfully aware that every man in the wardroom was staring at him, but he didn’t give a good goddamn. Some vague excuse, some i