Crash Dive

“Delicious. On your feet. We’ll step out onto the platform behind you. Get a little fresh air and enjoy a good smoke. You first, Ivan, then your comrade. Outside. Now.”

At the rear of the club car was a door opening onto a small half-oval platform with a railing. It was where one could smoke cigars, take the air, or wave farewell to friends at the station.

The Russian pulled the sliding door open. Sleet, snow, and freezing night air came rushing into the club car as first one, then the other, stepped outside.

Hawke remained in the doorway and withdrew the sword from the scabbard at his side.

“I could shoot you now, but I’ve a better idea. My terrible swift sword. I’m descended from a ruthless English pirate, you see. Chap called ‘Blackhawke’ and a right bastard he was too. When he wanted to dispose of someone, he’d make them walk the plank and sleep with the fishes. If they were reluctant, he’d give them encouragement with the tip of his blade. Turn around and face the rear, hands in the air.”

They did so, resigned to their fate now.

“Ivan, up on the rail. Do it now or you’ll get a very long knife in the back and a punctured lung. Your chances of survival are slim in any case, but probably marginally better if you jump. I’m waiting. You may have noticed I’m not a patient man.”

The train was racing through the night at speeds well over one hundred miles an hour, the trackless forests to either side receding in a white blur. The killer climbed clumsily up onto the rail, keeping his balance with one hand desperately clutching the ice-coated overhanging roof.

“Jump, damn you!” Hawke said, prodding the man repeatedly with his new sword. And the man, screaming, jumped to his death, hurling his body into the black night.

“You’re up, old sport. Time to fly.”

The second man turned toward Hawke, pleading for his life in a rush of garbled Russian.

“I’m sure your pleas for mercy are poignant and convincing, but they’re falling on deaf ears. Up on the rail with you, you sniveling bastard. Die like a man, at least.”

As the man struggled up on the rail, Hawke said, “When your employers in Moscow find your frozen carcasses, if they ever do, it will perhaps give them pause before any more such clumsy assassination attempts. I won’t tolerate threats to my son. Now, jump, you miserable shit.”

Hawke pressed the tip of the sword into the man’s fat buttock, “I said jump!”

Wailing in fear, he did just that.

Hawke wiped the blood from the tip of his sword and returned it to the scabbard. It had performed most satisfactorily. Captain Blackhawke would have been proud of his progeny. Then he turned to survey the scene of the crime. He bent to pick up the glass he’d used to drink the vodka. No sense leaving incriminating evidence about, he thought, and he heaved the glass over the rail. Then he closed the door. Messy enough. It looked like there’d been a drunken fight. Anything could have happened. Two passengers would be determined to be missing sometime tomorrow. In this godforsaken tundra, their bodies would not be found for days or weeks, if ever.

A mystery, perhaps not worthy of Dame Agatha Christie, but still a mystery sufficient to suit Hawke’s purposes.

Alexei, his face pink and angelic upon his pillow, looked precisely the way he had when his father had left him. Hawke, feeling relaxed for the first time since boarding the train, took down his false-bottomed travel case and returned his weapon to its compartment. Then he removed the sat phone, poured himself a small whiskey, and returned to the dreaded chair in the sitting parlor.

“Sir David,” Hawke said when his superior at MI6 picked up.

“Hawke?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Where the devil have you been? There are no end of rumors, and the least you could have done is to give me some kind of heads-up before you disappeared. Everyone thinks you’re dead.”

“I’m terribly sorry, sir. It just wasn’t possible. It was a personal matter. I’ll explain it all when I see you.”

“And when might that happy event occur?”

“Tomorrow evening, with any luck. I’ll need a bit of help getting out of here.”

“Where the hell is here?”

“A train. Arriving at the Saint Petersburg rail station around noon tomorrow. The Red Arrow. First-class car just aft of the locomotive. I’ve booked the first two compartments at the forward end of the car. Double-oh-one is the car number. I’m anticipating a decidedly unfriendly reception committee upon arrival on the platform. KGB. I’m going to need armed cover before leaving the train, and the more the better. I’m bringing a hostage out. Very fragile. He’ll require special assistance.”

“Hurt? Wounded?”

“No. Small.”

“Small?”

“Affirmative. He’ll need milk.”

“Milk?”

Hawke heard a voice in the background and then C turning from the phone’s mouthpiece and saying to someone, “Hawke’s coming out. With a hostage. Needs milk, apparently. What? Hell if I know what he’s up to, barmy, if you ask me!”

Then he was back on the phone.

“You’ll have it, Alex. Next steps?”

“My thought was quick armed surface transport to an unmarked helo standing by on the roof of our Saint Petersburg consulate. A quick buzz across the Baltic Sea to Talli

“Consider it done. Are you quite all right, Alex? You sound odd, I must say.”

“Under the circumstances, I’m perhaps the happiest man on earth, sir.”

“I do think you’ve gone a bit mad, Alex, but I’ll take care of these arrangements. At least you’re not dead.”

“At the very least, sir. Thank you for noticing.”

Click.

Nine

Seminole, Florida

It was hot. Always hot out here in the damn swamp, Stokely Jones Jr. thought, emerging from the cool dark shade of the old Baptist church into the searing, wind-inflamed morning. You wouldn’t think they had churches in Hades, but they did. The big man paused at the top of the weathered steps, loosened his tie, mopped his brow, and looked out across the churchyard. Three people were sitting on a shaded bench that wrapped around a tree: Alex Hawke; his son, Alexei; and the pretty young woman who looked after his child.

Miss Spooner is what Hawke called the young woman. Nell Spooner had a small wicker basket of toys on her lap, things to keep little Alexei from getting bored out here in the boonies. She had big almond-shaped blue eyes, honey-blond hair, and a young Princess Diana vibe going on. Sweet i

Stoke smiled, seeing the look on Alex Hawke’s face. All the pain that man had been through lately? Replaced with joy. Plain and simple happiness. Stoke swiped his handkerchief across his brow. He just stood there watching the three of them for a few minutes. You live long enough, he was thinking, you get to see that, sometimes, the good really does come with the bad.

And God knows Hawke had had his share of bad lately. Came back from Russia without the woman he loved. But not empty-handed, no sir. Now he had a son. And how he did love that boy, Lord only knows how much. Father and son. But something else, deeper. Like they were twins or something.

The circular wooden bench surrounded a gnarled live oak tree. Standing tall out in the scruffy churchyard. Last hurricane that roared up from Key West took its toll around here. But, like the old rugged cross, that tree had stood its ground.

In the silence he could hear the hum of traffic. Two long miles full of scrub palm, sand fleas, snakes, and gators from here, old U.S. 41, or Alligator Alley, made its way over to Tampa.