freelance work for the governments of the United States and Great Britain.
Since joining Hawke, Inc., Quick had bought gold mines in South Africa, been in a room deep in the Kremlin while Hawke chatted with the Russian defense minister, and spent a long night helping Hawke attach limpet mines to the hulls of ships full of illegal weapons sitting in the bay off Bahrain. On the first anniversary of his employment, Quick had given Hawke a gift that the man still wore, an Army Sniper School T-shirt that read:
You Can Run But You’ll Only Die Tired!
The older crewman, Ross Sutherland, who was actually on permanent loan to Hawke from the Yard’s Special Branch, kept one eye on the two bickering Russians and one hand inside his shirt, lightly gripping the nine- millimeter Glock he always wore strapped under his arm. These Russians didn’t look like much, but, in his years spent protecting Hawke, he’d learned the hard way never to go by appearances.
Sutherland was a man who’d think nothing of laying down his life for Alex Hawke. One night, in a makeshift prison some thirty miles south of Baghdad, Hawke had almost died saving Sutherland’s life. Somehow, Hawke managed to get the two of them safely out of the Iraqi hellhole where they’d been held for over two weeks after a SAM-7 brought their Tomcat fighter down. Ross had no memory of the escape. He’d literally been beaten senseless by the Iraqi guards.
Both men had been brutally mistreated, especially Sutherland. If they had not escaped that night, Hawke knew it was doubtful Ross could survive another day’s “interrogation.” As it happened, Hawke had killed two guards with his bare hands and they’d fled south across the desert, using the stars for navigation.
Ross had barely survived their endless trek across the scorching sands. For days and nights on end, Hawke had carried Sutherland on his back before an American tank command finally stumbled upon them. By this point, they were wandering in circles, staggering blindly up and down the endless sea of dunes.
The Russians continued their tiresome squabbling and Ross knew Hawke must have been getting impatient. Idly, he flicked the Glock’s safety up and down beneath his shirt. Not that Sutherland was expecting trouble. The night before, he’d reread the Russians’ dossiers. They were both former Black Sea Fleet officers. Both had originally served at the sub base at Vladivostok. They’d been classmates at the academy and were surviving the end of the Cold War by peddling what remained of the Soviet navy.
Ross allowed himself a smile at the sight of Congreve barging into the middle of the heated argument, barking at them in Russian. After a moment of stunned silence, the two nodded their heads. Ross opened the screen door and the two men meekly followed his colleague from Scotland Yard back inside.
“Well, isn’t this cozy?” Hawke asked when they’d all been seated. “Refreshments? Vodka, I’d imagine. Get everyone in a festive mood.” He signaled to a waitress lingering in the doorway to the kitchen.
“I think perhaps beer might be a better choice,” Congreve said, giving Alex a meaningful kick to the shin under the table. Hawke understood immediately that the Russians’ vodka quota for the day had already been met and nodded his head.
Ambrose was yammering away with the Russkies, so Hawke leaned back in his chair and took their measure.
These two legionnaires of the former evil empire were bleary-eyed and a sickly gray beneath their suntanned exteriors. The heavy one had salt-and-pepper hair, cut short in the old Soviet military style. Steel-rimmed glasses completed the look. Long, greasy dark hair, tied loosely at the back, a pair of shiny black marbles for eyes, and a rather uncooperative black beard on the other chap. He bore, Hawke observed, an uncanny resemblance to the notorious Russian “Mad Monk,” Rasputin.
Unlike the woolen suits Hawke had pictured them wearing, they were casually dressed in bathing suits, sandals, and sport shirts depicting multicolored billfish leaping gaily about.
Looking at them, Hawke felt a twinge of pity. At one time, these two cold warriors had surely been formidable men, accustomed to a sense of purpose, power, and command. Now they had a dissolute air about them, stemming no doubt from too much sun, too much rum, too little self-respect. It was more than a little humbling, Hawke imagined, to be peddling the arsenal of your once vaingloriously evil empire.
“Well,” Hawke said, suddenly restless. “I’m Alexander Hawke. My esteemed colleague, Mr. Ambrose Congreve, whom you’ve met, will be handling the translations. Ambrose, you have the floor.”
As Congreve translated this bit, the waitress approached Hawke. Her flashing eyes and body language indicated that she was not in the best of moods. Surprising, since he’d heard so much about the sunny disposition of the people in these islands. This singular exception to that rule presented herself at the table.
“Hello,” Hawke said, though his smile went unreturned. “Four Kaliks should do it, thanks.” Blackhawke’s crew drank nothing but the local Bahamian beer, and that was good enough for Alex. The girl nodded grimly and headed for the bar. Her walk did lovely things to the back of her shift.
Congreve coughed discreetly to get Hawke’s attention.
“May I present Mr. Nikolai Golgolkin and Mr. Grigory Bolkonski,” Congreve said to Hawke. “Golgolkin, the Russian bear with the steel glasses, seems to be the one in charge. The chap on the left, who is a dead ringer for Rasputin, is a former submarine designer and weapons expert from the Severodvinsk shipyard on the Kola Peninsula. Both are very pleased to meet the famous Hawke.”
The little “mad monk” didn’t seem all that pleased. He turned his black eyes on Congreve, anger suffusing his face. He’d clearly heard the Rasputin reference and was not amused.
“Lovely,” Hawke said, smiling.
“They apologize for their rudeness in keeping you waiting and beg forgiveness. It seems they are uncomfortable having this discussion in such a public place, but they have brought a gift. Vodka.”
“They certainly have a gift for drinking the stuff, judging by appearances,” Hawke said.
Golgolkin produced a small, rectangular red velvet box, which he placed in front of Hawke. Hawke opened it and smiled. It was Moskoya Private Label. Quite rare. Bloody marvelous stuff after a few hours in the freezer.
“Very kind,” Hawke said, looking from one Russian to the other. “A most generous gift. Let’s get to it. According to our mutual Syrian friend in Abu Kamal, they will have a portfolio of their wares with them, correct?”
Congreve began translating and soon they were all chattering again in what was, to Hawke’s ear, still a most unlovely language.
The waitress arrived with a tray and placed a sweating bottle of Kalik in front of each man. Her angry eyes avoided those of the two Russians and her volcanic mood sent tremors to her fingers as she served them. Such a pretty girl, Hawke thought. Pity she was so unhappy.
As she handed Hawke his beer, he couldn’t help but notice the rough red abrasions around each of her wrists. A quick glance down at her bare feet and ankles revealed that they, too, were red and raw. This poor girl had recently been abused, and badly.
“What is your name?” Hawke whispered to the girl, taking her gently by the hand.
“Gloria,” she replied, her eyes downcast.
“Gloria,” he repeated, remembering it as the name of the woman Congreve had heard the Russians arguing over. “Yes, I might have guessed that.”
5
It was hard for Hawke to conceal his unbridled loathing for the two Russians. To think, just moments before, he’d actually been feeling sorry for these two sodden degenerates. Make that godless Commie sodden degenerates. In Alex’s world there was right. And there was wrong. And there were no shades of gray.
The kind of work Alex Hawke did, covert assignments for both the British and American governments, often meant dealing with cretins like these two. But Hawke was a man who loved his life’s calling deeply and passionately. He relished each and every assignment. Now, after the long, restless hiatus that had been January, he looked forward to this one with keen anticipation.
He stared at the two men sitting across from him. According to everything he’d learned from Cap Adams, the CIA station agent in Kuwait City, they were a pair of heartless pirates, perverse enough to make their fortunes selling weapons of mass destruction to the world’s terrorists. He’d gathered sufficient information from enough
