was perhaps a start. First blood, at any rate.
Two figures stepped out of the shadows. It was Admiral de Herreras and the Russian Golgolkin, who’d stood silently by while the officers celebrated.
“May I have a look?” de Herreras said.
Zukov stepped back and let him use the periscope. The admiral studied the flaming debris pool for a moment, then swiveled the eyepiece ninety degrees left and stopped, grunting with satisfaction.
“Comrade Golgolkin, have a look. Is that it?”
Golgolkin put his eyes to the rubber cups, sweat stinging his eyes. His hands were shaking badly and he couldn’t seem to focus the blurry image.
“Is that it,” the admiral shrieked, “or is it not?”
Golglolkin nodded yes and stepped away from the periscope.
“So. Our next target, Commander Zukov,” de Herreras said, grinning with satisfaction. “Have a look.”
Zukov put his eyes to the scope and focused. It was beyond ridiculous. Impossible. A large private yacht, huge, over two hundred feet. Brightly lit. With a massive British flag fluttering in the breeze at her stern. Zukov took a deep breath, remembering Manso’s admonition on the beach early that morning.
“It’s not possible, Admiral,” Zukov said.
“Why not? Comrade Golgolkin here has just informed me that Blackhawke is the ship of the man who betrayed us to the Americans. My sources in Washington say he’s aboard. I wish to destroy him.”
“A small fishing boat is one thing. Accidents happen. But this. The loss of life. It would be considered an act of war by the British, Admiral! A huge international incident! Surely you don’t want to—”
“I am the fucking chief of naval operations, let me remind you! Are you refusing a direct order, Commander?”
“Sir, in good conscience I cannot—”
The Cuban admiral unfastened the leather holster that held his sidearm and raised the pistol. It was a silver-plated Smith & Wesson .357 magnum.
“I asked you a question, Commander. Are you refusing a direct order?”
“I am.”
The explosion was instant and deafening inside the cramped control room. A fine red mist erupted from the back of the Russian commander’s skull as brains and bone spattered all over the periscope. He swayed on his feet for a second, then collapsed in a heap on the deck. All of the men, both Russian and Cuban, looked on in horror.
“I am a firm believer in summary justice,” the admiral said. “The man was a traitor. I am now in command of this vessel and I want that boat sunk. Is that clearly understood?”
No one said a word. The silence was as deafening as the gunshot. The already fetid air reeked of cordite and the coppery smell of blood. The Cuban admiral stepped over the body and stared hard at the shocked faces of his crew.
Golgolkin leaned back against the bulkhead and breathed a sigh of relief. Only an hour earlier, he had slipped into Zukov’s quarters and rifled through his orders. Zukov had orders to kill him once the mission was completed. Now that Zukov was dead, perhaps he was safe. He stepped back into the shadows, removed a silver flask from his pocket, and drained it.
“I want someone to take a bearing on this target and sink it,” the admiral said, his face turning bright red. “Now!” he bellowed.
No one moved or spoke. After an endless minute, an officer who had been standing by the ballast control panel stepped forward. He moved slowly through the reddish smoky light, eyes riveted on the Cuban with the pistol in his hand. He dropped to his knees beside the fallen captain.
There, kneeling beside his oldest and dearest friend, he looked up at the glowering admiral with tears of rage in his eyes.
“I am the boat’s executive officer, Comrade Admiral,” he said in Spanish. “Vladimir Kosokov, second in command. This man you have murdered was my boyhood friend in Cuba. I have been his XO in the Soviet Navy for ten years.”
“Very well. I order you to sink that vessel!” the admiral roared.
“In my cabin are orders given me by Commander Zukov. They come directly from General Manso de Herreras. They are explicit, Admiral. They say that if anything should happen to Zukov, I am to assume command, offload you at Staniel Cay, and return the submarine immediately to base.”
The Cuban regarded him in shocked silence. His own brother! Manso would pay for this humiliation.
“Fine. You can die beside your traitorous friend.”
“I would be honored. But I must warn you. This is the most advanced submarine on earth. And I am the only one aboard now capable of getting it safely home. And the only one who knows the codes for fire control sequencing of all weapons. Kill me, and you render the submarine useless. And condemn every man on this vessel, Russian or Cuban, to certain death.”
The admiral raised his pistol once more, his countenance aflame with righteous anger. The crew waited in silence for their death sentence, every eye focused on the finger that would squeeze the trigger.
A tall, thin man emerged from the shadows, shot out his hand, and gripped the admiral’s wrist.
“Give me the gun, Carlitos,” the man said quietly, and the admiral, eyes blazing, did as he was told.
It was the man the crew had been whispering about during the entire voyage. The man who seldom left his cabin and never spoke. The new Cuban head of state security. Rodrigo del Rio.
The man with no eyes.
38
Alex Hawke sat on the edge of his bed, smoking a cigar and staring at the black telephone. There was a half-empty bottle of scotch whiskey beside the phone.
He shook his head and tried to clear it. This morning, he had awoken in this very bed in the rapturous state of a man in the midst of a love affair. Now he felt as if he had been broken into infinitely small pieces, starting with his heart.
The Bahamian Air-Sea Rescue Teams had called off the search after twelve hours. Hawke, having failed in his pleas to get them to continue, had stayed aloft in his seaplane for another few hours, sweeping in low grid patterns over the empty moonlit waters. Finally, just after midnight, he’d landed in the lagoon and taxied up to the ramp at Blackhawke’s stern.
Ambrose and Stoke had been standing there, waiting for him. They started to say something, but Hawke interrupted.
“How?” he said, staring at them angrily, for that’s what he felt now, anger superseding his sadness. “How could one man be so bloody stupid as to allow anyone to swim out into that bloody current? Without a warning? Not a word! How? Answer me!”
Ambrose and Stoke reached out to him but he brushed past them. He paused and turned to face them.
“Here’s the bloody answer! I might as well have drowned her with my own hands! What’s the difference? Murder is murder!”
He climbed four flights of stairs and went straight to his stateroom, where he had remained. He called the bridge and told the captain to call him on the direct line if there was any news. Then he turned off the main phone and opened a bottle of whiskey.
In that way, he had spent an hour or so, drinking and staring at the phone to the bridge, willing it to ring. It didn’t. There had many knocks at his door and he’d ignored them all. At some point, Ambrose had slipped an envelope under his door but he’d ignored that as well.
Somehow, later, he heard the ship’s bell chiming. Four bells. Two o’clock in the morning. Alex rubbed his eyes and looked at his watch. Two A.M., which would make it maybe midnight in Louisiana.
He picked up the half-empty scotch bottle and climbed the stairway leading up one deck, making his way along the companionway to Vicky’s stateroom. Save the low thrumming of generators, the ship was dead quiet. There were a few crewmen about, armed, looking out over the rails to sea. They kept the underwater floodlights on
