assist his country’s most valued ally in what has become a very, very dangerous state of international affairs.”
Alex smiled, took a sip of his port, and turned to face Tate.
“Aristobrit? That’s a good one, Mr. Tate. Do you duel?”
“Sorry?”
“Duel? Pistols at dawn? The Code Duello? An ancient custom for settling disagreements between gentlemen, which is probably why you’re unfamiliar with it. Duels, unfortunately, seem to have fallen out of favor at about the same rate as gentlemen.”
“I don’t follow you,” Tate said.
“Ah, hardly surprising. Let me help,” Hawke said. Slowly setting his port glass down on the white linen tablecloth, he whipped his fist around and backhanded Tate hard across his right ear. Hard enough to snap the man’s head back. Tate sat stunned, rubbing his bright red ear. His eyes blazed with hate, but Alex was amused to see that, in the revelry surrounding them, their small tete-a-tete had gone completely unnoticed.
“That’s how it works,” Alex said, smiling. “You’ve been insulted. Dishonored. Do you now wish to avenge your honor?”
“You pompous shit, I’ll—”
“Good. Now we have a duel,” Hawke said, smiling pleasantly. He saw a fist headed his way and said, “No, no, not here, Mr. Tate. Bad form.”
Alex’s hand shot out and caught Tate’s forearm mid-air, stopping the man’s fist just short of his own temple.
“I’ll kill you for this, you fucking English bastard,” Tate said.
“Not here, old boy,” Alex said. “This is the part where we step outside.”
Still keeping the man’s arm locked down on the table, Hawke reached under the table and used his free hand to grip Tate’s testicles in a cruel vise. Tate winced and withdrew his arm.
“Good boy,” Alex said, smiling. “As I say, it’s customary to step outside to settle these affairs. May I suggest we leave these gentlemen to their port and finish this unpleasantness up on the flight deck? I don’t think either of us will need a second, do you, old boy?”
“Shouldn’t take me that long to kick your ass,” Tate growled.
Hawke smiled, amused at the man’s obvious confusion over the term “second.”
“Good,” Alex said. “Shall we go? I’m quite sure we shan’t be missed, old boy.”
“Don’t call me old boy,” Tate hissed, rising from the table.
“Sorry, old boy,” Alex said, getting out of his chair and motioning Tate toward the door.
“Swords at dawn are out of the question, I suppose,” he said.
“More’s the pity.” He put his arm around Tate’s shoulder and moved him through the boisterous crowd toward the exit. “It will just have to be the manly art of fisticuffs on the poop deck, old boy.”
“I’ll meet you up there,” Tate said. “I’ve got to use the head.”
“A votre servis, monsieur. I’ll be waiting out on the fantail,” Hawke said, and whistling a cheerful tune, he strolled off down the long companionway, up three flights of steps, and out into the salty air.
He found a place to sit, a small stepladder used by deckies to reach the fuel ports on the F-14.
“Hello, Hawke,” a tall man said, coming toward him out of the covey of bedded-down Tomcats.
Alex looked up, not recognizing the voice or the silhouette.
“David Balfour,” the man said. “We were bunkmates in that hell-hole hospital in Kuwait.”
“Balfour?” Alex said. “Is that you? Good God, I thought you were dead!”
43
Stokely, barely able to keep his butt planted in his seat a third of the way back in the old bus, watched Ambrose Congreve bouncing around behind the big steering wheel and thought he’d bust a gut.
Man had on a tweed jacket with a little white hanky hanging out the top pocket, some kind of damn flannel trousers, and shiny brown shoes with little tassels dangling on the front of them. Best part, man had on uptown bright yellow socks, and his feet were flying back and forth mashing the clutch and brake pedals!
Stoke, like most everyone else on the bus, was dressed completely in black. All were wearing Kevlar vests. But not Ambrose. Had on a nice old gray woolly vest with leather buttons! Man was something else. Man on a mission, though, you had to give him that. Pipe jammed between his teeth, tearing up the deeply rutted sandy road twisting through the scrubby palm trees. Grinding gears, mashing on the brakes, flying over the hills.
Damn Mario Andretti of schoolbus drivers!
Just then the bus got airborne at the top of a big hill and Stokely caught his first glimpse of the ocean. Which meant they were getting close.
Everybody on the team was quiet, holding on to keep from flying around inside the bus. In situations like this, Stoke knew, each man was thinking about his immediate future. Hell, he was too. Nobody really knew what they were up against. No time to even send a recon team ahead. Could be real easy. Could easily be real hard. When they went bad—like that time in Panama—well, best not be thinking about that.
Stoke checked his gear and ammo. In addition to the Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun hanging from a shoulder strap, he had his custom Beretta 92-SF in his thigh holster, along with ten clips of ammo. A hundred rounds of hollow-point HydraShok hot loads that could literally blow a guy’s head off.
Lots of other goodies were hanging from his webbed belt. Dagger, flash-bang grenades, and thunder-strips to disorient the bad guys. And a secure Motorola walkie-talkie with a voice-activated lip mike and earpieces so he could communicate with Ross and Quick. He also had fifty feet of nylon climbing rope with a rubber-coated grapnel hook at one end.
He was pumped. Man. It had been a long time.
Stoke, Ambrose, and Ross, with the help of Amen Lillywhite, had quickly roughed out a plan. Amen had used a stick to scratch a diagram of the target house in the dirt parking lot outside the club. Ground floor, second floor, top floor. Big wide center stairway leading upstairs right from the front door. Hallways on either side leading to the rear.
Target’s bedroom was on the top floor front, guard’s dormitories at the back of the first floor. A solid stone wall around the entire perimeter, ten feet high. Two ways in and out of the property. A guarded iron gate at the front. Two big wooden gates on the north side.
It was a basic snatch.
Surprise. Confusion. Overwhelming firepower. Float like a pissed-off butterfly. Sting like a badass bee. In other words, your basic SEAL behavior.
Ambrose saying the target must be taken alive.
Stoke saying that these things were entirely up to the target. Ambrose giving him a look. Not sayin’ more, which was good.
The bus crested a hill, banged down hard, and Amen, sitting up front, said, “This’d be a fine place to stop, Mr. Congreve. This piney wood right here goes on down to the wall at the back of the house.”
Ambrose mashed the brakes and the bus skidded to a stop at the edge of the pine forest. He pulled up the hand brake and turned around in his seat.
“This is where we disembark, gentlemen,” Ambrose said. He pushed the handle that opened the door. “Check your weapons and ammunition. Stay low and stay silent. We will descend this hill in single file and regroup at the wall to the rear of the house. Mr. Jones will lead us in from there.”
Mr. Jones? Nobody ever called him that. Still, man sounds like he knows what he’s doing, Stoke thought. That was good. Rest of these guys, well, he wasn’t used to working with amateurs. This Tommy Quick, of course, now he was a comfort. Had his Remington 700 sniper rifle with a bigass Star-Tron Mark scope on it. Guy was the best sniper in the whole U.S. Army. He could definitely come in handy. Still, this was definitely not your split-second- timing SEAL-type deal.
Hell, hadn’t even had time to recon the place before going in. This would be a first, going in blind. Gain experience, that much was for sure.
“Lock and load, ladies,” Stoke said, getting out of his seat and making his way to the front of the bus. He’d made sure the whole team was equipped with basically the same gear he had, minus the three walkie-talkies. “We
