“Well, hell, first she tells me how lucky I am the bullet didn’t hit nothing important. Nothing important? Hell, everything I got is important! Flesh, bones, arteries, all that shit. Not important, my ass.”
“Stoke, she’s just doing her job,” Alex said, smiling at Dr. Nilsson. She had her arms folded across her chest and had gone quite red in the face. At the moment, she was puffing at a charming little banglet of blond hair that kept falling across her face.
“Yeah, okay, then she tells me it ain’t nothing to worry about. ’Course it ain’t, for her ass! Ain’t her goddamn chest got shot, it’s mine! She got a helluva lot more chest to worry about than I do, don’t she? She—”
“Dr. Nilsson,” Alex said, interrupting Stokely, “I’m sure he didn’t mean…uh…perhaps you could leave us alone for—” He didn’t finish because the Danish doctor flung Stokely’s chart at the wall and stormed out of the room.
“Great,” Alex said. “See what you’ve done? Now I’m going to have to go find some way to apologize for you.”
“How you doin’, boss?” Stoke said, a wide grin on his face. “You heard all what happened? Five of the best, my brother!”
“I heard all about it from Ross,” Alex said, slapping Stoke’s palm smartly. “Unbelievable, Stoke.”
“Listen up, my man!” Stoke said. “We kicked us some serious ass yesterday. Serious ass.”
“I can never thank you enough, Stoke. I mean I—”
“Hell, ain’t me you should be thanking, boss. It’s your little buddy Ambrose. That man gets all the credit for this here collar. He been working that case for thirty years, you know. Never told you, did he?”
“I’m sorry, what did you say?” Alex asked.
“Been working on the case for thirty years. Ambrose.”
“Good Lord,” Hawke said, feeling all the breath go out of him. “I had no idea that Ambrose…none. I can’t imagine that he would…”
It was the first time Stoke had ever seen Alex Hawke speechless.
“Way he works, I guess. Low profile. Him and Ross flew over to Nassau and found some old retired cop who’d kept his file. Had the original police drawings of the three perps. Ambrose took ’em and blew the thing wide open.”
“Absolutely amazing,” Alex said, still stunned.
“Yeah, pretty good cop after all, ain’t he?” Stoke said, swinging his massive legs over the side of the bed. “Now, go sweet-talk your damn doctor and get her to leave my ass alone. I feel great. And I got a lot of shit to do, boss, got to fill out police reports and all that.”
“Stoke, lie down a minute and listen to me. I’m thankful you’re all right. Ever since I was told you were hurt, I’ve—Stoke, listen. I’m going to need your help. Now. You’re the only one who can help me.”
“All right, now you gonna get all serious and stuff. Go ’head then. Tell the old Stoke what on your mind.”
“You’re not going to believe this, but Vicky is alive.”
“What? What the hell you talkin’ about?”
“All I know right now is that somehow, incredible as it seems, Vicky is alive. She’s a hostage, but she’s alive.”
“Hostage of who?”
“The new Cuban government. She’s being held on an island called Telarana, just off the southwestern coast of Cuba. It’s a heavily fortified military base.”
“How you know all this, boss?”
“I just listened to this cassette,” Alex said, handing the cassette and a Sony Walkman to Stokely. “It was delivered along with Vicky’s locket to the Swiss embassy in Havana. You should listen to it, too. She quotes the headline from yesterday’s Miami papers. Vicky is alive, believe me.”
Stoke donned the earphones and listened for a few moments.
“Holy shit, she really is alive,” Stoke said. “That’s wonderful. Now what the hell they want Vicky for, boss?”
“The general believes he can coerce me to intercede on his behalf in Washington. Ridiculous, but there you have it. Unbelievably, Vicky is still alive. But not for long unless we can get her out of there, Stoke. Two big problems. One, she made it plain that any rescue attempt would result in her death along with all the hostages.”
“Just like them goddamn Colombians. I dealt with ’em up in the Medellin mountains. Always say they goin’ shoot the hostages first. And generally do. But we snatched a few live ones, boss.”
“How long does it take to put a hostage rescue plan like that in operation, Stoke?”
“Shit, boss, all depends,” Stoke said. “At a military installation? Five days, minimum. You got to recon the place down to the inch. Know where your hostage is located. Know where the windows are, what kind, how thick the doors and walls are, all that entry and egress kinda shit. You got to intercept all the communication going in and out, so you know who’s who, where they are, and what the hell is what.”
“Stoke,” Alex said, looking at his watch, “I said there were two problems. Here’s problem two, and it’s a big one. At some point, in less than twenty hours from now, the Americans are going to launch fighter squadrons from the John F. Kennedy. Fighters and cruise missiles from the Atlantic Fleet are going to bomb that rebel compound, and anything else they fancy, into oblivion.”
“Jesus Christ. Twenty hours?”
“Maybe less. Now, I know your old Navy unit used to be pretty good at this kind of thing. SEAL Team Six, I mean.”
“Good? Shit. They the best-trained, deadliest, most capable group of warriors in America’s history. Hop and pop, stuff and snuff. Snatch and grab.”
“Stoke, if ever I needed anybody like that, it’s now. How in hell are we going to get Vicky out of there? Could the team you and Quick put together yesterday possibly—”
“No way. Not something like this. No way.”
“So, who? Who in God’s name can help us?”
“Well, bossman, that’s a real good question. Real good. I ain’t sayin’ it can’t be done, all I’m sayin’ is—”
Stoke clasped his hands behind his head and lay back against his pillow, staring at the ceiling. Alex could almost hear the wheels spinning. A minute later, he sat bolt upright in bed, a big grin on his face.
“Thunder and Lightnin’!” he said.
“What’s that?”
“The sons of beaches, that’s who. Navy SEALs. They were my two Team Six platoon leaders, now semiretired,” Stoke said. “Mr. Thunder and Mr. Lightning. That’s what we called them two headbangers. Call one Thunder ’cause he good at blowing things up. Call the other Lightnin’ because you dead and he’s gone before you know what hit you. Man is one cold-blooded assassin. If anybody on this planet can get Vicky out of there alive, they the ones.”
“Where are they?” Alex asked, leaning forward, hope showing in his eyes for the first time since he’d heard Vicky’s voice on the tape.
“Martinique,” Stoke said. “They run their operations out of a base camp on the cape by St. Marin. Where the St. Lucia Channel meets the Atlantic.”
“Operations?” Hawke asked eagerly. “What kind of operations?”
“Well, secret shit, you know? Black ops. They all mercenaries now. Soldiers of fortune. Go anywhere in the world, blowin’ shit up for people who don’t want their name in the papers. Got their own patched-up old C-130. Flyin’ in, snatchin’ and grabbin’, killing terrorists. All that good stuff.”
“Hostage rescue?” Hawke asked.
“Best freelance hostage rescue team in the world. Bar none.”
“How many of them?”
“Their team size varies all the time. That business, folks tend to come and go. Like a SEAL platoon, two squads, seven guys each. They got a platoon standing by, generally. Last time I talked to them, they had about fifteen or so commandos down there. Constant training.”
“All ex-SEALs?”
“Nope. Got a couple of Viet Montagnards. Three or four frogs, ex–Foreign Legion desert warfare types, couple of real badass Gurkhas from Nepal, and the rest former SEALs, some seriously bad dudes, boss.”
“Can you set something up, Stoke? Now?”
