“A great honor meeting you, sir,” Davies said, rising from his chair and sticking out his hand. “The man, the legend.”
Ambrose waved this ridiculous piffle away and picked up his beloved Conan Doyle first edition. He was just about to thumb open the thing when there came a sound next to his ear of an angry hornet and a neat round hole suddenly appeared smack dab in the middle of his precious Holmes.
At that precise moment, he saw Mrs. Purvis collapse to the carpet. The tea tray and its contents flew from her hands. A bright red stain appeared just below her starched white collar and spread rapidly. She moaned once and went silent.
“Mrs. Purvis!” Congreve shouted, knocking his armchair over backward as he leaped to his feet.
Chapter Nine
Cannes
HAWKE RACED DOWN THE DESERTED COMPANIONWAY, A grim corridor lit only by a few naked bulbs suspended from loose wires dangling from the overhead. Doors hung open on either side, small flyspecked cabins with double- or triple-tiered bunks, empty. At the far end, a large door in the bulkhead opened into the galley. He stepped inside. The stink of cabbage and rancid grease was overpowering. He was about to turn and retrace his steps when his eye caught a thin edge of yellow light between two tall cabinets loaded with rusty canned goods, stocks that appeared to be long past their best-by date.
He ripped at the shelving and dodged heavy falling cans of undoubtedly exquisite Chinese delicacies. The cabinet swung open easily, revealing a tiny broom closet of a room, no bigger than six by four. There was a metal rack upon which lay a man, pale and gaunt, who looked as if he’d neither eaten nor slept during his days in enemy hands. A tin plate with what appeared to be dried vomit rested on his chest, just below his chin. A foul slops bucket stood under his bed. At the sight of Hawke, he made to sit up, and the thin scrap of blanket fell away, revealing his legs. They were severely bruised and made fast to the frame with strips of heavy canvas.
The man smiled weakly up at Hawke as he entered.
“What part of China you from, mister?” he said, slurring his words.
“I look Chinese to you?” Alex said, and he had the knife in his hand, cutting the canvas from the frame, starting with the left leg.
“Can’t see too well. Where are you from then?”
“Place called Greybeard Island. Little rock out in the English Channel.”
“English, yeah. Thought so. A limey. I’m Harry Brock. From L.A.”
“La-la land. Never been there. Have they been torturing you, Harry Brock?” Hawke asked, inspecting his horribly swollen feet and ankles.
“Nothing Dr. Scholl can’t fix,” he said, laughing weakly. “I don’t know. Been on the run. Can’t remember much of the last few days.”
“Drugs, Mr. Brock. Chlorides. Pentothal. Anything broken? Can you walk?”
“I think so. Any chance at all of us getting out of here?” the man said. The fear that this might not be so was writ large in his dilated blue eyes.
“That’s the general idea,” Hawke replied, cutting the last of the bonds. “On your feet, Mr. Brock. Let’s get off this tub before it sinks.”
“Sounds good,” the American said, and, with Hawke’s help, he swung his legs painfully off the frame and got his feet under him. He swayed and Hawke put one arm around him.
“I won’t be much good to you in a fight. I think the bastards have broken my wrists. One of ’em, anyway.”
“We’re going to make straightaway for the stern. As fast as you’re able. Over the rail. I’ve got a man waiting below in a Zodiac. He’s expecting us. Now. Can you make it?”
As he said this last, Hawke heard a now familiar high-pitched voice behind him. He whirled, and his right hand came up in a blinding motion, the Assassin’s Fist already on its deadly way. Tsing Ping appeared to move his head less than an inch to the left and Hawke’s blade twanged into the wooden shelving, the knife handle vibrating just by Tsing Ping’s ear.
“You are knife fighter?” the man said in his disturbingly childlike voice. “Good. I, too.”
An ugly serpentine dagger appeared from the folds of Ping’s black pajamas, and he flicked it playfully before his face. Hawke, who still had his left arm supporting the American, was going for the Walther on his right hip when he heard certain death whizzing his way. The point of the Chinaman’s blade was perhaps an inch from piercing Alex’s heart when it struck something solid. There was a metal thud and Hawke glanced down to see the dented tin plate that had saved his life still in Harry Brock’s hand and the assassin’s dagger falling harmlessly to the deck.
“Thanks,” Hawke said to Brock.
“Don’t mention it,” Brock replied, and then both men looked up to see the most extraordinary sight.
Tsing Ping, now writhing in anger, had been lifted a good three feet off the deck. Both hands were above his head, pinioned in the one-handed grip of a giant black man. This man, who was now standing in the doorway looking at him from head to toe with intense curiosity, seemed immovable; as solid and still as a black marble statue.
“Hey! Listen up!” the black man said to Tsing Ping. “What you got against soap and water, boy?”
“Stokely!” Hawke said, barely able to contain his joy at the sight of the man. He hadn’t seen his old friend in more than a year. “What in God’s name are you doing here?”
“Saving your ass again, looks like to me. Speaking of which, we got to go. I got a couple of mines going off in about a New York minute.”
“What mines?” Hawke asked.
“Limpet mines, you know, that somehow got attached to the hull. This old tub’s going down, boss. What shall I do with this little guy? Hey, you! Stop that!”
Tsing Ping was making horrible guttural sounds and scissoring his legs viciously at Stokely’s groin. Stoke put an end to that with a short, jabbing motion of his arm. He slammed the Chinaman bodily against the bulkhead twice and then dropped him like a sack of broken sticks to the deck. He didn’t move after that.
“Ugly little critter, ain’t he?” Stoke said, looking down at Ping. “What is he?”
“Dead, I hope,” the American said, looking pleadingly at Hawke. “He ought to be if he’s not. Sweet Jesus. Somebody shoot him.”
Hawke holstered his pistol. He may have had pirate blood in him, but cold-blooded murder had never held any appeal.
“Be dead soon anyway,” Stoke said, looking at Alex with understanding in his brown eyes. Stoke didn’t want to murder the man either.
“What do you mean?” Brock said.
“I mean when this old piece of scrap iron goes to the bottom in, say, oh…let’s call it three minutes now,” Stoke said, looking at his dive watch. “When he wakes up, he’ll be dead enough.”
“Let’s go,” Hawke said, and he and Stokely helped the American move quickly aft down the companionway.
“Nice of you to show up,” said Hawke.
“Not much else to do on shipboard,” Stokely said. “Not since I gave up duplicate bridge.”
“How’d you come to be aboard Blackhawke anyway?”
“Got picked up in Corsica. Taking care of some business there and saw her in the harbor. Tom Quick said he was making a run over here to pick you up. I didn’t see a good reason to turn down the invitation.”
“And tonight?”
“He said you needed backup.”
“Damn it, why does no one listen to me?”
“’Cause you the boss, boss.”
The stern was deserted. A thick fog had rolled in, making the decks slippery and the rail wet to the touch. Hawke leaned over the rail and saw the large black Zodiac, the outboards idling, hovering in position. It was a
