snarling hellhound that leaped up out of the darkness behind him and flew bare-fanged across his chest and out the open door. Doing his mental weapons check, minding his own business, he’d clean forgot about Blondi. The Doberman might even the odds up a little bit. Maybe a lot.
“She had to go,” Jet said by way of explanation.
“Okay, Arnold,” Stoke said, cocking the Schmeisser, “shut this bird down and sit tight. We’re going to get out, stretch our legs, and figure out what to do next.”
“We know exactly what to do next,” Jet said. “Let’s get moving.”
Stoke smiled at Arnold. “Like the lady said, we know exactly what to do next. Let’s get moving.”
There was an old wooden sign above the door with the faded word Steinhoffer painted on it. Name of a Luftwaffe ace jet-set. The doors were locked. Stoke kept the machine pistol on Arnold and Blondi straining on her leash while Jet unlocked the padlocks on the rusty corrugated hangar doors. The fact that she had a key to this old building was mildly surprising but Stoke kept his mouth shut. They were on her turf now. When a woman had a plan, you had to be prepared to zip your lip and go with it. It had taken him nearly half a century to figure that out.
Jet got the lock open and pushed back the sliding doors. The hangar was empty except for the gleaming black car.
“Stokely,” Jet said, “there’s a tool shop at the rear. Get some duct tape and immobilize him. Use a lot. We might be a couple of hours. I’ll take Blondi.”
“You heard the lady,” Stoke said to Arnold. He handed the leash to Jet. “Let’s go get you taped up.”
Ten minutes later, having secured Arnold to a heavy wooden workbench that was bolted to a wall, he was back. Jet was squatting on her knees beside the car, talking to Blondi in German. Telling the Doberman the plan, Stoke assumed. He was pretty sure he’d be next to find out what it was.
“That’s some car,” he said to Jet. And it was. It was maybe the most beautiful machine he’d ever seen. Glinting black in the moonlight that filtered through the skylight, it looked like a high-tech spaceship. “What is it?”
“Mercedes SLR,” Jet said. “Built in England by McLaren. It’s basically a Formula One race car you can drive on the street. Six hundred eighteen horsepower, top speed of over 320 kilometers per hour.”
“This is your car?” Stoke said.
“Schatzi gave it to me when he got bored with it.”
“And you keep it out here?”
“If I kept it at my apartment, it would get stolen. I don’t use it that much. This is probably the safest place in Berlin.”
Stoke was puzzling over the English license plate mounted on the rear. Four letters. SPQR.
“SPQR,” he said. “What’s that stand for?”
“It’s an acronym. It stands for Senatus Populusque Romanus. Which means the ‘Senate and People of Rome.’ Schatzi is a big fan of Caesar. Might help you understand who you’re up against.”
“I’ll take all the help I can get, Jet,” Stoke said. He didn’t ask her why the Q got left out in translation.
“Get in. We’ll put Blondi in the back.”
Jet thumbed the remote in her hand. “Mind your head,” she said, “the doors swing up not out. Gullwing, like the old 300SL. Load, Blondi!”
Stoke climbed in and buckled his belt. The car was so low and sleek, he was amazed there was enough room for someone his size. He looked over at Jet and saw she was adjusting a pair of night-vision goggles over her eyes.
“I take it out on the Autobahn late at night,” Jet said, “No traffic. I run three hundred kilometers per hour flat out with the lights off. No Polizei.”
“Anybody saw you, they’d think it was a UFO.”
The supercharged V-8 roared to life, a beautiful exhaust note burbling from the sidepipes. Jet let it idle for a few seconds, then blipped the accelerator. Just the sound of the thing inside the hangar was enough to push Stoke back in his seat. Then she engaged first gear, popped the clutch, and hit it. The tires lit up and they rocketed forward, went sideways out onto the tarmac, no lights, the rear wheels screeching and smoking.
It didn’t take long to get across the field. Runways built of ballast stone were ideal for cars like Jet’s. Stoke didn’t even look over at the speedometer. There was a large square building adjacent to the main structure. Jet seemed be headed in that direction but it was pretty blurry outside so Stoke wasn’t sure.
“Don’t seem to be a whole lot of guards around,” Stoke said.
“The main entrance is where all the guards are. That’s the only way in or out. They’re not expecting company tonight, either. VDI Security is still waiting for a report on us from Zum Wilden Hund, remember? Besides, nobody really knows what goes on here.”
“What does go on here?”
“You’ll see.”
Tempelhof itself, the main building, looked like something you might have seen in ancient Rome only much, much bigger. “Impressive architecture,” Stoke said as they sped closer.
“Neoclassical. Albert Speer was Hitler’s personal architect,” Jet said, “no small plans.”
Jet slowed to below a hundred and used a remote to open a door in the secondary building that was coming up fast. It looked like they were going to go right inside doing about eighty.
“What’s this building?” Stoke said, gripping the door handle with his right hand.
“Underground parking,” Jet said, tapping the brakes and spinning the wheel. Once they were inside the doors she stood on the brakes and put the wheel hard over. The SLR did a tight three-sixty on the polished cement floor. Jet put it in first and started up again in the direction of a tunnel marked Eingang.
“Four levels,” she said, pushing the NVG goggles up to the top of her head. “We’re going all the way down to Level Four. Corkscrew turns. Hold on.”
“I’m beginning to see what Alex Hawke sees in you.”
“Alex Hawke hasn’t seen anything yet,” Jet said. But she was smiling when she said it.
After they’d parked and locked up the Mercedes, Jet led him back to an anonymous grey door tucked inside an alcove. A door you’d never find unless you knew it was there.
“Wilkommen to the Unterwelt,” Jet said, pulling the rusted steel door open.
“Welcome to what?”
“The Underworld.”
Chapter Forty-four
Gulf of Oman
“YOU LOOK UNHAPPY,” HAWKE SAID TO HARRY BROCK. THEY were standing on the trawler’s stern in the dark. All the ship’s lights were doused. Ahmed was helping them get suited up in wetsuits and high-tech SEAL gear. The equipment included German Draegers, “re-breathers,” that purified and recirculated their oxygen so no tell-tale bubbles marked their progress on the surface. Now that night had fallen, Hawke was reasonably sure the recon mission could be carried out unseen and unnoticed.
Harry was upset they weren’t using the Swimmer Delivery Vehicle he’d procured from the Navy. And he hadn’t found it amusing when Hawke had said, “Don’t you think that’s a bit of overkill, Irontail? We’re just doing a light recon. We can swim it.”
The sun had set and the moon had risen while the darkened trawler Cacique poked along the northern tip of the island, looking for a suitable mooring on the rocky coast.
Cacique had to be sufficiently near the island for the two men to swim to Fort Mahoud’s entrance and back. But the trawler also had to be anchored somewhere out of sight, away from any prying eyes at the fort. After his recent experience aboard the Star of Shanghai, Hawke had a new rule of thumb when it came to unexpectedly dropping in on new friends. Always assume you’re expected, no matter what they tell you.
They’d managed a pretty good spot. The anchorage was tucked inside a deepwater cove just west of Point Arras on the northwest side of the island. Hawke figured it was maybe a half-mile swim out around the rocky point
