was only now, in his early thirties, standing here on the very brink of middle age, that one didn’t take such commonplace things for granted. He took little for granted these days. He accepted that, but wondered why.
Perhaps it had been the tragic loss of his wife Victoria on the steps of a small Cotswolds chapel two years earlier. His heart had been shattered into infinitely small pieces when the sniper’s bullet pierced his young bride’s heart and stole her life while he looked on, helpless. He was quite sure the wound would never heal. God knows it still hurt.
Then, he thought, there was the recent near miss in the Amazon jungle and the death of every one of his dear colleagues on the river.
Or maybe the explanation was far less weighty and solemn. Perhaps Florida was simply working its balmy magic upon him again. Whatever it was, Hawke was suddenly aware of a strong sense of being, not at home, certainly, but of being in precisely the right place at the right time.
“Skipper?”
“Yes?” he turned to see Tom Quick descending the steps curving down from the starboard bridge wing.
“Sorry to bother you, sir, but an old friend heard you were aboard. She demanded to see you.”
Hawke’s pet parrot, Sniper, was riding on Quick’s right shoulder.
Hallo, Hawke! Hallo, Hawke! Sniper squawked, flaring her large wings.
“Good idea, Tommy, let me have her, will you? Hullo, you old buzzard, how the hell have you been? Huh?”
Damifiknow. Hellificare! Sniper replied.
“My sentiments exactly,” Hawke said, stroking her beak with great affection. “I don’t know how I’ve been and I don’t much care, either. Pretty sad lot, are we not?”
What a babe! What a bod! Sniper said, apropos of nothing. Probably just repeating what she’d heard one of the crew remark upon seeing Pippa Guinness coming aboard.
Hawke laughed. Sniper’s language grew increasingly salty with the passing years, a result of her hanging out with the loose crowd that inhabited this great barge of his. But the old girl was trained in the ancient pirate’s ways and often had warned her master of hidden or unseen dangers.
Sniper fluttered her wings and settled easily onto Hawke’s shoulder. He’d had the beautiful bird for many years and it was a comfort to feel her resting there again. She’d gotten him out of more than one scrape, sitting on that shoulder.
Quick said, “She hasn’t had breakfast, Skipper. I brought along her Cheezbits.”
Hawke held up a handful and Sniper eagerly snapped them up.
“All shipshape below, Tommy?” Hawke asked. He’d been on the bridge for a word or two with his captain, but he’d not yet had time to inspect the engine room or the communications and fire control centers.
He’d placed Quick in charge of overseeing some aspects of the yacht’s refit and weapons systems upgrade. The yacht Blackhawke was in truth more warship than wealthy man’s play toy. She had a gleaming black hull and featured an integrated combat system centered on the Aegis weapon system and the SPY-1 multifunction phased array radar. The whole kit had cost him a bloody fortune, but he took the long view in such matters. Blackhawke was both his fortress and his base of operations when on assignment abroad. He could, thankfully, well afford to have a first-rater beneath his feet when he went to sea.
“I can’t say everything went like clockwork, these things never do, but she’s certainly seaworthy, combat ready, and ready to sail, sir.”
“I had a look at the sea trial reports from the Chief Engineer. Hard to read between the lines but, superficially at least, she seems more fit than I left her.”
Quick smiled. “For a two-hundred-forty foot vessel, she runs like a bat out of hell, I’ll tell you that much, Skipper.”
“I want to be under way by midnight.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
“What the hell is that noise, Tom?”
“Sounds like somebody arriving down on the dock, sir.”
“An automobile is making that horrendous sound?” Hawke said, moving to the port rail and looking down at the dock. There was a black convertible just pulling up at the foot of the gangplank, an American muscle car with its rear end jacked up at a very severe angle. A loud blat of exhaust wafted up as the monster’s throttle was depressed.
The convertible top suddenly lifted up off the windscreen and began folding back. It revealed Stokely Jones sitting behind the wheel of the wild machine, waving up at him, a big smile stretched across his face.
Hawke smiled back and handed Quick the bird.
Stoke was back. Ambrose was aboard.
His team was together again. They were headed into the thick of it once more.
Alex Hawke was finally feeling alive again.
30
PRAIRIE, TEXAS
L ook outside, Sheriff! What the heck’s going on out there?” Homer said, slamming down his Pepsi and half getting to his feet to look over the top of the booth.
Franklin looked up from his cream of barley soup and sandwich. He twisted his head around so that he, too, could look out the front windows. He saw a man in dungaree coveralls running past the drugstore windows. He was moving at a pretty good clip for a lazy Saturday afternoon. A second later, he saw an old yellow dog bounding after the man, both of them moving lickety-split up the sidewalk.
“Missed his bus,” Franklin drawled and returned to his soup.
“Prairie ain’t got any buses,” Homer said.
“Well, there’s that.”
The sheriff took a bite of his grilled cheese and smiled. Nobody made better grilled cheese sandwiches than Virgil Buff at the Rexall drugstore. Nobody even came close.
The two lawmen had knocked off around one and left the courthouse. Out of sheer habit, they’d ambled directly across the street to the drugstore luncheonette for a bite. It was a warm December day and the overhead fans inside were spinning lazily. The smell of fried onions in the air made Franklin hungry coming in the door. There was a stack of newspapers set on the table by the screen door and he took one.
From his station behind the long Formica counter, owner Roy Sewell waved them over to the last available booth, halfway down on the right. By the averted looks he and Homer received entering and sitting down, Franklin wasn’t sure he had too many friends left around this town. But, you know, he’d always said, the law wasn’t some kind of popularity contest.
People liked it when the law was on their side and didn’t like it when it wasn’t. No mystery there.
Roy came over and took their order, nodding when both men said, “The usual.” They sat for a few moments in silence and then Homer piped up, “How’s your paper goin’? You only got a few days left before you go to Key West.”
“Almost done.”
“You happy with it?”
“I guess so, Homer. I said my piece anyway.”
“I hear on the news that pretty woman Secretary of State is even going to be there. What’s her name? Consuelo something or other. Cuban, I believe. I’ve seen her on the TV here a lot lately. Say, you nervous about getting up in front of all those fancy Washington folks?”
“I’m nervous about being gone away so long, to tell you the honest truth.”
“We’ll be all right. Don’t worry. We got Wyatt.”
“Yep. We got Wyatt.”
In truth, the town had been pretty quiet since the afternoon about a week ago here that the little Mexican boy, Manuelito, had gone to his reward out at the Brotherwood place. There had been a sizable outpouring of grief
