and took his order of coffee and croissant. A few minutes later, the waiter, who was still wearing exotic eye makeup from the previous evening, returned with his breakfast and offered him a slim paperback history of the place called Isle of Bones.
“First visit to Key West?” the waiter asked Hawke, looking as if he already knew the answer.
“Right. I’ve been fishing on Islamorada a few times, but never all the way down here. Beautiful place.”
“Hurricanes took their toll, but we’ll bounce back.”
Hawke gave the waiter some money and said, “Town looks great to me.”
“Yeah, well, we’re pretty much back to abnormal now.”
Hawke laughed and picked up the guidebook.
Since he was in no hurry, he decided to delve into the slim volume of Key West lore. Blackhawke would provision here before moving south and the conference was scheduled to run two days. He was not looking forward to his first confrontation with Conch; but he was determined to make his case to the Americans and see a bit of Key West. It would help to have a bit of the local color. He began to read.
THE FIRST MAN who ever stepped out of his boat and set his boots upon this island, Hawke read, found himself knee-deep in bones. Early Spanish explorers, who had somehow survived the treacherous reefs guarding this sun-drenched isle, found an island littered with human bones. Grinning skulls decorated the low-lying mangrove branches as they glided toward shore; more were in the gumbo limo trees, swaying and tinkling in the trade winds.
Bones and more bones. The Spanish explorers had named it Cayo Hueso.
The Isle of Bones.
The island was of course a notorious pirate enclave for much of its colorful history. It was ideally located for the skullduggery of freebooters and privateers, preying on the galleons sailing out of Havana, loaded to the gunwales with gold. Hawke’s ancestor, the infamous pirate Blackhawke, had no doubt sent more than his share of Spaniards to the bottom after relieving them of their booty.
And then there were the reefs.
The razor-sharp spiny coral reefs that surrounded the island offered pirates a prized source of protection; and a source of bounty as the early “wreckers” plundered booty from foundered vessels. By 1835, “wrecking” salvage had made Key West the wealthiest city in America. Treasure still attracts its share of fortune hunters; it seemed no one could escape the tidal pull the island itself exerts on visitors. Even the most casual guest could sense buried riches around this island. Enormous emeralds sleeping deep in the sand, Hawke imagined, or flashing rubies skittering like crabs beneath the turquoise sea.
Heading back, Hawke felt a palpable air of mystery hanging about the place. You could feel it, he had noticed on his walk, lingering back in the shadows, suddenly at your side, then brushing past as you rounded a corner, only to whirl and face you head on, cool upon your cheeks. At night, he imagined, walking along a darkened side street overhung with heavy magnolias and fragrant flowering frangipani, you could feel the steady pull of the past. On every block, softly glowing windows would hint, if not of treachery, then at least of whispered secrets and inhabitants best left undisturbed.
Blackhawke was moored alongside the great arm of a breakwater that enclosed the submarine basin at the Yard. The Navy, in one form or another, had been stationed in these pristine waters since 1823. In the early days, Key West had been the forward base of the Navy’s pirate-hunting West India Squadron. Their mission was to root out the bloodthirsty buccaneers from their hideaways deep in the mangrove creeks up and down the Keys.
When Hawke returned to the docks from his morning reconnoiter, he found the big black ship straining and tugging at her mooring lines. Rain fell, spitting fat drops at first, then coming down in buckets. Greeting the armed security guards both the U.S. Navy and Tom Quick had posted along the quay, he hurried along to Blackhawke’s covered gangway and saluted the Navy officer posted there. The man would be there for the duration. Security was tight all over the yard. Navy choppers buzzed overhead. There were divers down now in the basin. They would be inspecting his hull along with the Navy’s vessels, making sure everything stayed clean of limpet mines.
Hell, half the State Department was down here for Conch’s southern hemisphere security meeting. Brick Kelly, the Director of the CIA, was speaking on border protection in about three hours. “Good fences make good neighbors,” he’d said to Hawke when last they’d met at the White House. The place would be piled to the rafters with American bigwigs plus one reluctant Englishman who’d invited himself.
Heavy purple cumulus clouds had been stacking up along the southern horizon all morning. The predicted blow building up to the south all morning. It was now right on schedule, roaring up out of the Florida Straits, and Alex Hawke turned his collar up as he left the shelter of the gangway and made his way across decks freshly varnished with rain.
Hawke entered an elevator and rode up three decks. Stepping out and into the driving rain, he then made his way forward to the bridge. The broad teak decks were slick with rain. Pausing out on the bridge wing, he checked his watch before pushing inside. It was just past noon. He was scheduled to arrive at the Truman Complex, where Conch’s conference was being held, at three. He had lunch with Ambrose Congreve and Stokely Jones at noon, but he needed to stop by the bridge and have a chat with his captain.
A new boat was scheduled to arrive in Key West this very evening. A sleek Italian powerboat that he’d been having modified for a very special mission. He and Brownlow, her new skipper, needed to go over the ship’s roster. They would hand-pick a crew to man her. Fifteen of Blackhawke’s best would be sailing south with them.
Hawke pushed inside the bridge and saw Brownlow and the captain deep in conversation. Good timing. His pulse quickened. He was getting close. No matter what the Americans thought after hearing his remarks, Hawke was determined to sail deep into the heart of the Amazon.
He was going to return to the crossroads of evil. He was going to find and kill the mad giant standing at the doorway to hell.
And God help the bloody fool who got in his way.
36
T he American Secretary of State, Consuelo de los Reyes, sat back from her temporary wooden desk. She brushed a stray wing of thick brown hair from her high forehead and noticed that her hands, for some reason, were trembling slightly. In an hour or so, she had to give her opening remarks in the auditorium three floors below. But that wasn’t the problem.
She knew precisely what she had to say. She had no need of notes, teleprompters, or cue cards. In Washington, in Senate hearings, and in other capitals of the world she was justly admired as a brilliant extemporaneous speaker; but now she found herself reading her opening remarks for the tenth time, trying to focus. Trying to keep her mind busy. Trying to stop thinking about him.
This was ridiculous. She should be enjoying herself. She was out of Washington for a few days, thank God. Fewer meetings, fewer phone calls, and no mini-crises blowing up in her face at all hours of the day and night. She was in Key West, for heaven’s sake. Her favorite place on earth!
She had chosen Key West as the site of her Latin American security conference for any number of good reasons. The Naval Air Field was strategically and conveniently located for regional State Department, CIA, DEA, and other police and government personnel even now flying in from all over both North and South America. Key West Naval Station was a fairly easy location to secure. Navy fighter squadrons had been patrolling the airspace overhead all week and the perimeter of the old naval base and Truman Complex had been swept and secured for the last ten days.
The news media had arrived, of course, but there was little to be done about that. To be honest, she suspected President McAtee of deliberately leaking a few details about this conference. The president desperately needed good news. The White House needed to be seen as doing something about the growing restiveness along the Mexican border, and in the entire southern hemisphere.
The mainstream media were calling the whole thing a publicity sham. Saying that Key West was an easy terrorist target, the worst possible location for an American security confab. Predicting terror attacks on the island had become a nightly news item. NSA had assured her they’d picked up no terrorist Internet chatter about her
