Tsar

“What do we want?” Paddy said. “We want to take care of business and go home, that’s what we want. But first we want you to get on the horn and order a lifeboat lowered.”

“Lifeboat?”

“Here’s the deal, Skipper. Your boss Tommy Kurasawa fucked with the wrong Russians back there in the Kuril Islands. Could you stand up for me a second? Help him up, Leo. Gently, gently.”

Kapitsa lifted the captain straight up out of his chair by the head. The guy looked as if he was going to have kittens.

“We brought you a little something,” Paddy said. “Take a look.”

Paddy had unzipped the sea bag and taken out a large metal disc about four inches thick and twelve inches across. It was a dull grey color and had a digital display panel blinking red on one side. Paddy stood up, took the disc over, and placed it on the seat of the captain’s chair. Thing was heavier than it looked. Must have weighed twenty-five pounds, including five pounds of the explosive sky-blue putty known to terror cognoscenti as Hexagon.

“Sit him back down,” Paddy said, and Leo let go of the guy’s head, letting him drop two feet onto the top of the disc. Paddy pointed the gun at the captain’s nose and spoke softly.

“Pick up that phone to the bridge and order the lifeboat ready, Cap. We’re going to be running along now.”

“You leave ship on lifeboat?”

“Exactly,” Paddy said, reaching between the captain’s trembling legs to key a code into the disc’s arming mechanism. “Here’s the thing. This object you’re now sitting on? Now that I’ve enabled the system, it’s extremely pressure-sensitive. That’s why Mr. Lenin has his hand on top of your head. You lift your ass up even a fraction of an inch off the pressure plate? Boom. There’s enough explosive packed inside that thing to break this boat in half. So you want to be very, very careful, okay?”

“Bomb?”

“Bomb, exactly. It’s set to go off at some point in the very near future. But it’ll go off sooner if you raise your ass. Got that? Okay. Pick up the phone. Call the bridge and tell them about preparing the lifeboat. Mr. Lenin-san here is an expert seaman, so you don’t have to worry about us getting away safely, okay?”

“Can’t get up?” Noboru said. “Leave chair?”

“Wouldn’t advise it. Absolutely not.”

“What I do?”

“If you’re a good boy and don’t move, after we’re safely away from your boat, I’ll turn the bomb off with this remote thingy. Then you can get up. Otherwise…well, I can’t vouch for your personal safety.”

The captain, whose natural skin color was a greyish yellow, had gone more over to the grey side.

“Pick up the phone and call the bridge,” Paddy said, “and don’t try anything funny. I speak perfect Japanese.” He gave him a quick burst, asking the captain in Japanese where he kept the good sake locked up.

While Paddy and the captain were talking, Leo had gotten two Russian submachine guns out of his bag. The subguns were Bizon 2s. The Bizon was new, designed by Mikhail Kalashnikov’s son, Victor. Pretty straightforward weapon with a folding stock, standard black AK-74M pistol grip, and, at the muzzle, a small conical flash suppressor with teardrop ports. The magazine, aluminum, held sixty-four rounds.

Leo hefted the gun. Short and light, it was only twenty-six inches long. He looked at the subgun’s selector switch and moved it to what he called the “group therapy” position. Full auto. He didn’t anticipate much excitement with the Japanese fishermen up on deck, but you never knew. He put the weapon on the captain’s desk, pulled the portable sat phone from his bag, and handed it to Paddy.

When the guy on board the Russian megayacht Belarus answered his call, Paddy told him they had pretty much wrapped things up here and were ready to leave the Kishin Maru. They would be boarding the lifeboat within the next five minutes. He would call again once they were at sea, but Kapitsa had advised that they’d be able to arrive at their prearranged GPS coordinates for a pickup in one hour.

“Sit tight, Cap,” Paddy said to the captain as he went toward the door followed by the big Russian.

“Head,” the captain said in a strangled voice. He was clutching the arms of his chair, his knuckles showing white with the strain.

“Head?” Paddy said. “Fuck’s wrong with his head?”

“He means the bathroom,” Leo told him, going out into the companionway with his Bizon submachine gun out in front of him. “He’s gotta go.”

“Bad idea, Cap. Seriously bad idea. I’d try and hold it if I were you, think about something else.”

Paddy took one last look at the captain sitting there on the pressure-sensitive plate bomb and then went out and pulled the door closed behind him.

Nice touch, he thought to himself, the pressure-plate idea. He’d have to remember to send corporate an appreciative note about that.

10

BERMUDA

Hawke entered the book-lined library and saw C sitting quietly by the fireside. The room was an octagonal tower, bookcases on all sides rising two stories tall, with a clerestory window at the top. Sir David Trulove had a small volume of poetry lying open in his lap and had removed his gold-rimmed glasses. He was pinching the bridge of his nose and seemed lost in thought. A wine-red-shaded table lamp cast him in shadow.

The former admiral, one of nature’s immutable forces, was a great hero of the Falklands War. Tonight he seemed subdued. It was out of character and gave Hawke pause.

“Good evening, sir,” Hawke said, as mildly as possible. “Nice surprise, finding you here on Bermuda.”

“Ah. The reclusive Lord Hawke,” Sir David Trulove said, closing the book and looking up at him with an unreadable expression. He placed the slender volume on an end table beside the telephone and got to his feet, extending his hand. The older man was a good inch taller than Hawke, exceedingly fit, with a full head of white hair, furious white eyebrows, and a long hawklike nose. Noble was the word that came to mind.

Tonight, in perfectly cut evening clothes, with his lined sailor’s face and clear blue eyes, hard as marbles, he looked like some Hollywood movie director’s vision of a very elegant English spy. He was elegant, all right, but with a backbone of forged Sheffield steel.

“Do you read Yeats at all, Alex?” Trulove said, glancing down at the splayed book on the table.

“No, sir. Most poetry eludes me, sorry to say.”

“You really shouldn’t give up on it. I can’t abide much poetry myself, but Yeats is sublime. The only truly heroic poet we have, I suppose. Well. Surprised to see me here, are you?”

“A bit. Mind if we sit?”

“Not at all. Would you be comfortable sitting over there?”

Alex nodded and took the other fireside chair. The old worn leather felt good, and he collapsed into its embrace. He was conscious of C’s unwavering eyes and stared back at the older man. Neither looked away. It was a game they played, one that, so far, neither had lost.

“Having a splash of whiskey myself. Join me?” C said, his eyes drifting past the decanters on the sideboard and up toward the shelves of books rising to the octagonal skylight above. A narrow railed parapet ran around the room at the second-story level, looking hardly substantial enough to support a bird, much less a human being with a stack of books in his hands.

“No, thank you, sir.”

“Alex, I hate to disturb what is no doubt a pleasant interlude in your life. God knows, after your last assignment, you’ve certainly earned your respite. But I’m afraid we must speak about a situation that may require your involvement.”

He looked at Hawke, making him wait a beat. Both men knew perfectly well the precise three-word phrase forthcoming from the lips of the head of British Intelligence. He did not disappoint.