Tsar

behind Harry Brock.

They walked into a big square room filled with sofas and a blank large-screen TV on one wall. The room was empty except for the trash swept into the corners. So, apparently, was the smaller room beyond, which was dominated by a large snooker table, the felt long gone, probably used for meetings and dining. A naked bulb, dimly lit, dangled above the table. To the right, an open staircase led to the second floor.

“Where is everybody, Clifford? Whisper.”

“Dey mostly off island, it bein’ Saturday night. Drinkin’ wit de Skanktown ho’s at de Skibo Grill, mos’ likely.”

“Where’s your father?”

“He upsteers. Wit de prisoners. Wit my bra’. Dey havin’ a party up dere.”

“Let’s crash that party, shall we?”

They quickly mounted the stairs, Harry first with his SAW at the ready. There was a long hallway, hot, damp, and funky, leading to the rear of the building. The music was louder now, and also the sound of laughter was coming from the room Hawke had seen from the woods. The sweet stench of marijuana was almost overpowering. The heat inside the concrete building was intense, even hours after sundown.

“Okay,” Hawke said. “Harry, you’re through the door first, go in low, and show your weapon to get everyone’s attention. I’ll be right behind you with the Prince’s lookalike. Got it?”

“Got it, boss,” Harry said, smiling. He loved this stuff, lived for it. It was all over his face.

The peeling wooden hallway door was closed. From behind it came a confused roaring, laughter, and a breaking of glass. Hawke stood behind Harry, with Clifford still immobilized by his blade, and watched Harry’s right foot strike the door halfway up, blowing it inward. Harry went in low and racked the slide on the SAW, letting everybody get a good peek down the barrel, not a sight recommended for the faint-hearted. The ragged men were stunned but remained sitting in rows of chairs three deep that formed a ring in the center of the floor.

Hawke followed Harry inside, took it all in at a glance. The temperature inside the unpainted concrete-block room had to be more than a hundred degrees Fahrenheit. The smells of copious sweat, coppery blood, and spilt rum hit him like a wall. There was a rooster trapped in the center of the circle, and the men seated all around were taking great delight in hurling empty rum bottles at the bird, the cock screeching and flapping about. The bird was bloodied, had been hit a few times, and the concrete floor was covered with smeared blood and broken glass. A pile of feathery corpses lay at the feet of one of the participants.

The men’s golden smiles froze on their dark faces, and the effect was startling. Some of them still held half- empty rum bottles poised above their heads, but they lowered them as they saw the grim expression on Hawke’s face. And the second semiautomatic weapon he held in his left hand.

Hawke pushed Clifford inside in front of him and let everybody get a good look at him. Harry began patting down the party boys, looking for weapons.

“Anybody armed, Harry?” Hawke asked. “Aside from the rum bottles, I mean?”

“Clean so far,” Harry said, moving around the circle, carefully checking each man for weapons.

“Which one of you hearty sportsmen is King Coale?” Hawke asked, although he’d already guessed Samuel Coale was the one in the flowing purple dashiki and the snow-white dreads that reached to his waist. He had a wide leather belt around his corpulent belly and an ugly machete dangling in a sheath. Behind him, on the wall, a huge Ethiopian flag and an old poster of Emperor Haile Selassie, fist raised, the Lion of Judah himself, reluctant father of the Rasta movement.

Old King Coale rose from his tatty throne, the only upholstered armchair of the lot. He kicked a few rooster corpses out of his way and took a step forward.

“Yahweh is Lord, and I am his king,” he said, Rasta-style. “You come looking for your friends, Lord Hawke?”

“I have. Where are they?”

King Coale inclined his head left toward a closed door on the far wall.

Hawke pressed the muzzle of the SAW deep into King Coale’s belly.

“You’ve got your Disciples following me all over this bloody island, Coale. Tell me why.”

“Someone pay me good money, mon. Why else you do anything?”

“Who pays you?”

“I forget.”

“Let me guess. Korsakov?”

“I tell you, he kills me.”

“You don’t tell me, I kill you,” Hawke said, using the machine gun’s muzzle to shove the man back into his armchair.

A loud shout of pain came from behind the peeling door. Hawke recognized the voice instantly. It was Ambrose Congreve.

“Harry, keep an eye on these gentlemen for a moment,” Hawke said, turning away from Coale. He quickly crossed the room, twisted the knob, and shoved the door open. He craned his head around and peered inside. Then he glanced over his shoulder, looking at Brock.

He wasn’t smiling.

“They’re both alive,” he said.

29

The two Englishmen were bound back-to-back, each sitting upright in a straight-backed wooden chair. At a cursory glance, both appeared to have been beaten about the head and face. A trickle of blood ran from Sir David’s nose and mouth. Desmond, the Prince of Darkness, was standing before Ambrose with a length of iron rod in his hand. Ignoring Hawke’s sudden appearance, he drew it back and struck Congreve against the shin of his wounded leg. The detective screamed out in agony, his body straining backward in his chair, his face a rictus of pain.

The explosive chatter of the SAW automatic weapon was deafening in the small room. All eyes swiveled toward Hawke, who had the ugly black weapon at his hip. He squeezed the trigger and fired another burst into the wall just beyond Desmond’s head, showering him with chunks of plaster.

“What de fuck, mon?”

“Drop the rod, Prince,” Hawke said evenly. “Now.”

“You disrespected my family once. Once is all you get.” He raised the bar again.

“Put the rod down. If you don’t, I’ll kill you where you stand.”

Desmond turned and glared, somehow imagining he could force Hawke to look away.

“Drop it,” Hawke said, “or die. Now.”

“I’ll drop de rod, mon. But you got to drop de gun. Then we see who de man is. Without de guns.”

Desmond’s eyes were blazing red, but whether it was rum or anger fueling his rage, Hawke was unsure. He could kill the man, shoot him now and be done with it. But something deeper, more primitive, in Hawke’s brain stopped him from pulling the trigger. He wanted to hurt the man who’d hurt his friend. He wanted to hurt him with his bare hands. It was more than wanting, he realized, as he stared into those blood-red eyes.

It was needing.

Hawke had since early youth, not frequently but often enough, found himself drawn to the wild freedom of a fistfight: the taunting, the restraining of friends, the squaring up, the outrageousness of one’s opponent. He found in fighting a thrilling unpredictability available to him nowhere else. Only when fists flew did he discover his spontaneous, decisive self-his truest self, he liked to think.

He smiled at Desmond and said, “You don’t want to fight me, Prince. I’m way out of your league.”

“Is dat so, mon? You mean ’cause you so old? Too old to fight like a man?”

“Just put the rod on the floor. Then I’ll put my gun on the floor. Okay?”

“You got two guns, mon. De pistol, too.”

Hawke put the SAW and the 9mm pistol on the cement floor, his eyes never leaving Desmond’s. Then he pulled his assault knife out of its sheath and slid it across the floor.