room was exquisite, high white walls reaching up to a barrel-vaulted ceiling, floors of Persian marble inlaid with semi-precious stones, and tapestries woven in silver and gold thread hung from many of the walls.
'Dubuffet, to be precise.'
'What the hell, they all look the same to me,' Alex said, wiping somebody's blood out of his eyes with the back of his hand.
'Lord Hawke,' al-Rashad said, smiling at him above the great expanse of his ebony and ivory desk. Stoke had swung inside the great room on Alex's heels, pivoting left and right with his weapon, covering Hawke and ensuring that the room was clear and that the target was all alone. He was. Stoke signaled, and the three remaining militiamen entered, taking up positions that covered both the entrance and egress, and the target himself.
'Sheik Abu al-Rashad,' Hawke said, 'so sorry to drop in unexpectedly.'
'You come highly recommended, your lordship. And I must admit I'm impressed with your grand entrance. Nothing like it has ever been even remotely attempted.'
'Really? Recommended by whom, may I ask?'
'Our mutual friend, of course. Mr. Smith.'
'Ah, the ubiquitous Mr. Smith. Odd, we've never met. After all these years. Pity.'
'He certainly knows you.'
'Then I'm afraid Mr. Smith has me at a disadvantage.'
'He does indeed.'
'Meaning?'
'Meaning he is about to change the course of British history. And there is absolutely nothing you can do about it.'
'Hardly merits discussion then, does it?'
'I suppose not. You are here looking for the missing device? Or simply to kill me?'
'Both.'
'Good. In that case we shall mount on golden wings and fly to the gates of paradise together.'
'I think not.'
'I think so,' the man said, raising his right hand and revealing something cradled in his palm. It was a shiny black metal object the size and shape of a pack of cigarettes.
'This is the detonator for the one-kiloton device. I have just depressed the button. It's now armed. If you care to shoot me, which I'm sure you do, my finger will obviously release the trigger. I will accept my martyrdom with joy. You, and everyone remaining alive inside this mountain, will die instantly. Why, my God, it will be spectacular. We'll blow the whole top of Wazizabad to the skies. Glorious.'
'And if I don't shoot?'
'Your life will go on. You will bear witness. We stand here at the threshold of a new world order, Lord Hawke. A caliphate. A world where Sharia law is the rule of all nations. The new Golden Age of Islam. Do you believe in God, Lord Hawke?'
'I believe this moment in time is no accident.'
'I honor you in this belief.'
'Stoke?' Hawke said, looking his old friend in the eye. 'What do you think?'
'Tough call, boss.'
'Yeah.'
'I think we do our duty and that's the end of it. We've always known we'd have to go sometime. At least this way, we go out in a blaze of glory, knowing we did what we had to do.'
'You remember Admiral Lord Nelson's last words, as he lay dying on Victory's deck in supreme triumph, having defeated the French at Trafalgar?'
'Tell me, boss.'
'Thank God I have done my duty.'
'Yeah. That's what it's all about.'
'Ever since I was a child I've always thought that is how I would like to go out. A fine way to die, doing your duty.'
Hawke raised the pistol, aiming it at the man's head.
'Don't take this the wrong way, boss. One last thing. I love you like a brother. Always have. Always will.'
'I return it tenfold, Stoke.'
Hawke said a brief silent prayer and squeezed the trigger.
Abu al-Rashad, who'd never once believed this man Hawke would willingly commit suicide, died with that thought still firing in his perforated brain.
Alex Hawke, who, a split second earlier, was prepared to lay down his life for his country, was staggered to find himself still alive. Al-Rashad's brains were spattered on the wall behind him. The little black controller fell from his hand and clattered harmlessly across the marble floor.
Hawke, dumbstruck, heard a voice behind him.
'All right then, you two lovebirds. Abdul and I found that dirty nuke,' Sahira said from the doorway.
'You found it?' Hawke said. It seemed like he'd sent her off to look for it a lifetime ago.
'At the end of that tunnel back where Ugg lit up. We disabled it about five minutes ago.'
'Only five minutes?' Stoke said, incredulous.
'Is that a problem for you?'
'Could have been a little bit, yeah.'
Hawke and Stoke stared at Sahira in utter disbelief at how precisely they'd cheated death. And then the two men started smiling, grinning at her, lunging toward each other and embracing, pounding on each other's backs, convulsed with joyous laughter.
As Churchill once said, it wasn't the beginning of the end, but at least it was the end of the beginning.
SIXTY
A LONE MAN WALKED THROUGH THE DEEP and dusky Scottish wood. The forest floor was mossy and springy under his feet. It was early evening and he walked slowly beneath towering dark giants with massive limbs; he walked with a thoughtful gait, not stealthy, but somewhat self-consciously, almost as if he were being watched. He was, of course, but he was a recognizable figure on the property and so posed no threat. He wore his wool stocking cap low on his brow, hiding his predatory smile and his dark, shining eyes.
There were countless tiny security cameras nesting like small black birds in the trees above; and everywhere there were, too, unseen heat, sound, and movement sensors scattered throughout the property. His heart was pounding against his rib cage hard enough to splinter bones, but he was quite sure even the most sophisticated sensors couldn't pick up a heartbeat.
He was singing softly to his unseen audience as he walked, singing the words of Scotland's favorite son, Robbie Burns.
Gin a body meet a body
Comin' thro' the rye
Gin a body kiss a body
Need a body cry?
Yet a' the lads they smile at me
When comin' thro' the rye!
In the gloaming, a purple stillness fell over the trackless forests, the moors, and the placid rivers of the Balmoral estates. He walked on among the black trunks of magnificent specimen trees, many of them centuries old, some of them even planted by Prince Albert himself. He savored every step of this journey.
He had waited a lifetime for this night and this moment in time. As a small boy, he had foreseen this. All of his life, no matter what the dim and distant future held, a final reckoning was coming.
