'How much does this team know about the situation, Your Highness?' Hawke asked, changing the subject.
'Only that there appears to be a serious threat to the Royal Family, indeed, the Monarchy itself. They know I've asked for your help, Alex, and that of Chief Inspector Congreve. There's one thing I want to make perfectly clear from the outset. You are both working directly for the Crown. I don't want your investigations impeded in any way by Secret Service or HM government red tape. Is that understood?'
He looked at both of them, waiting for an answer.
'Completely, Your Majesty,' Hawke said for both. He found himself in a difficult position. C would have his head for this if he found out. But Prince Charles would have Trulove's head if MI6 sacked Hawke.
'Any preliminary thoughts as to motive, Your Highness?' Congreve asked.
'Alex and I have discussed this at some length. It was either an IRA publicity stunt, the commonly accepted theory. Or this is a personal vendetta against my entire family. One that began over thirty years ago. The motive is revenge. The first to die was my godfather, dear Uncle Dickie, murdered as you know at his summer home near Sligo, Ireland. Here, please have a look at these.'
He passed Hawke a slim red leather portfolio. It bore the heraldic badge of the Prince of Wales, three feathers emerging from a coronet bearing the motto 'Ich Dien.' German, Hawke knew, for 'I serve.'
Hawke carefully examined the death threats, then passed the folio to Congreve without comment.
'Ambrose, Prince Charles has already made me aware of these items. I'd like your unbiased reaction first if you don't mind.'
Congreve examined the items and returned the portfolio to the Prince.
'Your Highness, you should know that I, personally, was part of the Yard's team investigating your godfather, Lord Mountbatten's, murder. The IRA claimed responsibility in a written statement just hours after the assassination. Two men were charged, but only one, McMahon as I remember, was found guilty and went to prison. Now, he's a free man. Your Highness, may I ask where you found the first handwritten note?'
'Yes. It fell from the pages of a book I was leafing through quite by accident. A book formerly in the library at Lord Mountbatten's castle in Mullaghmore. Uncle Dickie obviously received the threat and thought so little of it, he absentmindedly stuck it in the leaves of a book he was reading at the time and forgot all about it. Never even told his four-man security team, in all likelihood.'
'And this recent threat against you and your two sons?' Ambrose continued. ''Pawn takes kings?' Where was that note found?'
'Here. I found it here at Highgrove. In this very room, believe it or not.'
'Good Lord,' Congreve said, astounded.
Hawke asked, 'Where, precisely, did Your Highness find it?'
'Taped to the chessboard in that game table over by the window. It revolves, you see, chessboard on one side, checkerboard on the reverse. The boys and I still play checkers occasionally. The last time my wife and I sat down to play after supper, I flipped the board to chess-and there it was, taped to the board.'
'The 'Pawn' leaves his calling card taped to a chessboard,' Hawke mused to no one in particular.
Congreve said, 'So the note was left by someone with direct access to this house. To this very room, in fact.'
'That would appear to be the case, Chief Inspector. Troublesome, is it not?'
'Far beyond troublesome, Your Highness,' Congreve said solemnly. 'I assume your Special Branch detectives have interviewed every member of the household staff? Gardeners, farmers, gillies as well?'
'Of course. Nothing. They're all vetted to a fare-thee-well, naturally, or they would not be in service here.'
'Sent by someone who sees himself as a pawn,' Hawke said to no one in particular.
Charles stood and went over to the far window, gazing down into his garden, hands clasped behind his back, lost in thought.
Hawke leaned over and whispered to Congreve.
'Play your cards right and there might be a knighthood in this for you, Constable.'
Ambrose, who registered exactly the kind of shocked, horrified expression Hawke had been hoping for, whispered a fierce retaliation.
'Your lack of propriety knows no bounds, Alex. You ought to be ashamed. Really.'
'I'm simply saying, my dear Ambrose, that if you have charm, by all means ooze it.'
EIGHT
HEATHER, YOU ALL RIGHT, BABY GIRL?' she heard her husband say.
Tom was down the hall in his den watching the Saturday afternoon edition of Live at Five Metro Miami news. Heather was amazed her husband had even heard her cry of surprise over the surround-sound TV he had going. Some big news event had happened earlier, she wasn't sure what, but he'd been riveted to the big Samsung TV wall monitor since right after lunch.
News-glued, she called the chronic twenty-four-hour bad-news-cycle phenomenon gripping the country. Many Americans suffered from it: Nancy Grace saying, 'It's been twenty-two months since little Tracey Childers went missing from a trailer park here in Ocala, Florida. Do local police have new information? We'll be back in a minute.'
That sound bite said it all.
And it wasn't healthy, Heather told anyone at the office who'd listen. A steady diet of bad news was bad for your soul. And probably your heart.
'Honey, you okay?' her hubby called out.
'No, not really all that okay, Tom,' she shouted from the kitchen, and heard the TV muted a moment later.
'What? What is it, sweetie?' he called from the door of his sanctuary. 'Don't tell me it's-you know. The Big One. Time to hit the ground running? Honey?'
'My water just broke so I'd say, yep, time to go, all right.'
She heard his heavy linebacker footsteps pounding down the hallway toward the kitchen.
'Omigod, honey, we gotta get a move on! Where's our prepacked emergency bag? I know I put it somewhere. Bedroom closet? Yes! Wait, I'll run upstairs to the bedroom and-'
She'd known it would be exactly like this. No matter how many dry runs they'd made, even putting a clock on the exact time it took from their front door at 2509 Bayshore Boulevard in Coconut Grove to the Emergency entrance at Jackson Memorial, eighteen minutes. On one of the dry runs, Tom had videotaped the whole thing as if it were the real deal. Who's gonna know? he asked her.
And no matter how many times they'd discussed in endless detail exactly what would happen when it was time to go to the hospital, she'd known Tom would forget that they'd placed the packed suitcase in the front hall closet so they could grab it as they went out the door.
Tom and Heather Hendrickson were having their first baby. So she wasn't surprised her husband was a mess approaching a meltdown. She felt amazingly calm, considering. Tom, who was a CPA, a senior vice president with a big Miami accounting firm, was used to having everything under control. Numbers you could control. Nature was something else altogether. Different kettle of fish. What was the old line? If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.
Yeah, well, God was having a hissy fit, probably in hysterics right now. She was two weeks early. They'd just finished assembling the crib late last night. Hadn't even painted the nursery yet. Her baby shower was tonight! She whipped out her cell, speed-dialed her sister in Homestead, told her to call everybody and cancel.
'Not up there, honey,' her husband said, his voice tinged with panic as he came rushing headlong down the stairs. 'Damn it to hell, I was sure we put it-'
'Tom. Listen. It's the red Samsonite in the front hall closet. I'm going upstairs now to change. Why don't you get the bag, take it out to the car, back out of the driveway, and wait with the motor running at the end of the walk. Good idea?'
'Brilliant! You go change. I'll get the bag, I'll be out there in the car, engine running. Hurry up, okay?' He looked
