“Calm down, Mr. Mann, I’m just… what’s that word… venting. But, by God, I’d like to get in a shooting war with that lunatic. Sonar, Conn, where the hell is that sonofabitch Lyachin?”
“Went deep, sir, three hundred meters, speed twenty-four knots, course oh-two-zero.”
“Roger, sonar. That cowboy’s headed for the trench, getting out of Dodge.”
“Roger that, sir. I would, too.”
Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin was sound asleep in the vast owner’s stateroom of his yacht, Red Star, in the Mediterranean when his private Kremlin line lit up, making a soft pinging sound that wouldn’t go away. It was three o’clock in the morning. You can run from the Kremlin, but you can’t hide, he thought. Hardly an original notion but a deadly accurate one.
He rolled over and reached for the receiver, girding himself for more bad news from his second in command, Dmitry Medvedev. No one ever called at three in the morning with good news. No one ever called at any hour with good news. The curse of power.
Exhausted, he’d just returned from Beijing. A week of grueling meetings with Premier Jintao and other high- ranking Chinese Communist Party officials, trying to bring these madmen to his point of view. The CPC was schizophrenic about forging alliances these days. The Chinese, in their new arrogance, saw themselves as the superpower heir apparent.
One day they were leaning toward their natural ally, Russia; the next, they were attending lavish state dinners at the White House, being wooed by the Americans. The Americans had one big advantage over him. They were indisputably China’s biggest market. Money, it was always money.
“Yes,” Putin said, freighting the word with icy irritation.
“Please excuse the hour, but I had to call you,” Medvedev said. “Very bad news, I’m afraid.”
“You heard from Beijing? No trade agreement?”
“I only wish. Anything from them is better than this.”
“One moment, let me turn on the light… go ahead.”
“Ten minutes ago I received a call from Admiral Vladimir Sergeevich Vysotsky. Our navy commander in chief informed me of a serious incident that occurred two hours ago in the Caribbean Sea. It seems that one of our submarines in that theater, the Nevskiy, has just torpedoed and sunk an American cruise ship carrying five thousand passengers, en route from Miami to Jamaica.”
Medvedev was met with stunned silence at the other end of the line.
“Sir?” he said.
“Yes, yes, I’m here. Who the hell is the captain of that fucking boat? I should know that, I know.”
“Lyachin.”
“Lyachin? He’s one of our best commanders. Has he gone rogue? Insane?”
“Neither, it would seem, although I cannot vouch for his sanity. Naval Operations has been in radio communication with the sub, spoken with him at length. He claims absolutely no responsibility for this action. He says the ship was the victim of some kind of ‘force,’ an inexplicable takeover of all the boat’s systems, including weapons.”
“A ‘force’? Whatever the hell that means, it was this ‘force,’ I suppose, that fired two torpedoes at an American flag vessel?”
“It sounds crazy, I agree.”
“Call Admiral Vysotsky. Tell him I want the Nevskiy to return to home port immediately. As soon as she arrives in port, I want her boarded and every member of the crew arrested and placed in a maximum-security lockdown for individual questioning by KGB political officers. I want Lyachin flown to Moscow for interrogation. A supernatural force took over his submarine? His excuse for this blunder is already reason enough to put him in front of a firing squad. Understood?”
“Completely. Is there anything else I can do at this point, Prime Minister?”
“Yes, Dmitry. Issue presidential orders to put the entire Russian military on a war footing. Highest state of alert. Some madman in Washington may look upon this catastrophe as his personal Lusitania, served up on a silver platter. At long last, a good excuse for a preemptive nuclear strike on the homeland. I’m not being paranoid. It’s not beyond the realm of possibility.”
“Indeed not. Sorry to call with such bad news. Try to get some sleep.”
“No. I have to call the American president and tell him the Russian government had nothing at all to do with the sinking of their ship. Do you think I can convince him? It will be difficult to explain because, so far, I have no goddamn explanation. Except, of course, Lyachin’s mysterious ‘force.’ ”
Putin replaced the receiver, lay back against his pillow, and tried to figure out what the hell he was going to say to President McCloskey, a smart, leather-tough old cowboy from Montana.
Fifteen
Gloucestershire, England
Turn off the Taplow Common Road, just after exiting the deep green forest that enfolds that highway, and you will come upon a magnificent set of black wrought-iron gates. If the guards recognize you, the imposing gates will swing wide and you will be traveling back in time to another England. You will be motoring at a snail’s pace along the wide curving drive that will eventually lead you to a place called Brixden House. A snail’s pace because you won’t want to miss anything-an extraordinary piece of classical sculpture perhaps, quite voluptuous.
The macadam pathway meanders through countless acres of gardens and parklands. There are apple trees covered in blossoms, jardinieres full of pelargoniums in great blocks of color, and greenhouses covered with walls of nectarines, all scattered hither and thither across the hills. The dapple of sunlight on the deep green croquet lawns, lakes, the flower beds, and splashing fountains give new meaning to the word picturesque.
When you do finally catch sight of it, you will find the house imposing. Built originally in the mid-seventeenth century as a hunting lodge for royalty, the present Edwardian country house stands atop great chalk cliffs. Its countless windows overlook the rolling green Berkshire countryside. The main house, built in the classic Italian style, overlooks an idyllic bend in the Thames.
Built in the 1920s, the enormous Brixden House was the very height of luxury. The Visitor’s Book was a veritable Who’s Who of the era. Playwright George Bernard Shaw made the first of many visits in 1926, Winston Churchill was an occasional guest, as were King George and Queen Mary, Charlie Chaplin, Ambassador Joe Kennedy, and the aviator Charles Lindbergh.
This was the stately ancestral home of Lady Diana Mars. Her fiance, the former chief inspector of Scotland Yard, was currently in the library having a chat with his oldest friend, Lord Alexander Hawke. The smell of beeswax and old leather books and furniture, the scents of spilled liquor and tobacco smoke, all hung in the air, so much so that it was a part of the room’s history that almost had weight.
A John Singer Sargent portrait of Lady Mars’s great-grandmother Nancy hung imperiously above the yawning gape of the great hearth. A vast red velvet sofa faced the fire, big enough for several people to sleep in. An ebony grand piano dominated one corner of the room, though Hawke had never seen anyone lay a hand on it.
It was late afternoon, and the setting sun’s rays slanted through the tall, mullioned windows, casting a lovely pattern across the worn Persian rugs and highly polished wooden floors. Shadows fled up the walls and across the high vaulted ceiling. Beyond the opened windows, only the sounds of rooks, cawing in the trees, the hum of drowsy bees, and an occasional bark from Diana’s dogs, sprawled lazily in the late afternoon sun.
Hawke found Ambrose in the library, standing in the center of the room, trying to rip the cellophane from a fresh deck of playing cards decorated with Lady Mars’s family crest.
“Good evening,” Hawke said.
Congreve voiced his agreement with the sentiment.
“Cards, is it, Constable?”
“Hardly, Alex, it’s my new exercise program. Possibly not up to the standards of your daily Royal Navy regimen, but still, quite a tester.”
“You exercise with a deck of cards?”
“The latest thing, dear boy, the very latest. Observe and grow wise,” he said, and, with a dramatic flourish,
