“It’s… subtle.”
“Subtle? I cannot process ‘subtle.’ ”
“Ah, yes. How to explain subtle? A challenge…”
“Perhaps, dear Darius, because subtlety is a concept so delicate or precise as to be difficult to analyze or describe?”
“Perseus. You have just defined the word subtle perfectly.”
“Thank you. Perfection is always my intention.”
Twenty-six
Gloucestershire
Inky black clouds boiled in the western skies as Alex Hawke drove the old Bentley Continental, his beloved Locomotive, up the long winding drive to Brixden House. He was in a reasonably good mood, he considered. Not lighthearted-his current professional burdens were too heavy for that-but his instincts about interviewing the Russian submarine captain had proved out in his favor: tensions between Moscow and Washington had been lowered dramatically. And he had forged a personal relationship with Putin that might well prove invaluable to Six in the future.
The real reason for his high spirits was his keen anticipation of a reunion with his son, Alexei. The boy had not left his mind or heart during his journey. This was some new variant of love he’d never deemed possible. Profound, unconditional, unbreakable love. He’d called Miss Spooner as soon as his plane touched down at RAF Northolt, where MI6 maintained a black-ops hangar and maintenance staff for the service.
How was he? he’d asked Nell Spooner. Had he been behaving himself? Eating well? Saying his bedtime prayers? Alexei, it seemed, had been having a splendid time, enjoying daily explorations of the Brixden House gardens and forests with Lady Mars. Adding to that excitement, Chief Inspector Congreve had been giving him pony cart rides down at the stables.
But, Nell Spooner said, he had missed his father terribly, frequently crying himself to sleep.
As he pulled into the large pebbled carpark, he saw Ambrose emerge from the house. He was pulling a small red wagon across the cobblestone walkway at quite a rapid rate. Alexei, who was gleefully bouncing along in the wagon, urging Congreve on, was wearing a shiny red fireman’s helmet. Nell Spooner was bringing up the rear, making sure he didn’t fall out.
Upon seeing his father emerge from the parked car, he shrieked with delight, crying out, “Daddy! Daddy!” Hawke raced toward him and lifted him from the wagon, hugging him tightly to his chest, and kissing his chubby pink cheeks. He held him aloft to get a good look at him.
“Hold on. I know you from somewhere, I believe,” Hawke said to him, pretending to examine his features carefully. “Sure I do. You’re Alexei Hawke, are you not? The young squire of Brixden?”
“I am Alexei! And you’re my daddy.”
“Quite true. And who is this distinguished gentleman pulling your wagon?”
“That’s Uncle Ambrose. He’s not a gentleman, he’s my pony!”
“And who is this pretty lady here?”
“She’s Spooner. She’s my best friend in the whole world.”
Hawke smiled at his son’s pretty guardian. She seemed so at ease with Alexei, so motherly. If his son had to be deprived of his real mother, he was indeed fortunate to have found this surrogate, a woman thoroughly capable of being “overly protective” into the bargain.
Hawke had been deprived of his own mother’s love at an early age. How different his life might have been had he had someone like Nell Spooner nurturing him, teaching him, comforting him… he suddenly found himself gazing at her in a new light. She was truly a lovely woman, and she wore her beauty with a sunny nonchalance that Hawke found surprisingly appealing. Too appealing, perhaps, and he willed himself to suppress such inappropriate feelings.
“Well, I’m awfully glad to see all of you in such good form. Hello, Ambrose. Hello, Miss Spooner. It seems he’s been in very good hands while I was away. I hope he hasn’t been a bother to anyone.”
“Hardly, Alex,” Congreve said. “He’s been a joy and a blessing upon this house. You’re going to have a hard time convincing Diana to let you and Miss Spooner take him home to Hawkesmoor, I’m afraid.”
Fat drops of cold rain suddenly began spattering the courtyard as the black clouds Hawke had noticed swept in from the Cotswold Hills.
“Raindrops!” Alexei cried, holding out his hands and trying to catch them. Hawke smiled inwardly, seeing that his son would probably enjoy foul weather as much as his father. Apples and trees and all that, he supposed.
“We’d better get you inside, young man,” Miss Spooner said. “Shall I take him, sir?” she asked, reaching out for him.
“Yes, thank you. Here you go! Have I missed supper? I hope not. I’m famished.”
As Alexei and his guardian disappeared inside the main entrance, Hawke, moving with his friend under the porte cochere, put his arm round Congreve’s shoulder and said quietly, “Any trouble, Ambrose? I’m sure not, else you would have contacted me. But I must say I’ve not stopped worrying about him since I left.”
“Not a bit of it. He’s safe as houses here, with all the coppers wandering about the premises. Having a heavily armed nanny doesn’t hurt either.”
“I extracted some good information from Putin about the nature of the threats against his life. I’ll describe it in more detail after supper. Apparently, there is a secret sect that calls itself the Tsarist Society. Ex-KGB,
OMON death squad, and mafia types. Killers for hire, and informants, working for the Tsarists, not the Kremlin. We’ll need to get every scrap on them, and soon. Notify the Yard, MI5.”
“Yes. As quickly as possible. Now come inside before we both get soaked to the bone out here. You look like you could use a restorative cocktail. I know I could. Following that boy around all day long is exhausting.”
“Lead on,” Hawke said, and followed his old friend inside.
T hey were alone in the library, a fire going, awaiting the dinner gong. Congreve’s fiancee, Lady Mars, had floated in for a brief moment, just to give Hawke a kiss and a welcome to Brixden. She informed them that dinner would be served in one hour.
Hawke had then brought Congreve up to speed on his time with Putin, and at Lubyanka with the doomed Russian sub commander. He told him about the infamous Tsarist Society, the Russian sect Putin claimed was behind the threats to both Alex and his son.
“Yes, a bad lot all right,” Congreve said, “the very same chaps I still believe are responsible for the radioactive poisoning of that Russian expatriate living in London some years ago. Putin got the blame for that one because he, God knows why, refused to finger the real killers. He moves in mysterious ways.”
“You have no idea. At any rate, I’ll use our Red Banner assets in Moscow to full advantage. I’ve issued them orders to infiltrate this Tsarist Society and persuade these murderous bastards that further attempts at violence against my son and me are not in their best interests,” Hawke said.
“Who’s running our show in Moscow now?”
“I’ve put a good man in charge there, working undercover as a ‘military attache’ at the British Embassy. A former SAS man by the name of Concasseur. His tentacles extend deeply into the Russian criminal underground. And he is as mentally and physically tough as any man I’ve ever met, present company excluded, of course.”
Congreve nodded, puffing on his pipe, his mind clearly somewhere else.
“What the devil is going on, Alex?” Congreve asked after a brief silence, taking a contemplative sip of his single malt whiskey.
“Going on?” Hawke asked. “In what way?”
“This escalating series of seemingly linked events,” Ambrose said.
He leaned forward, his face now lit by the flickering firelight. Hawke saw by his companion’s expression that his attention had been keenly aroused. You could almost hear his renowned cranial wheels spinning and Hawke paid strict attention. The former chief inspector of Scotland Yard was perhaps the most perfect reasoning and observing machine he had ever known. You ignored him at your peril. Hawke said, “Linked, you say. How so?”
“Let’s begin with the tragedy at Disney World in Florida, shall we?” Congreve said.
