Hawke picked his son up in his arms and kissed each cheek.
“Good-bye, Alexei. I’ll miss you.”
“Bye, Daddy.”
“M ay I come in?” Hawke asked at Nell Spooner’s door. She was propped against her pillows, reading a book he had given her called Amsterdam, a novel by Hawke’s favorite living English author, Ian McEwan.
“You were right,” she said, putting the book down. “It’s truly wonderful. He writes like an angel.”
“How are you feeling?”
“Much better today, thank you very much. Are you headed to the airport?”
“I am. I just wanted to say good-bye.”
“Then come sit on the bed, hold my hand, and say it properly.”
Hawke sat, taking her hand.
“Nell, I am so sorry. So very sorry this happened. I swear to you, I will never let it happen again.”
“Well, that’s very sweet. But you have to understand this is what I do. I protect people. Or try to, anyway. And sometimes I get hurt. This is not the first time, or the worst time, and it will probably not be the last. Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself.”
“And my son. You saved his life, Nell. Twice. And mine, too, probably. I don’t think I could live without him now. I don’t know how I lived without him before.”
She smiled and squeezed his hand.
“He’s a little you,” she said.
“Or I’m just a big him,” Hawke said, and she smiled.
“You know, Alex, when I first accepted this assignment, it was just a job. But, now, I feel, I don’t know, like it’s so much more than that. How to say it? It’s not my job to be protective of him anymore. I feel protective of him. Does that make any sense?”
“It does. I tried to thank you, in the hospital, for what you did. Your incredible courage. I don’t think I did a very good job. But I do thank you, Nell, for saving him. For saving both of us.”
“You’re very welcome, sir. Now, you’d better go. You’ve got a plane to catch.”
“There’s an MI6 officer in the house, just arrived this morning. He’s in a small room at the head of the stairs. His name is John Mills. I’ve asked him to stop by and introduce himself. See if there’s anything you need or want.”
“What I want is a curry with you in that little restaurant in Mayfair. When I’m back on my feet. Nurse says it won’t be long now.”
“First night I’m back. Date?”
“Date.”
Hawke leaned forward and kissed her forehead.
“See you in a few days, Nell.”
“Be safe, Alex.”
“You, too,” Hawke said, and rose from her bed and walked to the door and pulled it closed behind him.
He paused outside her door for a moment and smiled. For the first time since age seven, when his parents had been murdered, he had a very real sense of family under his own roof.
So much for the heart as hard as flint, he thought.
Thirty-seven
Palo Alto, California
Heavy fog rolled in from the Pacific, shrouding the little two-lane road that wound upward through dense redwood forests. They’d followed Highway 101 south from the San Francisco Airport FBO for about half an hour, then taken the exit for Redwood City. Ambrose had called Mrs. Waldo Cohen from the FBO reception. Mrs. Cohen had given them instructions on how to find her house. Wouldn’t be easy, she’d said, but if they got lost, just call her.
Hawke had hired a car from Hertz, a sleek black Mustang convertible with a massive protrusion on the bonnet. Their meager luggage barely fit into the boot, but Hawke loved the car on sight nonetheless. Ambrose, who owned a vintage Morgan, had turned his nose up at it, and there’d been a bit of a tiff at the Hertz counter.
“Really, Alex. How about a nice Cadillac, or a Lincoln?” Congreve asked, sensibly enough.
“This is California, Ambrose. Surf City. Ventura Highway. Hotel California. I’m not pulling up to the Hotel California in a bloody Cadillac, I’m sorry.”
The two men had talked about the seemingly related series of attacks long into the night, across the Atlantic, and then high above the vast America. Neither had gotten much sleep despite the fact that the Gulfstream’s cabin had two beds made up. The subject was fascinating. Sophisticated weapons of war, seized by some unknown cyberwar phantasm, and turned catastrophically against their owners.
Congreve was even more convinced these were not random events. Someone, some evil genius perhaps, had created powerful technology far beyond the known realm of modern science. And, he added, the attacks bore all the earmarks of the invasion of the Iranian nuclear facility by a cyberweapon that destroyed its target in complete secrecy and then vanished without a trace. “Everyone suspects Israel, of course,” he said, “but there’s absolutely no way to prove it.”
“Yes,” Hawke agreed. “Just like the Nevskiy, Air Force One, Fort Greely, and Israel’s robotic stealth fighter. No one has a clue how to even begin looking for the culprit. This is just the beginning of a wholly new kind of war. And I, for one, don’t like it.”
T hey caught glimpses of the nickel-colored San Francisco Bay on their left as the road, called the Skyline, snaked along the tops of the mountains. The trees were magnificent, great dark monuments, climbing skyward and disappearing into the grey fog. There was a light, misty rain, and it was almost dark as night. Hawke had the wipers on now, and the headlamps as well, even though it was an hour or so until sunset.
“I like this place,” Congreve said, leaning his head back against the headrest, peering out his rain-streaked window. “These foggy woods. This winding road. The dripping trees. I feel like I’m in an old Humphrey Bogart movie.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Hard to say, really. The road, the weather, the black trees. It all feels very ‘film noir’ to me. Like some gumshoe in a black 1934 Ford coupe is following us, tailing us, desperate to learn the location of the hideout where we stash all our ill-gotten lucre.”
Congreve cleared his throat and slipped into his very credible Edward G. Robinson impersonation. “We’re on the lam, see? Yeah, that’s right, on the lam. And that gumshoe’s right on our tail.”
“Ambrose, what are you on about? Gumshoe?”
“What they call a guy with a private-dick license.”
“This private dick of yours?” Hawke asked. “The one who’s on our tail?”
“Yeah, what about him? I’ll get him, the dirty rat.”
“If he’s so private, how will you know if he’s got a gun in his pocket, or he’s just glad to see you?”
Hawke smiled, keeping his eyes on the dark, rain-slick road ahead. In addition to his lifelong idol, Sherlock Holmes, Congreve adored the old black-and-white mystery films of the ’30s and ’40s. Hawke was accustomed to the quixotic reveries of his companion. Once launched, he was unstoppable.
“Of course he has a bean-shooter, pal, yeah, course he does, he’s a shamus, a copper, a flatfoot, ain’t he? A snub-nosed. 38 in a shoulder holster. He calls his heater Betsey.”
“Quite a vivid imagination, Constable. You’ve got the lingo down, perhaps you should write a mystery story.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Simply part of the deductive process. Reconstructing the crime scene.”
“While you’re reconstructing, could you keep an eye out for the Cohens’ mailbox? It should be coming up on the right.”
“Sure thing, boss. You’re the mug running this outfit. I’m only your triggerman.”
“Stop it.”
