hurry back to the kitchen. He was going to be joining the chorus line of thirty waiters who would be carrying the great silver salvers high above their heads, delivering one of Concasseur’s signature bombes to every single table in the house.
The idea was that the waiter would place the dessert tray in the center of each table, covered by the domed silver cover. At the appointed moment, they would all reach forward simultaneously and lift the lids, revealing the surprise to the ooh s and aah s of the assembled. Hawke arrived back in the kitchen just as the head chef swung the doors open and the line of waiters began to move, each with the broad silver platter held high above his head.
Hawke, last in line, grabbed his covered platter and marched out with the rest.
Many guests were facedown in the soup or literally falling out of their chairs as the waiters moved among the tables, carefully placing the salvers in the center of each one. They then stood back waiting for the signal from Concasseur.
“Now!” Ian said in a loud Russian voice.
Each waiter bent forward and lifted the domed lids at the exact same moment. The reaction was as Ian had expected, a cheer of delight from the members.
The bombe was fashioned in the shape a large, bright red, five-pointed star, easily big enough to feed ten hungry men. In the center was a foot-high candle, covered in gold glitter. Kutov, whose table Hawke had been designated, clapped loudly, and soon everyone joined him in the applause.
Hawke, along with his fellow waiters, pulled a butane lighter in the shape of a large match from inside his white jacket. Flicking the switch, he produced a flame from the red tip.
“Now!” Concasseur’s loud voice boomed again, and the synchronized waiters held their flames to the sparkling gold candles. To the delight of all, the fuses started spitting sparks as they burned. Hawke leaned down and whispered “Spasibo” in Kutov’s ear. “Thank you.” Then the waiters all retreated from the tables, all thirty forming up along the wall and marching back toward the kitchen in an orderly fashion.
Hawke found Concasseur and slipped in behind him.
“So far, so good,” he whispered.
“Keep moving,” Ian said. “Have we got our five guys?”
“They’re all in front of us.”
“Good. The fuses are burning much faster than they’re supposed to.”
“Good God, have we got time?”
“Barely. Speed it up.”
Once they were back inside the kitchen, Hawke and Concasseur quickly collected Putin’s five men and they hurried out through the rear exit. The catering truck was parked in the alley behind the club, and Putin’s men all piled into the rear while Hawke and Concasseur leaped into the cab, Hawke behind the wheel. The truck started instantly by some miracle. Hawke engaged first gear and popped the clutch, speeding down the long alleyway that opened into Pushkin Square at the other end.
He hadn’t driven fifty yards when the massive explosion behind him rocked the old truck violently and sent brick and stone tumbling into the alley just behind them. A giant cloud of dust was visible in the rearview mirror, rolling toward them.
He smiled over at Concasseur. Ian had created the thirty bombes from ten-pound bricks of the high explosive Semtex, a malleable substance that made it ideal for unusual desserts such as this one. Each Semtex star had been coated with red marzipan. The “candle” fuses extended down into the desserts’ centers. There he had placed the igniters and two ounces each of the explosive yellow liquid called nitroglycerin, which detonated the Semtex.
“Take a left,” Concasseur said. “Let’s have a look.”
Hawke turned into the street leading to the cul-de-sac where the infamous mansion of murderers had once stood. The members of this organization had been responsible for Anastasia’s imprisonment and torture, her near execution, and the subsequent attempted assassinations of his son, Alexei. The killers, kidnappers, and torturers now lay beneath a massive pile of smoking debris, with billowing black smoke climbing into the night sky, illuminated by hot licks of hellish shades of red and yellow flame.
“My compliments to the chef,” Hawke said to Concasseur, throwing the catering van into reverse.
Forty-six
Washington, D.C.
Hard rain beat against the windows of the Oval Office. The foul weather matched the mood of the people gathered there perfectly, except for one. President Tom McCloskey was oblivious to weather of any kind, owing to countless hours in the saddle where the Great Plains meet the Rockies, the front range of Colorado. His equanimity and grace under pressure had been a big part of his appeal to voters looking for reassurance in deeply troubled times.
The president of the United States leaned back in his chair and settled his shiny black cowboy boots onto the Labrador retriever, a life-sized leather footstool version of his favorite dog. The room had changed since Hawke’s last visit. During President Jack McAtee’s tenure in office, nautical was the theme: marine art, ship models, and naval artifacts. Now, it was the Old West. Remington sculptures of bucking broncos, paintings of Yosemite by Thomas Moran, and the famous The Last of the Buffalo by Albert Bierstadt gave the room a rustic quality shared by the current inhabitant. He’d also retrieved and returned the bust of Winston Churchill a previous White House tenant had sent unwisely and unceremoniously back to England.
“Hell,” President Tom McCloskey said, clasping his big hands behind his head, “I feel like I’m at war with a phantom.”
“Damnedest adversary I’ve ever seen, Mr. President,” the Pentagon’s Charlie Moore said. “And I thought I’d seen everything.”
“Or not seen,” Anson Beard, the secretary of defense, whispered under his breath to Alex Hawke, seated next to him on the sofa near the fireplace. The president heard him.
“That’s right, Anson, not seen.”
“Sorry, sir, I didn’t mean to-”
McCloskey continued, “I’m reading a book called The Ghost in the Machine by a guy named Koestler. I recommend it. It’s about mankind’s relentless march toward self-destruction. Koestler believes that as the human brain has grown, it’s been built upon earlier, more primitive brain structures-the ghosts in the machine-and these can overpower higher, logical functions. The ghosts are responsible for hate, anger, and all the other self- destructive impulses. You see where I’m going with this?”
He could tell by the looks on their faces that they hadn’t a clue.
“I’m saying that these AI machines, whatever you wish to call them, are built by humans. They are products of our brains. And so our ghosts are in those goddamn machines, too. Only a few million times smarter. So how do we fight them? Admiral Moore?”
“We have a new enemy. Cybercombat. Can’t see it, can’t hear it, can’t find it. Like a ghost, but that’s too nice a word for it. Ghosts can be friendly. Phantom ’s a better word for it. An evil presence you can feel but not see. And that’s just what this is. Hell, I could send the USS George Washington — hell, send the whole carrier battle group- after it, and this damn phantom would just shut our whole military operation down electronically. I’d have a carrier dead in the water, an entire aircraft fighter wing sitting on the deck totally useless.”
Brick Kelly said, “Could be worse than that, Charlie. You could have one of your own submarines turn against you and fire a spread of torpedoes at your own damn carrier, like that incident in the Caribbean.”
“Nothing would surprise me anymore, Brick. I’m beyond that now.”
There were murmurs of assent from those gathered. Vice President David Rosow, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Charlie Moore, CIA Director Kelly, Secretary of Defense Beard, MI6 Director Trulove, and Alex Hawke were scattered about the room on various sofas and chairs.
“You gentlemen understand the implications of what you just heard?” McCloskey asked. “The entire ‘arsenal of democracy’ has just been rendered entirely useless. Anybody besides me consider that a fairly serious problem?”
