Assassin (48 page)

“Climbing through one, going to five, heading two-seven-zero, Navy,” Adare said, watching the Hornet on his starboard wing arc away and disappear aft of his line of sight. A moment later, his radio crackled again.

“Roger, Cap, this is
Gunfighter,
standing by. I’ll be right behind you. This would not be a good time to get cute.”

A long minute of silence passed.

“
Hawkeye,
you still standing by?” the president finally said, going private with Hawke and the Navy pilot Reynolds.

“That’s affirmative, sir.” Hawke said.

“It’s nut-cutting time, Alex. Four hundred souls. Talk to me.”

“I stand by my original assessment, Mr. President,” Hawke said. “No innocents aboard that airplane.”

“You copy what
Hawkeye
says,
Gunfighter?
”

“Aye, aye, copy that, sir, that’s affirm.”

“Okay, then
Gunfighter,
this is
Warhorse.
God help us all. I order you to your duty, son.”

“Copy that,
Warhorse.
Understood.
Gunfighter
will execute as ordered, sir. Over.”

The infrared system of the AIM-9X Sidewinder air-to-air missile permits the pilot to launch his heat-seeking missiles and then take evasive action while the missile homes in on the exhaust of the target. Once launched, the missiles travel at supersonic speeds. Infrared sensors and a conical scanner in the nose cone track the target. Reflected lasers tell the missile when it has reached optimum destructive range and trigger the warhead.

Captain Wiley Reynolds thumbed the switch that armed the Sidewinders below his wings. A keening warning signal filled the Super Hornet’s cockpit. He could now fire at will. He took a long hard look at the British Airways plane silhouetted in the setting sun.

Even as his right hand moved to activate the fire control system, his gut was having trouble accepting the signals his rational mind was sending. Distorted reality. He felt just like some poor GI wandering alone in a dusty village, encountering a woman in heavy robes with a baby in her arms.

The president had nailed it. It was nut-cutting time.

It’s not a baby, goddamn it, it’s a bomb,
his mind said.

Captain Reynolds pulled the trigger. The missile streaked away trailing a thin stream of white smoke.

“Hey, Navy, we twelve miles out yet?” Adare said, a raspy catch in his voice. The glare of the setting sun off the Pacific was making his eyes water and he wiped them furiously with the back of his hand.

“Getting close, Cap.”

“Ever get over to Ireland?”

“Some day. Hear it’s a beautiful country.”

“So bloody
green,
mate. It’s like a dream.”

“Yeah.”

“Round of Guinness on me whenever you do, Navy.”

“Appreciate the offer, Cap.”

“Hey, listen—”

T
HEY SAT TOGETHER ON THE SAND, ABOUT TWENTY YARDS
from the tide line, watching the orange ball of the sun go down. The woman was arranging a small mound of seashells next to her, prizes from the afternoon. The sun was still hot, but a breeze was rising gently and you could smell the cool of late October that had been hiding in the heat all day. The tide was receding, leaving the firm wet sand to the seagulls. Creamy masses of cumulus clouds lay on the far horizon, and there were thin feathers of cirrus against the high western sky.

“Either the bonefish are getting smarter, or I’m getting stupider,” the man said, staring into the setting sun and saying exactly what was on his mind.

A look of deep satisfaction appeared around the woman’s eyes. The Florida Keys, just as she’d hoped, were working their magic on both of them. Just the fact that the man had gotten to this sunshine state of mind was enough to make the woman smile and run her fingers through his thick black hair, still damp from their recent swim.

“Bones are the smartest fish in the world,” Conch said. “Don’t be so hard on yourself, baby. Anyway, comparisons are odious.”

Alex Hawke laughed and lay back on the sand, hands clasped behind his head. He closed his eyes against the sun and his mouth relaxed into its normally bemused half-smile. The sand beneath him was still warm. The beer in his hand was still cold. It had been a good day.

“Place is lousy with bougainvillea this time of year,” Conch said through a yawn, tracing the nasty purple weal on Hawke’s ribcage. His broken ribs were healing slowly.

“Don’t you hate it?” Hawke said.

The two of them had been here at Islamorada for almost a week, hiding from the world at Conch’s little fishing place. “Shacking up,” as Alex had put it, smiling down at her that first morning, waking up early in her bed. He said, “Never quite understood the term until just this moment.”

It was a shack, and proud of it, but it was also right on the water, a small wooden structure on a sandy beach, hidden away in a half-moon cove of dense mangroves. Conch Shell was at the dead end of a twisting sandy lane that wound its way through the thick sea grape, ending about half a mile from the main road. White bougainvillea framed the front door, and the wild garden was aflame with tropical foliage, hibiscus and oleander.

When Alex had agreed to come down, she’d gone out and bought a second-hand flats boat to go with her island getaway, a sixteen-foot Backcountry Skiff. He loved bonefishing. And so they’d spent this morning, like every morning, poling across the gin-clear flats, chasing bones.

Even if they made sleepy love upon waking, they were out on the water every morning by eight. At noon, Alex would crack open his first cold beer, a Kalik from the Bahamas, his longtime favorite. At one, they’d eat whatever Conch had packed in the basket that day. By three in the afternoon, after a swim and maybe a rum, they were ready to get out of the tropical sun. And so they did, emerging from the small bed again only when it was time to climb into Conch’s battered old Jeep and race over to Lorelei’s in time for the sunset celebration, the margaritas, and vintage Jimmy Buffett.

She lay back on the sand beside him. The rim of the orange ball would not touch the sea for another ten minutes. They’d decided to stay put tonight, order in some Chinese from Great Wall Taki-Outi. Their shoulders were touching; the saltwater was drying to a white frosting on their lips and cheeks and deeply tanned bodies.

Alex Hawke rested his right hand on her sun-warm thigh and said, “Happy?”

God.

Consuelo de los Reyes had lost her heart to this very man on this very island once long ago. No, that was wrong. She hadn’t lost it. She had given it away. Grabbed him by his big shoulders on a beach not half a mile from here and said of her rapidly beating heart, “Here, Mister, you take this damned thing and put it in your pocket.” And, now, finally, after many empty years of gradually reclaiming it, and then trying fiercely to protect it, here she was by his side on another beach, an accomplished historian trying desperately not to let history repeat itself.

“Nice day,” he said softly.

“Another lousy day in paradise.”

“Somebody’s got to do it.”

“Might as well be us, right?”

“Is Paris a city? Is my companion a woman of almost supernatural beauty and brilliance?”

“Almost?”

She rolled over to her side, propped her head in the palm of her hand and kissed his salty lips. He placed his hand firmly on the hill of her breast and kissed her back, hard, and somehow the sun set on the little cove without either of them seeing it. Later, they walked barefoot up the beach to the little house in the indigo dusk and he wrapped her in his arms before they stepped inside.

“No fishing tomorrow, dear girl. I’ve got a mission.”

“Can I come?”

“Nope, secret.”

“Oh.”

“Nothing too dangerous. I’ll be home for supper.”

“You be careful out there, sailor.”

He awoke during the night to the sound of a brief, hard rain on the tin roof. Conch moved her cool naked hip against him and he made love to her, slowly, with great affection, in the way of old lovers. He rose at dawn the next morning. To keep Sniper quiet while he showered and shaved, he tossed a handful of Cheezbits into her cage out on the screened porch. Then he slipped into his grey Bud ’n Mary’s Marina T-shirt, a pair of faded khaki shorts, and his flip-flops, and left the house, easing the screen door shut behind him. Conch had been dead asleep, snoring lightly when he’d left the bed, and he’d broken his promise to wake her. She could use a few more hours, and so could he, he thought staring at his reflection in the mirror over the sink. Damned demon rum. Aptly named stuff, he felt like hell.

He cranked up the Jeep and nosed through the thick sea grape bushes into the deeply rutted sandy drive. It was going to be a scorcher and for once he wished Conch’s old heap had a top. Pausing at the main highway, he flashed his headlights twice. Two DSS guys who were eating donuts in the black Suburban parked across from the hidden drive smiled at him. Conch’s security details loved it down here, too, most of them fishing for bone or tarpon whenever they got a few hours free. The guy behind the wheel was Gidwitz. Hawke had made sure Ron landed this plum assignment as part of his recuperation. He deserved it after all he’d done up on the mountain. The Iceman.

He turned left and headed north on U.S. 1. The famous Overseas Highway was only two lanes all the way up the chain of Keys to the Turnpike and Miami. The locals still called it the Old Road. With traffic, it took him a little over two hours to reach the Miami airport. But he was standing at the security checkpoint when Stokely, wearing an XXXL white guayabera and a broad-brimmed straw hat, appeared in the midst of a gaggle of passengers. He wasn’t hard to spot.

“Yeah, there he is,” Stoke said, striding toward him with a huge white smile. “There is the man! Come here, boy, give old Stoke a hug.” The two men embraced with great affection. Though they had spoken often on the telephone, it had been weeks since they’d seen one another. Hawke was still deeply moved by what his old friend had done for him down here in Florida, very nearly losing his life in the doing. He’d tried to express his feelings about it on the phone many times and failed miserably.

“Hey, Stoke, damn it’s good to see you,” Hawke said, grabbing his carry-on and slinging it over his shoulder. “Thanks for coming, man. I appreciate it.”

“Oh, hold up. I see. You think I came all the way down here to see you! Check out your skinny little white ass? You know I love you, brother, but, man, I got me a fine woman down here, now. Told you ’bout her.”

“Fancha, right?”

“Fancha, that’s right. Bona fide contender for the title! She’s got her a nice little place out on Key Biscayne. Oh, yeah. It’s all deluxe! Where’s your car at? Sooner I’m done with you, sooner I go see her.”

“You have any more luggage?”

“More than this? Who you think I am? You?”

“Right. Let’s go.”

“Look at you wearing them funky little flip-floppy sandals. Man, I thought you’d be in a tie at least, show some respect.”

It took them an hour in the jeep to reach the Ocean Reef Club in Key Largo. Hawke had hired a boat, a twenty-four-foot Captiva with twin Mercruiser 250s. The name,
Hurry-Cane,
was painted over the faded red “Key Largo” on her transom. The charter captain assured him she’d do forty knots with ease.

Hawke had stopped in Florida City on the way back down and bought them a bag of ice, cold beer, and Cuban sandwiches at the bait shop where he also gassed up.

Stoke climbed aboard the Captiva and cranked the engines. Hawke handed the food, beer and ice down to him, then a five to the kid for helping with the lines. Then he stepped down onto the boat himself and they shoved off, sliding through the shadows of the big yachts on their way out to the channel. Since Stoke knew where they were going, he did the driving.

The bay was flat calm. They rode mostly in silence, Stoke leaving him alone with his thoughts.

After a considerable time, as if reading his thoughts, Stoke said to him, “Listen, I don’t want you to go giving me all the credit for this. Ross, either. We couldn’t have gotten nowhere with finding this cat and running his ass down hadn’t been for my man Ambrose Congreve of Scotland Yard.”

Hawke smiled at this mention of his old friend. Congreve had taken a little farm in Tuscany for a few months and was blissfully happy there. “Yeah, Stoke. Ambrose Congreve. He’s got himself a new dog and he’s learning Italian.”

“Italian? Man can’t even speak English plain enough so most normal folks can understand him.”

“He says the same about you, Stoke,” Hawke grinned.

“You got to love him,” Stoke laughed, and the two men lapsed once more into silence.

“Okay, this is it,” Stoke said, easing the throttles after about another half an hour of running wide open across the mirrored bay. The boat came off plane and settled. They’d sped across Card Sound and up into lower Biscayne Bay. The sun was hot and Alex had taken off his sweat-drenched shirt. They’d passed an endless series of small mangrove cays to starboard, all of them looking exactly alike to him.

“Does it have a name?” he asked, staring at the small island.

“Yeah. Call it No Name Key. Really, that’s the name.”

Alex moved aft to stand beside Stoke at the console.

“Right here?” he said, trying to see it all in his head.

“Yeah. Right in here. He went in there first, in the Cigarette, and me and Ross followed him.”

“Let’s go.”

On both sides of the water here, the bushes and shrubs were still blackened and twisted. The muddy banks were charcoal grey. Stoke stopped the boat. This had to be where the ammo explosion had blown Ross out of the water. Stoke looked at him. “You sure you still want to go ashore? Skeets eat you alive back in there.”

“Yeah. C’mon, let’s go.”

“Awright, but like I say, it ain’t much to see.”

They found the little clearing.

“See that big tree over there? That’s the one I told you about. Called a Gumbo Limbo. That’s where he was waiting, up at the top there.”

Alex started forward, but Stoke put a hand on his arm. “Let’s go round behind it. You got to watch out. That’s all quicksand all around here.”

They approached the peeling reddish tree from behind. Hawke could see the whole thing now. Stoke up to his waist in the quicksand near the base of the tree, two bullets in him, thinking he was going to die all alone. Believing Ross was dead. His friend Hawke half a world away. And the man who’d murdered Vicky sitting right here, on the spot where Hawke was standing now, waiting for it to happen. Enjoying it—watching his friend here suffer and—

“Hey. You want me to wait in the boat, boss?” Stoke said, studying him carefully.

“If you don’t mind, Stoke. Thanks. I’ll only be a minute.”

“Sure.”

Hawke sat down under the Gumbo tree and stared at the quicksand grave of his wife’s killer. There was no marker, of course, nothing to identify this spot. There would be no mourners at this graveside. Ever. Only two other men even knew it existed. Still, he had needed to see it. It had been necessary to come here, sit under this tree.

Vicky is buried beneath a tree. A tree she played in as a child. A beautiful old oak beside the Mississippi.

“You killed my wife,” Hawke said softly. “One fine morning on the steps of a church. In her wedding dress. I would have found you sooner or later. I would have looked into your eyes as I killed you. You got lucky in a way, dead man. My friends got to you before I could.”

He had no idea how long he sat there under the Gumbo tree on No Name Key, but, finally, it was long enough.

“It should have been me,” he said aloud, getting to his feet.

He turned to walk away, paused, and looked back one last time. “But you’re just as dead as if I’d done it myself,” he said. “Dead is dead.”

It was over.

An unmarked grave on an island with no name for the man with no eyes.

He went back to find Stoke and the
Hurry-Cane.
With any luck at all, they’d be back at the dock before the cold beer ran out.