Hawke: A Novel (18 page)

Jeremy Tate frowned and sat back in his chair. It occurred to Hawke that he seemed almost disappointed to discover that the combined nations of Islam weren’t purchasing a weapon capable of killing millions.

“You’ve heard of this
Telaraña,
I take it, Madame Secretary?” Weinberg said. “I have not.”

“Oh, yes,” she said. “You’re damn right I’ve heard of
Telaraña.
A coterie of generals at the very top of Castro’s ladder. Three brothers, all dirty. Cocaine cowboys. I ordered our Cuban station to get all over them like white on rice, starting six months ago when we started getting sporadic tips of a possible coup. They take their name from a small island fortress they’ve been pouring tens of millions into.
Telaraña.
It means ‘the spider’s web.’”

“Sounds like these guys wouldn’t be much of an improvement over the status quo, Madame Secretary,” Weinberg said.

“Remember the old Cold War expression about dealing with the Russians?” de los Reyes asked. “‘Two steps forward, three steps back’? Should
Telaraña
successfully topple Castro, we would be looking at three steps backwards followed by three hundred steps backwards.”

“How’d you get all this stuff out of them?” Tate asked.

“Let’s say the Russians were encouraged to be forthcoming in our conversations,” Hawke said. “I didn’t hurt them, just scared them a bit. I might add that they didn’t take it very well.”

“What do you mean?” the secretary asked.

“I mean this little chap Bolkonski, a dead ringer for the mad monk, Rasputin, tried to kill me. Twice, actually.”

“Both unsuccessful attempts, obviously,” Tate said.

Alex looked at the man and held his eyes for a long moment before speaking. “This
Telaraña.
Anyone you know personally, Conch?” Alex asked.

“Not personally, no,” the secretary replied. “It’s basically the mafia. The Cuban-version mafia at any rate. The personal narco-fiefdom of Cuba’s top generals. They’ve built a huge military installation on an island just off Manzanillo.
Telaraña
is built on the site of one of the rebel general’s
haciendas.”

“But of course you knew that,” Hawke said, smiling at Tate.

“All right, all right,” Conch said, quickly riding over the obvious animosity between Tate and Hawke. “Here’s what we’re going to do. I want immediate U-2 and Predator surveillance flights over the entire southwest coast of Cuba. I want a twenty-four-hour bird in the sky snapping pictures and gathering thermals of the
Telaraña
complex.”

“No problem,” Weinberg said.

“How many guys do we have on the ground in Cuba, Jeremy?” she asked Tate.

“A ton in Havana,” Tate said. “Out in the sticks,
nada.”

“Rectify that. Like, today. I want our people fucking crawling all over Oriente province.”

“Right. And I’ll get us on the president’s calendar immediately,” Tate said.

Conch looked at him until he literally squirmed.

“Unless, of course, you’d rather handle that one personally, Madame Secretary?” Tate said.

She ignored him. “Good job, Alex. The president will be delighted to get this off his ‘to do’ list.”

“This Borzoi, it’s that bad, huh?” Tate asked.

“Our worst nightmare. Borzoi is huge,” Weinberg said. “She carries forty warheads, twenty on each wing. All sharp angles and planes, so no round surfaces to bounce back radar or sonar. Coated stem to stern with a three-foot-thick coating of some new absorptive substances the Russians developed. Vastly superior to the old Anechoic rubbercoating.”

“What’s that do?” Tate asked.

“Well, it means she’s virtually invisible to sonar, radar, you name it. She’s also got what’s commonly called a ‘decoupling’ coating, which dramatically reduces the amount of sound she puts into the water. She was going to be the Soviets’ last-ditch effort in an Armageddon showdown with the U.S. Navy.”

“A desperate come-from-behind finish,” Tate said, rubbing his chin.

“And now this nightmare contraption is in the hands of some very unstable Cubans,” Conch said, getting to her feet and walking over to the window overlooking Lincoln’s memorial. “Sweet Jesus.”

Snow had become a hard sleeting rain beating against the windowpanes of Dr. Victoria Sweet’s two-hundred-year-old brick townhouse. In her ground-floor office, a crackling fire kept the chill outside at bay. It was late afternoon, and the gray light was fading rapidly from the skies of the nation’s capital, especially the snowy, tree-lined streets of Georgetown.

Still, the woman lowered the light from the red-shaded lamps by the couch where the man was lying, and said, “Enough light?”

“It’s fine, thank you.”

She pulled a chair closer to the couch and sat down, crossing her long legs. There was the faintest whisper of silk on silk as she did so.

“Comfy?” she asked.

“Quite.”

“Then let’s begin, shall we?”

“Yes, Doctor.”

“What would you like to talk about today?”

“My addiction.”

“Addiction? I wasn’t aware that you had one.”

“Neither was I. Until quite recently, that is.”

“Are we talking about drugs? Food? Alcohol?”

“We are talking about sex.”

“Sex?”

“Yes. I’ve discovered I’m a sex addict.”

“I see. And how did you come by this amazing discovery?”

“I’m constantly overwhelmed with…thoughts. Day and night. I can’t sleep at night. I can’t function by daylight.”

“These thoughts. Can you describe them?”

“Some of them. Others—”

“All right. Let’s begin with the ones you’re comfortable describing.”

“Well, a recent one, then. I’m in your office, lying on the couch, and there’s a fire in the fireplace. It’s early evening. It’s sleeting outside, you can hear icy pellets beating against the windowpanes and—”

“Wait a minute.
My
office?”

“Yes.”

“And where am I? Am
I
in your dream?”

“Yes. You’ve turned the lights down, so most of the light comes from the fire. I can see its shadows flickering on the ceiling above my head.”

“And where am I?”

“You’ve pulled up a chair next to the couch. My eyes are closed but I hear you. You’ve crossed your legs. I hear a rustle of silk when you do it and open my eyes. I try to catch a glimpse of—”

“Yes?”

“You know. When you cross them, I try to see.”

“What I’m wearing, you mean. Underneath my skirt.”

“Yes.”

“And in the dream, do you see?”

“No. I see nothing.”

“But sometimes I do this. Is that part of your dream, too? What do you see then?”

“I see everything.”

“In these dreams. Do I ever unbutton my blouse like this?”

“Yes. Just like that.”

“Remove it? Drop it to the floor? Like this?”

“Yes.”

“And you can smell my perfume when I bend over you, can’t you.”

“Yes. I breathe it. Deep into my lungs.”

“Perhaps I kiss your mouth. Like this?”

“Yes.”

“And touch you…here.”

“Yes.”

“And how does it make you feel?”

“Like I’m drowning. Like falling.”

“I’ve missed you, Alex. So much.”

“Be here, Doc.”

“Yes. I’m here. I’m here now.”

Victoria Sweet took one last look in the mirror in her front hall.

Hair? Check.

Makeup? Check.

Dress? Check.

Jewelry? Check.

Sanity? Well, maybe not, but what the hey? She was in love. She and Alex had spent a wonderful hour together earlier, and, already, she was aching to see him again. Getting dressed, she had imagined him standing before his mirror shaving, perhaps even feeling just the way she was feeling.

“Ta-da,” she said to her reflection, as she slipped into her warmest winter coat and opened her front door. Stokely was out there at the curb with the engine running and, hopefully, the heat on. It had stopped sleeting finally, but the temperature was dropping.

She somehow managed to negotiate her icy walkway without ending up ass over teakettle. And there was Stokely standing on the curb, holding the passenger side door open. Holding the door open? It was
not
a Stokely thing to do.

“Evenin’, Miz Vicky,” he said in his best
Driving Miss Daisy
accent. “Y’all lookin’ partickly fine, this evenin’. Yas’m. Y’all in partickly fine fettle
tonight
all right.”

“Fine fettle?” she said, climbing in. “Let me guess where you came up with
that
.” Stokely smiled, shut her door, and went around to the driver’s side. He eased his big frame behind the wheel.

“Fine
fettle, yes indeed!” he said.

“Okay, Stoke,” she said. “What’s all this stuff about?”

“What’s all
what
stuff about?” He cranked up the Hummer and pulled out into the snowy neighborhood street. It was mercifully warm inside the bizarre vehicle.

“Oh, holding my door open,” Vicky said. “All this ‘shufflin’ shoes and silver trays’ stuff.”

“Actin’ on orders, is all,” Stoke said, pulling away from the curb. “Bossman say jump, old Stoke, he leaps around like a long-tailed cat in a room full of rockin’ chairs!” Stoke slapped his knee. “Yassuh!”

“Are you on some kind of medication, Stoke?” Vicky asked, grinning at him. “I can tell, you know. I’m a professional.”

“Alex, he says, ‘Stoke, you be nice to Vicky,’ is all I’m sayin’,” Stokely said. “So, I’m bein’ nice to Vicky.”

“Funny, I thought you were always nice.”

“Try to be, mostly. But the boss, now he thinks I need
noodging
. That’s what folks call encouragement in New York.”

“Noodging.”

“That’s it. He asked me put on this damn sport coat, just for you. Sharp, ain’t it? Boss looks sharp tonight, too. Got on his tux. Man is fixated with tuxedos. Hell, wouldn’t surprise me he wore one he was taking you to KFC.”

“I know. Weird. Do you think he’s weird?”

“Hell, everybody’s weird. You ought to know that more than most folks.”

Vicky nodded her head and said, “I mean, do you think he’s a little bit…abnormal?”

“’Course he’s abnormal! Normal folks is a dime a dozen. Now, maybe I ain’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I do know one thing. Alex Hawke is a fine man. Maybe the finest I ever knew. Rich as he is, that man will do
anything
for
anybody
at
any time
. You know what I’m sayin’?”

Vicky was silent the rest of the way, lost in thought. Stoke had taken a series of turns that brought them to the entrance of the Georgetown Club. A doorman stepped out from under the canopied walk and opened Vicky’s door.

Before she got out, she said, “Thanks, Stoke. I wasn’t trying to get you to say anything negative about Alex, you know. I love him, too. I just thought you could help me understand him a little better.”

“I know what you’re sayin’. He does act funny sometimes, way he dresses and talks and shit. Part of that whole English thing, I guess. But I think it all comes down to this. That boy is
chipper.”

“Chipper?” Vicky said, shaking her head. “Yeah, now that you mention it, he
is
chipper.”

She blew Stoke a kiss and turned away to go inside. It was freezing out in the wind.

“I’m going to tell you something, Vicky,” Stoke said then.

“Yes?”

“I seen ’em come and I seen ’em go. Women been chasin’ Alex all his life. Ain’t no thing. He never cared about one of them. Until you, I mean.”

“Thanks, Stoke,” Vicky said.

“See, you figured the boy out. You want to catch Alex Hawke, rule number one is you don’t chase him.”

“Nobody’s chasing anybody here, Stoke,” Vicky said. “Believe me.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s right. Must be the reason why he’s so happy these days.”

The maître d’ didn’t bother to look up as she approached his podium. He was new, she saw, and didn’t know who she was. When he deigned to lift his head from his reservations book, he was somehow able to look down his nose at her at the same time. Even though Vicky was a good foot taller than he was.

“Oui?”
the man said, assuming she was French for some unknown reason.

“I’m meeting someone,” Vicky said. “He may be waiting.”

“The name of the reservation?”

“Hawke. Alexander Hawke,” Vicky said, and started a mental countdown to see how long it took the name to have its predictable effect. One point five seconds.

“Ah, mais oui, mademoiselle! Monsieur Hawke. Oui, Monsieur Hawke, il attenderait au bar. Mais certainement!”
the man said, bowing from the waist.

He had metamorphosed from an imperious little snob into a groveling little toad in just less than three seconds. It wasn’t even a world record.

“You prefer smoking or nonsmoking?” he asked.

“You’re new. You probably never heard what my father said about smoking sections in restaurants?”

“Mais non, mademoiselle.
He said?”

“He said having a smoking section in a restaurant was just like having a pissing section in a swimming pool.”

He looked at her for a second, not sure if this was funny or serious.

“Monsieur, il est là,”
the man finally said, pointing in the direction of the bar. “You go through the door and—”

I’ve known where the bar is a lot longer than you have, buster, Vicky wanted to say, but she merely plucked the menu from his chubby little fingers and headed happily for the bar.

She’d been wondering why Alex had chosen the Georgetown Club. Alex had no idea how happy the choice had made her. It was her favorite restaurant in all of Washington. She still recalled the countless hours she’d spent here alone with her father, Senator Harlan Augustus Sweet. There were fireplaces in every room, all ablaze on a cold, snowy night like this. Large, overstuffed leather chairs were scattered everywhere, and the dark paneled walls were adorned with gilt-framed English landscapes and foxhunting scenes.

Coming here as a little girl had always felt like sneaking into the secret world of men. There was the intoxicating aroma of fine whisky and illegal Cuban cigars, and the clink of ice in crystal glasses. There were whispered stories she was too young for and the raucous laughter at their completion.

“Cover your ears, Victoria” was the way she knew when one of
those
was coming.

Her father, the retired United States senator from Louisiana, had been a much-loved figure in these rooms. He loved a good story and could tell one better than any man. He could also drink most of them under the table and frequently, to her mother’s dismay, did just that.

If the senator wasn’t at his office or on the Senate floor, he was on the Chevy Chase golf course. If he wasn’t on the golf course, he was here, holding down the bar at the Georgetown Club.

And his curly-haired daughter had always been the little princess by his side. Now she squeezed her way through a press of loud, cigar-smoking lobbyists and politicos and saw Alex waiting for her at the cozy little bar.