Warriors (31 page)

There was always a certain lighthearted jocularity in the air, especially here in the third-floor Grill. A palpable bonhomie born of old school ties, old familial bonds, and simmering rivalries forged on the playing fields of Eton or Harrow; and shared time spent in the kindred trenches of war, of love, and of mere commerce.

Lord Alexander Hawke, Sir David Trulove, and Chief Inspector Ambrose Congreve, a formidable trio if ever there was one, sat at Hawke’s customary reserved table. It was a quiet, tufted leather banquette situated beneath a window at the farther reaches of the large room. The hubbub was reduced to a dull roar back here, and one could speak easily of private, even secret, matters with scant fear of being overheard.

C always preferred this reserved table of Hawke’s for any rendezvous that was in the least bit sensitive. And there was no more sensitive a subject within the corridors of MI6 these days than Operation Lightstorm.

They’d ordered cocktails and just begun to get down to cases when a white-gloved steward approached the table, appearing to glide across the carpet.

“M’lord,” he said to Hawke, “so sorry to disturb, but there’s a gentleman arrived downstairs.”

“Yes? Who is it?”

“A Mr. Stokely Jones, he says his name is, your lordship. He says, I mean to say, I believe he’s expected?”

“Ah, good; he’s a bit early, in fact. Sir Stokely Jones! Indeed, he is expected,” Hawke said, glancing at his wristwatch. “Please show him right up, will you, Edward?”

“Indeed, your lordship,” the fellow said, withdrawing silently into the gloom and with seemingly little or no effort required.

Sir Stokely Jones
? Congreve had just taken a deep draft of his spicy Bloody Mary. Upon hearing the name, he suddenly found the concoction inconveniently regurgitating. He quickly put his napkin to his lips and tried to contain his surprise.

“Are you quite all right, Ambrose?” C asked, patting him soundly on the shoulder.

“Constable,” Hawke said, “what’s the matter?”

“ ‘Sir Stokely Jones’?” Ambrose finally managed, coughing, his eyes red and tearing up. “Is that what you said, Alex? Sir Stokely Jones?”

Hawke laughed and said, “Hmm. I suppose I forgot to mention it, Constable. Stokely is to be knighted. Tomorrow, in fact.”

“Knighted?” Congreve said. “We are speaking of your dear old American friend? Are we not? Chap from Miami?”

“I am. He is.”

“Bloody well deserved, if you ask me,” the chief of MI6 said. “The man’s a hero of the very first rank.”

“Well, no one said a word to me,” Congreve said somewhat sulkily. “What’s this knighthood all about?”

“Sorry, Constable, my fault that you’re not quite up to speed. You’ll remember the Balmoral affair, when Stokely Jones almost single-handedly saved the life of the Queen? Not to mention most of the Royal Family? A few years ago, as I recall.”

“Ah, yes.”

“It was in all the papers? Telly as well.”

“So sorry, Alex, of course I bloody well remember. It was a day of national celebration. A singular result to an iffy gambit at best. You played no small part in that business yourself. But then, I had no idea. A knighthood, you say?”

Hawke looked up, alerted by a definite volume rise over the general roar at the bar beyond.

“Here he comes now. Look impressed.”

“I am, believe me,” Congreve said, glancing up and smiling in appreciation of the sight he beheld.

THE SIGHT OF A GIANT
black gentleman, splendidly bedecked in an exquisitely tailored and bespoke Savile Row three-piece suit, a worsted navy chalk-stripe, striding through the Men’s Grill at Black’s with a huge white grin on his face, was bound to cause a bit of notice, even in this most cosmopolitan milieu, home to some of the most poised, the most unflappable gathering of well-bred gentlemen in all London.

Stoke, of course, loved all the attention thrown his way. He suddenly remembered he was still wearing his newly purchased hat, a perfect dove grey fedora he’d snagged that very morning at Lock & Co., the famous hatters of St. James Street.

Stokely smiled and waved his new hat at everyone as he passed along the great length of the bar, saying, “Hey, how’s everybody doin’? Good? All right. That’s great!”

“How do you do, my good sir,” a diminutive but rather large-waisted, mutton-chopped blond fellow said, sticking out his pink, ham-fisted hand as Stoke passed him by.

“I’m good, I’m good,” Stoke said, pausing for the moment to address the man. “How do you do, yourself? You look good, brother. Real good. Love the tie.”

“I am very well, indeed. Lord Cork is my name. I say, will you perhaps join us for a quick sip of something formidable and expensive? A fortifier before luncheon is served?”

“Need a rain check on that one, but thank you. I’m joining my friends back there for lunch.”

“Whom are you lunching with, may I ask?”

“Fellow over there by the window? That’s him. Waving his arm, all giddy with excitement over my arrival.”

“You don’t mean to say our Lord Hawke?”

“That’s the one.”

“Ah, splendid chap indeed, young Hawke. Old college chums, you see, we were at Dartmouth together. Our naval college, here in Britain. Yes, and a chap much beloved by my family as well. Welcome to Black’s, sir. Honored by your presence.”

“Honor is all mine, Lord Cork,” Stoke said with a smile, and pushed on toward his friend’s table at the rear.

C
H A P T E R
  4 3

S
ir Stokely Jones,” Hawke said, getting to his feet and shaking his old friend’s hand. “Quite an entrance, I must say, and I would expect no less!”

“All the world’s a stage,” Stoke said, bowing slightly from the waist. “As Shakespeare or somebody like that said, I believe.”

“Shakespeare, indeed!” Hawke said with a grin and then embraced him warmly, pounding him on his vast shoulder with a closed fist. “Let me be the first to offer you my heartiest congratulations, Stoke. God knows you deserve it.”

“Second,” Congreve said, standing and offering his hand. “Well done, sir!”

“Last, but certainly not least,” Sir David said, also rising and pumping Stoke’s hand vigorously.

“Sit down, everybody, sit down,” Stoke said, taking his seat at the table. “Sorry I’m so early. Guy at the hotel, Martin? He told me it was a twenty-minute cab ride over here. But the traffic? Nada.”

Waitstaff appeared promptly and Stoke said, “Diet Coke, or Coke Light, as you folks say over here.”

“Certainly, sir.”

“With ice, please. I love ice.”

“Indeed, sir.”

They all placed their luncheon orders as well, Stoke settling for a large chopped salad. When the waiter had departed, Stoke spoke up.

“Let me guess. Something has come up. This feels like a business lunch to me. What’s up? Who are the bad guys and how many of them?”

“I’LL LET SIR DAVID FILL
you in.”

Trulove then proceeded to tell Stokely, in great detail, about the disappearance of the American scientific genius Bill Chase, the hostage rescue code-named Operation Lightstorm, the top-secret Centurion Project, and the rest. When he finished, everyone was quiet, waiting for Stoke’s reaction.

“So lemme get it straight. This guy Chase, the world-famous weapons designer. He and his entire family were abducted one night off the street in Georgetown almost five years ago. And they’re not dead?”

“Apparently they’re not,” Sir David said.

“We don’t know where they are now, do we, Sir David?”

“An extremely rough idea. I would suspect a remote country safe house in the Chinese countryside. However, there’s another possibility. CIA informs me that a twenty-nine-year-old man, ex–South Korean army officer, a Colonel Cho, miraculously escaped from a North Korean death camp last week. Guards were firing at him as he swam across the Yalu River. As you may know, Kim Jong-un gave orders to shoot anyone attempting to escape. The escapee, Colonel Cho, sought asylum at a Swiss consulate. In his debrief, he told the Swiss consul he believed at one time there had been Americans held in the camp. But that they may have been killed.”

Hawke said, “Have any other Americans recently gone missing over there, Sir David?”

“Not to my knowledge. And certainly nothing to that effect from CIA.”

“Then maybe we should start with that camp, Alex?” Stoke said.

“Yes. I think we should. Sir David?”

“Don’t rule anything out. It’s been years. They could be anywhere.”

“And Chase himself?” Hawke asked.

“We’ve been on his trail via satellite and ground personnel ever since Alex landed that Chinese fighter at Lakenheath RAF. Chase was seen one week ago today by one of our MI6 chaps leaving the Chinese Ministry of State Security in Shanghai in the company of two thugs. Here’s the photograph. The tall thin fellow in the middle wearing sunglasses.”

“Was he tailed?”

“He was hustled into the back of a Mercedes 600 with blacked-out windows and whisked off in the direction of Shanghai Pudong Airport. We followed but lost him in severe traffic.”

“And exactly how long ago was the Chase family abducted?”

“Going on five years,” Trulove said. “Bill Chase is single-handedly altering the balance of power in the Pacific. He’s obviously been coerced into working for the Chinese military, creating weapons that weren’t even on the drawing board when he was working for the Pentagon.”

Stoke said, “But nothing else popped up all these years until this Shanghai shot was taken? No word from him or his family?”

“No. Listen, Stoke,” Hawke said, lowering his voice. “This is a joint op with CIA. And CIA would like Bill Chase taken out. Extreme prejudice.”

“You’re kidding. We’re supposed to waste the smartest guy on the planet? Guy who’s kept us on top for two decades? The guy who, if rescued, would provide the intelligence mother lode of Chinese military inner workings of all time? Insane.”

“Sorry,” Hawke said. “C and I have a major difference of opinion here. CIA wants extreme prejudice. I think this is a straight HR play. A hostage rescue, in my opinion, is both feasible and the way to go.”

“The prime minister and the U.S. president both support the CIA position that termination is the only way, Alex,” the chief of MI6 intoned solemnly. “I’ve told you all the reasons why.”

“Excuse me, Sir David,” Stoke said. “I know it won’t be easy, never is. But this is what we do. We go in there, stealth mode, find his family first. Wherever they are, doesn’t matter. We’ll find the wife and children. That’s number one. Make sure they’re all safely out and off the table before we go after the man himself. When the NKs lose that leverage over Chase, and the victim has got nothing else to lose, that’s when we locate him. We go in strong. We get Bill Chase out and we get him out alive and we bring him and his family home.”

“Sounds so simple,” Congreve said, smiling at Stokely, “when you put it like that.”

“It is. Hostage rescue. Hell. You do it enough times, it’s like riding a bicycle,” Stoke said.

“All right, all right,” Sir David said, smiling in admiration at this American giant’s utter and fearless nonchalance. “The two of you have convinced me. The prime minister and President Rosow will just have to take deep breaths and convince the Yanks to trust you two on this one. When I tell them the man who saved the Queen, Sir Stokely Jones himself, is on the case, I’m sure they’ll relent.”

“It’ll take more than two of us, sir,” Stoke said.

“What do you think, Stoke?” Hawke said. “Who do we need for this?”

“Much as I hate to say it, Brock. As in Harry.”

“Oh, God, here we go again. That chap drives me starkers. But we will need a CIA liaison, and he’s the best there is. And the rest of the team?”

“You remember my friends from Martinique, Alex?”

“Of course. Thunder and Lightning. Counterterrorist mercenaries. Worked with them in Cuba, didn’t we? I thought they’d split up after that botched Syrian affair, vanished to the four winds.”

“Thunder? Lightning? What the hell are you two talking about?” C said, leaning forward and relighting his pipe.

Stoke said, “Two of my old Team Six platoon leaders back in my navy days, sir. Soldiers of fortune, now. We always called one of them ‘Thunder’ because he was so good at blowing stuff up. Best underwater demolition tech in UDT history. And the other ‘Lightning,’ because you were dead and gone before you knew he’d hit you. FitzHugh McCoy is Lightning’s real name, Medal of Honor winner. Thunder is Chief Charlie Rainwater, a full-blooded Apache Indian. Navy Cross, two presidential citations for valor. Always call their base camp, wherever it’s located, ‘Fort Whupass.’ ”

C smiled at that. “I must say, they do sound rather colorful. Mercenaries, I take it, Sir Stokely?”

“Indeed. These boys parachute into enemy-held islands or infiltrate by sea in the stormy darkness of a rain-filled night on a fairly regular basis. Operate all around the world with big-time success and an almost miraculous ability to avoid capture and bullets. Colorful, I guess you might say, sir.”

Hawke added, “A more ragtag collection of soldiers of fortune, ex–Foreign Legionnaires, ex-SEALs, retired U.S. Army spec-ops guys, SAS boys from our side, Nung and Montagnard mercenaries from Vietnam, Gurkha fighters from Nepal, chaps like that.”

“How big a force does this Thunder and Lightning outfit maintain, Stokely?” C asked.

“Size varies from time to time. But they’re organized just like a SEAL platoon. Two squads, seven guys each, plus Fitz and Rainwater as squad commanders. Sixteen guys altogether.”

“Big team. How do they move around?” C said.

“Got
Dumbo
. It’s their own patched-up but heavily armored C-130 Hercules. Vietnam era. Fly in, snatch and grab, hop and pop, blow stuff up, kill bad guys anywhere on the planet.”

“Still in Martinique, Stoke?” Hawke said.

“Nope. I met Froggy at a bar in Miami Beach two weeks ago. The Frogman says they’ve completely reinvented themselves in the wake of Syria. More . . . what’s the word . . . elite. Yeah, more elite. Not just a bunch of hotheaded badasses on a tropical island getting shit-faced on rum all day.”