Which is why the single word business had crackled like lightning around his languishing synapses and stirred his lazy blood.
“You mentioned something about business,” he said.
“Are you disappointed? Tell the truth. You were hoping it was phone sex. I could hear it in your voice.”
“Your voice does sound rather—never mind. Smoky. I thought you’d stopped smoking.”
“I’m trying to quit. I’m going hot turkey.”
“Excuse me?”
“It’s the opposite of cold turkey. You fire up your first one the second you wake up and then smoke as many as you possibly can before you go to sleep at night.”
“Sounds brilliant. Well. You said business. Tell me.”
“First, you have to know something. This is not my idea. Your pal the president asked for you specifically. I’m telling you that just in case you’ve got too much on your plate already.”
“All right.”
“It’s not me who’s asking. It’s him.”
“Doesn’t matter to me who it is. My plate, dear girl, is as clean as your proverbial American whistle.”
“You have no idea how glad they’ll be to hear that over at Casa Blanca.”
“All right. I’m no longer annoyed. I’m awake. Razor sharp. Tell me.”
“Your MI6 picked this up, tossed the ball to us. CIA has checked it out and it’s serious. Confirmed through the captured Al Qaeda commander, Abu Subeida.”
‘The Gatekeeper.”
“Yes. Ever heard of something called Project Boomerang?”
“Hmm. I do seem to remember that. Some kind of wildly experimental submarine program. The Soviets were building a prototype at the Komsomolsk yard. Tail end of the Cold War. Never got it operational as I recall. Is that it?”
“Exactly. The Russians called it the Borzoi. They’d gotten their hands on a lot of our stealth technology. And they’d also developed some of their own. Plus a three-foot-thick coating of sonar- and radar-absorptive material, advanced fuel-cell technology, and a virtually silent propulsion system. The sub carries forty of their SS-N-20 SLBMs. Long-range Sturgeon ballistic missiles.”
“Carries? As in present tense?”
“Yes.”
“Christ.”
“The thing is huge. Shaped like a boomerang, hence the name. Two airfoil-shaped hulls join at the bow to form a V shape, twenty missile silos on each hull. Virtually invisible to detection. When she’s running submerged at speed, a single conning tower at the bow is retracted entirely within the hull.”
“An underwater flying wing.”
“Yes. An invisible underwater flying wing. At least three times faster than anything either of us has got.”
“Bloody hell. They actually got one up and running?”
“They built two.”
“Yes?”
“We can only account for one.”
“What do our new best friends have to say about that?”
“Moscow says it was stolen.”
“Security never being their strong point.”
“Exactly. They say they have no idea where it is. The theory both at Defense and here at State is that one sub has probably been sold. The president would like you to find out who sold it. And more importantly, who bought it. And when.”
“Consider it done,” the Englishman said, springing from his bed and grabbing his robe from the back of a chair.
“We could have phone sex now if you’d like,” the woman said.
“I wouldn’t even dream of taking advantage of you at a moment like this, darling.”
“I’ll take that as a no. Go back to sleep. Good night, baby.”
“Good night.”
“I love you, Alex,” the woman said.
But the Englishman’s heart was in another place entirely, and he had no reply to that.
“Good night,” he repeated softly, and replaced the receiver. He had told her that their relationship was over. And that he was very much in love with another woman. No matter what he said, or how frequently, however, it didn’t seem to take.
He stood up, stretched, and pushed the bell that would alert Pelham down in the kitchen that he’d be having an early breakfast. Then he dropped to the floor by his bed, did his customary thirty push-ups and fifty sit-ups, followed by the rest of his exercise program. Muscles aflame, he then headed for the shower.
Under the scalding water, Alexander Hawke was surprised to find himself singing at the top of his lungs.
An old Beatles tune.
“Here Comes the Sun.”
2
The sun was still brutal as the slender white launch arrived at Staniel Cay. It was precisely three o’clock in the afternoon.
At the helm, a man wearing a crisp white uniform reversed the twin Hamilton whisperjet thrusters, boiling the water at the stern. The long slim vessel slowed instantly, gliding to a stop alongside the dock. The tide was out, but a long ladder hung nearly down to the launch’s portside gunwales.
The launch was all gleaming brass and highly varnished mahogany. There was such spit-and-polish perfection about her that she seemed too pristine for this remote backwater of the Exumas; it was as if some alien, otherworldly craft had landed.
Two crewmen, dressed identically in starched white shirts and shorts, climbed quickly up the ladder onto the dock and secured the bow, stern, and spring lines. One crewman posted himself by the ladder to aid disembarking passengers. The other, who was also discreetly but heavily armed, cast a keen eye over the deserted docks. Satisfied nothing was amiss, he caught the helmsman’s eye and made a slashing motion across his throat.
The helmsman killed the twin engines and, minus their throaty rumble, the sleepy harbor fell silent once more. The only sound, save the cries of the whirling gulls and terns, was the crack of the large English Union Jack, snapping in a smart breeze on its staff at the rear of the launch.
There were only two passengers aboard, both Englishmen. Standing in the stern of the launch, they were chatting amiably, shielding their eyes against the glare of the Caribbean sun. The taller and younger of the two was a man in his late thirties named Alexander Hawke. He stood something over six feet, but was so lean that he seemed taller. He had thick black hair, piercing blue eyes, a long thin nose, and a prominent square chin that gave him an air of resolution and determination.
It had been scarcely more than a month since Hawke had received the early-morning phone call from Washington. Now, on a blistering afternoon in February, the Englishman scanned the tiny marina with an expression of intense curiosity. He then turned to his companion, Ambrose Congreve, smiling.
“This is where they shot the film Thunderball,” Hawke said, a somewhat bemused look in his eyes. “Did you know that, Ambrose?”
“What’s that?”
“Sorry. I’d forgotten. You’d never set foot inside a cinema unless it was a John Wayne picture. Thunderball was a James Bond film. Sean Connery. My favorite, actually.”
Hawke’s companion was a shortish, rounded man in his late fifties. He had a pair of deceptively sentimental blue eyes set in a baby’s face, a face partially obscured behind a colossal moustache. He heaved a deep sigh and mopped his brow with one of his trademark monogrammed linen handkerchiefs.
“I prefer John Wayne to James Bond simply because the Duke did less talking and more shooting,” Congreve sniffed.
“Yes, but Bond—”
“Excuse me, Alex. But, do you really think we ought to be standing out here in the blazing sun discussing ancient heroes of the cinema? Your two agents are sure to be waiting for you on shore.”
“Giving you a little local color, that’s all, Constable,” Hawke said, smiling.
“Well, I don’t need any local color. What I need is liquid refreshment. Let’s just get this over with, shall we?”