“His name is Teddy and he wants to be your friend, too,” Alexei said and offered Her Majesty his stuffed bear.
“Do you know, Alexei,” she said, hugging the bear, “that I first met your handsome father when he was precisely your age? Well, it’s quite true. The most adorable little boy. He often came to stay with me at Balmoral, my home in Scotland. And he was almost, although not quite, as much the beautiful, cheery, free-spirited soul as you are.”
“Your Majesty, I cannot tell you how much I appreciate your generosity in these trying circumstances,” Hawke said.
“Nonsense. Nothing generous about it,” the Queen said. “I’m delighted to have the laughter of children around me at any time. Besides, it is the very least I can do for you considering what you did for my family, Alex.”
“I should be back in a fortnight, Your Majesty, but I will see to it that HM government is kept informed.”
Queen Elizabeth smiled acknowledgment and said, “Miss Spooner, I do hope you are intending to stay on. I did tell Alex that I felt it would be better for the child if he had that continuity in his life. After all, he might find this all a bit overwhelming without your comforting presence.”
“Very kind, Your Majesty. Thank you very much indeed. I would be delighted to stay with him.”
Alex bent to pick Alexei up in his arms, tossed him about a foot into the air, then caught and kissed him on both cheeks, eliciting much laughter and delight.
“All right, then, Alexei. I think you’ll be very well taken care of while Daddy’s away, won’t you? And you must promise to be a very, very good boy until I come back. Will you?”
“Yes, Daddy. Very good.”
And with that Alex Hawke bid farewell to the Queen and, with a good deal of emotion, reluctantly left his little boy behind, sitting happily in the Royal lap, chattering away as was his wont.
Nell followed him out of the Queen’s reception room to say good-bye.
“Come back to us, Alex; we need you, you know. I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to you.”
Hawke pulled her toward him and kissed her hard on the mouth, oblivious to shocked palace staff and onlookers passing by.
“Listen,” Hawke said with a grin, “I don’t want to die either, believe me. But I will tell you one thing. If I have to, I’m damned well going to die last.”
He smiled over his shoulder and started down the palace’s wide staircase, taking the steps two at a time. Knowing that Alexei and Nell would be safe within the walls of Buckingham Palace, with its extraordinarily layered security, gave him the peace of mind he knew he would need for whatever lay ahead.
D riving home alone to his home in the Cotswolds, he had plenty of time to think about the immediate future. He was in the midst of assembling his assault team. Saffari’s heavily armed and well-fortified complex stood high on a bluff and was surrounded by walls some thirty feet high and ten feet thick. Challenging, to say the least. His number two, as always, would be Stokely Jones, a pillar of strength he could always rely on. Then Brock, who often tried his patience but was a good man under fire, a warrior through and through.
It was to be a Red Banner operation, augmented by U.S. Navy SEALs, which meant he had executive sanction from the American president and the use of whatever U.S. human resources and military support he required, all under the strictest secrecy for obvious political reasons. His assault team would be composed of two squads of Navy SEALs under the command of Captain Stony Stollenwork. Stollenwork, a member of the elite team that choppered into Pakistan to take out Osama bin Laden, was one of the SEALs’ most decorated special-ops officers.
The SEAL forces would be complemented by Red Banner’s own highly trained spec-ops forces and weapons specialists, not a few of whom were crew members aboard the new Blackhawke. Should the new yacht engage in battle at sea, these would be the crewmen responsible for war fighting: the sonar and radar as well as the offensive weaponry and the defense of the vessel.
Hawke had designated the two combat forces as the Blue Team (SEALs) and the Red Team (Red Banner).
Looks can be deceiving. The over three-hundred-foot-long yacht looked for all the world like a rich man’s plaything. It was anything but. It was a warship from stem to stern and had been designed from the very beginning to take Hawke and his assault teams into trouble spots, whenever and wherever in the world they were needed.
Blackhawke had been designed with a completely covert section, two lower decks partitioned off, comprising roughly one-third of the ship’s stern. The entry hatchways in the bulkheads to this concealed section carried DANGER/RADIATION/NO ENTRY signs, forbidding in appearance. Beyond them lay an area as large as a good-sized hangar, the centerpiece being the tender/gunship Nighthawke, which was mounted in a sling and winched aboard on a traveling gantry when not deployed.
On the uppermost level, the designers had allocated space for ammunition, firearms, explosives, assault kit and gear-any and all military equipment that would require instant access in the event of conflict. This level also comprised the fighting men’s living and sleeping quarters, toilets, showers, the kitchen, refrigerated food storage and adjacent mess, plus HVAC equipment to maintain comfort for the combatants in any weather. There was a large assembly station from which men could gather prior to an assault or sea battle.
The lower level also provided space for the operational situation room and the sophisticated electronic equipment necessary for both defensive and offensive countermeasures. Adjacent was the battle communications center, where the combat officers would fight the ship.
One of the unique features of the vessel had stemmed from Hawke’s desire to arm the vessel in the manner of pirate ships of old. He wanted broadside cannons along the length of the hull, both port and starboard. But they must be concealed until the very moment of battle. Like his ancestor, John Black Hawke, he wanted his man-of-war to sail into the melee, throw a handle that dropped the exterior panels, expose the multiple muzzles, and then roll the long black barrels out for a vicious broadside.
This meant a concealed space running the length of both sides of the ship, just inside the hull, where the gun crews could easily reach their emplacements, load, and fire. Loaders racing from the ammunition hold would run fore and aft, resupplying the gunners with fresh ammo as needed.
But what kind of cannon? Ultimately he’d decided on the MK44 40mm automatic light cannon, a weapon capable of firing two hundred rounds per minute. It was a “chain gun,” which meant very few moving parts. Two distinct rounds could be fired by these guns at the flick of a switch from the fire control system, an armor-piercing round or a high-explosive round. These twenty-first-century weapons would provide Blackhawke with the ability to loose a devastating and withering broadside against any aggressor on land or at sea.
The kind of weaponry in Blackhawke ’s arsenal had not been approved by any committees on Capitol Hill or in Whitehall. What she carried were simply the most advanced and effective war-fighting systems available to anyone who could afford them.
Hawke, who could afford them, knew he was in for a fight.
And he never went into a fight he didn’t stand at least a ghost of a chance of winning.
Forty-eight
Saudi Arabia, Persian Gulf
The sun peeked over the eastern rim of the world. Streaks of flaming red shot across the ruffled sea. Hawke, up at first light, stood on the foredeck of Blackhawke, his mammoth creation, a steaming mug of coffee to hand, loving the feel of warm teak beneath his bare feet. The Saudi harbor at Ad Dammam was already teeming with activity, fishing boats plowing through the building waves toward the harbor mouth, headed seaward.
Hawke had just completed his morning swim, four miles in open water. This was the time when he felt most keenly alive, his body literally humming with energy. As the desert to the west heated up, a freshening easterly breeze sent white-capped waves marching off toward the horizon. A fifteen-knot breeze, he estimated. It promised to be a good day for a yacht race, especially for a boat as enormous as his new Blackhawke.