“We can’t take him out in the car, Stefan. Not now.”
“Of course we can. We have to, Alex, for God’s sake! What are you thinking? Korsakov’s men could have found Kuragin by now, put the whole thing together! If so, this thing in my bloody lap blows at any second!”
“I need to get him alone, that’s all. I’m sorry.”
“Alone?”
Halter looked at him, speechless. Then he understood. The daughter. Of course. Hawke was involved with the Tsar’s daughter. It must have happened in Bermuda. And he had recently been with her at the winter palace. Holy mother of hell, that was a complication he’d not even dreamed of. Well, he had the Beta in his hands. If worst came to worst, he’d just-
“We’ll do this at the ferry, Stefan. It’s the only way. I’ll get Anastasia out of that car somehow. Don’t worry about how. As soon as she and I are clear, do it. You got that? We don’t touch the father until the daughter is safely outside the kill radius.”
“Alex, you’re not thinking. What if he beats us to the ferry? Then what?”
“He won’t.”
“Alex, listen to me. You, of all people, must know you can’t let your personal feelings enter into a situation of this magnitude. I’m sorry about the girl. It’s obvious you have feelings for her. But if I see us running out of time, I will act. I am going to take him out, no matter what. You understand that, don’t you?”
“Hang on,” Hawke said, ignoring the question and accelerating out of a turn. “I’m going to drive as fast as I possibly can without killing us. How much time have we got until he starts blowing up the planet?”
“An hour and ten minutes.”
“Should be enough.”
“It has to be enough. Please listen to me. If I see it’s not, I’m going to take this man out, Alex. It’s my sworn duty to do so. As it is yours, I might remind you. I know you’ve got a gun. You can try to stop me. But I swear to you, I will gladly die pushing this button. Understand?”
Hawke ignored him.
“Aren’t there any bloody shortcuts to the ferry?” he asked.
“No.”
“Bloody hell,” Hawke said, braking and fishtailing through another turn. Luckily, most of the local constabulary was busy providing security at the Stadshuset tonight.
Hawke’s driving that night was either inspired or insane, depending on your point of view. He somehow kept the car out of the icy fjord, remained mostly on the road, at any rate, his eyes always a hundred yards ahead, willing the vehicle to go where it was pointed.
He fished his mobile out of his pocket and speed-dialed Asia. Answer, answer, answer, he prayed, but all he got was a machine and a beep tone.
“Hey, it’s me. Look, I’m right behind you. I’m coming for you. When you get to the Morto ferry, you’ll have to stop. That’s when you run, okay? Just jump out and run as fast as you can. I’ll find you. I love you. Don’t worry. It’s going to be all right.”
Occasionally, he’d look sideways at Halter. The professor’s eyes were always straight ahead. He had the Beta in his lap, programmed with the code, his finger on the trigger. Hawke knew that if Halter should feel the Saab leaving the road, headed for the trees or into the inky waters of the fjord on their left, he’d instantly push the button, no doubt about it. He’d see an enormous flash of light on the road far up ahead, flames climbing into the night sky, an explosion vaporizing the Tsar of Russia and his daughter, Anastasia.
And so Hawke drove furiously on, waiting, praying to see a blinking brake light on the road ahead. Something, anything that would prove he was gaining ground on the Maybach and the woman he loved.
But he never did.
67
Hawke skidded to a stop at the top of the hill next to a sign for Dalaro. He’d made it there in less than half an hour, nearly going off the road dozens of times, never once catching a glimpse of the bloody black Maybach. Now he was praying Halter had been right about the Tsar’s destination. If he wasn’t-
“This is it,” Hawke said, putting on the emergency brake and climbing out of the car. “Now, where’s that ferry?”
Halter got out, too, moving to the front of the car, the Beta in his hands, gleaming in the light of the headlamps. “There,” he said after a few moments of peering at the tiny village at the bottom of the hill.
“Where?”
“Down there to your left. Bottom of that little road leading through the woods over there. I saw taillights flash at the edge of the water. It has to be him, Alex. No one else would be going over to the island at this time of night.”
“Is the ferry already there?”
“I can’t tell. Maybe. Too far away to see.”
“Get in.”
They sledded rather than drove down the tiny road, the Saab now merely a toboggan, careening through heavy woods of pine and spruce down to the sea. Hawke kept his foot on and off the brakes the entire way, only accelerating when they slowed, not minding at all the fact that he was bashing both sides of the car against the trees on the sides of the narrow road as long as he kept the thing moving forward.
Hawke saw starlit sky ahead and reached down and switched off the headlamps; this was on the slim chance that the Tsar had glimpsed them racing along the fjord in their efforts to catch him.
If Hawke was driving them right into a trap, he’d like his arrival to be a surprise. And besides, even in the forest, there was enough moonlight reflecting off snow to see by.
Suddenly, they were out of the woods, the icy road dipping right down to the black water.
Five hundred yards below, he finally saw the Maybach’s big red brake lights flash.
The mammoth limousine was pulling slowly out onto the tiny ferry, large enough for only two vehicles. A crewman in dark coveralls was motioning the driver forward, all the way to the bow rail. Inside the yellow glow of the small pilothouse window, Hawke saw the ferryboat skipper’s black silhouette, even noticing the pipe he held clenched in his teeth. Amazing the things your mind took in at times like this.
“This might be tight,” he said to Halter as they careened toward the ferry. “Can you swim?”
“Hurry, for God’s sake, they’re about to pull away!”
It would be a close thing.
Hawke leaned on his horn, tinny but loud, and flashed his headlamps as he floored the Saab. He accelerated the rest of the way down the steep hill, watching the lone crewman heaving the first of the lines ashore. Hawke was still thinking he just might make it aboard, even if it had to be on the fly, but then he saw the Tsar fling open his door, step out onto the deck, and scream something at the bewildered crewman.
The ferryman clearly wasn’t going to wait, and now all lines were cast off, and the fluorescent red-and-white-striped gate with the blinking red warning light was descending. Suddenly, the ferry was pulling away, a puff of smoke from its stack, steaming toward the black shape of Morto in the distance.
“Damn it!” Hawke cried, hitting the brakes, sliding into a spin, yanking up on the emergency brake, and stopping on a patch of dry pavement barely in time to avoid going down the ramp and into the icy waters of the fjord.
He climbed out of the miserable Saab and stood watching the little ferry make its way across the choppy waters toward Morto Island.
He’d lost her.
“Let’s go!” Halter said, climbing out of the car with the Beta machine tucked safely under his arm. Hawke breathed a sigh of relief. For whatever reason, Halter had decided to play this out to the end, give Hawke until the last possible moment before ending this.
“Where?”
“I saw a house with a dock out on the end of that point. Where there’s a dock, there might well be a boat.”
“How much time?” Hawke cried, following Halter across the slippery algal rocks that lined the shore.