“Clean so far,” Harry said, moving around the circle, carefully checking each man for weapons.
“Which one of you hearty sportsmen is King Coale?” Hawke asked, although he’d already guessed Samuel Coale was the one in the flowing purple dashiki and the snow-white dreads that reached to his waist. He had a wide leather belt around his corpulent belly and an ugly machete dangling in a sheath. Behind him, on the wall, a huge Ethiopian flag and an old poster of Emperor Haile Selassie, fist raised, the Lion of Judah himself, reluctant father of the Rasta movement.
Old King Coale rose from his tatty throne, the only upholstered armchair of the lot. He kicked a few rooster corpses out of his way and took a step forward.
“Yahweh is Lord, and I am his king,” he said, Rasta-style. “You come looking for your friends, Lord Hawke?”
“I have. Where are they?”
King Coale inclined his head left toward a closed door on the far wall.
Hawke pressed the muzzle of the SAW deep into King Coale’s belly.
“You’ve got your Disciples following me all over this bloody island, Coale. Tell me why.”
“Someone pay me good money, mon. Why else you do anything?”
“Who pays you?”
“I forget.”
“Let me guess. Korsakov?”
“I tell you, he kills me.”
“You don’t tell me, I kill you,” Hawke said, using the machine gun’s muzzle to shove the man back into his armchair.
A loud shout of pain came from behind the peeling door. Hawke recognized the voice instantly. It was Ambrose Congreve.
“Harry, keep an eye on these gentlemen for a moment,” Hawke said, turning away from Coale. He quickly crossed the room, twisted the knob, and shoved the door open. He craned his head around and peered inside. Then he glanced over his shoulder, looking at Brock.
He wasn’t smiling.
“They’re both alive,” he said.
29
The two Englishmen were bound back-to-back, each sitting upright in a straight-backed wooden chair. At a cursory glance, both appeared to have been beaten about the head and face. A trickle of blood ran from Sir David’s nose and mouth. Desmond, the Prince of Darkness, was standing before Ambrose with a length of iron rod in his hand. Ignoring Hawke’s sudden appearance, he drew it back and struck Congreve against the shin of his wounded leg. The detective screamed out in agony, his body straining backward in his chair, his face a rictus of pain.
The explosive chatter of the SAW automatic weapon was deafening in the small room. All eyes swiveled toward Hawke, who had the ugly black weapon at his hip. He squeezed the trigger and fired another burst into the wall just beyond Desmond’s head, showering him with chunks of plaster.
“What de fuck, mon?”
“Drop the rod, Prince,” Hawke said evenly. “Now.”
“You disrespected my family once. Once is all you get.” He raised the bar again.
“Put the rod down. If you don’t, I’ll kill you where you stand.”
Desmond turned and glared, somehow imagining he could force Hawke to look away.
“Drop it,” Hawke said, “or die. Now.”
“I’ll drop de rod, mon. But you got to drop de gun. Then we see who de man is. Without de guns.”
Desmond’s eyes were blazing red, but whether it was rum or anger fueling his rage, Hawke was unsure. He could kill the man, shoot him now and be done with it. But something deeper, more primitive, in Hawke’s brain stopped him from pulling the trigger. He wanted to hurt the man who’d hurt his friend. He wanted to hurt him with his bare hands. It was more than wanting, he realized, as he stared into those blood-red eyes.
It was needing.
Hawke had since early youth, not frequently but often enough, found himself drawn to the wild freedom of a fistfight: the taunting, the restraining of friends, the squaring up, the outrageousness of one’s opponent. He found in fighting a thrilling unpredictability available to him nowhere else. Only when fists flew did he discover his spontaneous, decisive self-his truest self, he liked to think.
He smiled at Desmond and said, “You don’t want to fight me, Prince. I’m way out of your league.”
“Is dat so, mon? You mean ’cause you so old? Too old to fight like a man?”
“Just put the rod on the floor. Then I’ll put my gun on the floor. Okay?”
“You got two guns, mon. De pistol, too.”
Hawke put the SAW and the 9mm pistol on the cement floor, his eyes never leaving Desmond’s. Then he pulled his assault knife out of its sheath and slid it across the floor.
“Harry?” Hawke called out.
“Right here, boss.”
“I’m putting my weapons down in here. Keep yours at the ready until I’m done with this kid. Shoot anybody who moves in an unfriendly way.”
“You got it.”
“So,” Desmond said, dropping the iron rod to the floor with a clang. “Maybe you do still got a little bitty fight left in you, old man.”
“Harry,” Hawke called again over his shoulder. “I’m going to need your help. Mr. Coale in here has challenged me to a duel. I have accepted. Will you get those fellows out there to clear a space and agree to referee?”
“You got it, boss. Let me just get rid of these fucking dead chickens, and I’ll have a nice little ring set up.”
“Untie my friends, Desmond,” Hawke said, unzipping his jumpsuit and stepping out of it. Underneath, he wore only a faded Royal Navy T-shirt and a pair of boxer shorts, now suddenly wildly appropriate.
He motioned Desmond through the door and helped Ambrose and Sir David get to their feet. He was broken-hearted to see Congreve once more unable to stand on his own. Sir David got an arm around him and got him back into his chair. Ambrose had gone deathly white, and beads of perspiration broke out on his forehead. Sir David seemed sound enough and was rubbing his upper arms where the ropes had burned them.
“Are you all right, Constable?” Hawke asked his friend. “Tell me if you’re not. I will pick up my gun, and Brock and I will get you to a hospital right now.”
“I’ll survive,” Congreve said through gritted teeth. “But listen, Alex. You’re not really going to fight this man, are you?” he whispered. “He claims to be an Olympic champion.”
“Of course I’m going to fight the bastard. After what he did to you? It’s an affair of honor, the Code Duello. Surely you remember that fine old tradition, Constable? Precious few left these days. Sir David, some water for the chief inspector would be helpful.”
“Rum!” Congreve said in a hurry. “For God’s sake, rum! And then let’s get on with it. I haven’t seen a good fistfight in years!”
“Certainly,” Trulove replied, handing Congreve a half-empty bottle of rum.
Hawke said, “You might also want to shove that nine-millimeter of mine inside your waistband for the time being, Sir David. And Ambrose, keep my SAW handy if you’re up to it. Things might get spicy in there.”
“Good idea,” Trulove said, bending to snatch the weapons from the floor, handing Congreve the SAW.
Hawke left them and walked into the adjacent room. Desmond was posing in the center of the ring formed by the rows of wooden chairs and the Jamaicans who filled them, all of them now laughing riotously, clinking their rum bottles, smelling more blood. King Coale sat back regally in his tufted armchair, eager for the spectacle of his once famous son humiliating a white man.
Hawke stepped inside the ring, pulling his T-shirt over his head. He used it to wipe the green and black camo greasepaint from his face, then tossed the shirt aside. Desmond was dancing around on the broken and bloodied glass, stripped down to a pair of ratty track shorts.
It was close and unbearably hot inside the room. The two men in the ring were already drenched with sweat, though the fight had not even begun.
With the small crowd roaring support for their national hero, the two fighters squared up and began to circle each other. Desmond, a southpaw, quickly threw a few feints with his left to see if Hawke was paying attention. He definitely was. Hawke backed away, blinked his eyes rapidly, and tried to gather his wits. He’d boxed quite a bit in the Navy, with some success. But he’d never been in front of a lefty before.