The cold dark water shocked him, pumping even more adrenaline into his system. He clawed at the water, kicking his feet as hard as he could, and swam submerged out the inlet and into open sea.
He gulped air as his head popped up above the surface, expecting to see the cottage up on the rocky promontory. Everything was black! No horizon, no landmarks. He whirled around, disoriented, looking for the shoreline. There! The misty garden lights up on his terrace! He started clawing water, swimming as hard as he could for land.
A minute later he reached a set of wide stone steps carved into the rock that ascended all the way up to his broad terrace.
He pulled his weapon from its holster and raced to the top, taking the steps three at a time.
There he was!
Through an exterior window, he’d caught a glimpse of Spider Payne. He was still out in the hall, slamming his big shoulder against the splintering bedroom door over and over again, screaming loudly in frustration. Hawke sprinted across the terrace, slid open one of the doors, and stepped inside.
The hallway leading to his room was to his immediate left. The house was still pitch-black. He could hear the door begin to give way… Spider, illuminated only be the light from within the room, was seconds away from entering.
Moving as quietly as he could, he entered to the darkened hall and paused.
He knew he’d only get one shot at this.
He felt along the wall with his left hand, searching for the overhead hall light switch. Spider was almost completely through the bedroom door …
Hawke raised the Colt revolver, sighting on Spider’s broad back as he paused to take a breath.
Then he flipped the light switch.
The corridor was instantly flooded with bright incandescent light.
“Spider!” he cried out, the gun now extended with two hands in front of him, standing braced in a shooter’s stance.
The big man whirled to face him, his own face a mask of shock and rage. Hawke saw the muzzle of the man’s assault rifle come up, Spider already firing rounds, zinging off the tile floor as he raised the automatic weapon toward his enemy hoping to cut him to ribbons.
Hawke fired the Python.
Once into the center of Spider’s chest, hoping to catch the seam and his heart.
And once into his right eye.
The man’s skull was slammed back against the door. He was still somehow struggling to lift his weapon as he fired blindly… rounds still ricocheting off the tile floor as the life drained out of him.
And then and there Spider Payne breathed his last, sliding slowly to the floor, leaving a bloody smear on Alex Hawke’s shattered bedroom door, collapsing into a shapeless black heap of useless flesh and bone.
Hawke went to him, knelt down and pressed two fingers to his carotid artery, just to make sure.
No pulse.
The rogue was finally dead.
CHAPTER 15
“Hullo, Ambrose,” Hawke said, answering his mobile a few moments later.
“Well, since it appears to be you on the phone, one can only deduce that you survived the encounter.”
“Excellent deduction, Constable. One of your best.”
“Do you require any assistance, by chance?”
“That would be nice. Where are you? Enjoying a quiet pipe by the fireside somewhere?”
“Hardly. I’m standing about twenty feet outside what used to be your front door, waiting in the pouring rain for all the shooting to die down in there.”
“Ah, you’re here, then. Well. Do come in, won’t you? Doors open, as you can see,” Hawke said. “Meet me at the Monkey Bar, will you? We would seem to owe ourselves a libation, some sort of restorative, I suppose. What’s your pleasure, old warrior?”
“A gin and bitters should do nicely. Boodles, if you have it.”
“I certainly do.”
“What about the deceased?”
“Oh, I don’t think he’ll be having anything this evening. He’s moved on.”
“Ah. Well, good work, Alex. On my way inside now. I’ll see you at the bar.”
“Cheerio, then.”
“Cheerio.”
Hawke looked down at the corpse at his feet. Brass cartridges glittered everywhere on the tile floor. He used one bare foot to roll the man over onto his back, saw one dead black eye staring blindly back at him.
“I should have killed you that night in Tangiers, Payne,” he said. “I could have done with one less funeral in Maine, you miserable bastard.”.
He found Ambrose standing behind the bar, his cold pipe jammed into one corner of his mouth, pouring a healthy dollop of rum into Hawke’s favorite tumbler. Congreve smiled as he poured. “The ambrosial nectar of the gods,” he said.
“Indeed.”
“What shall we drink to?” Congreve asked, raising his glass of gin.
“Let’s see,” Hawke mused.
He plucked one of the cigarettes from a silver stirrup cup on the bar, lit up, and thought about it a second before speaking.
“Absent friends and dead enemies?” Hawke said.
And that was the end of it.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
TED BELL is the former Chairman of the board and World-Wide Creative Director of Young & Rubicam, one of the world’s largest advertising agencies. He is the New York Times bestselling author of Hawke, Assassin, Pirate, Spy, Tsar, Warlord and Phantom, along with a series of adventure novels for Young Adults. He does most of his writing on an island off the coast of Maine.
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