She lay about a half mile outside the channel markers for Staniel Cay and when she was lit up at night, as she was now, she was magnificent. The name, illuminated in huge gold type on her towering stern, said it all.
BLACKHAWKE.
Hawke’s yacht, completed in great secrecy just two years earlier at the Huisman yard in Holland, caused a unique stir wherever she went in the world. And the world, it delighted Hawke to know, had no idea just how singular a vessel this truly was.
At just over two hundred forty feet in overall length, she was a mammoth silhouette against the evening sky. Tonight, since there were to be guests, her gleaming black hull and towering white top-sides were illuminated with halogen lighting from stem to stern. Her crew, who, with the exception of the galley staff and the launch crew, wore simple summer uniforms of black linen, had been given the night off.
Congreve, who loved messing about in kitchens, had sent Slushy, the executive chef, ashore. He’d elected to do the cooking tonight himself. Local lobsters, fresh corn, and salad. In deference to the Russians, he was serving caviar and iced vodka before dinner.
Twilight had congealed into starlit darkness.
The two old friends sat conversing comfortably under the umbrella of stars, as their guests weren’t due for another half hour or so. They were all the way aft on the top deck. Quick, now disguised as a steward, was serving drinks and hors d’oeuvres.
Hawke had let his parrot, Sniper, out of his cage, and the big black bird was now perched in his favorite location on Hawke’s right shoulder. The bird had been a gift from his grandfather on Alex’s eighth birthday. Hawke had no idea how old Sniper was. Parrots, he’d learned, lived to be ninety to one hundred years old.
It was Hawke’s habit at cocktail time to feed the bird whatever hors d’oeuvres were being served. Sniper seemed to like everything except pigs-in-blankets. But he had an enormous fondness for Russian caviar. At the moment, he was making do with the cheese.
Congreve was busy trying to get his pipe lit again. They were sitting some fifty feet above the water and it was breezy out on deck.
“Another Dark & Stormy, Ambrose?” Hawke asked, feeding Sniper his fifth gob of warm Brie cheese. Dark & Stormy was his friend’s favorite cocktail, a heady mix of dark rum and ginger beer.
“No thank you, Alex. I anticipate a lengthy evening.”
“God, I hope not. I don’t want those two cretins aboard this ship one second longer than absolutely necessary.”
“Sketchy, aren’t they?”
“You have no idea.”
“Pity about that poor waitress.”
“You noticed,” Hawke said.
“Please,” Congreve replied with a withering stare.
“I forgot. You notice everything.”
“I don’t want to be an old Nosey Parker. But, I have to ask, what in the bloody hell are you going to do with a nuclear submarine?”
“You actually thought I was serious? That’s quite good.”
“You’re not?”
“Hardly.”
“I see. And your reasoning for subjecting me to life-threatening encounters with poisonous rocks and man-eating marine life?”
“Simple. Call from Washington. A Soviet Borzoi-class boomer disappeared six months ago from its pen pal at Vladivostok. It took me a while, back-channel, but I was eventually able to determine who might have stolen the damn thing. From there, it was fairly easy to identify who was peddling it. You remember Cap Adams. Middle East CIA station chap in Kuwait City? He finally put me on to the two human ferrets we went snorkeling with today. Pretty sure they sold it. The Americans are desperate to know who bought it. It’s my job to find out.”
“Borzoi? Never heard the name.”
“Not surprising. Last gasp of the Soviet Navy. A highly experimental sub. Only two were built. They used pilfered American stealth technology and some of their own to create the world’s first stealth submarine. Radical delta-wing design. Retractable conning tower. She carries forty warheads and, for all intents and purposes, the bloody thing’s invisible.”
“Good God,” Congreve said, leaning forward. “Anyone in possession of such a weapon could stick up the whole world.”
“I’m afraid you’re right. Global, reach-for-the-sky type hardware. She’s monstrous. Lethal. Undetectable. The pan-Arabic terrorist organization that first tried to buy the sub gave it the code name Operation Invincible Sword. My CIA friend Cap Adams spent a few tough weeks in Kuwait, making sure something went wrong with that plan, thank God.”
“So the Russians had to find another buyer. Who on earth other than the Arabs or the Chinese has got that kind of money?”
“Good question. Cap finally put me on to our two dinner guests. His information indicates they’ve located a new buyer. She has been purchased. Being delivered now. Our job is to find out who the proud new owner is. We need to ensure that the delivery does not happen. The U.S. Navy has deciphered certain radio codes that might enable us to intercept it at sea.”
“Who, exactly, is ‘we’?”
“ ‘We,’ in this case, is Washington, the U.S. Atlantic Fleet, and me. They’re footing the bill for our little Caribbean cruise, actually. Jolly generous, I’d say.”
“Who in Washington? Anybody I know?”
“High.”
“Your friend POTUS?”
“Yes. And the brand-new American secretary of state.”
“Your old friend Conch.”
“Indeed. She called me in early January just as I was about to shoot myself out of sheer boredom.”
“Ah. I thought you had successfully extinguished that long-flickering flame.”
“Her motives are hardly romantic, Constable. She has hired me to find out who bought that damn submarine and why. Most importantly, where the hell she’s located. They like to keep track of these things, you know.”
“Hmm. One suspects Madame Secretary’s motives are always romantic where you’re concerned. Speaking of suspects, who’s on the list of potential buyers?”
“Oh, the usual madmen and megalomaniacs, naturally. All the rogue states. North Korea. Iran. Some kind of pan-Islamic movement. The one who scares me most is Muammar Useef, the erstwhile Saudi playboy.”
“Long-range ballistic missiles bearing germs. That’s how Muammar would go. And he’s got the money and the motive.”
“And the track record, of course. Not to mention the opportunity. No question. That’s why the Yanks are taking this one so seriously,” Hawke said.
“Funny,” Congreve said. “The world seemed a much safer place when all we had to deal with was a bunch of drunken Russians stumbling around the Kremlin knocking over the samovars.”
“Yes. Praying they didn’t all wake up with hangovers and bang their bloody bums up against the wrong button,” Hawke said. He paused a moment, looking at his friend thoughtfully before he spoke.
“Actually, there’s another matter I’m pursuing down here, Ambrose. I mentioned it to you on the docks this afternoon. At the risk of being dramatic, I’m going to show you something I’ve never shown another living being. Or even a dead being for that matter.”
“Nothing too personal, one would only hope.”
“Please, Ambrose. This is quite serious.”
“Hawke!”
Sniper had squawked a warning, and Hawke knew Quick must be approaching the banquette where they were sitting. It was one of the oldest pirate tricks in the books, but it still worked. Over the years, Hawke had been working on Sniper’s vocabulary, and the bird had a surprising range of expressions.
Tommy Quick was carrying a small metal box with an electronic keypad embedded in the top. He placed it gently on the table in front of them.
“Put Sniper back in his cage, will you, Tom?” Hawke said, waving his hand before his nose. “I don’t think this Brie agrees with him. Upset stomach.” Quick held out his forearm, and the bird immediately flew from its owner’s shoulder to the steward’s outstretched arm.
Ambrose leaned forward to touch the silver box, and Hawke grabbed his hand in mid-air. “Don’t touch the box, Ambrose. It’s alarmed and will respond to my fingerprints only. Sorry.”
“A lovely box.”
“Isn’t it? Polished titanium,” Hawke said, punching in his code. The lid of the box snapped open with a hiss, then started rising slowly. Peering over the edge, Congreve saw a small scrap of blue paper, now yellowed with age. There was some kind of crude drawing and quite a bit of scribbling below the picture. Hawke punched another key, and the interior of the box was illuminated. Then a thick piece of glass lowered from the raised lid to cover the opening. It was, Congreve saw, optical glass designed to magnify the contents.
“It’s the map, Ambrose. The one I spoke of. Early eighteenth century. My grandfather gave it to me.”
“A map of what, exactly?”
“Oh, buried treasure, and all that sort of thing. My grandfather loved to tell stories of cutthroat buccaneers and bloodthirsty swashbucklers and buried booty. This map you see here belonged to one of my more infamous ancestors.”
“They were all infamous, as far as I can tell. Right down to the present day.”
“Every family has a few black sheep, I suppose. Only in my family, it was a black hawk.”
“Blackhawke, the pirate. Yes. Your great ancestral role model. I’ve always been curious about that bloody chapter in the Hawke family history. So, tell me the story for God’s sake. The barbarous Russians won’t be here for another half hour!”
“Well, if you’re really interested.”
“Hawke, you really do try my patience at times.”
“All right, all right. I’ll tell you the tale.”