by Ted Bell
Congreve had goaded Alex into asking the beautiful American author to dance at Brick Kelly’s home in Regent’s Park that night. The two of them had been inseparable ever since that fateful first waltz. Vicky had, that very evening, effectively put an end to Alex’s legendary status as one of Britain’s most eligible bachelors. No, it was not Victoria’s future Congreve was so much concerned about, but rather the long-term prognosis of his dearest friend Alex.
Alexander Hawke led, to put it mildly, an adventurous life.
Having been thrice decorated for bravery flying Royal Navy Harriers over Iraq in the Gulf War, Hawke had subsequently joined the most elite of the British fighting forces, the Special Boat Squadron. There they’d taught him how to kill with his bare hands, jump out of airplanes, swim unseen for miles underwater, and blow all manner of things to kingdom come.
Having acquired these basic skills, he’d then gone into finance in the City. His first order of business was to resurrect the somnolent giant known around the world as Hawke Industries. After his grandfather retreated from the boardroom, he reluctantly relinquished command to young Alex. Hawke had no great love of business; still, he never dared disappoint his grandfather and so, a decade later, the already substantial family interests flourished once more.
Some called his series of brilliant but hostile takeovers around the world piratical and there was some truth to that. Alex was a direct descendant of the infamous eighteenth-century pirate, Blackhawke, and he was fond of warning friend and foe alike there was indeed a bloodthirsty hawk perched atop his family tree. With his black hair, his prominent, determined features, and his piercing blue eyes, a black eyepatch and solitary gold earring would not have looked even remotely ridiculous on him.
As Alex had told Congreve after one particularly fierce takeover battle, pools of blood still much in evidence on the boardroom floors, “I can’t help myself, Constable, I’ve got the pirate blood in me.”
As the man who presided over the sprawling Hawke Industries, Hawke had friends at the highest levels of the world’s major corporations and governments. Because of those contacts he was frequently asked to engage in discreet missions for both the British and American intelligence communities.
Highly dangerous missions, and that’s what concerned Congreve. Alex Hawke put his life on the line constantly. If he and Vicky were fortunate enough to have children, well, Ambrose hated to think what would happen to the brood if—
Congreve realized he’d been daydreaming as the plump little vicar droned on and Alex, who had his own private views on religion, did his best to appear both compliant and reverential. By the rising hum of conversation now emanating from the direction of the chapel, Congreve could tell the pews were filling with ladies in shades of lilac and rose and big brimmed hats and men all in morning clothes. He could hear the level of keen anticipation growing for what was, after all, the biggest small wedding of the year in England.
Or, the smallest big wedding, depending on your tabloid of choice. Although Alex had tried desperately to keep the wedding secret, weeks ago someone had leaked the details to The Sun, sending the rest of the tabloid press into a feeding frenzy.
Security in the Cotswolds had never been tighter. In addition to members of H.M. Government, the British prime minister, and the American secretary of state and ambassador, all close friends of the groom’s, there were a number of foreign dignitaries and heads of state seated amongst a select group of Alex and Vicky’s friends and family. Alex, dogged in his determination to keep the affair small, had deliberately chosen his family’s rustic chapel. The press was barred entirely, although they were certainly manning the police barricades at every obscure little lane leading to the tiny village.
A suspicious helicopter circling above the church at dawn had been quickly escorted out of the area by two RAF fighters and—
“Well, your Lordship, I think it’s high time we got you married,” the vicar said to Hawke with a smile. “The good Lord knows you’ve broken quite enough hearts for one lifetime.”
Alex’s eyes narrowed, wondering if the vicar was having him on.
“Indeed,” Alex finally replied, stifling whatever riposte was surely forming in his mind, and he and Ambrose followed the old fellow into the chapel itself and took their assigned places before the altar. The church was full, a sea of familiar faces, some bathed in shafts of soft sunlight streaming through the tall eastern windows.
Hawke couldn’t wait to get the whole bloody thing over with. It had nothing to do with misgivings or second thoughts. He had felt nothing but spontaneous and unstinting love for Vicky since the first second he’d seen her. It was just that he hated ceremony of any kind, had no patience with it at all. If not for Vicky and her father, this wedding would have been taking place in some ratty little civil service office in Paris or even—
The organ boomed its triumphal first notes. Victoria appeared in the sun-filled chapel doorway on the arm of her beaming father. All eyes were on the bride as she made her way slowly up the aisle. Standing before the altar with a trembling heart, Alex Hawke had but one thought: By God I am a lucky man.
She had never looked more beautiful. Her lustrous auburn hair was swept back into a chignon held by ivory combs that also held the veils that fell to the floor behind her. Her white satin dress had been her mother’s; the bodice was festooned with swirling patterns of pearls which, as she moved through gold bars of sunlight, cast a soft glow upwards, lighting her face and her smiling eyes.
The groom would remember little of the ceremony.
His heart was now pounding so rapidly there was an overpowering roar of blood in his ears. He knew the vicar was speaking, having begun his intonations in a slow, deep register, and he was aware he himself was saying things in rote reply. The vicar kept upping the oratorical ante and, at some point, near the end of the thing, Vicky had squeezed his hand, hard. She looked up into his eyes and, somehow, he actually heard her speaking to him.
“I, Victoria, take thee Alexander to my wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish till death us do part, according to God’s holy ordinance, and thereto I give thee my troth.”
There was the exchange of rings and suddenly the organ pipes filled the church with what could only be called the sounds of heaven and he was somehow aware that he was lifting Vicky’s veil to kiss her; that Congreve having delivered the ring, stood now with eyes full of tears, and then he heard the vicar’s final volley of oratory thunder.
“Those whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder!”
He embraced his bride, actually lifting her off her feet, to the delight of all assembled, and then he was hurrying her down the aisle festooned with white satin and lilies, through all the applause and smiling faces of their friends and towards the sunshine which filled the doorway and the future. Outside the entrance, his uniformed comrades formed two opposing lines. On the command, “Draw swords!” steel was raised, forming an arch, cutting edge facing up.
He’d meant for the two of them to quickly duck through the gleaming silver arch created by his Royal Navy Guard of Honor and race for the Bentley, but the overflow of well-wishers had spilled out onto the steps and he and Vicky were forced to stop to receive the hugs and kisses everyone seemed determined to bestow upon them amidst the clouds of white blossoms filling the air.
Out of the corner of his eye, Alex saw Vicky bend to kiss the cheek of the pretty little flower girl and he turned away from her for a moment to embrace her beaming father. Vicky was rising from the kiss, smiling up at him, extending her arms towards him, clearly wanting as much as he did to escape to the back seat of the waiting Bentley.
It was just then, when he was bending to embrace his bride, that the unthinkable happened.
Suddenly Vicky was not leaning into him, she was falling away with a breathless sigh, white petals whirling from the folds of her veil. There was a
bright flower of red blooming amongst the snow-white pearls of her satin bodice. Shocked, staggered by what he saw, Alex grabbed her shoulders and pulled her towards him. He was screaming now, as he saw her gaze go distant and glaze over, feeling the gush of warm blood flowing straight from her heart. Victoria’s blood soaked through his shirtfront, and it broke his own heart into infinitely small pieces as he stared into her lifeless eyes.
Chapter Two
STOKELY JONES WAS STANDING ON THE CHURCH STEPS WITH Brick Kelly and Texas Patterson, the three of them maybe four feet away from Alex Hawke when it happened. Stokely thought he’d caught the wink of a muzzle flash. It had been high and on the outside, straight down the third baseline and up in the tree line, near the left crest of that hillside, just opposite the front of the church.
Vicky was dead. That much was for damn sure.
Only took one glance at the girl and he’d known the wound was crosshairs mortal. Then, looking at Alex, still holding his bride in his arms, his anguished face buried in her hair, Stokely heard American and British security forces inside the church shouting at everyone to get down, hit the deck. Heavily armed and flak-jacketed personnel immediately formed themselves a cordon around those standing outside on the steps, telling them to get their asses down as well.
Inside the church, everybody had heard Alex’s scream. There was screaming and confusion in there, too. Hell, man, you had the British prime minister in there, you had lots of royal folks, and you had the damn American ambassador and secretary of state. Not to mention all kinds of other foreign dignitaries and some famous Hollywood people. Lots of likely targets in the little church. But the sniper, he shot the bride.
“Get a doctor here for God’s sakes,” he heard Alex cry again and again in a broken voice, “She needs a doctor right now!”
Stokely saw the look on Alex’s face when he spoke and then he just took off running for the hills, knowing there was nothing he or anybody else could do for Vicky, but thinking there was something he could goddamn well do for Alex.
“Saw a muzzle flash,” he shouted ahead to the group of British special forces and plainclothes guys, bristling with weapons. They were forming up into a perimeter along the stone wall surrounding the churchyard. “Shooter’s up there in the trees on that hill!” The old wall was over four feet high but Stokely, still in his morning clothes, vaulted it in mid-stride and kept running. “You guys, you not too busy, you might want to give me a hand up there,” he shouted back over his shoulder. If the Brits had any brains they’d come with him. If not, he’d go catch the son of a bitch all by himself.
And when he did—
He’d entered the dark woods, the mossy ground spotted with sunlight but dark now even though it was mid-morning, and was scrambling over the roots of some of the biggest trees he’d ever laid eyes on. He saw old stone tablets sticking out of the ground at odd angles and realized he was running through a graveyard, now overgrown with underbrush. The slope of the hill angled sharply upwards and he was having a tough time keeping his footing in the fancy-ass new shoes he was wearing.
That must have been why the young plainclothes guy had been able to catch up with him, and, shit, run right alongside of him for a minute. Stoke was the fastest guy he ever knew and here was this blond-haired, freckle-faced kid matching him stride for stride. Maximum speed of a normal human being, in a short sprint, was about fifteen miles an hour. Stoke had been clocked at a shade under twenty, and this kid was pulling away. Looking at him kind of sideways, too. Hell, six-foot-six black guy in striped pants, a black cutaway and top hat probably not all that common a sight in this neck of the woods.
“Who the bloody hell are you?” the English guy said, not even breathing hard.
“Friend of the groom,” Stokely said, as the two of them leapt over a heap of fallen trees. “Who the bloody hell are you?”
“MI5. Security. Assigned to the prime minister.”
“Good. Shooter was at the top of one of those trees. Just up there on that overhanging cliff…if you—”
The guy sprinted ahead so fast that Stoke didn’t even bother to finish his sentence. For a white guy, the kid was quick. And, if they managed to get lucky, two guns were always better than one. Stoke ripped the top hat off his head and flung it away, picking up his pace and closing the distance between them. Still it was tough to run in a pair of shiny sissy shoes, especially when you had to keep your eyes looking up all the time. Chances were, the shooter had split, but he also could be sitting up there somewhere in the treetops just waiting to pick off somebody like Stoke or the plainclothes kid. Tough call.
Kind of guy who would shoot a bride just coming out of the church? Flat-ass crazy.
He looked down for a split second, having seen or sensed something, all those years in Nam kicking in, and that’s when he saw the trip wire. He managed to clear it by maybe half an inch.
Christ, Stoke thought, the asshole has mined the goddamn woods!
“Stop!” he screamed at the kid up ahead. “Mines! Fucking land mines! Stop right now!”
The kid was wide-eyed, looking back over his shoulder at Stoke when he tripped the wire.
“Aw, Jesus,” Stoke said as he watched the kid go up in a fiery reddish burst of blood and bones and smoke. “Jesus, goddamn Christ!”
The kid still had his eyes open when Stokely reached him. The big man dropped to his knees on the ground beside the boy and cradled what was left of him in his arms. Blood was pouring out of his mouth, but the kid was trying to talk.
“Tell…tell me mum that…tell her that…”
“Hey. Listen up, ’cause this is important. Ain’t nobody but you gonna tell your mum anything, son. You going to be okay, you hear me? You just take it easy, now, and old Stoke, he’s going to stay right with you till the medics get here, all right? They going to fix your ass right up, understand? Good as new. You going to make it, kid, I’m going to personally see to that.”
He sat there, waiting for the boy to die, eyes scanning the treetops, using his handkerchief to catch the blood coming out of the kid’s mouth, and suddenly he was back in the Mekong, middle of a firefight, holding on tight to his troops, tears running down his face, so many of his good friends and best asshole buddies blown all to shit by Charlie’s AK-47s and land mines and RPGs, all of them talking about they mamas at the end.
He looked down at the kid and saw him die.
“You was fast, son,” Stokely said to him, still stroking his head. “You the only person on this earth ever to outrun old Stoke, and, man, that’s truly saying something. You was a brave kid, I could see it in your eyes just in the short time I met you. You going to a better place now. You be all right.”
Stoke heard noises below him and looked up to see three commandos in black coming up over a small rise, gunsights already on him.
“Stop!” he screamed. “Stop right there! Land mines all over the goddamned place!”
They did what he said and one of them called up to him. “We heard the explosion. What’s his status?”
“His status?” Stoke called back. “His status is over.”
After they’d taken the kid away, Stokely led a team of the Brits up to the place where he thought he’d seen the muzzle flash. Stoke was out in front, picking his way over the tripwires and calling out their locations when he came across the tree with the cable hanging down.
There was a loop in the bottom of the thick wire cable and, higher up on the stainless steel cable, a small electrical-type box with a black button and a red button.
Stoke, not worried about prints because he was still wearing his wedding gloves, grabbed hold of the cable, stuck one foot in the loop and pressed the button on top, the black one. It was like being in an elevator without the elevator. He was instantly flying up through the trees, at least fifty to sixty feet in less than five seconds. When he got near to the top, he saw the big electric motor mounted on the tree trunk with four heavy bolts. Electric? Up in a tree? Had to be battery powered.
>
But the motorized cable wasn’t the amazing thing.
The amazing thing was the shooter had left his gun in the tree.
It was right there, stuck in the crotch at the top of the tree. Stoke had removed his blood-soaked gloves and now used the wedding program to try and remove the weapon without messing up any prints. Wouldn’t budge. He hit the butt sharply with his hand and the thing didn’t move an inch. No wonder the guy had left it up here. Need a goddamn crowbar to get it out, way he’d managed to wedge it in there.
Stoke instantly recognized the kind of sniper rifle it was, even though he hadn’t seen one since the seventies. It was a Russian-made Dragunov SVD. A Snayperskaya Vintovka Dragunova to be exact. Amazing. How many times you go to a crime scene a find the perp’s left his goddamn weapon stuck right there in your face?
One thing was for damn sure, evidence or no evidence.
Guy who murdered Vicky and the English kid, he was long gone.
Chapter Three
River Road, Louisiana
AFTER THE FUNERAL, ALEX SAID GOOD-BYE TO VICKY’S father, got into his hired car, and drove down the River Road, following the Mississippi south towards New Orleans. The sun was a big blood-red orange hanging out the open window on his right, except for the times when the road dropped down behind the levee.
His mother had grown up on this river; her early life had been shaped by it, and Alex had heard stories about the river from her until she was murdered the day after his seventh birthday. One day he’d found her tattered copy of Huckleberry Finn where it had slipped behind his bookcase. She always said it was the truest book about the river ever written, and maybe the truest, best book ever written about anything. She was reading it to him every night in those last days they had together. Huck and Tom and Nigger Jim were every bit as real for Alex as any of the boys at his school, and certainly a lot more interesting way for a boy to learn about life.
